Awakening & Truth: The Never Ending Journey

I've recently reconnected with a cousin of mine from my birth fathers side of the family; in getting to know her better I've found another kindred spirit. Talking with her is like looking into a mirror, and seeing a past version of myself from about 15 years ago. She's embarking upon a journey of Awakening that stirs something within me that feels so excited for her! I feel the vibrant energy around her as she begins to remember the higher truths of Spirit, and I remember fondly my own journey at that point in my life, when I was newly discovering my Chakra's, and began working intensively with my third eye and receiving visions and communion with Spirit.

My cousin has sparked something within my own spirit, and I find myself feeling inspired to re-explore my own journey up until now. I know my journey is nowhere near "over", as indeed it never ends; we are always going to have more to learn, know, discover, and reveal along the path of self-aware awakening. But I look back to the days when I was first beginning to truly sense my Divinity, and something deep within me sighs contentedly. It feels grand to share what I know with my cousin, and grander still to know that I can learn with her, as she embarks upon her own journey.

I had spent so long with people in my forum and website community's who were all going through what I was going through at relatively the same time. We all discovered and explored together, and shared our epiphanies as they occurred, and glorified in our elation at realizing our Oneness, and our connectivity to the Love and Light of the Universe. As time went by the website retired, and the forum has long since fallen quiet; and as with all things, a new phase began in my life. My journey which had been so public, and shared was all of a sudden quite solitary. So in the last few years I have become accustomed to keeping my revelations to myself, and in this way I learned to experience the brilliance of my awareness in a very intimate way within myself. No more did I rush to my computer to share my latest vision, or call a dear friend to talk about my most recent meditation. I had become a solitary woman learning how to validate myself, and wear my excitement internally, for no one else to see.

I knew this was a necessary part of my journey, in fact it seemed that everyone I had previously been connected to spiritually were going through a similar time of introverted spirituality. We all seemed to become quiet, and turn within at the same time. So it felt natural, pure, and authentic and I did not question it.

But to be honest, something magical also disappeared at that time, as I had grown so used to sharing in the elation of spiritual ideas and breakthroughs. The last few years I found the spark had all but vanished within me, as I had no one to bounce my ideas off of, and no one to share theirs with me in turn.

Then my cousin came into my life and the old vibration began to whir again, and my Chakra's burst wide open as I recognized her as a twin flame within my soul family. And she revitalized me in ways I am only just now beginning to truly grasp. You see, I don't think spirituality is meant to be kept inside, to ones self. I think it's natural to want to share what we're experiencing, and in essence "witness" to others who are also experiencing the magic of an Awakening themselves.

My kindling relationship with my cousin has inspired me to open up and become more transparent again, and what better place to do that than here? My blog began as an ardent desire to assist others on their own journey of self-awareness and awakening. And in the last couple of years I found I had less to share, less to say, as I had grown so accustomed to keeping my peace deep within me. But now I feel as though there are so many things I want to share with you!

My hiatus feels to be over. I needed a break, as my beliefs shattered a few years ago, and I reached a new level of awareness that proved my previous beliefs to be nothing but fear-generated fairy tales. I struggled in the last few years with aligning my spiritual knowledge with my every day life; so much of what I now feel to be true is so less complex than it once was. No more do I feel I have all of the answers; indeed it was that belief that held me back in so many ways. It is human of us to want to define a feeling, or an understanding, and label it as 'the truth' - case closed. But I know now that what I believed to be unbreakable, was in essence so fragile at it's core that exposing it to the Light of Truth was all it took to shatter it completely.

That is why I closed the Awakening Starseeds website a few years ago. It is why I withdrew. It is also why I've burned so many bridges with old spiritual friends and acquaintances to be honest. When you slowly come to realize that everyone you thought was "right" is just another dogmatic facet of humans creating God in their own image and likeness, it can cause a depression. And it did for me.

And yet here I am, recharged, and ready to open my delicate petals to the Light again, to rise above the rubble of my previously well laid plans, and begin to explore who I am now in light of all I've come to know, and understand.

So Dee, you're asking, what is your point? As always, I do have one, it just required adequate preamble to get to it...

The journey of Awakening spiritually and discovering who we are as aware beings in this Universe, is never ending. And while we can find things that feel like the bottom line - it is best to never rest to comfortably upon your beliefs at any given juncture. You see, the truest truth of all Universal Truth is that we can not possibly know the Truth. We can find glimmers of it, and snatch moments of it, within kernels of radiant understanding, and moments of sublime epiphany. But to live within the Truth absolutely, for all time, requires us to be more than we are. And as long as we live within the skin, and the limited processing system called the brain, we simply are not capable of holding the whole Truth at all times.

So what is the point if we can't know the whole truth? Perhaps that is the point in and of itself; to admit we cannot know the truth in it's full glory, and to be okay with that.

Do any of us truly feel we know who or what God is? Can any of us be so bold as to presume to know the essence of the creator of all life and vitality in this Universe?

We don't even know if our Universe is a singularity, or if there are others. We haven't even been able to leave our own solar system to explore beyond. We are at the dawn of enlightenment with science, and we can now send probes and satellites into space to see further than we've ever seen before, and yet we are still here on Earth, imagining, hoping, and guessing.

To believe we have all the answers is to lie to ourselves. And I get that now. Firmly and fully, and above all else, humbly.

My previous hubris at having any answers has been fully shed; my arrogance has given way to a new found sense of awe and wonder.

The questions far outweigh any answer we could attain; indeed it is the questions that have shaped our very civilization! We have built whole cities, nations, and ideologies based on religions which at best are just guessing at God. We are living a life which has been set in place by our forefathers, who are no longer alive, based on their dreams, their goals, their fears, and their insecurities. All of our economic, political, and religious beliefs and goals are based on both hopeful and joyful imagining, and fearful dogmatic anxiety.

I'm ready to begin the next phase of my own Awakening, and I hope you feel welcome to join me. I will share what I can, and try to not get caught up in the details. The truest goal I have personally for my Awakening, and indeed for yours, is to achieve a sense of self-awareness in which there is no room for the lies we've lived before.

So I shake it all of, and stand here anew, ready to start upon this next cycle with a clean conscience, and a deep faith in the Universe. I know nothing 100%. I hope for much, and fear even more. But what I know for sure is nothing at all, because I have an open mind, and an open heart.

And in order to seek the truth, one must be willing to shed that which is false. My cousin is embarking upon her own journey, and I choose to continue upon my own alongside her. And I invite you to stay connected via this blog, or the links above to the forum or facebook group, so that we can all share our journey together, with unity, in the spirit of sharing knowledge, and learning together.

I wish us all clarity, peace, and humility.

If The Truth Hurts, Then It Can Also HEAL

Mother always said, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all", and for the most part, Mother was right.

However, there is a fine line between minding ones own business, and suppressing ones own honesty. I find in this age of political correctness, people are very hesitant to speak their minds, and yet also in this online age of technology and social network relationships when people do speak their minds they can do so in a very passive aggressive and tongue-in-cheek way. I don't see the value, health, or merit in glossing over ones feelings, as it only creates ripples of discord and imbalance in an honest discussion or discourse.

While it is good, and inspiring to only speak positive words to those around us, in an effort to "be the change we wish to see in the world", there is a fine line between being kind, and being a duplicitous enabler. Telling someone what you know they want to hear, in order to avoid confrontation, while suppressing your own truth, values and dignity only makes you feel like a "yes-man", and does nothing to enlighten or illuminate the other person. There is too much head patting going on in the world at large in my honest estimation, and all this type of coddling does is give people the wrong type of encouragement.

I try to speak from my highest place of love and respect at all times, but I will never simply roll over and tell someone what they wish to hear in order to placate them or avoid their negative response. This may cause some to find me harsh, or even arrogant at times. And yet to those who know me very well, it is abundantly apparent that it is love that motivates my honesty. If I did not love people, I would not invest myself in open discourse with them. It would be simple to nod and smile and leave people with a sense of righteousness if I did not care about them.

But I do care. I care for people in such a deep and innate way, and this goes so much further than simply caring for their feelings, or vanity, or insecurities. You see, I care for peoples hearts and souls. I care for the fullness of authenticity within each sovereign person; and as I have been nudged by others at times through catalytic confrontation, I also use my intuitive sense of knowing of others to push them to dig deeper within themselves than they are used to.

This relates to personal growth; something every person on the planet can benefit from. As the Oracle at Delphi's message related: "Know Thyself". And to truly know oneself, one must see through the false layers of persona one builds up over a lifetime; the ego, vanity, the bullish sense of righteousness we develop as we live life in this grand realm of duality.

Our personalities are very much like onions, as a dear animated ogre named Shrek once said. With each layer you peel back, you reveal yet another, deeper layer. And as you peel back these false layers of the self, and the personality, they can cause tears, and yet with each layer another reveals itself. And the analogy of the onion peel is a simple yet poignant way to depict the fullness of a journey of self-aware awakening. While we discover things about our false layers, we can often face things that make us cry, and feel guilty, and experience regrets. The key is to not get caught up in those feelings, but to ardently continue to explore, peel back, and explore the deeper darker recesses of our psyche into order to reach a truer place of self.

Because I feel a deep love, kinship, and sense of empathy towards people and the human condition, and because I myself seek this deep level of self-aware honesty, I find it absolutely counter productive to play at politics with people. I show my love through straight forward relating. Now let me define this, because I don't want to give you the impression that I blunder through life like a bull in an emotional china shop, stepping on toes for the sake of opening wounds that I feel need exposing. It isn't my place to point out the flaws of another person; I have enough of my own flaws to contend with and understand and accept when I cannot transmute them. This isn't about surface level issues such as the physical, but always about something deeper within that compels a person to avoid the truth of how they are feeling.

A few days ago, a very dear person to me said something which was full of bitter projection, and generalized condemnation towards immigrants. This statement caused me pain, because I knew it was misplaced. It wasn't this persons true intent to be seen as racist or intolerant; she simply was feeling poorly about herself and projected that to a faceless nameless entity of external people, to avoid facing her true feelings of dissatisfaction with herself. I weighed my options, and chose brute honesty, because I love her very much. I told her that her statement was general, and somewhat racist. And her response was volatile, full of anger, righteous indignation, and she quickly accelerated and pointed all her anger towards me. I allowed her to vent her rage at me, while I calmly and very honestly attempted to explain to her that she was projecting deep feelings of pain and anger towards me, because she was not willing to just deal with the feelings themselves.

And she chose to play victim, which I was sad to see, yet I know the experience will give her a great opportunity to rise above her own limited perception of herself, and the situation itself. I eventually withdrew, telling her I love her, explaining that we would connect again in the future, and honestly telling her that I will always be here for her, however am not her punching bag. And I'm quite certain she will continue to point her anger at me for as long as it serves her to do so. And eventually the righteous anger will simmer down, and those feelings of sorrow and fear will still sit within her, and she will have to face them honestly, and perhaps even realize that blaming strangers from other countries, or me, was just a smoke screen for her to avoid the truth all along.

This is what people do; it is the human condition at it's most raw and simplistic. We avoid the pain within, because it hurts so god damned much, and instead we channel it into anger, and point it outwards, rather than working on the internal issues where it originates.

And this is why it is so fundamentally important to me that I be as honest as I can be with others. Because I love this dear woman enough to see the truth of her feelings, and to know that she was having a very bad day. Now, wouldn't it be more loving or kind to simply let her have space to vent that frustration, you may be asking?

Let me ask you, if I had said nothing, and let her make her veiled intolerant comments about immigrants, would that have done her any justice? I would have given her the silent message that A: it is okay to hurt others to feel better about yourself, and B: I don't hold higher expectations from or FOR her.

Sure, I could have let it fly, ignored it, chalked it up to a "bad day", but again, this is a very dear person to me, someone who I have seen victimize herself in the past, by disowning her own responsibility for her words, actions, and decisions, and I want so much more for her. I would not be able to look at myself in the mirror if I did not contribute some catalytic emotional pressure towards her; something to help her get through the BS layers in order to find a deeper truth within her. And the deepest truth within any of us is love. The only thing keeping us from feeling, living, and expressing that love is fear. And fear manifests itself as pain, sorrow, loss, longing, and frustration.

So I'll say it again, because I love people so dearly, I will never cow-tow to the ego and the insidious games it plays. I will never pat people on the head and say "there there, you're right, you're very hard done by and life is so hard on you" because I know that experience is simply the bi-product of our previous thoughts, feelings, and actions.

To truly show love, respect, compassion and empathy, we must be willing to be unpopular, to be honest, and to stand up to the most vile manifestations of ego and anger.

And when this very dear person is ready to exhale, and let her anger go, and approach me honestly in her pain, and her sorrow, I will then take her gently in my arms and whisper words of assurance and validation to her. For then she will be in a place to receive my compassion. For now, she only wants to fight, because she is so unhappy within herself and doesn't know how to direct those complex feelings.

And this is the type of love I welcome into my life too. I have learned more through adversity than similarity in my life, and when people in my life have held a mirror up to me and challenged me to see my own hypocrisy and duplicity, I have raged, and become righteously angry and volatile; and then I have gone within, seen and faced the truth they have gifted me with, and grown.

That is all any of us can do; be honest, and grow beyond our previous limited perception, towards a fulfillment of love, and peace, and acceptance.

God is Greater Than Your Deepest Truth

I am an ardent seeker of truth, and the truth is subjective, and hides under layers of subterfuge and ego much of the time, so truth seeking can be a needle hunt, and send one off on side tangents and journeys into the darker reaches of the psyche. For one to genuinely wish to see the truth of who they are, to really wish to understand who they are, they must be willing to take a lot of of cosmic anvils to the forehead, a lot of uppercuts to the identity, and it requires much uncomfortable eating of crow.

You see, the truth is something we seldom deal in when looking at who we are, as we tell our stories, and build up layers of comfortable persona-laden tidbits in order to feel more at home within the skin. To know truth one must see the fallacies within, clearly and without bias, and understand their own human condition intimately. It is our condition to seek comfort and safety, and often truth flies in the face of such things, making us feel twitchy and not at all at ease. So we rewrite the past, and build up bits of who we have been in order to live with it in a more peaceful way. 

We do this with God too, and this is indeed the most basic of our conditioning as a species. We identify with a deity that fulfils needs we have deep within, and so we personalize God and build Him in our own image and likeness. God becomes the parent we never had, the mentor we sought growing up, the shoulder we could weep upon and the hand which guides us lovingly. We put our own needs and wants and insecurities into our expectations of God, until we stop addressing God, and replace Him with the being we need; choosing our insecurities over truth.

But God is not the type of deity that coddles insecurity and pats heads and feeds cookies. 

God doesn't lie to Her creations, and does not waste time feeding false delusions with further illusions of grandeur. 

I see people on social networks addressing their Gods, praying for their petty wants and desires, pleading with and posturing and playing politics, trying to bargain with God in order to have their own will be done. Very few people are comfortable at the core with "thy will be done." In truth, we push our agendas on to God, and when God doesn't hand over the keys to the kingdom on a silver platter then victims are born.

I am a big fan of prayer; I pray often, quietly, inwardly and outwardly. I pray when I gaze upon the stars, I pray when I lay in bed at night, I pray when I see a baby smile. And when I think I want something I try to humbly ask God to do as She sees fit, and grant me the serenity to accept that choice. 

To truly love and accept God, you have to love and accept yourself, and understand a few basic principals at the core of your being;

• God is not invested in your drama, and He grants you free will - you will experience the consequences of your previous choices, so be sure you're able to live with your choices.
• God is not a wish master, She is not a genie in a bottle, no amount of asking nicely will grant your wishes. Want your prayers answered? Pray for selfless things. God loves givers.
• God helps those who help themselves. Get off your knees, begging doesn't become you.
• God is not a physical being, does not look like you, does not experience emotions like you, and is indeed far beyond any of our comprehension. If you truly understood WHO God IS, you would never feel fear, anger, jealousy, envy, or compulsion again.
• God has better things to do than answer your ever whim.
• God is greater than your deepest truth, your most fervent yearning, your most sorrowful pain.

To really have a relationship with the infinite energy of the Universe, the Giver Of Duality, the Granter Of Decisions, you will want to stop seeing Him as a He. Stop seeing Her as a She. God is All. God is energy.

God is vibration and sound and elements of light and dark and everything in between. God is ALL.

All couldn't care less about what job you do, or if you fall in love, or if your children are behaved, or if you get the raise, or house, or car, or anything else you ask God for. God gave you all the tools you need to grant these things to yourself.

What God does is exist - within all - lending Universal energy to All. You can access this energy and work with it, or you can ignore it and worship petty godlings and false idols.

And when it comes to world religions - they are all false idols.

Yet none are wrong, and there is no sin. It is all self imposed - God is the most accommodating creator you could conceive of - there is no limit to what you can do in Gods Garden.

I urge you to stop seeing God in the mirror, and start seeing God as more than you are, learn to let go of your dogma and pre-conceived notions, and seek the truth in the most honest and humble way you can. Talk to God, and then still your mind, turn off your agenda seeking ego, and listen.

God is always talking. Birds sing, God talks. Rains fall, God talks. A star falls, God talks. The Moon waxes, God Talks. 

Are you listening?

Accessing Your Inner Caregiver; Soothing Your Inner Child

We live in a world that places so much emphasis on the wounds we collect as we grow up; the affronts to the "inner child", and many people spend so much of their time and money on therapy sessions, hoping to unravel hidden hurts in hour long sessions so that they may find peace and clarity.

Is it possible that talking about the gunk we go through in our formative years, again and again; dredging it all up for this psychiatrist or that therapist over and over could be more harmful than helpful in the end? Isn't the purpose of those painful experiences in our youth to help us grow and learn from our mistakes and hardships as we get older?

I would not suggest that seeking professional help for psychological issues isn't helpful or even wise; I myself have seen therapists in the past for my own issues surrounding my childhood, adoption, and unresolved feelings of abandonment. There is certainly a cathartic sense of release to be had in acknowledging our pain and then working on releasing it.

But the industry of healing the inner child is perhaps skewed and leaning too heavily upon ailment, unintentionally robbing people of a mighty sense of empowerment along the way. 

You see, I've come to realize in my life that not only do we have an inner child, but we also have an inner caregiver. As with all things in life on planet Earth, there is a polar opposite to balance the equation. Everything has it's opposite, and all is right at the end of the day as a result, because up is balanced by down, and the equitable dance between happy and sad gives us so much food for thought (and gratitude!) to learn and grow by. It only stands to reason that those things which hurt us as younger people also helped fortify us as we got older.

Instead of focusing on healing your inner child, suppose you put that energy into encouraging your inner caregiver to embody the loving and healing acceptance you have sought your whole life. We are human, and it is our very condition to seek acceptance, support, understanding, and unconditional love. These things are well and good when received from outside of ourselves, but until we can direct them inwards to our own self they are hollow. The inner caregiver is a conceptual image of the self as this nurturing and constant source of the emotional fortitude we yearn for, and to know it lives within is soothing; we are never truly alone as long as we have our own company, and when our own company is supportive, kind, and attentive then life becomes less overwhelming. The inner child can rest easier knowing that he or she is constantly watched over by the wisdom within, which bears the weight of all the lessons learned; liberated by your own sense of faith in yourself and your concern, compassion, and love for yourself.

When you step into this mindset you empower yourself to stop thinking of your past in regards to drama, victimization, negative experience and pain, and rather see it all as the stepping stones which led you to learn how to love yourself deeper, to value your own uniqueness, and to rely upon yourself to sooth the sorrow which can from time to time surface within. We are not victims of our past; none of us, no matter what we have lived through, experienced or been exposed to. The past is an echo and nothing more, and while it has led you to this place in your life, it does not define you, nor does it set the stage for who you will next become in your life. Your inner child is just a shadow, an image much like a hologram which no longer exists in your present state of being. But the inner caregiver is alive, vital, and very much present at this moment, and will be with you always.

So cultivate your inner caregiver by understanding that it is your psyche, your truer self, guided by your soul or your heart or whatever tender parts of your truth you wish to relate it to. Your inner caregiver is the wisest, most loving and gentle, patient and kind parts of you, and all you need to do to access the sweet sensations from within is just think about it. If you still your mind, deepen your breathing, and focus on feeling the calm and peace of your internal nursemaid, you will feel her or him.

So the next time you feel yourself being tugged into your past by your inner child, to a moment that makes you feel pity, shame, fear or guilt, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and picture that small child being rocked gently in the arms of the most loving version of yourself you can conjure. Know that in all of your biological complexity you are ultimately a very simple creature who just requires tenderness and positive reinforcement; and then remember that it all begins within you.

Resistance is Futile!

Epiphanies being what they are, they are generally much more explosive in the moment to the person having them, than to others, but I still like to share mine with you. So humbly and with painstaking honesty I awoke this morning with a question in my soul; why do I resist so much?

Let me expand a bit, because some of you will be saying "hold on Dee, you're one of the most open people I know, you don't seem to resist very much!" and while I am pretty open minded and spiritually progressive, I am a very private person deep within, and have locked a lot of doors to walls around my heart. In my youth I was so naive I would believe just about anything anyone said if said with conviction and eye contact, because of my desire to believe in the honesty and good in all people. As I got older I had my heart broken again and again, and again... not by the lies of others, but my own naive desire to see others in a light that clearly didn't shine. I saw society as resistant, and putting up walls, and drawing lines of division and boundary, and expressing a lot of "this is MINE, go get your own" mentality. So I mimicked in my own way, without even really knowing I was doing it. I do it with my spiritual beliefs... Far out eh?

You know those silly chain letters that go around the internet? I think they're a great way for me to simply explain what I'm getting at here. I logged into Facebook today and saw a really cute picture, I liked the picture, and I wanted to immediately share the picture with my friends list, because it brought my heart joy and I wanted to share that. BUT... the jerk who posted the picture put a hex on it (tongue in cheek here) by making a big moral limitation and stating that if I did NOT share the picture, I would have five years of bad luck. I immediately scrolled down to the next item on my wall.

Then I wondered, why would I let someone's incessant need for "likes" and "shares" limit my desire to post a picture I genuinely liked? They obviously cursed the picture with five years bad luck for those who didn't share it because of their own insecurity, why would I feel the need to rebel against them?

So I decided right then and there, to stop resisting. So I shared it. And I broke someone's five year curse against me which my ego absolutely screams at in fury!!! My ego shouts "How could you pander to the emotional lackwit who sent the picture in the first place by sharing it? Now you've assuaged his vile and demonic curse and given him the slightest indication that you bought into it in the first place! You Dee, are a moron!"

And I gently cajole and rub my ego on the head, because it isn't about the pox the Facebook user attributed to the picture he sent out into the world wide web; it's about my resistance to it.

I saw the picture, loved it, desired to share it, then put up a wall as soon as my ego disagreed with the originator of the picture and their need to be spooky, or go viral. I know my magick is strong enough to overcome a silly on-line vexation, a simple saging of my laptop will right that calamity before it occurs, but my ego immediately wanted to smite the other persons ego by virtue of the walls I put up. How dare those walls be threatened by some ignorant louts curse upon me!!!

Resistance only deprived me the opportunity to share a picture I sincerely liked. And therein lies the true curse, because had I not shared it, my friends would have maybe not been bombarded by it, and it's a cute picture let's remember. And then maybe my friends wouldn't know I think of them and want to share smiles and laughter and joy with them via this computational collaborative creation called "laptop".

So curses be damned, I am going to stop resisting. My ego resists a lot of things, simply because of the message I fear I will give if I roll over and accept. And my ego needs to simmer down and stop taking itself so bloody seriously. So send me your chain letters, your cursed attachments, your poxy pictures, I will accept them. I may not share them all, as they may not all touch or move me, however I vow to not bypass one again simply because someone else is trying to exploit my "share" for their own stupid purposes.

So while I don't see myself being assimilated anytime soon, I will cheerily contend that when it comes to following my own heart versus sating the carnivorous needs of my ego, resistance is futile, and my ego shall starve.

Whispering Spirit Within

I went into the hospital on January 22nd, quite certain all would be well, questioning nothing. I woke up with both arms paralysed, and spent the next weeks rehabilitating not just from spinal surgery, but learning to use my arms again as they slowly regained their use.

When I found out in April I had a broken vertebra, and that I would require another spinal surgery I was desolate; I sank into a depression, and all of the optimism I had felt the beginning of the year seemed to slip away. I went into the second surgery on July 26th without any expectations, knowing the arm paralysis could reoccur, and that since this would be a full spinal fusion that the recovery would be far more extensive.

What a mind blowing experience it has been since then; nothing could have prepared me for the months that followed the second surgery, and indeed as I sit here typing this to you, I am still learning to walk with this new body posturing. The surgery changed everything about my spine, straightening it out even more than previous scoliosis correction surgeries, and now my hips are level, after 30 years of being slightly askew, and it is like learning to walk all over again, as I find myself tripping over my own feet, shaky at the best of times on these legs which are now equal, no longer being slightly higher on one side of my body.

It's been challenging physically, with recovery, home nursing, hospital stays, bouts of pain so intense I could barely remain conscious through the worst of them. And yet none of that compared to the emotional pain I endured after the second operation; my pride was shattered. It is not easy for a woman who can be vain, to all of a sudden require a walker, and cane to simply walk to the bathroom, to take upwards of 5 minutes to walk 20 feet, to need a nurse to help with showering every morning, and a hospital bed brought into the house as I could not get in or out of a normal bed. It really shattered my perception of myself to all of a sudden be so darn helpless!

This last few months has found me adjusting as much emotionally as i have had to physically. I have two metal rods that go from the bottom of my neck, down to my pelvic wall, held in place by large screws, and I cannot bend any more. I will never again put my own socks on, and I knew that going into this surgery, but I don't think I really fully understood what that meant. I cannot open the crisper or bottom shelf of my fridge, and if I drop something on the floor I've had to learn to be creative, by using my feet, and my cane, and i'm certain anyone watching me would be unsure whether to laugh or cry at the pathetic show before them! But I've learned perseverance, and though my pride has taken some mighty blows, I've come to realize a few extremely important things about myself, and my life.

You see, the human body is fragile and while it can endure a lot of strain and pain, it has it's breaking points, and when the body starts rebelling against the sheer force of gravity, and legs give out, or a bladder cannot control itself, or a reaction to strong medication creates new levels of illness, it can feel like a tremendous weight on top of you. You feel weak, and useless, and eventually can slip into a depression. And yet, the spirit is stronger than the physical body is, and eventually something within you overcomes the depression and says "hey, knock it off, you're still alive!" and then everything slowly comes into perspective.

That perspective began to clarify itself to me around the time I was diagnosed with spinal fluid on the brain. Yes, another wonderful medical crisis that had me in the hospital having tests, being poked and prodded, and I found myself laughing at the lunacy of it all! What else could I do? I've been through so many humiliating experiences this year, and have had to rely upon the kindness of nurses and doctors and orderlies and interns, and indeed I've lived in this body at it's weakest points, and slipped into self pity and an empty sense of pointlessness. But the spirit within me, the truest part of who I Am has quietly whispered to me all along, and when I was finally able to get out of my own way long enough to simply listen, the message was clear; this isn't the end of the world.

And it truly isn't. I have learned new levels of humour and laughter, as my monkey toes astound my family when I drop something, and can skilfully pick it up with these silly feet of mine. If I can't reach something, my cane works wonderfully! So I've become accustomed to using my cane as an extension of my arm, using it to do everything from turning on lights, to shutting the car door. And though pain still plagues me daily, and my body is still rebelling against this new posture and instrumentation, my spirit is strong, and I can laugh at myself, and in this way I know nothing will ever break me. Never again.

I have come to realize that adversity is not my enemy; my fear of it is. And if I don't fear roadblocks and setbacks then I am far better equipped to deal with them. It's been one heck of a year for me, and the road ahead of me is long and leads to an uncertain destination. But I am able to stand up, and walk, albeit slowly, and my arms work, and I can laugh at myself. And for these things I am grateful.

My body may fall apart completely one day, and I may end up in a wheel chair full time, relying upon others for every function I have, and yet I will still have the one in-diminishable thing which I have come to realize is more valuable than any part of my body; my spirit.

So I am ready to face whatever tomorrow brings. It's one thing to have faith in the Universe, and the "external" as it were, but when one realizes that the divine spirit within is all they truly need, there is this sense of liberation that takes place...

I am free so long as I keep my perspective in this regard. When the mind chatters so loudly that you feel overwhelmed and put upon, and downright defeated, listen to the quiet whisper that is beyond that mind babble - your spirit, it speaks gentle, and often giggles, because it takes nothing serious. There is nothing so serious to your spirit, because spirit knows, it's all temporary, and it's all experiential.

So I'm experiencing disability, and pain, and limitations, and I can softly giggle all the while. Because I am not my body, I am just residing within it, for a while.

The New Age Cliché

I am sick to death of the new age movement. Anyone who knows me well knows this has been brewing within me for a few years now. I began to see the whole movement as hypocritical a few years ago, in the mirror - personally. I saw my own actions, practices and beliefs and realized that the new age movement has become just another dogmatic offshoot of projectionary pissing contests.

So I quit.

And now I rather make it my mission to be the devils advocate with new age zombies. And yes, I do believe many new agers are zombified; living in a misty perception of life based on too many new age books and tenets. I read all the channellings, I went to the seminars, I attended the global healing sessions, and for a long time it worked for me. Until I began to see the shift within the movement, and the greed people exhibited, as they realized they could not only cash in on this movement, but also justify it because of "free will" and "destiny".

I've witnessed new age people of all ranks use, abuse, and treat people horrendously, and turn around and justify it to themselves because they believe they were meant to play that abominable role in someone elses life in order to be Angelic - do them a favour.

I call bullshit on the whole thing.

An acquaintance of mine is a new age hypnotist, who makes his living coaching athletes spiritually to help them improve their games. This guy subscribes to the new age notion that he is "ascending" in order to reach a higher dimensional state of consciousness. He believes that everything is pre-destined, and he is playing a role as an Angelic being to help the world wake up, and become more spiritual. And yet, he turned around and caused a close friend of mine unspeakable pain, by lying to her and her children, about something extremely intimate. He lied, and got caught, and then acted even more cravenly by trying to pull the "let us learn from this" routine, instead of just saying "yes I'm an ass".

I am so tired of this type of new age disconnect, where people escape reality by living in some fantasy world, where they can make the rules up as they go to better serve their own duplicitous ulterior motives.

So again, I call bullshit on the whole thing.

Lets say for argument sake that the whole Ascension thing is happening; you really are an Angelic being in a physical body come here to help raise the planets vibration so humanity can evolve to 5th dimensional beings of light and Love. Let's assume that's correct thinking for arguments sake. So here you are, living in a world which is in utter chaos, where children go hungry every minute of the day, where women are raped every minute of every day. We are here in this world full of pain, tyranny, and heartache, wars being waged for money and natural resources, and as members of this new age movement of Ascension, we are here to help raise the vibration of the planet up so we can overcome, and become compassionate loving beings of spiritual light.

What are we doing to be a part of this shift? Hanging out in yoga studios, playing with singing bowls, going to Sedona to "feel the vibration" of the desert? It's become a cliché, and where the new age movement was truly a movement twenty years ago, now it is just another industry. It is a cash grab.

Now lets say that the whole Ascension thing is bullshit, man made, created in our psyche to help us overcome the fear and loneliness of being sentient beings on a small rock in an infinite universe. Let's say that we are just creatures of insecurity who are always  seeking validation and love, and that we have created this movement in order to feel more self worth.

How arrogant of us to for a moment think we're so important?

I think the truth of any situation lies within the middle ground, the eye of the storm as it were. And in the middle of the new age movement is a truth I can ascribe to: keep it simple. Stupid.

The truth can either be some grand dreamlike fantasy land which makes you feel all warm and fuzzy within your heart and pineal gland, or it can be what you see and feel and sense right around and within you. I no longer believe or care about the notion that hundreds of thousands of human beings truly believe they are on a mission of epic stellar proportions to help this planet evolve and ascend. What I care about is the lies we tell ourselves, and how we deal with people on a daily basis in our every day life.

Maybe it's time to stop reading the channellings folks, to stop going to the seminars, and ordering the newest new age fad on-line, to add to our pretty altar so we can tell people just how spiritually advanced we are. Maybe it's time to just go outside, sit under a tree, and re-connect to the Spirit within and around.

I challenge any self-professed new ager to put down the labels, and stop wearing the movement like a cool leather jacket, and get back to your roots.

Our roots; the roots and foundation of the new age movement was not about ascending to 5D reality, or going on some trippy astral journey; the roots were simply about love. Sharing love, giving love, receiving love.

Forgiveness, humility, flexibility, and compassion. These are the tenets of the original movement of the new age of Aquarius.

There is no need to complicate this process; in fact simplicity is the pathway to true peace. So simplify your spiritual experience. Stop looking outside of yourself for the "answers". Stop looking for mystery and significance in every shadow or shooting star. Just accept that we do not have all the answers and that in itself is a humbling beautiful component of our life on Earth. We are a part of a living organism which is interconnected by the trees, water, oxygen, plant and animal life. We have so much beauty around us right here on this planet; there is no need to want to escape to some higher dimensional version of Earth.

Heaven on Earth is possible if we take our collective heads out of our collective asses and start being the change we wish to see in the world - right now. Right here.

So take that 30 bucks you were going to spend on the next new age book and donate it to the Red cross, or to an orphanage in Africa, or to your local soup kitchen. You'll be doing something practical and immediate to be the change, and you'll feel so good about yourself after. And isn't that what we want? To feel good?

Call bullshit on the things which don't ring true around you, and then find something you're passionate about, and pursue it actively.

Instead of being part of the cliche, be the change.

It's far more rewarding.

Fear: a Construct of Complication

Ugly four letter word; FEAR.

It is something my adult life has been plagued by as I began to have panic attacks about 12 years ago. Fear is a cunning and sly predator which lurks in the back of all mans' consciousness. It is a construct of complication; when life is simple there is not too much to fear.

But we don't live in a very simple day and age on this planet; there is so much poverty, war, greed, cruelty and confusion. We have lost our simplicity, which indeed was our innocence. So it could be said fear is attracted to knowledge; the more you know the more there is to fear. Feel this.

Fear is like a funnel, as it engulfs you it gets wider and completely expands around you so that you can literally feel the waves of it throughout your body. Your stomach contracts in revulsion, your forehead throbs, your throat tightens and the hairs on your arms and neck stand up in electric tautness. And yet when fear diminishes we feel as though a literal weight is being lifted as our body relaxes very noticeably, and breathing becomes easier, vision lightens, and the head feels less heavy.

This funnel of fear sensation can be a warning system, and the better you get to understand how you feel fear, the quicker you can become at shooting it down. Fear is an emotional response, and just like any emotion we are able to change it; quickly and with determination.

This is something I struggle with, as I have battled fear and fear based feelings for many years. When I complicate my thinking, and worry about future possibilities, past events that cannot be changed, and big "mind monsters" like financial problems, health issues, security and safety, fear is attracted to me like metal to a magnet. But when I finally recover myself and exhale and push the funnel of fear from myself, I remember that there truly is nothing to fear, but fear itself.

Strip away all that complicates our lives; the things WE have created which serve no real purpose other than to complicate and confuse us as a people. We live a society where some people have much, and others have little. Some sit on hoards of riches, while others are literally dying every minute of every day because they cannot feed themselves, or afford medical care. And we let this happen. We have allowed our society to become so imbalanced, unjust, and immoral; no wonder we're seeing so much more anxiety globally. We all feel a deep guilt, and a deep melancholy for simpler times.

Sure, simpler times may have been "harder" physically, in that we had to work harder to provide for ourselves, growing our own food, hunting, gathering, working the land, and walking with nature to provide for us medicinally with herbs and healing compounds. But there was an immeasurable reward to those toils; a hard days work really is it's own reward. When a family spent it's days sustaining itself, together, as a unified force, it no doubt created bonds amongst them that could not be severed.

Now we are all busy on our own individual electronic devices, with our own agendas, plots, sub-plots... it's enough to fry my brain.

I am lazy and complacent, and don't know how to change the world. Gandhi said we had to be the change we wanted to see in the world, and I agree whole heartedly. And yet, I am a creature of comfort, and cannot imagine getting rid of my "tech" to live off the land. I am disabled, I could not manage it I'm sure. Nor would my family have a clue as to how to provide anything beyond the most basic of necessities. So going back is not an option; for any of us I doubt.

But the way we are moving forward will only create more reasons to fear.

So what do we do? We are truly at a crossroads as a species; the way things are going look bleak for us. I fear for future generations; we have lost the most intricate gifts we had, the ability to find comfort in small things, to sit in nature for hours, our children don't even know how to use the gift of imagination anymore, as the tv satisfies their every whim.

Maybe the answer lies in a simplification of where we are. We cannot go backwards, and forwards is fraught with fear, so perhaps just a small adjustment in our own lives would be satisfactory towards cutting the head off the mind monster of fear.

Turn off the tech. Turn off the tv. And just breathe.

When fear becomes epidemic something is wrong in our life; so rather than see fear as some loathsome beast to be conquered, see it as a warning system. It is simply that: a tool to warn us.

In ancient times fear warned us of predators or danger. Today fear warns us that we have lost center, our connection to Peace through Spirit. Fear warns us today that we are not seeing the big picture, and we are too focused on mundane and unsubstantial things; constructs of humanities greed or aspiration are not tools of Spirit, and if we do not feed Spirit in some way, fear becomes a warning sign to indicate our imbalance.

So just disconnect all the whirring buzzing humming things that overstimulate the mind monster, and breathe my friend.

Just breathe.

My Experience With Death

You hear stories of people having near death experiences, or NDE's, while undergoing major surgeries, and these stories are generally always so positive, poignant, and full of emotional wonder and awe. I have heard these stories and my eyes have filled with tears as I felt the beauty each person described; the white light, the angelic music, the shimmering shapes of loved ones waiting to guide one Home to the great beyond. My own mother had an NDE at age 8 when she drowned in a community swimming pool. She described a dark tunnel whisking her formlessly towards a brilliant white light, with a host of angelic singing that would move anyone to tears, and then that beautiful light moving further away as she was resuscitated. Her story stuck with me always, and even as I read the books by Dr. Michael Newton PhD, called Journey of Souls and Destiny of Souls, I always felt that the moments after death would be beautiful and inspiring.

My own personal NDE is not as beautiful. I did not actually die, however I assure you the reality of death was no less stark. I lay in hospital five weeks ago on a dose of pain medication so high it caused severe hallucinations, and my arms were paralyzed; I was in and out of reality and the first two days were confusing, painful and frightening. I lucidly recall floating between realms, in a haze of drugs and discomfort, and at one horrifying moment I just knew in my very cells I was about to die. I heard confusing voices around me, and I was trapped in a prison of pain I could not describe verbally as I could not make my mouth form words. I was seeing horrifying visions due to hallucination and I just keep thinking "Oh my god I am dying, and it is the worst experiencing Ive ever had - why won't it just happen? Please make it fast! This is awful!"

Death did not come. But the result of this experiencing was no less profound upon me. I came "back" from that experience changed, forever, and deeply.

I see so clearly now; more clearly than I have ever seen before. I know what is important, what is "real" as opposed to what is illusion, and I am in constant communion with this knowledge.

Let me share a few inarticulate thoughts, in the hopes of spreading a wave of Love that will ripple throughout the www and into the world of form and format itself.

• Life is fragile and phantasmic and it does not have any guarantees - LIVE IT. Every moment.
• You are a beautiful and formless lump of clay which lays ready to be shaped and molded - YOU are the ARTIST.
• If you are displeased by any part of your self, your life, your experience - CHANGE IT.
• Do not wait for God to grant you miracles - create them NOW.
• You are surrounded by infinite potential in the form of fluid energy which is the very LOVE energy of God/Creation/Universe -- it is within you - without you - around you - and IS you.
• The past is to be learned from and LET GO OF.
• The future is limitless but is being shaped by your fears as strongly as by your hopes - choose to pay heed to your hopes and to learn from your fears and LET THEM GO.
• LOVE is the only TRUTH - everything that does not resonate with love is man made and therefore FALSE.
• Every moment can be a miraculous revelation of peace and love - the only thing standing between you and the love and peace of God is your THOUGHTS.
• THOUGHTS are programs running in the computer of your brain - what you DO WITH THEM is up to you - the PROGRAMMER.
• Angels are human, and walking among us.
• Gratitude must be verbalized and exercised.

• LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Please love yourself, dearly and deeply. See yourself as more than the sum parts of your experiences in life, and know that you are a work in progress, and that anything that makes you uncomfortable about yourself is completely editable.

If you cannot love yourself then there is truly NO MEANING to life.

Start with self love - when you can feel that - and let the love of the Universe flow through you - then love is limitless and loving others is effortless. And that is truly the most rewarding way to live ones life - in LOVE with all others.

This does not mean we will not have strife or struggle, or that we will not fall into the pit of 3D polarity - life is a pendulum and nothing is static - and yet when we fall into 3D we can exercise the beautiful option of regaining equilibrium and REMEMBERING LOVE.

Love is all there is. Anything else is a byproduct of the mind. And the mind should not run the program - the programmer must be in charge.

Own your thoughts.

Love Love Love,

Discovering TRUE Strength

It has been some time since my last blog entry; I knew it would be a while until I would discover the strength to sit at the laptop and type; today is that day.

As my friends and readers know, I had long awaited and overdue spinal revision/re-constructive surgery on January 22nd. I have posted previously about my spinal diseases, and the issues they have caused me in the last decade. I waited over five years for surgery and finally, it is over!

I will share with you some of my experiences of the last month, and my own perceptions and epiphanies, in the hopes of documenting one woman's journey towards loving herself on a deeper level. I hope to inspire, at best, and to share a few smiles along the way.

Let me start in the operating room, as I lay on the cold hard table as the OR staff flitted around me, taking levels, preparing the IV for sedation. I did what I always do in operating rooms; I made jokes, I got to know the OR staff, and I worked to put everyone at ease with me.

For me, it is of utmost importance that anyone operating on me knows me as a person, not just a patient. I needed them to know I'm a humorous woman, with deep empathy, a daughter and husband. And we shared some laughs as the machines began to ping, and I felt at ease as the oxygen mask was placed upon my face. I was there, one moment, and then I was gone.

When I woke up in the recovery room my initial feeling was relief as I thought "thank God, that part is over" and then, horror hit.

"Oh god I can't move my arms!" I thought to myself.

I tried again and tears began to trickle down my cheeks, impeded by the oxygen mask, and I opened my mouth to speak but only grunts came out; my throat so sore from the oxygen tube which had been down my throat only minutes previous. "What if I can never hug my husband again... what if I can never hold my daughter?" I was sobbing now.

I locked eyes with a nurse and grunted loudly and she rushed to my side, "Mrs Bernstein why are you crying?" she asked urgently and very loudly. A few other bodies rushed to my bed and the next moments were chaos as people began asking me questions and all I could do was grunt "arms - can't move - ARMS - can't!"

The coming minutes or hours are foggy to me, as doctors and interns and nurses huddled around me, people poked and prodded me with several sharp instruments. I sobbed as I was asked "can you feel this?" and I did not. I would get jabbed in my shoulder and feel it, then feel nothing as people asked again and again "do you feel that??"

I don't know how long it was until one of the surgical staff was at my side explaining what had gone wrong; my Brachial Plexus nerve had been damaged during surgery. What the hell was a Brachial Plexus nerve for crying out loud? I couldn't think straight. He told me with no amount of doubt on his face that it was temporary and my arms WOULD return to normal. I tried to take that bit of information and hold on to it. My surgeon showed up and reiterated this to me, and I trust him so implicitly that peace began to wash over me. 

I knew that though it was frightening, it was temporary. And that was my salvation for the next few days. 

My few days spent in the Neuro-Critical Care Unit are a blur; I was on far too high a dose of pain pump Dilaudid and I spent most of my time there hallucinating and sleeping. What I do remember is trying to make others smile, and succeeding much of the time. My pain team, a good looking group of four hospital staff members would come see me often, to find out if I was comfortable, how my arms were doing, if the pain was controlled. Before I was given the pain pump they were confounded as to how i would regulate my own pain meds if my arms were not working. I told them "Put the pump between my toes, and I will use my feet. I have monkey toes, trust me it will work!" they laughed at me. And they doubted it, but I created a precedent at Toronto Western Hospital, being the first ever patient to use my feet to regulate my pain pump. Impressed the pain team, and shared a lot of laughs in the process.

I realized in that time that laughter really IS the best medicine. 

There were dark moments in those first days, mostly having to do with one particular nurse in the NCCU who was cruel, and truly not in the right field; she'd be far better suited to work in collections, or a prison... however, for the most part I connected to my nurses, and called them by name, and created heart felt connections with them.

Three days later I was moved up to the Fell-A ward on the fifth floor, progress was being made. I had requested to be taken off the pain pump, as the hallucinations were more than I could bear. I knew the dose was dangerously high and I was tired of hovering between dimensions. At one point during a heightened hallucination I was absolutely certain I was dying, and it was such a negative experience that I stopped using the pump altogether. I told my pain team to remove it, I did not want it. They respected my request and did so. So when I was put on the fifth floor I became reliant on the nursing staff to bring me my medications at regular intervals. 

During the day my experiences on the fifth floor were wonderful. I had such beautiful nurses, women like Rita, and Kaye, and Claudette were just so sweet and gentle and nurturing. But at night things changed at T.O. Western, and it was like being transported into a prison hospital; the personal degradations I experienced were horrifying, humiliating, and among the deepest betrayals I have ever experienced. Laying in ones own urine for nearly an hour, because no one will answer the nurse call is humiliating. Messing ones bed and laying upon it for nearly an hour is even more humiliating. After a week of nightly humiliating and atrocity one of the PSW's, a hilarious and gorgeous man named Rene (who preferred I call him Mr. Right lol) told me he was getting the Nurse Manager. I asked him not to, as I did not want things to get even worse at night, but he was livid at the treatment I had received. So a very kind woman came to see me, who's name I do not recall. She listened intently as I described to her how I would hit the call button every five minutes, first stating I needed help to the bathroom, and how each five minutes I would more urgently plead for assistance to the commode, and how eventually every five minutes I would state "I have wet my bed please come help me"... she was mortified, to say the least. I told her that many nights I would go for four or five hours between instant release pain meds, when I was on a two hour schedule. I explained how I had had an accident while getting myself to the bathroom one night, because no one would help me, and that when a PSW finally came to my room I asked her to please wipe the urine off my legs, and she said it wasn't her job, a PSW would clean me up in 5-6 hours.

After that talk with the nurse manager, I no longer suffered any more humiliation.

Let me please clarify here now, that aside from these night time shift issues, my experiences on Fell-A fifth floor were positive.

My final three days at T.O. Western were glorious, as my day shift nurse was a young man named Logan, who I instantly took a shine to. My night nurse was Claudette, a woman less than a year from retirement, who I had a deep heart connection with. I called her humming bird, as she was always humming gospel music and hymns. And she called me Jay bird, as I spent my first week on the ward naked under my blankets, experiencing viscous hot flashes, and wriggling out of my gown every time they put one on me. She was preparing for a trip Guyana with her husband to visit family, and enjoyed Sudoku so I gave her a big book of puzzles for her trip. I hope to visit the fifth floor in April when I go see my surgeon for a follow up, and I do so hope to see Claudette again.

Logan was an angel; truly born to nurse. This incredible young man, only 28 years old, was so competent, caring, attentive and sweet. He never missed a dose, or skipped a beat. In my early days on the ward he was witness to some violent projectile vomiting on my behalf, due to the insanely high dose of my pain pump. Later he told me that in all his years of school and work he'd never seen anyone puke as forcefully or as far as me, if there were a medal... I'd have won it lol. We shared lots of giggles. And I made sure before I was discharged that he knew in no uncertain terms that I adored him, and hoped he would always keep his zeal, passion and bedside manner - he helped me heal tremendously in his three days assigned to me.

I was released into the care of Toronto Rehabilitation Institute where the real healing truly took place. I have nothing but positive things to say about the facility, the staff, and every single detail. I was admitted on a Monday morning, and discharged that Friday. I was among a very small number of people discharged in under a week; the healing that took place there was nothing short of miraculous.

All of the nurses were wonderful, but I fell in love with Kokila, and Veleda, and I literally broke down crying when I was leaving. I waited at the nurse station as they were paged, and i hugged them both so tightly and thanked them. And they both teared up as well and told me to see them on my next appointment date; March fifth I will go visit them after I see my pain doctor, and I will take them both a card. I love them both so deeply and dearly.

I learned so very much about myself during my nearly three weeks in hospital and rehab; the most powerful thing I have taken away from those weeks is that I am strong. I am so very compassionate and kind, and I kick ass. I worked my butt off trying to heal, to get up, to walk. I worked so hard at my physio therapy, and my thanks go out to Tish and Margaret, my physio team at TRI. They helped me kick ass, and they approved my early discharge, as they saw how hard I was working, and they knew how driven I was to get home to my daughter and husband and pets. 

I feel so very blessed. I have been home a week and a half, and tomorrow it will be one month since my surgery. I am in pain at every moment, but it is the pain of recovery now; no longer the pain of disease and degradation.  My lumbar spine has been reconstructed, and as the weeks pass into months I will regain my ability to walk without the need of a walker or cane, and I have goals I will reach. I have lost 49 pounds since December 14th, and I will keep working at that, as I wish to spend my next forty years in healthy vitality. I want my outsides to finally match my insides; I am strong, beautiful, and fortified. 

My pain doctor, a wonderful man named Dr. Flannery, is a friend and colleague of my surgeon, Dr. Stephen Lewis; and he has offered to take me on simply because he can - it's a huge blessing, as there is currently a 14 month wait time for pain management in the Greater Toronto Area. He knows my goals, and he is going to help me attain them. One of my goals is to take my daughter back to school shopping in August, in a big shopping mall, and to be able to walk all over the mall with her, without aid, and without pain. He believes it is possible. And so do I.

I am grateful for this entire experience, all of it, the lonely scary nights, the beautiful moments of connectivity with nurses and staff; it all reiterated to me that people are at the core good, and kind, and that more than this: I am strong.

I am so much stronger than I ever hoped to give myself credit for. 

And I am only just beginning to tap into the vast reaches of my own potential. 

And for this I am grateful. To myself. I can't wait to see what I will do next.

The Hole in the Road

It has been some time since my last blog entry; I must admit I had considered giving it up as I felt I had reached a wall. However the urge to write hits again and here I am, comfortably manifesting thought into written word as though nary a day has passed. Comfort; there is a soothing quality in familiarity that the human spirit yearns for. Perhaps it is why we choose the safe road more often than not, and opt to remain rooted in our every day repetitive lifestyles. If life is but a dream please don't wake me, I am content within my slumber.

I am two days away from my spinal revision surgery, which I've talked about elsewhere here with regards to my spinal diseases. I have waited over four years for this big day, impatiently, and with something far reaching from grace. Yes, I have found myself resorting to complaint often enough to feel some shame at acknowledging my own lack of faith in the uniformity of the Universe. And yet, I do have faith as deep as the ocean; sometimes it's well buried beneath mountains of worry and hubris.

I have been riding a perimenopausal wave of hysteria in the last week, expecting much more of me and mine than a soft soul would; feeling the ebb and flow of anxiety wash over me like cold prickling needles. The fear has set in and I have finally looked it in the face. While I have been waiting for, and anticipating this life altering surgical procedure, I have altogether neglected looking at the whole picture. This is a critical surgery which holds the very keys to my liberty; a six to eight hour sleep on a surgical table will determine the physical outcome for the rest of my days in this body.

If all goes well, I will regain my ability to walk without crippling and deforming pain.

If all does not go well I will remain stooped, hunched, relying upon canes and walkers to move small distances. And eventually the erosion of my spinal cord will result in a wheel chair for legs.

And the pity party ensues. And it gives me great pause as I remember all I have learned in the last thirty years of this journey of conscious spiritual awakening. I am such a wonderfully foolish woman.

While flipping through the tv channels a few days ago I fell upon a PBS special by Dr. Wayne Dyer, called Wishes Fulfilled, and near the beginning he made such a powerful analogy in which he paraphrased a dearly departed friend of his; I would like to share it with you.

His friend was given five cue card sized pieces of papers, and asked to use each piece to write a short version of the five chapters of her life. Her creation was beautiful. On the first paper she wrote:

Chapter 1: I walked down the road, never saw what was coming and fell into a hole. I was angry, bitter and blaming. It took me a long time to get out.

Chapter 2: I walked down the road, I a saw the hole, I fell in. I was angry. How could anyone leave a whole this size here? How come they did not fix it? Why don’t they have it blocked off  . . . It took me a long time to get out.

Chapter 3: I walked down the road, I saw the hole and I fell in any way. This time I knew it was of my making. This time it took very little time for me to get out.

Chapter 4: I walked down the road. I saw the hole. This time I walked around the hole and continued on down the road.

Chapter 5: I walked down a new road.

Don't we all do this? Rather than learn from our mistakes, we punish ourselves for them, and yet end up repeating them in some context or another. It is human nature, we simply have a very difficult time putting a stop to damaging cycles in our behaviours and thought processes, and we battle victimization and pity rather than seeing the blessing in learning from negativity.

Fear has taught me so many wonderful lessons in my life; and if you're a regular reader of my blog you know I have weathered panic disorder for the most part of my adult life, so I have had my share of fear and worry. Yet I keep falling into the hole, even though I see it. And then I blame it on circumstance.

I am so human.

In two days I will surrender my will and my body to a man I have absolute faith in; he knows his profession and I have no doubt he will do his utmost best to repair my damaged lower spine. I will commune with Spirit and the Mother (I am not comfortable with "god", I talk to the life energy in the Universe, and I call her Mother, as I am more at home in the vision of an omnipotent maternal being who would hold me to her bosom in warmth and nurturing) and put my will to rest for a spell. And then I will awaken, sore, groggy, displaced, and alive.

If you may, please spare a blessing for me on Friday. But more than this, please spare a blessing for my daughter, and my husband, who have spent so much time in this last year caring for me, helping around the house, and taking on more responsibility as my ability to move has declined. Put them in your thoughts with care and compassion, as they worry for me, and resume a normal daily life as I convalesce in the Hospital. And then send a blessing into the Universe with a simple "thank you" on my behalf, as I indeed am and will be eternally grateful for the blessings in my life.

I am glad to return to this endeavour  I do hope you will enjoy this journey with me as it continues onwards, ever onwards.

With all my humility and ever-present love,

Re-Scripting the Persona

Yesterdays blog post was repugnant, full of fear and loathing and uncertainty.

I'm so glad I finally posted it; within minutes of hitting submit I felt a weight lift from my heart. And my intuition began to nudge me again, in a way I haven't felt in way too long.

I think; no I know no one hurts me like I do. Six years ago I lost my dad to a sudden massive heart attack. It was unexpected and heart crushing as he was my abuser and enemy for so long, and yet in the last four years of his life we found even footing.

He began to respect me as a mother, and stopped seeing the screw-up he was so accustomed to seeing me as. We began to enjoy one anothers company and it was so freaking cathartic. To forgive someone who hurt you relentlessly is difficult; I spent years carrying a heavy grudge around with his name on it. But the second he began to treat me with kindness I dropped all of those feelings of being done wrong by. I simply let it go, it wasn't an issue anymore. The moment I heard he had died I forgave him everything. All I could feel was forgiveness and love.

I never really processed his death, I hid in my spirituality and ideals and never truly grieved.

In the six years since he passed away I have gone through a spiral into a very dark place. I needed (on a subconscious level) to know where he was, that he was ok, so I started searching areas I never before cared to explore. And I found things I wasn't prepared to handle. And along the way I realized God was dead.

I have blogged numerous times about my inability to believe in God any longer; it's no surprise, I cannot believe in a being so small minded. I believe the Universe is driven by something infinite and full of potential, however I cannot call that presence God - the word God is to small to cover something so all encompassing.

My spirituality sort of hinged on my belief in this notion of a loving paternal God, and as I realized he never truly existed in the way I thought he had, my spiral into darkness accelerated.

I do wonder who I am if i'm not Dee the Tarot Reader; D'est Ra the spirit voice of infinite possibilities. But I know even those ideas of who I was were just facades; more characters in a self-produced play.

So it hit me after last nights explosive blog post, I realized that I was mourning nothing more than a shadow; Dee the Spiritualist never truly existed because the core of that Spirituality was a farce.

It was a stepping stone into a wider truth which doesn't require God. I don't need brimstone or even magick (though I do mourne it) because now what I know is known on a cellular level; we are infinite energy - our consciousness is beyond identity. We do not begin and end with our self-aware sense of personality. We are beyond ego. Of course these are all things I knew before, but now I know them in a different way. I guess I feel finally the profundity of responsibility that lies within because there is no fate or destiny and we truly are the creators of our own reality and experience of it as such.

Deepak Chopra (a very wise dude) said that we live in two realities - the one we perceive, and the existential reality. I think I'm starting to really get a grasp on just how my perception has driven my own Awakening process, and how falsified that makes any awakening because perception is flawed at best. How I see reality matters only to me; and my insane and anxiety-driven need to categorize my reality and understand every single part of it is only part of the deep fear within me.

That fear that has been within me for so long; which manifested as panic disorder 11 years ago... it is something I've tried to transcend, thinking it made me weak, that it was a sign of an unenlightened soul. And yet I see so clearly now how the fear within me is not the thing to escape or grow out of and beyond; it is the crux of the false identity I have within me. It was scripted by painful perception, oppressed perception, and I carried into adulthood and parenthood and held on to it thinking it defined me.

But I refuse to define myself through my previous fearful notions of myself.

Today I am born again; blank slate - ready to paint a new canvass. I think I have to really start working, and I mean putting in my due diligence, and begin to get to know myself.

And isn't that the human condition? Isn't that what we all strive to do with this life; come to know who we are in relation to the world and Universe around us.

I have been far too hard on myself for far too long. I hold myself to unreachable standards, and because I fall short every time I end up feeling self-loathing, and I bottle it up and hide deep within where it festers and leaves emotional scar tissue.

I'm a really kind person, with so much empathy and love within me. I've been hurt in many many ways and instead of letting go of those painful experiences I held them against myself, quietly and deep inside. I hold myself responsible for things other people did to me; that's twisted and pointless.

My husband has been telling me for years I'm too hard on myself, and I think maybe I finally agree.

So I'm going to take the road less traveled and start forgiving myself - and letting go. Along this path I know I will re-establish my spiritual center - and maybe my feet will find solid footing again.

I will never again look too closely at something I know I shouldn't see. I am going to rewrite this persona; this character known as Dee. I will rewrite her over the coming weeks and months, and eventually "she" will be much more comfortable in her own skin.

God vs. Universe

When I think about God, in the Biblical sense, the new age spiritual sense, and the universal sense, I tend to find myself with more and more questions. God as we've designed it just can't sustain a deep sense of peace within me. There are too many variables and inconsistencies for me to believe in God in the way we do on Earth.

The Biblical God is very dual, exhibiting both love and anger, and is far too human in his actions and reactions for me to buy him as anything more than a man-made construct. Most of the Bible is recycled Pagan lore and myth anyway.

The new age spiritual God is too elusive and enigmatic for me to take very seriously as well; this God is never angry and always so loving, like the eternally optimistic hippies who no doubt dreamed it into being.

A Universal God is the closest I can come to accepting an intelligent omnipotence in any way, and even when I try to think of a Universal God-Being the idea is far too emotionally driven to feel "right" within me.

For as long as man has had the ability to look up into the night sky, man has had a yearning to feel accepted and validated by something/one far more superior to us. Why? What creates this insecurity that drives us to cling to the most comfortable or frightful God-Myth we can?

God on the whole makes me anxious, nervous, not quite good enough, and abandoned/rejected at large. I cannot buy into a God concept, and when I do refer to God I am generally using a term people will relate to, but don't in any way mean it in the way most receive it.

To me, "God", is energy - and energy is neither happy nor sad; energy does not punish and reward. The Sun does not shine on us when we're being good, and hide behind clouds when we're misbehaving. Lightning doesn't strike murderers. Flood waters don't wash over the evil incarnate and ebb for the peaceful masses.

Energy is what drives life; it is what created our Universe, our Galaxies, our Solar System, and inevitably our Planet, our bodies, our atomic structures. We are here because of the grace of energy, and long after our physical bodies shrivel up and blow away our energy will continue to roam the Universe.

When I am feeling low, lonely, despondant, all I need to do is look at imagery that the Hubble Space Telescope has captured of the various Nebulae in our Universe. There is more beauty in space than the imagination can even fathom, and when I lose myself in the gaseous colors in a Nebula of newly forming stars I feel the most peaceful and at ease with my "place" in the world.

Look at the Eagle nebula and you'll feel something tug within your heart, something like familiarity, maybe even a sense of melancholy or "home-sickness".

Eagle Nebula

This image is not tampered with, it isn't CGI or art - it is real. This nebula is birthing new stars, new solar systems, and we are but drops in a minute bucket in the life of a nebula. 

Hubble Telescope orbits Earth

The Hubble Telescope is just outside of Earth's Atmosphere, and yet it captures crystal clear images from all over our Universe. I am humbled by the men and women who designed this piece of technological marvel; and the heroic men and women who regularly go into orbit in order to service and maintain the telescope.

The first time I ever saw the Orion Nebula as captured by Hubble, I wept; the feeling of humility and awe was overwhelming, and the sheer size, the colors, the beauty of the gasses and new born stars and galaxies stills my chattering mind. Finally, I can quiet my seeking brain and just settle into a sense of secure peace and tranquillity.

Orion Nebulae - Cradle of Stars

Again, this image is real - there is no tampering involved - this is a trillions by trillions of miles huge Nebula which is literally a nursery for newly forming stars. These stars are in a "cradle" within the deep valley shown above, and the winds whip the chemicals around, the high temperatures molding new stars which thusly begin to form new solar systems. In a billion years these solar systems may be fully formed, with planets revolving round suns, some with atmospheres and conditions to support life. And that knowledge makes me feel small, utterly ridiculous, impotent, and joyful. 

The concept of God makes me feel heavy and judged. And yet these images of our Universe make me feel love deep within me, in a way which transcends the love we feel for each other; this is the love that sits within the seat of the "soul" and requires nothing and no one for it is all it needs - self-sustained and infinite. Love of that calibre is the energy which drives me as a Spiritual person. 

This myth we're living on Earth today creates so much strife, separation and heartache. The "my God is bigger than yours" pissing contest we've been having since the dawn of man is so fear-fueled and childish. You have nearly 7 billion people on this big beautiful planet, who are getting up every day to go to a job which is most likely more about making ends meet than feeling passionate or joyful about a task one is good at. We do this every day, until we're too old or sick to continue, then we slowly wait to die. It's the same all over the earth - we're born, we're indoctrinated into a socially acceptable education system where we are programmed to become cogs in the wheel so that we can move into the world as worker ants to serve those who create the rules; those who write the myths.

And yet, it will all fall away, as civilizations prove through historical accuracy to constantly and consistently do, and one day we will be buried under millions of years of rubble, rock and sediment, and some far off race will unearth a peace of our reality and try to decode us in order to better understand how they could have possibly evolved from such primal beings. And the Nebulae will continue to form and flourish and mystify,  and the Universe will continue to expand, and Stars will be born and die out over and over. And God seems to have little impact on this as far as I'm concerned. 

If this conscious sentient omnipotent being truly existed, don't you think he'd have far better things to do than listen to your prayers for a better job, or that new house, or a cure for your disease? The Universe is immense, we can't even wrap our heads around the sheer size of it - is it possible that it was all created 7-13 thousand years ago by a wrathful moody God? You think God created the absolutely miraculous beauty of our world, our solar system, our Galaxy and Universe, and then took up residence in our heavenly atmosphere in order to punish us for infractions? How could there be infractions - God has said to give us Free Will.

It's all far too contradictory and needy. It's human nature to seek validation; I seek it within. I'm the only living breathing being in existence who really cares how many negative thoughts I have, or how many kind acts I commit per day, or how often I meditate, or smile, or eat, or empty my bladder... no one else cares about my drama the way I do. And if there was a God who did give a rats about my drama, I couldn't buy into it's dogma.

God, or a Great Omnipotent Deity simply doesn't add up to my understanding of the Universe. God is too limited, too closed minded and angst-driven, and can in fact be downright mean. 

No, if I need validation of how foolish my need to be validated is, I'll just look up into the sky.

Rosette Nebulae

Cat's Eye Nebulae

If images of Nebula don't give you the same sense of peace they do for me, perhaps a view of other Solar systems and Galaxies outside of our own, as shared by Hubble. This is just a small portion of space - a minuscule amount of space focused on by Hubble - and yet each bright light is a burning sun at the center of its own Galaxy.

The Deep Field - Northern Detail.

Our Universe makes me feel so small, so insignificant, so un-necessary and at the same time, as a result of this, I feel more peace than I can describe. I don't need to define life or God or perception when I'm gazing into the infinite nature of our Universe, as the sheer size and force of energetic power dwarfs any insecurity I have within my biology.

I am at One with the Universe.

I hope you feel this Oneness too.