The big OM

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one single step.

Georgie faces the big OM at Being Five.  He's always got something worth checking out ;)

What a riot!  George Sfarnas frequently hits the nail square on the head through the voice of his little friend.

I'm going to leave it at that for you with just one reflection.  All the really good stuff is like this.

Seems too easy - too boring - too ordinary - too, well, who has the time?? to make much of a splash.

So we go outside and play (or work, as the case may be) searching for better answers than the ones that are right in front of us.

Don't be fooled my friends.

The single step is gigantic. It is important beyond explanation. The rewards are great.

May you enjoy them all.

Carry on then...

namaste

It's Heeeere!

My treasure map.

20 years ago today my trusty astrologer told me that good things were in the stars for me.  Yup - clear sailing ahead! I was overjoyed at the possibility.  After all, at the time I had no idea how to protect my 13 year old and 10 year old from the doomsday I saw mounting around the family-run business we were a part of, the pile of bills that made my head spin, a marriage that held only the promise of my imagination, and talent in a new age field that was called "pioneering" at best (code for bleeding edge) and fringe at worst.

"Gonna be good for you someday..."

ok, great! When? Next year? Two years? 5 years?

Nooooo....not that soon...

"Somewhere in your late 50's you will begin to feel like it's all clicking."

Yeesh.  Not good.

I kicked.

I screamed.

I disavowed her insight and clearly created a path for happiness NOW.

That was forever ago, and life happened - lots and lots of it - rich and full - oh so very full - inspiring and challenging, but not for one minute was it easy.

I did learn however the skill of creating happiness right where I stood.

Now here I am.

Finally.

Today is my birthday - always a time of self-reflection, contemplation and gratitude - along with a healthy dose of reassessment of  circumstances and readjustment of strategy where needed.

Today I am at the end stage of my 50's and everything - everything - about those previous times has changed.  Different home.  Different state. Different husband. Different life.

I look at my interior and ... I ... feel...it is true.  My astrologer was on to something.

Does everyone feel like this at this stage of life? Or did I just outlast all the drama and trauma until finally I could see the light of day from the mere fact of my longevity?

Ha. I don't think so actually.  I believe to everything there is a season, and the season of my own harvest is here.

What a wonderful world! (I always loved that song)

And the lesson? The takeaway? ahhh..the takeaway.

• Hang tough.

• Don't give up and don't feel sorry.

• Be your authentic self and always do your best.

• Mostly... recognize that there is a time for everything and everything in it's time.  

If you are railing against your circumstances today, I say "gonna be good for you someday..."
May you do your best with what you have as you live the moment and look forward with great anticipation to what is yet to be.

Many blessings to you along the way.

Namaste
 

Diary of a Community Activist

Years and years ago if you told me I could say this I would have laughed!  I think mostly I didn't want to stick out too much or make a fuss.

My new "career" began when I moved into my townhouse on Halloween 2005.  I was one of the first ones into a new construction - and building was going on everywhere around me.   I was living in Fraggle Rock as men with helmets in big yellow trucks went scooting past my kitchen window and all I could see as I sat at my table were the tops of their heads.

Problem was the builder wasn't living here.  Long overdue and unfinished work was left everywhere. Complaints were routine.

Water problems were springing up in basements.  Newly planted trees were dying.

Little by little a new habit was born.

Call the builder.  Get sent directly to voicemail (of course.) Make a report. Request info about completion. Write it up. Take pictures. Send it to the builder in writing. CC the board. Send copies to the town agencies if the problem was appropriate for their domain. Repeat.

It wasn't just a call I made - or a series of calls - it was a campaign.

No blame.  No judgmental name calling - just the facts.  I experienced the value of persistence, that's for sure

Mostly with lots of teeth pulling things got completed.

Then came new tenants.  Seems every single one of them had a dog. Lots of them had no notion of cleaning up after the dog.  What's up with that??  Feel free to walk your dog through the neighborhood guys, and leave big steaming piles of dog poop in your wake.

Yeesh....

New campaigns began.

I took pictures of the "green bags for doggies" pylons available in other communities.  You know the ones where there's a "clean up after your dog" sign posted above a receptacle that holds the bags for you to put it in.  Education + solution. (The fact that we, as adults, still need this sort of education is another matter entirely, but so be it. I'll leave that for later.)

This year the big snows came with windstorms that trundled full recycle pails down the street emptying their contents everywhere. After the snow melted the streets bore the results.  My friend Magda and I were semi-horrified on our daily walks until we decided not to wait for "them" to clean up, but to campaign ourselves - this time with lawn bags and gloves on our outings.  Our backyards extended far beyond the boundary of property lines as down the street and up the hill and across the bridge seemed both our territory and our charge.

I took a walk yesterday in the gentle rain and enjoyed every minute of the smells of summer, the large expanses of green, the cleaner streets.  I noticed the doggie green bags in our community and laughed out loud.

I see the results of my activism, and I know that the difference between complaining and action lies at the crux of solution.

What to do with the problems of the world then?

I ask what are you doing at home base.

I just read an article in the New York Times citing that in Nigeria the region of the Niger Delta has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill EVERY YEAR FOR 50 YEARS! You gotta be kidding me...but no.

Perhaps we are just getting around to noticing that this spells big trouble due to our eyes being open in the Gulf.

The answer, like the song says, is "we're all in this together."

We.  The land.  The people.  The animals. Each other.

We.

The Mystic knows that a 'way of being' that can embrace this recognition begins with the individual.

Stop complaining and start doing what you can where you can. Clean up your own mess. Are you doing something that makes a difference in your community?  Simply walk outside with open eyes and something will come to you. No matter where you live I guarantee you will newly see some way - something large or small - that you can do to make a difference.

The qualities you build will help you in many ways, including -

• Enlarge your heart
• Embrace your community
• Fall in love with the land you walk on!
• Be an asset to whomever you can - whenever you can - wherever you can
• Leave things a little better for your presence wherever you go
• Stop being afraid to make a difference
• Stop with "that's not my mess..."
• Stop the "who cares" and be the change you wish to see.

Stop with the notion of separation.

YOU care! That's what matters.

Feel free to comment :)

Truly - we are - all. in. this. together...

Namaste my friends.  

The Four Gifts

The story of the apple, the flaming sword, the crown and the lion begins with "once upon a time..."

Once upon a time, there was a girl who had big dreams and lots of desire to create a work of art from her talents and skills, but she just didn't know very much about the "how to" part.

So the girl - who was me - began a regular program of deep meditation and guided visualization while consciously, and determinedly, putting herself in asking mode with an open heart and mind.

In other words, I went into states of meditation while holding my deep desire for insight and simply waited for answers, observed signs, captured insights, followed directions...and opened myself to whatever needed to be known in order to move to the next steps of my journey.

For those of you who have done this kind of work, it is quite remarkable to let it direct you, isn't it?  Similar to lucid dreaming, guided visualization invites you to relax deeply and walk your mind through a receptive mode, observing without interfering with what's going on.

If the subject of your quest is to find answers to some life question or dilemma, then you settle yourself into the question itself before you begin, knowing that information will arrive - in some form or other - that will shine some light on your request.

And so it was for me asking about the nature of my career - my very survival - during a time of stressful life circumstances and little support.

I call what I eventually received The Four Gifts.

The first was a bright shiny apple.

I didn't want it at first. :)  I was terribly disappointed and actually tried to give it back.  How could this silly symbol be the answer to my heart's desire and the seriousness of my request?  Was I supposed to make my living with an apple?? I was on the cusp of big stuff I tell you ...BIG!

Then I went to a women's writing retreat led by an author/editor I knew pretty well and lo and behold she told the group that we were going to practice various creative writing techniques for the whole week using one single solitary symbol.  "Choose well" she advised!  While everyone else was hemming and hawing I was into that apple from the second the words were out of her mouth.  How fortuitous to have a masterful teacher guide me into some understanding of what this rather disappointing symbol actually meant.

By the time the week was done you can't even imagine what I did with the word itself.  I created ode to apple in clusters, diagrams, synonyms, word groups...you name it.  Mostly, that was the point.  I named it.  Health, holistic, ripe, knowledge, seeds within, and the best one - the old "apple a day keeps the doctor away" - which gave me valuable insight into the scope of my field of endeavor: preventive medicine.

OK then.  This was starting to make sense...

I practiced validating my "other than conscious" ability to manifest the exact right thing for me to know, and I clearly followed my directive even while in the midst of the storm (of which there were some doozies.)

Laugh if you will but a few years later came the flaming sword.  AHA!! That's more like it!

The only thing was it didn't feel victorious when I finally received it.  By now I was older and wiser and it felt more like the tool I would need for the responsibility that foretold a journey where, if flaming swords were needed, I was probably in for it.  So be it when you pioneer any movement against the tide of common experience or people's comfort with the party line.

Third came the crown.  I can barely handle that one to this day.  No pansy crown this - more like a jewel encrusted gold monolith that I was supposed to get comfortable wearing.  I accepted it without judgement.  Perhaps one must do this in order to ordain themself no matter what the work is when you yourself are the creator...

Fourth and last came the lion.

I saw myself climbing a mountain.  It took time - lots of time - and effort - lots of effort.

As I reached the summit, I could finally see over the top and view the other side.

What I saw was a tiny lion cub cowering about 6 feet below me.  He was looking up, clearly wanting me to pick him up.  As I reached down, he crawled into my arms. As I lifted him up to join me he began to grow and grow and grow until by the time I straightened up I was holding a very handsome full grown lion.

I knew at that moment that my business would grow, and that with time - and a very long climb - I could handle the size and strength of it.

My symbols have sustained me through all sorts of challenges over the past years as I have witnessed events unfold around me.

That brings me to this past week.  The photo above is the cover image on the new fall catalog from our distributor APG that carries four of our new YPC Print/CD titles.  I didn't see the catalog until we were presented with it at the Book Expo America event at the Javits Center in New York, but my eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw the cover.

Although I have been fortunate in being promoted for the programs I have created for other companies, I've never had a National Distribution channel for products that my own company produced before - not even for one title much less for four - but there's my lion, strong, proud and full-grown right on the cover, with the placement of our offerings filling the opening page.  I think this is a good sign :)

My heartfelt message for you:

If you have a dream, then you mustn't give up.

Don't ever give up.

Work hard... work long... work it on the side if you must... but don't ever give up your dream.

Expect the road to twist and turn, life may have many bumps in store for you.

You may have to shift, delay, postpone or get along with far less in the way of support than you would ever hope for. You may even have to go it alone for a while.

People might laugh and call you a loser, or worse.

Don't give up.

You may fail.  Don't give up.

You may fail again.  That's the way of it.  Don't. Give. Up.

 

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius and power and magic in it" said the great philosopher Goethe.  

May your own genius shine through, and may all your dreams come true. 

Let me know how it goes...
Namaste,
Gael

Responding to the Oil Spill

I am reading the reports and my heart is weeping with sadness.

Verbal warfare.  Blame.  Frustration. Impotence...

"Urgent questions about what lay beneath"...

Assessments like "let's make no mistake that what is at threat here is our very way of life"...

Perhaps the most disturbing element, if there can be such a list when the whole situation is beyond comprehension, is contemplating what Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP meant by "a third and fourth and fifth option around both containment and elimination" when the already disastrous present solutions are not working.

I went to one of my heroes, Henry David Thoreau and found words for my swirling thoughts...

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape! 

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. 

All endeavor calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.

The fight to the finish spirit is the one characteristic we must posses if we are to face the future as finishers. 

All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning. 

Henry David Thoreau 

What do you do when the situation is too big - too unwieldy - too far from your own hands to do anything about? What can any of us do?

I can guide you carefully through one option as I march myself through my own bodymind and witness the feelings that reside there.  Our Energetic Anatomy offers us a map to what we can do.

Caring about our world in the way Thoreau so eloquently expressed throughout his life is the territory of the second chakra.  When a feeling of care overwhelms us and becomes too big - too frustrating - too impossible for us to do anything with, we will often go to a couple of options.

One option might be to continue to care, but to do it improperly.  Rage at the world.  Call people names.  Send out redhot anger and more poison and expect that you yourself won't get burned even worse.  Rant.

Another option is don't care.  Go unconscious.  Say "whaaatever" (with a sigh...) or "I knew it all along" and be satisfied with your precognitive rationale.  Apathy is on the other side of proper caring, and it can be a successful place to hide when the feelings of caring have no place else to go - or so it seems.

We have another option, which is rather than moving sideways between caring to uncaring, that we investigate the next chakra and move upward to the third vortex territory of self-esteem.  Here we encounter the emotion of grief and the process of letting go.  Here we take a good look at SELF.  How can I make a difference in my own world right from where I stand? What will I do - today - and move myself into the ease of a shifted energy body that can (and will) function well through crisis.


When "clean-up" is the issue, as it is with our spewing oil wells, you must stay the course for yourself, and do what you can with what you've got, or you will experience the impotent frustration of your apparent inability to  save the world.

What does that mean to you?

Here are some suggestions from my heart to yours that come from the BICS framework of YokiBICS. They invite you to move the lifeforce energy of your own body, mind and spirit intentionally into Belief - Integrity - Choice - Service.

• Go clean up your own backyard
• Take a day trip and clean up your own shoreline
• Join a campaign to clean up the neighborhood - or just go outside for a walk with a plastic bag 
• Help a neighbor with their clean-up
• Investigate community action in your area
• Go use your natural resources, park, preserve, walkway.
• Donate

Let's get even more personal...

• Clean up your own thoughts of separation
• Immerse yourself in your own relatedness to the Natural World
• Be willing to extend the perimeters of your own backyard 
• Know that as you hold your own thoughts of caring, you create a more caring world - it begins with the individual and every one counts.

Try these suggestions.  Try more of your own.  And yes you can also write, vote, and act with your significant purchasing power as a consumer.  But do care. We are all in this together.

Let me know how it works out.

Namaste and big hugs to you, my neighbor.

A Controversial Diary of a Yogi

My friend Tom asked me recently why he doesn't get down on his mat anymore even though he loves yoga.

I think a lot of people feel that way when it comes to all sorts of things that are good for them.

Mostly we are told to get some discipline.  Stay the course.  Hire a trainer. Watch a video.  Buddy up with someone.  Develop a routine. Not bad, all these suggestions, and they certainly can work to alter our behaviors. Isn't it true that the disciplined yogi - the accomplished athlete - the distance runner - is better off?

Isn't it?

I had to think for a minute what kind of support I could give my friend, and in offering something to him, I referenced what it is for me to honor my body even when I don't "feel " like doing my routines anymore.

I clearly recognized that most of the time I just go ahead and give myself the rest.

That's right, I rest, recover, recuperate, relax, retire, and acquiesce more or less completely to my resistance.

Now I know this is not the popular party line. A couple of decades in the fitness industry didn't fail to leave an impression. :) Take a look at the iconic Nike slogan making all sorts of waves pushing us to "just do it" and everybody numbly nodding their heads.  

It doesn't seem reasonable for a teacher, a practitioner, dare I say a mentor in the field to say go ahead, don't do it... 

But I am saying that. 

The operative here is what's really going on when you don't feel like doing what is supposedly so good for you to do.

A few years ago when I was in the midst of huge life altering events I suspended my yoga practice.  That's right - suspended it altogether after 30 non-stop years.  Now why do that you might ask, when it would seem to be the single most needed anchor in the midst of so much challenge and change?

I did it because I needed to go in the direction of change - and I needed to do it body, mind and soul.  

It is an amazing thing to be without almost all of your familiar reference points and habits.  Life can open dramatically and you can open into it in thoroughly new and unexpected ways.  Taking days - weeks - even years off from an activity that doesn't inspire you can be healthy and wise.  Mind you, this is not the same as becoming an advocate for sloth, yet I have found there is rarely much glory is doing what is not wanted, or in refusing to listen, as if "staying the course" must be preferable to the "cease and desist" message blinking away in our consciousness.

Take therapy for example.  How many people do you know that are still seeing their therapist? Month after month - year after year.  You get a clue to the attachment in the language itself: "I'm seeing my therapist..."

My my my my my. What's the matter with us?  When did we forget that therapy is meant to be like a boat ferrying us from one shore to another...we are supposed to get out on the other side. Go! Live! Prosper!

Often the attachment we have to familiarity and the routine of a thing that is good for us can mask the need for wholehearted change.  It can take real courage to see ourselves hiding out in the weeds of the known, doing things that are "right" rather than diving into new territory. It's an (almost) foolproof method of staying stuck.  And who in their right mind will call you out on it? After all, "it's good for you!"

One of the first books on yoga I ever read was by Bubba Free John and it was called The Eating Gorilla Comes in Peace.  Hefty book that, with all sorts of new thought at the time, but the thing I remember most from it was the idea that the mat is just the mat.  The practice is the practice.  As much as we need a practice so we can grow into our best selves, in the end we are meant to BE that very self without the practice that gets us there.

Now that's an idea...

So back to the mat and the nitty gritty.

Toms problem wasn't that he had stopped his yoga practice.  That was just the symptom of something else.  Tom had disconnected from nourishing himself altogether. What Tom needed was inspiration and a thread of desire to keep him connected to what felt good for his body.

I offered him my own recipe of walks, nourishing food with lots of water, and abdominal work.  Yup, that's the holy trinity for me. Ab crunches particularly make me feel alive.  150 at a time to be exact.  Like brushing my teeth, it is a simple part of my daily - and desired - routine.

During my own separation from the mat, the crunches kept me in touch with my body as a strong physical vehicle, the healthy food and hydration an honorable gift throughout my hiatus, and the changes that were occurring in my life kept on changing.   Many an aspiring yogi will stay on the mat rather than change his heart, his habitat, his relationship or his job, all the while convincing himself that the practice and the sweat and the accomplishment leads to growth while actually the box is getting tighter and smaller and more form fitting by the day.

The inspiration to embody my physical form never left.  My own threads of desire were found walking among the trees and beside the river and around the winding blocks of my new neighborhood.  The song of my soul never quieted - just the venue for it's expression.  If I had forced myself to the mat I would have been focusing on the wrong item. More important was to keep my aliveness sacred, however it appeared.

As I let myself be and the sands settled, lo and behold the mat beckoned me again, only now it is different. More free.  Less self-conscious.  I have brought my self to the practice rather than the practice defining me.

The less of it now is so much more.

As for Tom, he reported a new appreciation of his vitality with the lighter vegetarian fare he's been eating. What started with my pea soup recipe and my husband Bob's thin crust pizza has expanded.  The crunches have given him a sense of embodiment and the walks offer time he shares with his wife.  For him, the mat is right around the corner as his desire for it grows.

Whether you are beginning a new physical practice, maintaining one you enjoy, or letting something go, the growth you seek will be found in your willingness to change in the direction of your true heart's desire.

Develop yourself

Appreciate your body.

Find what makes you happy.

Engage rather than force.

Be "one with" rather than power over.

Disconnect from needing and move toward embracing

Nourish yourself

Nourish your desire.

Love yourself and say so - in the mirror. 

Best of all, keep smiling.

Let me know how it goes.

namaste :)

Is Emotional Sobriety Freeing?

A continuation of my recent library post... and yet another result...


Having just launched one of my new children out into the world, I am enthused and embroiled in all the nuances of the subject I embraced.  One of my meanderings of late took me to the giant self-help section of my local library (we must all need lots and lots of help for this section to be so big :)  where I found a book called Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Balance by Tian Dayton.

I wondered what Emotional Sobriety might have in common with Emotional Freedom, so this book came home with me - one of my borrowed friends.

All in all I found that the two subjects have quite a lot in common, though the viewpoints come from different perspectives, for the basic conclusions are the same: you must move with your emotions in order to enjoy health.  The Sobriety book focuses on the trauma that can inhibit movement.  The guided audio program I created helps the movement to occur.

I found that the last chapter of Daytons book contained sixteen habits of emotionally sober people, and from my perspective they are succinct and correct, and so I offer them to you in addition to my own program.

According to Dayton, people that are "emotionally sober" have the following traits:

• they are able to self-reflect: they take charge of their own lives
• they take responsibility for their own attitudes
• they have goals and work toward meeting them
• they consciously maintain good habits
• they have good boundaries
• they know their own shortcomings and insecurities
• they avoid unnecessary conflict but speak up when necessary
• they have realistic expectations of life
• they take responsibility for their own moods
• they have and live by good values
• they are grateful and appreciative of what life gives them
• they maintain strong relationship networks
• they are active and get involved in life
• they tend to have a positive belief system of some kind
• they live in the present
• they have a balanced and mature outlook on life

As I concluded the book I recognized the list as the series of outcomes that arrive when Emotional Freedom is expressed.  For a background of recognition on what and how you might have experienced relationship trauma in your own life, and the science behind why you might have suffered as a result, I recommend this book highly.  It can serve as a wonderful companion to the experience of Emotional Freedom and offer you great understanding of your history.

For ways to get through the movement and transformational process of the feelings themselves, I am happy to light the path that can show you the way. You can listen to a sample of Fundamentals of Emotional Freedom right on the Yokibics website (my my, we ARE getting high tech!) You will learn how to recognize which emotion is moving through you, what language you are using that holds it in place, and experience a guided meditation to move you in the direction of the positive aspect of each and every feeling you have.

Enjoy your emotional freedom today.  You won't feel stagnant, and you may find any range of feelings from high to low, happy to sad, and everywhere else in between - but that is the point! The feeling of emotion coupled with the intention to embrace the result is what makes transformation possible.

Your freedom to flow with the experience of life is the joyful result.  It is my honor to assist.

Have a great ride...
Namaste

Abundance at the Library

I 

I have a trick for changing the view of my circumstances when the perspective needs a boost in the direction of clarity and abundance.

The trick is to go visit my public library.  

Yup, that regular old-fashioned bastion of wisdom and knowledge stuffed to the brim with most anything you might want to explore.

Do any of you over the age of 10 still actually go there?  

Too busy you say? Pshaw...

It is an amazing experience when viewed from the perspective of the Mystic. Books of all sorts are available to feed mind, body and spirit - fiction,  non-fiction, biographies, art, travel, food, periodicals, and music galore!    

On my recent visit I sat in one of the big red leather high back chairs that face the fireplace in this old library building of mine, and read, and scanned, and looked, and absorbed, and enjoyed the diversity of opportunity there. In several hours I hit only the tiniest tip of the iceberg of what is actually available. 

I wonder how often we can see the wide open sky of opportunity and choice - of options and availabilities when we are in the midst of strife and struggle...?  

Go to the library - you'll feel better

When I was done noodling around, I chose two full armfuls of great stuff to bring home with me.

(These are the bonus points - my nose has been buried all week in the lushness of it all.)

And my ears!

Piano and cello and voices soar from the CDs I collected just because - and if I don't love what I hear?  Click! Time to change to another.

The thing about the library is you get to experience what you love without owning it...

Yes, without owning it.

You know at the outset that in a month you'll have to return all your new "friends."

Go ahead and love what you are reading, feeling, seeing and hearing - but don't get too attached to the box it comes in!

And even better - no clutter - the sworn enemy of productivity and clarity.

What a wonderful reminder of what abundance actually is, for we know there will be many more books to greet us and call out to us from the shelves again and again once we return.

The lessons of abundance tell us there is always more - if perhaps different in shape and size and content.

And truthfully - there is no "owning" anything at all - not really.  We use that little human illusion to make us feel safe in the face of the more enduring knowledge that no matter how hard we hang on, "this too shall pass."

May all of you open your eyes wide and see the lushness around you.

May all of you experience the fullness of your life.

Namaste

Easter and the Sacred View

Well it's the day after Easter, and I imagine that many of you who celebrated have lots of hard-boiled eggs to eat (unless you're a fan of the plastic.)  And some leftover peeps lurking about.  And maybe some ham to top it off...

I went to wiki to check out something of the origins of Easter and was near to overwhelmed with the scope and diversity of it's history. I'll leave it to you to check out   this link   and see for yourself if you're a history or theology buff.  We have countries of origin, customs and celebrations to explore...etymology, theological significance, and of course, the ever present controversies. 

For me the meaning of any holiday lies not in the symbol or the tradition or the place where it all began, though those things can bring a sense of familiarity and solidarity among the celebrants, but perhaps it serves to look beyond the symbol and inquire what you felt in your soul while you celebrated. 

Did you appreciate the opportunity to be with family and friends?  Were you grateful for the inevitable abundance of food and sharing?  Were you able to invoke a sense of the sacred while you hid eggs or cooked or visited?

Without the sacred being recognized and acknowledged we can devolve any celebration into the glitzy and/or the banal.  We can forget the reason for being there at all, regardless of tradition or custom or theological significance.

We can forget to celebrate the life we have, and to love what we have created with it.  

May all the ways you seek renewal be given unto you.

May all the seeds you have planted sprout and find their way to strength.

May your own spirit rising be all that you hope for, and all that you need it to be.

Blessings to you,

Namaste. 

The Monkey Blog

I've been pondering lately.  The question begs for answers. "What can I - who feels like a teeny, tiny grain of sand in a limitless landscape - do to insure a thriving planet for me, for you, for the generations that will come after us?"

And I started thinking about monkeys :)

In particular the hundredth monkey.

During the 60's and 70's, if you were around as I was, there was an explosion of consciousness arising from the combined forces of a personal growth movement, yogis coming to America, the fashionable rise of quantum physics, the new age and New Thought, the self-help and return to Nature movements (not to mention civil rights and more) all converging. Things were lookin' good but the possibility of total planetary annihilation was looking as bad as ever.

By the mid-80's Ken Keyes Jr., author of 15 books including Handbook to Higher Consciousness, was among the number of teachers who went viral with their work - and in particular a concept from his book The Hundredth Monkey.

In his authors dedication Keyes says:

"This book is dedicated to the Dinosaurs, who mutely warn us that a species which cannot adapt to changing conditions will become extinct. This book is not copyrighted. You are asked to reproduce it in whole or in part, to distribute it with or without charge, in as many languages as possible, to as many people as possible."

After seeing recent references popping up again and again in sources as diverse as internet marketing campaigns and Forrest Church's book Love and Death, I decided to take Ken Keyes up on his offer.

It's been 25 years since publication and we are indeed living in Hundredth Monkey times. We have all sorts of technology at our disposal, so what's so important about little Imo, the star of Keyes story - and who does this little monkey represent?

Why it's you of course.

According to Keyes "Although the exact number may vary, this Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon means that when only a limited number of people know of a new way, it may remain the conscious property of these people.

But there is a point at which - if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness - a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!

Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind."

So what IS the thought that we can propagate here?

1. individuals matter.
2. you matter.
3. what you think...matters
4. what you think - and further what you DO with what you think... matters

So I created the blog "Are You The Hundredth Monkey?" as a forum to highlight all of you "yous" out there.

(I even started a twitter group called "You Are The Monkey!!" Surely there's been many a person who clicked onto that particular notification and went bonkers (Whaaaat?? Somebody is calling me a monkey??!)

LOL every time I think of it... :)

...but hey, this is where I can link total strangers (who have yet to be friends) so they can see each others' good works among the craziness that such a network can be.
 
You or I don't need to be members of a special group either so much as we are a gathering of individuals who can feel the wave and see each other.  You can be UU or Yogi, spiritual or secular, young or old or anything in between - you can be all of it or none of it...but if you can think and share, then you are "the monkey," and YOU have the potential the be the HUNDREDTH monkey. That's the one who tips the scales toward good through your thoughts, your actions, and your sharing.

Powerful stuff I do say...

So far The Monkey blog has collected soulful stories and supportive comments from everyday people like Nancy Wolf, Jan Guarino and Phil Howard who speak of living the ordinary in extraordinary ways.  I've highlighted grandmothers, little kids and Santa Claus.  There are additional links to some serious soul food like Rev. Ken Beldon, Joanna Brandi, Dr. Shui Yin Lo and even little Georgie.

There's also a link to download the Ken Keyes book in its entirety - for free.

Each time we see something good...every time we have the courage to be "different" and share it, then we too, like Imo, have the opportunity to change the world.

Check it out.

You can soak it all in or add to the content - here or on the blog. That would really be awesome.

You Are The Monkey Blog

Namaste

The Path of Spring

I've been watching my neighbors lately as they glory - and I mean revel - in the slightest sign that Spring is coming.  Maybe it's the big snow we just saw the end of - perhaps it's just me, but I'm seeing folks showing  big desire for new beginnings.  Tiny green shoots pushing up through the ground...baby crocus heads...specks of color amidst all the brown...each sign speaking of new life in a new season.

I look at the Medicine Wheels that are found in every ancient tradition. Whether they are laid out in sand or in stone or experienced inwardly, sacred circles teach the laws of life.  A wheel turns.  Though the form may change, what you place at one point you will find again later on.  

The Mystic knows that the wheel of life returns what is given, and though it may seem unexpected, like Spring it is not entirely unpredictable.  It is just that often by the time the results come in we have long forgotten our own initial output and so its connection to the result may come as a surprise.

The Medicine Wheel invites us to face the four directions of life and relate to what we see.  In the East, Spring rises.  It brings the energy of the dawn and ushers in hope, renewal and inspiraton.  There is a drive to plant whether it is a handful of new seeds or new purposes.  The Earth surrounds us and says "if plant you will, then now is the time!"

Pay attention and tend well to the energies that are being called forth from you.  As the wheel turns, when the time is right you will see the results of what you have planted.  Your labors will bear fruit and that which needs to be put to rest will depart.

May you plant well this season.  May you too dance with the joy of new beginnings. May your coming harvest be rich.

Namaste  to you.

The Spirituality of Being Open

Could it be that spiritual growth can be likened more to having a baby than some alternate, otherworldly or angelic analogy?

I think so.

Today I'm reading A Year of Daily Wisdom, a simple rotating calendar by Marianne Williamson based on A Course in Miracles (always rich territory fyi.)  As is usual for me - and this only gets better with time - I can pick up a book, or put on a song and 'bang!' there is the exact right item to give me solace or put me back on track.

The Course lesson for today is the following:

"Spiritual growth is like childbirth.

You dilate, then you contract.

You dilate.

Then you contract again.

As painful as it all feels, it is the necessary rhythm for reaching the ultimate goal of total openness."

Ohhh, total openness.  So that's the goal.

No wonder it feels hard.  For me, I'm as open as I want to be and that varies with time...and circumstance.  I find sometimes the less intimate I am with a person the easier "open" seems to be.  I'm certainly not the first to notice that particular logic.  So knowing what the goal is is helpful to me.  I can set my sail, head in the direction, clear my mind...intend...yes, intend...

and like all good intentions, may it be blessed and may it be so - for me, and for you too.

Namaste

Love and Death

                                    

These days have been sad for me.  Very sad...and rightly so.

My parents are changing - aging quickly - growing closer to death. My father actively so in these moments. They are suffering.  Having been a twosome since they were 16 - Jo and Lo - one can only imagine what they have been through together.

My Dads' is the more obvious passing as he withers daily.  My Mom hangs in there and serves - and worries - and rallys - and serves some more.  I wonder at the worry she has carried all her life.  Would that I could take some of it from her - and yet - for better or worse, I have been the cause of much of it, so she says.

How formidable is fear when the thing feared most is staring at someone who lives life with faith as their guide?  How does one reconcile their own child living and breathing in it, while you (as the parent) look always for a more tangible reason for living - one that makes more "sense."

If only I had acted less the mystic I might have offered more to the god of fear - and pleased them.

I might have seemed more...normal.

Yet - I did not.

I stepped up and out (and often in front) especially when it scared me silly - like that first day of first grade when I bolted into school and ran up the endless marble stairs so fast that I alone burst out onto the roof! Can you imagine my shock pushing open the big, heavy door and finding wide-open blue sky?! 

In many ways it feels comforting for me to remember that moment, as if it set the stage for open sky to be my companion throughout life.  This is one of the experiences we might have shared if you were called 'different' yourself ...and the sky above would feel safer and sounder than all the money in the bank or 100 pedigrees and titles.

Another thing you would notice would be a penchant for peace; a deep need to create; or perhaps a wild desire rising within you when you sang out your song or danced your dance.  You would know it when you felt it, and know who you are...and it would be as right as rain.
   
So I've been reading about Love... and Death... and as it happens, I happily found the exact right words to offer me solace as I go into this experience of loosing the foothold of parents alive, and the big open sky before me again. (Thanks Bill) 

The following words are from the book of the same name Love & Death: My Journey Through the Valley of the Shadow by the soulful Unitarian minister Forrest Church, a deeply spiritual but always practical visionary who is a preacher, a poet and a man who calls us "to live life in such a way that our lives will prove worth dying for."

I have synopsized these passages from a series of meditations he wrote and adapted from two other of his twenty-four books (Life Lines and Lifecraft) offering them again for his readers upon learning that he was dying from esophogeal cancer.  He likened life to The Titanic and the iceberg it inevitably met.

                                  

                                    

"We are all here together in this extraordinary ship - different classes, yes - and not enough lifeboats - but when it comes to death there are never enough lifeboats.  The menus do not matter, nor do the size of our accommodations, not really - not finally. Neither does the speed our ship is going, or the weather, or ports of call.  

The ship is magnificent but one day it will sink.  It always sinks.  All hands will be lost.  

If we forget how dangerous the waters are, spending our lives rearranging deck chairs to catch the sun, we set up our lives to do only one important thing: watch them pass before our drowning eyes.

I admit, crossing on the Titanic, I wouldn’t have enjoyed myself very much just worrying …there is something to be said for routine, for semi consciousness, even for hiding.  That something is safety.  It may be an illusion, but it can be a sustained and useful illusion for a very long time. 

The over- planned life lacks wonder and spontaneity. We can want to be so safe that passion and connection are sometimes forgotten, as we choose from the wine list or worry about coming storms. 

The Titanic is a morality play, one not that different from Noah’s Flood or the fall from Eden.  By definition, morality plays teach us to be careful – but if all we ever learn in being careful is to not take chances, we will always be in the audience, and never onstage.

In other words, if life is a cruise, nine times out of ten, it will not be an adventure.  I have seen that some of you who come for counseling over the years are so wrapped up in your own and your parents underwear that I sometimes wonder if you will ever get out – if you will ever get naked.

The harder we work to get things exactly right the more cautious we become…the more careful not to fail.  Risking nothing, we stand to gain little beyond the security of a battened-down existence. 

We will know little failure - or have only “little failures” - but consider the cost.  If you are hiding to be safe, taking care not to be wrong, I commend you to ignore life’s dangers just as readily as you protect yourselves from them.

Often our most important actions are so fraught with danger that we will surely never get them exactly right, and if we don’t fire before we can take perfect aim – we may never fire at all. 

Life is fraught with danger. That is just the way it is.

Finally, the Titanic always hits the iceberg.  Hence this simple, if imprudent, bit of advice: take a few chances. Make the phone call. Pick up the gauntlet; do whatever it takes.  

Dare to live before you die.” 

  

So be it and so it is.  Namaste everyone...

Community

So lately I've been thinking about how different the world is for me these days...a notion sparked into red hot fire by an email that Larry, an online friend, sent out recently.  It contained a vid of what life was like in New York "back in the day" when we played stoop ball in Brooklyn with pinkies. 

Wait...back in the day?  I go back that far? Really?? That's epic.

Yikes...

I'm looking at this you tube he sent and I'm laughing out loud while at the same time I feel kind of surreal, like I'm watching one of the first talkies ever made. I mean, anyone still alive must be near ancient!!

(gulp...)

And there I was. hummmmmm....

After I process this information of days gone by without running away, or making it small, I arrive at a deeper awareness...

I know that in some ways I am "old" - yet in many more I am young.

In some things I am accomplished, yet in most, I am just beginning.

Quite able to remember decades of life, I am most capable of imagining the decades to come...

and then, then I remember -

how very lucky I am to be here - for many are not.  

For me, this musing invites the question "what do I really, really, really want to do with my days?"

Do you think about this too?

I love the question! So superior to "how am I going to get through another day" or "what am I gonna do to kill time" or "when's the rent due" don't you think??

Which leads me to...(tada!)...the other blog I started (just because I can) at YouAreTheMonkey.blogspot.com.

I started it for you.

Oh, I'll keep writing and musing and contributing here at The Mystic.  More than that though, I want to offer a place to capture your ideas - instances - moments - stories - anything - everything! - that demonstrates that LIFE IS WORTHWHILE and YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Maybe more than a difference -  perhaps the difference. 

Could your contribution - whether in thought or in deed -  be the "straw" that tips the scale in the direction of good?  Could your simple daily practice, when added to all the other conscious choices to live and to love, be the kind of service that creates the energy necessary to see Heaven on Earth?


You don't need a pinky to play this game, but it sure does smack of a lost commodity called community, doesn't it?

Check it out!

Let me know if there is something you would like to contribute - or comment on - or add to in one of the posts already there. After all, why not? You're part of the neighborhood, aren't you? :)

However it is for you, and in whatever way you do it, may you enjoy the grace of loving life each and every day!  Till next time,

Namaste,
ooooohhhhhmmmmmmmmm

Mother Earth

 

These days...What Would a Mystic Do?...in relating to our planet...our home?

Are we able to reverse some of the scary changes we have wrought upon ourselves? Can we? Will we?

If not reverse, then can we care in a way that matters?

Our caring nature stems from relating through the second chakra of our being - and intimacy springs from caring with action.  Whatever you can do, the time to do it is now.

Check out the video below - a beautiful call to caring action.
Enjoy!

An Elders Call

Namaste with love,
Gael

Luminous With Age

I am a baby boomer, a mother, a daughter, teacher and friend.

I am graced to be here today, fully alive, beginning new and exciting projects as my career changes and grows.  So too is my body changing, no longer the young woman I have only just come to really know - and accept.

Here I am, having arrived at the entrance of the wisdom years in my life journey...the years my first yogi spoke of when I was just 22.  He was 90 if a day, vibrant yet serene, and unafraid.  He seemed to know who he was and where he was going.  He certainly knew why he was here.

"LOVE your life!" he said, "and work hard to stay healthy. We will need your voice to be strong when you enter the wisdom years."

I don't remember him qualifying his statement with "and don't forget the botox."

How can I describe the beauty of this time through the eyes of a culture that fears the look of aging?

The wisdom years are rich with experience amd insights that can only be earned through the maturation of time.  Yet not everyone who reaches time necessarily embraces the wisdom that is meant to come with it.

  

I recently came across an email from a few years ago that I saved. The content is from some anonymous person as far as I know, but the words were edited, and repeated, and forwarded from friend to friend...

On Aging

" I am probably now for the first time the person I have always wanted to be.

Though often I am taken aback by the 'old person' who lives in my mirror, I don't agonize about things for too long.  I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly.


As I've aged I've become more kind to myself, and less critical.

I've become my own friend...


I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon, before they understood the great gift that comes with aging. 

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken...broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion.  A heart never broken is sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.


I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turn gray and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face.


As you get older it is easier to be more positive.  You care less about what other people think.


So, to answer your question, I like being old.  It has set me free.


I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here I will not waste my time lamenting what could have been or worring what will be..."

So what worry would you like to let go of? Must you really wait any longer?  And if so...why??

For me, the truest anti "aging" devise has been to work on getting to know myself better and love myself more...to stand behind my most unique talents, and be willing to share my gifts.  To care less about being ridiculed and more about serving.  To give and forgive.  To laugh frequently...and loud.

Oh - and yes...to do the work of staying healthy so that I can still be here sharing my voice.

Blessings to you on your own journey.

Namaste

Growing Away

 

Today I'm thinking about how really hard it is to change the places of hurt and confusion that stem from our childhood and the ways we relate and care (or don't care) for each other.  The processing area for this kind of relating is found at the 2nd chakra, and we can spin and spin and spin at this level for a lifetime.

 

Eventually each of us needs to grow to be our own true Self in order to progress. We actually demand a new processing area in our bodymind to handle the information that can transform the wounds of relating. 

 

This is 3rd chakra movement. New territory. New rules. 

 

The 3rd chakra demands self awareness, self reflection and self esteem.  

 

The key phrase is "I let go of all that is not that into ease."

 

Let go of all that no longer serves your growth. Grief may appear.  Done well, grief WILL appear. 

 

That's ok.

The 3rd chakra area of the bodymind is the solar plexus, so breathing deep and stretching out can be a great help.

Eventually you'll find that what comes next is a true heart opening at the 4th chakra and your actions will move from fear into faith.

May you have many blessings on the journey.