• The Dance

Another HUGE shift this weekend. Mega. Lemme explain..

Wednesday night, I went to yoga. My second class ever.

Not entirely sure of what goes on for me during yoga, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with clearing clearing and more clearing, and opening blocks and doorways and paths to the higher self and whatnot. Everything seems to come flooding out afterwards, all emotions come a tumblin’ down onto me, and then they muck around in my being until I usher them on forward and transmute the blecky energy into GOD energy, Source energy, Light.

So that’s what happened this week.

Wednesday I opened the floodgates at yoga class. By Saturday, I was a wreck. The best way I could describe it was that there was an ICK inside of me. And icky feeling. Bleck ick yuck blah gack. It sucked. It belonged to nothing anymore; it was a leftover icky feeling that I had held somewhere in my body, and yoga had released it. I kinda knew that Saturday, but the issue then became, how would I transmute it into light, how would I let it TRULY go and move on.

The answer this time, for me, is a common theme: The Dance.

Saturday night, one of my favorite bands was playing at a local scene about 45 minutes from where I live. I don’t go out too often – once a month or so, if that – and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go out and dance, or if I would be better off staying home and sleeping. I pictured myself in bed, tossing and turning from the discomfort of the blech, and knew I needed Dance Therapy. I was going out.

I shouted out to the usual troops – my sister, a couple close friends, and a general call to ANYONE who wanted to get out and boogie on the dance floor. Cuz when I dance, the whole world dances, and I’m not exaggerating. You can be ANYONE, and if you can so much as sense the Joy of the Dance with me, then you are there. You are dancing. We are one. Healing takes place, energy shifts, and light shines through again.

I arrived at the dance club at the time I wanted to get there, but since the whole evening was kind of a topsy-turvey event planning wise, the two people I’d planned on meeting there truly could not make it due to totally reasonable circumstances that I fully understood and held no grudge against. Still, after arriving and realizing that my friends could not meet me there, I didn’t know what to do. I needed to dance. I knew that. But I was hesitant about going in on my own. And all I could really feel emotionally was this wicked messed up, intense, HUGEly overwhelming emotion of BLECH. It was no longer attached to an event, but was free-floating and secured somehow still to my being.

I sat in the car and cried for a while and just let the emotion BE. I sat with the feeling. I didn’t know what else to do with it; there wasn’t anything else I really could do with it right then. I had to let it be; I had to fully accept it and let my SELF be.

I talked on my phone to one of the people I was supposed to meet there – a someone who knows me very well. Just go dance, she told me. Go inside and dance. Don’t go home; you need to dance. You NEED to dance. Go dance.

She was right. Though part of me was like, “I can’t go in and dance alone all night,” another part of me was all, “Dude, you’re totally good. Go.”

Well, I went.

As it turned out, I stayed there till the band finished both sets at midnight. I talked to almost no one (though I did run into an acquaintance of mine from my high school days); had myself one beer; and just did my thing. I was completely comfortable, I was completely at ease. I had a mission, and I didn’t really care what anyone else thought. I had to DANCE to the band.

The first set of music was fun, but not transforming.

The second set of music – when all the real energy and fun and verve and craziness sets in – took me to the place I needed to go. I hit dancing bliss, I got on the stage, I saw the crowd, I did what I DO – I danced. I didn’t care what anyone thought or didn’t think or wanted or didn’t want, and yet, I also knew that anything I wanted at that moment, I could have, and already had. I was in my own personal nirvana, and all the ick that had been hovering around my being for days simply vanished. It didn’t just leave me and go find another hapless victim to attach itself to; it was actually transmuted into light.
The icky energy was, in a sense, loved to death by the dance. By my dance. By what I had consciously chosen to do.

The Dance.

It’s one more step up the consciousness ladder on my personal journey, and thus one more step for All Humankind and Planet Earth as well.

This, my friends, is my Work.

Peace out.

((Peace in.))

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• Leading with your Heart

Sometimes in life you get stumped.

Everything looks perfect. All is ideal, in place, as it "should" be. And yet - something's off.

How do you describe that? How can you put your finger the the "thing" that's just not right.

I thought about this for a while, and then I sat, and sank into the feeling, and felt my way through it. And then I realized: the perfect image, the ideal place is lacking HEART.

It's lacking true love, true heart, true connection to Source. There are varying degrees of this, but to some degree, that love is missing.

When something is created by the mind, without enough heart, it feels partially.....dead.

Tap into this feeling of heart connection when you are somewhere, anywhere, and want to get a sense of your space, your self, your life's purpose.

And when you are out and about, living your life, doing your thang, listen to your heart, and follow it. It is that simple.

Lead with your HEART. That is the only way we, as a life force on this planet, can ever hope to survive and THRIVE.

"Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. This question is one that only a very old man asks.

"Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere.

"Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you."

- Carlos Castenada

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• Dream Interpretation

I thought I'd share here a dream I had last night:

In my dream, I went to a Great Healer with three physical issues to heal. One issue, I have completely forgotten. A second issue, I also have forgotten, but I remember the Great Healer hearing about the issue, pondering for a moment, and then brightening suddenly and saying, "Aha! Retinol A! The supplement you need for this is Retinol A!" (I don't use Retinol A and truly feel no need to, but it sure perked up the Great Healer to shout it out with great vigor and authority!)

The third item is what was most interesting. I said to her, something along the lines of, "I'm having an issue with my kidneys." (Which is not an issue at all in my real life, by the way.) The Great Healer got all emotional at this; very intense, her eyes started to well up with tears; and she began to cry out of emotional joy. The words she then spoke were along the lines of this: "You are on a great spiritual journey, and you are rising up immensely, tremendously. You are way up high now, soaring, high like the clouds and the winds and the birds." I was glad to hear that, but wasn't sure what that had to do with my kidneys.

She looked at me, teary eyed but happy, and said, "You're kidneys are perfect. There is nothing you need to do with your kidneys."

In my dream's mind, I interpreted this as the fact that my kidney's were acting as they were (and I have no idea how, exactly, they were acting in this dream of mine) because they were in alignment with, and physically expressing, something to do with my spiritual growth.

I was satisfied with the Great Healer's recommendations, and was joyfully surprised at her own emotion, and then went merriily on my way.

Today, I figured, hey, let's google "What do kidney's represent in a dream?" Sure enough, the first thing that popped up (courtesy of dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary) is:

Kidneys: To dream of your kidneys, represent a need for cleansing.
Um, Universe, thanks. I've got that "cleansing" bit goin' on already. Much appreciation for the confirmation. And I'll step it up a notch, if that's what you're a sayin'.

Peace out, with love.

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• My Own Version: Listen, Pray, Eat

My last post was about listening. It was written quickly, and briefly, because someone close and dear to me mentioned that I kept interrupting when she was talking. I don't know who was "right" or "wrong" in this particular conversation -- if I was right for interrupting to say my piece, or if she was right for insisting I wait until she was finished what seemed like a very long story to me, but either way, it didn't matter. She wasn't feeling heard. That was the issue that I saw as most important. I truly wish to listen, hear and feel when one speaks; I wish to honor their story, honor their Being.

A while back, I did several several weeks of an Eckhart Tolle-inspired meditation class. For one part of the class, we were partnered up, and the instructor gave us a topic or question to discuss (such as "Describe an event in the past week when you felt frustrated") and we took turns speaking about the event while our partner truly TRULY listened. The person listening wasn't to say anything at all until the person speaking finished. The listener was only to be still, look into the speakers eyes, and listen with their heart.

If you ever try that with someone, I warn you - it's a practice that can bring one or both people to tears. It's very powerful to speak and be heard, or to be the listener of someone speaking from the heart.

You can ask a question as simple as: "What did you eat for breakfast today?" And if you are the one answering, the beauty of having a person truly listen to you can be absolutely breathtaking, humbling and revealing. If you are the one listening, anything the speaker says echoes throughout your whole being, yet doesn't contaminate you in any way. There's no residue of anger from a past experience, or leftover, aberrant frustration from a story about something that just couldn't work out the way the person wanted it to.

Instead, when speaking and listening with an open heart, every single word is cradled with compassion, love, and understanding, -- and the simple allowing to simply BE, without judgment.

So where is this all leading now, and why is this post titled Listen, Pray , Eat?

Because, for starters, *I* need to be heard right now. I need to speak in a way that comes from my heart, with unconditional love, and expecting and needing nothing in return. I need to speak and act from the center of my being, as I know that if I speak from my heart, then nothing can ever be misunderstood.

Much of what I have to say isn't even with words. It needs to be spoken with actions, with inner stillness, with prayer and intention.

Here is one simple example: Tonight, several of us went out to dinner - something we do about once a month. In all honesty, going out to dinner these days brings me to tears out of utter sadness. My mind can analyze the entire situation and realize that the food on my plate is most likely from mistreated animals; is covered in a sauce containing vegetables that have been genetically modified and are harming our Mother Earth; and isn't honoring organic practices.

Despite this knowledge my mind dwells upon, I attempt to enjoy the experience as it is, in the Now, without the story of where the food came from, what it's cost our environment, and what animals may have been poorly treated so that I could sit there and have a meal. To simply, mindlessly enjoy the flavors, scents, textures, good company, and the fact that I could relax while another made the meal, served it, and cleaned up afterward.

As I now reflect back on the agony I felt with that meal in front of me earlier tonight, a few things have made themselves clearer: If I want to go out, and enjoy such a meal, I need to speak from the heart, as if the whole universe is listening with its heart, and bless the food, the animals, the vegetables, the farmers, the restaurant servers and cooks, the company behind the GMO vegetables on our plates -- everything in front of me -- so that I am at true peace before entering into the actual consumption of the meal.

To do this, for me, I need to do the following: When my food arrives, I need to cup  both hands lightly, palm down, and put them over my plate of food; close my eyes; and bless and thank everything I can think of and not think of that was and will be involved in bringing that plate of food to me. And I need to do that for every plate of food on the table. I do not need to be loud about the gratitude - I can speak quietly or even silently - but I need to be very, very clear about my gratefulness, so that it reverberates across time and space and reaches every person, machine and corporation that the single plate of food reaches back to. (I must clean on the food, as Dr. Ihelakala Hew Len would say.)

I have considered that doing this will probably bring me to tears at the table in the restaurant, but I do not have a choice, really, if I want to feel clear and help heal the planet. And I *must* be clear and help heal the planet, Mother Earth, nature, our world. It is far to precious to let fall uncared for.

And this simple act will also heal me. I am constantly clearing my own self, and part of that clearing means not burying emotions anymore, not letting things sit and fester unspoken or unheard. I can not always find the right words in a heated situation to adequately express an argument in the right way;  for example, I can't sit in a restaurant and convince the patron next to me that eating GMO corn is simply "wrong" if he or she truly believes it is "right"; but I can allow myself to fully feel the sadness that the thought of GMO corn elicits in me, and I love the emotion and let it be and simply bless and love the GMO corn on my neighbor's plate with all my heart and being so that, again, I turn around my own scary, sad, angry feelings revolving around someone fucking with Mother Earth, and transform it into love and light, in which there is no dark opposite, no right/wrong choices, no good or evil vegetable-modifying empires.

By honoring and loving my own emotions about such situations, I heal my Self and, by virtue of my own physical existence, Mother Earth.

Peace, peace out.

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• Listening with the Soul

At times, I do really think I could learn to listen better; to quiet my mind, listen with my *being*, and be still, allowing the person speaking to access the deepest part of who she or he is while talking to me.

From that place of stillness, I can listen with my soul and hear the meaning behind the words -- and reflect that back to the person who is speaking, thus allowing him or her to perhaps gain a clearer vision of the situation at hand, and a greater understanding of it as well.

Meister Eckhard Tolle puts it best, so I'll keep my part of this post brief and wrap up with his words.

Peace, all.

True listening is another way of bringing stillness into the relationship. When you truly listen to someone, the dimension of stillness arises and becomes an essential part of the relationship. But true listening is a rare skill. Usually, the greater part of a person's attention is taken up by their thinking. At best, they may be evaluating your words or preparing the next thing to say. Or they may not be listening at all, lost in their own thoughts.

True listening goes far beyond auditory perception. It is the arising of alert attention, a space of presence in which the words are being received. The words now become secondary. They may be meaningful or they may not make sense. Far more important than what you are listening to is the act of listening itself, the space of conscious presence that arises as you listen. That space is a unifying field of awareness in which you meet the other person without the separative barriers created by conceptual thinking. And now the other person is no longer "other." In that space, you are joined together as one awareness, one consciousness.

- Eckhart Tolle

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• Ahhhhh Regroup

Phew. It's Monday evening as I type this. Saturday and Sunday were exhausting in a sort of nebulous-draining way. Not entirely sure why, but I have a pretty good theory:

Saturday morning, I had a deep-tissue massage from someone who really knows what the hell she's doing. See, every once in a while, my youngest child (in this case, age 16 months) gains an ounce or two that turns out to be the straw that breaks this mama's back, so to speak, and my muscles knot up and wince in pain and beg for mercy. Hence the massage session.

What's so interesting about the whole ordeal is that as the massage therapist went along and undid all these various muscle knots, she released not only the tension and stress, but also whatever emotional energies were harboring within. It wasn't something I actively expected beforehand, but afterward, it was very obvious. Walking out of the session, my body was exhausted but at the same time refreshed, like it had been tweaked and twisted out of a bad habit and ushered into detox therapy.

I thus spent the rest of the weekend feeling sore, drinking a LOT of water, getting overly emotional over nothing, and wanting to just sleep as much as I possibly could (which I did, thank goodness).

Now what else is interesting is how I happened upon this particular massage therapist at this particular time.

First off, I decided a little bit ago that I need to keep releasing these blocks through my body  -- in essence, through the physical. That's part of the whole house-cleaning blog post: Cleaning the house was equivalent to clearing an energetic block.

To that end, the massage therapist I went to this time around is the best for cleaning physical blocks. But did I actively seek out an appointment with her last week when I decided my body needed a session? Noooooo... I instead chose the closest massage therapist so I'd have to drive the least distance on a Saturday morning. I made the appointment last Wednesday, and verbally reminded all those around me that INDEED my poor, aching body was getting a desperately needed massage on Saturday morning at 9! Come hell or high water, I'd be there!

And then on Friday at 1 p.m., I got a phone call that my massage therapist had fallen off her roof shoveling snow and needed to rest her aching knee, and couldn't do a massage the next morning. HA HA that was SO funny to me, after my clear intent for a massage Saturday morning at 9! I was not to be dissuaded. They asked me if I wanted to reschedule, but I politely declined, knowing I'd find exactly what I needed, and at the right time.

I dug up phone numbers for a couple other massage therapists in the area. Massage Therapist No. 1 wasn't there when I called, so I left a voicemail. Massage Therapist No. 2 turned out to not do weekend appointments. And then - a lightbulb went off, and I remembered Massage Therapist No. 3 -- the one I ended up going to. I called her up, and sure enough -she'd just had a cancellation for her 10 a.m. appointment on Saturday morning, and would I like to come in at 9:30 or 10?

Ahh -- 9:30, thank you. A more perfect time for me even than 9, since this was about 20 minutes from my house.

Why is this significant? Simply because I internally decided that I will be clearing energetic blocks via my physical body and environment, and a massage by this particular massage therapist -- not the other ones I've been to in the past, and keeping in mind I only get massages once or twice per year -- is exactly in line with that desire. And also, this was completely in alignment with my intent for a massage on Saturday morning, at 9. (OK, so it was at 9:30 - but I can't complain, because 9:30 worked out even BETTER than 9!)

To make things even more clear, on Sunday morning, I got a phone call back from Massage Therapist No. 1, saying that yes, she got my voicemail from Friday afternoon and would have been available for a Saturday morning massage, but due to some technical issue, she didn't actually hear the voicemail until Sunday.

Hrm. Go figure. Having fun playing, Universe?

Always perfect, always right on.

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• Lucky Numbers

I have been reading and hearing about numbers lately - how different numbers represent messages from your angels, etc.

This isn't really a blazing new concept to me because I've always been kind of fascinated with numbers and number patterns. I'll give you the best example of this: When I was a kid, maybe between the ages of 5 and 8, I had this great little habit: Whenever I saw a time pattern number on the clock at home, I had to celebrate it by jumping up and down while turning in circles, and repeating whatever it was - for example, "10:10 exactly! 10:10 exactly!" - over and over, until the time changed. I'm not kidding. I *had* to do this. I have no idea where this came from.

Fast forward to last week, when I was reminded about Angel Numbers on Doreen Virtue's weekly Hay House radio show. I didn't consciously decide to pay attention, but I began to see a couple things here and there.

Driving down the highway last Friday on empty, for example, with three little kids in the car, and the "Miles Left till Empty" meter reading "0", I figured I'd ask my angels for help in making sure I get to the gas station OK. A few minutes later, my eyes jump to the odometer (which, honestly, I never pay attention to) and I see a series of 7's: 7777. And I *know* it's the angels talking.

Sure enough, I check it when I get home, and according to theangelchanneler.com: "The quadruple number sequences are used by our angels to communicate messages to us... The 7777 number sequence when seen repeatedly signifies travel."

Ha ha ha!!!!

Ok ok, so I'm sitting up and taking notice.

Later on that night, when I'm dealing with emotional issues, I look up 7777 again, and I find: "The 7777 number is an extremely positive sign and means that you should also expect more miracles to occur for you."

A couple days later, I start seeing 11:11 frequently - three times in about a day and a half. Again, enough that I have to sit up and take notice.

I didn't look it up right away, but today, reading an online group that - mind you - does NOT focus specifically on angel numbers (but focuses more on LoA and family topics), I see a post specifically asking about LoA and the meaning of the number 1. And, more specifically, the person posting has been seeing 11:11 frequently. The meaning she has found attached to it is that NOW is the time for your enlightenment. Ok, ok, again, point taken. Time to consider the meaning of 11:11 and ALSO time to post here about it. It's all part of my journey to enlightenment, higher consciousness, etc.

P.S. Shortly before posting this entry, I got an e-mail with a bunch of pics in it; they were all too wide to see completely in the software I use to view my email attachments, so I just scrolled down quickly, glancing at parts of each photo, and sure enough -- out jumped 1111 at me again, this time from a license plate in the photo! Yee haw.

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• Doreen Virtue on Law of Attraction, etc.

I LOVE this interview with Doreen Virtue so much, I just want to share it here.

She starts out talking about how she grew up incorporating Law of Attraction into everyday life when she was a kid. She also elaborates on how she followes her intuition, feelings and guidance, taking things one step at a time, to arrive at the vision that she saw before the journey had even begun.

For those of you who aren't familiar with her, Doreen Virtue has many books about working with the angels, angel therapy, angel healing, etc. She has a radio show on hayhouseradio.com on Wednesdays at 4 p.m. EST that I try to catch every week.

This is very helpful, super cool, and fun to listen to. Check it out! Two parts: