tapestry

  A few weeks ago I was with a dear soul who I hadn’t seen in a number of months.  Our time together was much too short, but given the spiritual challenges he is facing the brevity of our time together was completely understandable.  One of the comments he shared with me was about his desire to be transparent.  I have thought a lot about that word in the past couple of weeks and thought on this day of resurrection it would make a very appropriate topic.   Many years back I heard an interesting interpretation on the crucifixion of Jesus.  As we know there were others that were nailed to the cross at the same time that Christ was.  The interpretation that was shared was this; imagine the person on the left represented our past and the person on the right was to exemplify the future and Jesus was the present, the middle or in the moment, which is all we have.  I was struck by this vision with the thought that one of his many teachings is to have presence in the present.  As I thought about more about this metaphor I realized that one of the goals of being transparent in life is the ability to be in the moment.  The definition for transparent I found suggests it is “an object that lets light through so that objects on the other side can be seen clearly” .In my daily desire to be transparent or free of deceit I realize that each day I have to die to the old to be born to the new, for me that means there are crucifixions and rebirth’s regularly. For those of us who want to be authentic, transparency is not a destination rather a journey that requires constant reflection, assessment and inventory of our lives.   My hope is that whatever the meaning of Easter has for you that today you check with your inner voice and ask if you are free of deceit.  Are you fully living in the knowing that Easter represents resurrection, both of a man of great wisdom and an opportunity for you to be visible enough for people to see who you are and what you stand for.  I also  reminded myself today that I had to become everything I wasn’t to become everything that I am, and that once the rock was removed from the tomb of my own darkness that I would have to die over and over again to find the peace in being a woman that  has the ability to be seen clearly.

Last week I was having a conversation with someone I love dearly.   During that conversation I made the comment “I have been to the mountaintop”.  I was even a bit surprised those words came out of my mouth.  I am not one of those people who has had a “white light experience” or nothing as profound  as near death expereince.  But I do feel I have been to the mountain top.  And then as I watched the activities of the last two days with the Inaugration of our 44th President Barack Obama, I started to ponder more about what that means to me. 

What I realized this mornning was  the feeling  I wanted to convey during the conversation that didn’t happen was, for me at the top of the mountain”Everything Makes Sense and Nothing Makes Sense”.  Michael Beckwith of Agape Spiritual Center, Culver City, CA, was speaking on Spiritual Liberation two weeks ago in Denver.  I credit much of the evolution of my consciousness to being able to attend his center for 7 years while living in Southern California.  During the 3  hour presentation I experienced many emotions and a soul massage.  During one of the meditations he does with his wife Rickie Byars Beckwith chanting in the background I was elevated to the top of the mountain once more.   While at the top, everything made sense to me…Unconditional Love, Joy, Peace and Understanding are found.  I felt connected, both to the spark of light that I know is spirit within me, but to those around me and those that I love.  Everything felt right, whole complete including me. 

So how does the “Nothing Makes Sense” fit?  Once I came back to the heartland and tried to connect to those people I love nothing that I felt that evening was present for me.  But the experience of the mountaintop doesn’t go away.  I am really struggling with some personal issues in my life right now, and without the mountain top experience I would probably not have hope.  But because I am able to recognize the top I know that it is attainable.

I would want you to know that you don’t have to have a white light experience or even die and come back to life, but when we chose to connect, really authentically connect with our fellow travelers we can get there.  That at that moment when you feel like everything makes sense, all things fit together,  when all pain is void of anything but understanding and agape love you are at the top of the mountain.  And when nothing makes sense that is a part of the mountain top experience also.  We have to have both experiences to know …to be light.

When Rick Warren led our country, nation and world in  the Lord’s Prayer yesterday, my face was wet with tears.  I know one of the obligations I have is to create more of heaven on earth.  And I know it isn’t something that one can do alone…will you climb with me to the top of the mountain?  Will you help our nations leaders by Inaurgating (commence officially) a  new way of being? 

Namaste’

I have been playing with the concept of contracts, those that we are here to fulfill while we are on the planet.  Caroline Myss has a wonderful book out about the topic and I found myself re-reading some of the passages this past week.

One of the archetypes that she identifies that I certainly can admit to is “addict”.  The premise behind this is that we come into this lifetime to complete, a spiritual contract in this case recover from addicition.  It got me thinking about recovery in a different way.   I know that AA who I credit for helping me get sober might have a different opinion on the subject, but what if our addicition/recovery is more about fulfilling our souls contract?  For me that takes on as much or more meaning than “the disease”.    Dis-ease would be more appropriate…the fact that we are not comfortable inside and part of that would be related to our quest for something bigger.  I have always felt my own addiction was a “homesick for heaven” feeling.

I then began to think about contracts I might have with other people in my life.  We know that people come into our lives for a reason, season or a lifetime.  Is there a person in your life or situation in your life that you feel might have a sacred contract with?

If so ponder the following:

• What is the contract you agreed to complete with the person before you came into being?
• Have you fulfilled that contract and need to move on?
• If you haven’t fulfilled it, what needs to happen in order to complete it?
• Are you hanging on to something that has been completed for a long time but choose not to move?
• What more contracts might there be to be fulfilled, what are the upcoming lessons for you?

If you have successfully completed your contract with the addict in you congratulations, if you haven’t what if you considered it a part of your souls purpose?

What happens when you look back and realize that your life has been paused.  I can see that most clearly now as I reflect back on my last entry in September.  So many winds have blown through the heartlands where I now reside, but none strong enough until today for to realize my life has been on hold.  I have a DVR now that I love because I can put shows in my que that I want to watch and can view them at the time most convenient for me.  Little did I know that I had literally done the same thing with my life.

For the past several months, I have literally felt shut off from myself.  I have functioned, and even been able to suit up and show up as my first sponsor taught me.  That miracle is not lost on me.  I wasn’t however thriving, rather surviving.  Lois Wilson ((Bill’s wife) started Al-anon many years back realizing that the additiction to a person can be as strong and as fatal as an addiction to substance.  Just as I have continued to work on my addiction to alcohol, I have had to keep in the front of my mind the fact that have a propensity to be “over the top” with people as well.

I realized this weekend after going through a rough patch in my personal life that I didn’t feel like I was in my own skin, mostly because I was desperately trying to get into someone elses skin.  Futile….and I know better.  I am coming up on 4 months since I have come to this place to write, with the full realization that I have been floating somewhere between my world and the world that I thought I was moving toward.

I was reminded once again this weekend that recovery from substance, people or even control requires much more than not drinking or dialing.  It asks of us at times the thing we feel is impossible.  Abstainance of thought or feeling the need to leave our bodies and our minds.  It requires checking in to see where we are, who and what is occupying space rent free in our minds. 

I come back to this place hoping that it will remind me through you of why I am here and what I can do to keep myself in the middle of the bed.

When I first got sober I remember reading in the big book, we can’t think our way into right actions, but act our way into right thinking.  I remember reading it an not really making the connection that I probably should have, but then you remember those first days when you are literally coming out of the ether?  Nothing and everything made sense, you could hear things and sort of understand the implications but there was a part of you that either didn’t want to get it or couldn’t for some particular reason.

If your recovery has been anything like mine and still is today, I used to try to think through everything, and in fact sometimes that process alone paralyzes me.  I have a tendency to go over and over the same information, situation or event until I have exhausted each and every path of the decision or thought.  And then I am exhausted and wonder why I am?

When you are faced with an opportunity to do something different today how do you respond?  When it feels like you have been in this situation before, do you think about it an then act or to you act and then think.  I think for those of us in recovery both are important.  I know that in my past I used to respond to most situations, I thought the first person in the arguement with the biggest words won.  And now I realize that isn’t the case.  I also used to think that I could have a “right life” if I thought about it.  What I have come to learn is that sometimes doing the right thing lends itself to right living.  So what is right living?  The Aramaic definition of sin is “off the mark”, notice that doesn’t say wrong, bad or disgusting, rather we didn’t hit the target.  The target in each situation we are faced with can be different.  But the target in most instances I think is doing the right thing so that we don’t hurt others, that we find compassion for each other and the path our lives has taken, and being mindful of any new karma we might create for ourselves and others.

Recently I have been given a chance to act my way into right living, and honestly I would give myself a D-.  I have been given an opportunity to revisit a lesson that I should have gotten in my early 20’s.  I guess I could say I didn’t see it coming, or the person that showed up to teach me the lessons felt and looked much different that the experience I had 30 years ago.  All of those things are true in this case, but the lesson is still the lesson and I haven’t done a very good job at learning.  I spent a good two weeks trying to think through it, ponder the hows and the whys, and the details.  But what I have come to learn in the last few days is that I can only change the way I act in response to the situation to find my center again.  Because you see what I think we each were looking for in our addiction is that “peace that surpasses understanding”, that inner place I talked about last weekend.

So the thoughts I would leave you to ponder today are:

• Have you noticed your thinking lately?
• Has your thought process brought you anxiety or peace?
• Who are you blaming for your situation today, could you act different and remove the blame?
• If people saw your thoughts what would they make of them?
• Are your actions in alignment with your words, in other words, are you congruent?

I finally reached this place toward the end of this past week.  I believe that when we get the clutter of our thoughts out of the way we are able to really hear the voice of God in the situation.  The reason why something happened or the reason why we might have failed the test again is because we don’t take the time to hear what god wants us to know.  What I got  this week when I finally allowed the voice of spirit to come into the mix was to hear and get to the place where I could begin to act in a way that felt right to me.

In my last post I mentioned that I was going to make a move back to California.  Well as it usually happens I made plans and God laughed…the god of my understanding has a tremendous sense of humor.  Suffice it to say that that trip didn’t happen and I am not in California.  One of the benefits of working on my own evolution of consciousness is that I am getting better, not the best for sure at paying attention.  I think it is demonstrated by the fact that I have honed that sense that I find myself in Sidney, Nebraksa, which I will now call home.  The “road to home” and finding home however was paved with some wonderful opportunities for me and has provided me with a greater understanding of what home means to me.  This morning as I woke I knew it was time to come back to these pages and continue my work, and share with you the discovery that the last 60 days has provided me.  I always know that if I really pay attention signs will come to me about next steps, and this morning’s Hazelden quote is no exception here is the quote for July 27, 2008~~

“Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom, which flows through your life.  Then, without effort, you are impelled to truth and to perfect contentment.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love language and words and the word that jumped out at me in this quote is “impelled”, when I looked up the definition of it I liked it even more  “to drive or cause to move onward; propel; impart motion to“.  This even brought more meaning to the day and my topic of finding home.  You see I left Colorado with only one thought in mind, I needed to keep moving.  Not the running away that I had become common during my drinking days, but rather  create movement, momemtum, mandatory motion as I have felt is key to our sense of direction.  It is only when we are moving toward something do we know if that is where we are supposed to be.  I now know that I was impelled, and that is how I discovered home again for me.  

Thirty three years ago I left my home state of Nebraska, and honestly never looked back.  I was still in college and already very practiced in my drinking career.  My life has afforded me some incredible opportunities, chances to see and do things that many in my home state probably won’t ever see or do.  And what the last 60 days has done is brought me back to my home state of Nebraksa.  You see I had to leave what I thought was my home to learn what home really is. 

I traveled from Pagosa across many miles that I had covered before, visited places that I had been before in much younger skin, saw and connected with friends that I hadn’t seen in many years.  I literally had to take a road trip to find home.  And all of the miles that I put on me and Isabella in the last 60 days have led me to one conclusion  Home isn’t a place, an address, a relationship, a job….home is wherever I am that peace resides.  It is an inner place, not necessarily associated with a physical address.  I learned this through the process of being homeless and jobless where the things that I had in my possession were the things that I had learned living in the mountains were what was important, and those were few.  My journal, my animal medicine cards that carry wisdom when I choose to use them, my laptop because I am an information junkie, and probably most important my companion Isabella who turned 5 this past week.

During this past 60 days I also met someone that I am certain I will never forget.  It has been said that we all have a twin, someone that is an absolute reflection of who we are, how we show up in the world and comes into our world to provide an accurate reflection of our soul.  My encounter with my twin was brief, but likely one of the most powerful experiences I have ever had.  And what I realize is that in order for me to meet and experience this beautiful soul I had to come home, to me and to my home state.  I am dreadfully sad it was such a brief encounter, and continue to pray…for more.

Joseph Campbell’s, “The Hero’s Journey” is the only reason I can explain why I am here because for anyone who knows me knows this new life defies logic as we know it.  But what I am going to do is invite you to continue with me on this adveventure in the heart of America…because it is the heart and I believe I have much to learn from being here.

Two years ago I made a move to the mountains here to build at that time what I thought was my work and my purpose. I came with a full knowing that I belonged here, and that my work here would flourish. Pagosa Springs is a small mountain community of 1400 people. Over the past two years I have been honored by 10 women who have crossed the threshold of Tapestry Lodge to find themselves, and to free their lives of drugs or alcohol. And amazingly enough 50% of them are on the road to recovery, all of the credit I give to this magical place I live.

It has come to my attention, no rather more accurately my checkbook that I am however unable to continue supporting my dream in this environment. Some of it is financial, but I would have to say the majority of it is emotional. You see, I love “the work”, some of you won’t need me to define what that is you will get it, and some of you might not. But I love working and being able to be a part of a larger picture. I finally realized two weeks ago that I wasn’t, I was isolated and not contributing at the level I believe I can.

So in the next few weeks I will be transitioning my dream back to Southern California. I read this quote yesterday and I believe it captures my current mindset

“The dream in your heart my be bigger than the environment in which you find yourself. Sometimes you have to get out of the environment in order to see your dream fulfilled.” -Joel Osteen.

As a part of my coaches training I learned that as adults (and yes I am one today) we have to be able to let go of certain things to be able to learn new. I am taking that to heart as I prepare for this transition. I know I came here with my dream, but was it God’s will for my life? I came here thinking that the Lodge was my work, but in fact my scars and the journey I share with many of you is my work.

Are you are a transition point in your life? Could it be that you need to get out of your environment for your dreams to take off. Are you able to let go of the way you thought it was going to be and stay open to the possibility? I encourage you just as I have had to d over the past few months to really open up to what your heart and your dream is telling you.

One night this week as I was getting ready to get comfortable and watch Intervention, I glanced out the window to see a herd of Elk coming down from the mountains into the valley that I live in. In the two years I have been here I haven’t seen a herd this size. They are majestic animals. I was struck by how they stuck together, feeding and almost watching each other to make sure of their safety.

Frequently when I see such a force of nature in my world I consult with my animal medicine cards to learn what they stand for and what they are here to teach us. So this morning I looked up Elk and found their energy means “stamina”. I thought the additional lesson that I got from reading is especially important for us women in recovery. I read ” Elk medicine means it may be important for you to see the company of your own gender for awhile. You may need a support group to realign yourself with the stamina of the warrioress energy that you are apart of. ”

The reading also goes on to suggest that you may want to look at how you are holding up physically to the stresses in your life, and to pace yourself. I thought all of these comments were particularly appropriate for those of us who are now dedicated to living a life with purpose and passion. I am learning it takes a tremendous amount of stamina to hold fast to the dream, to sort through what part of the work is yours and what part is that of the greater universal being.

What is your stress level? Is it true that you might need to hang with your herd? Are you bracing yourself for the long haul in this life of recovery? Are you giving yourself permission to follow instead of lead. I am grateful today to the elk as they provided me the opportunity to go inside once again and see where I am. (more…)

Today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. If you are conscious at all today you will most likely be barraged with news and reminders of that day 40 years ago. My mind this morning immediately went to “how old was I”. The answer is 12 years old. Quickly I thought about who I was at 12, and I would suspect I was free. I already had what King and the country was hoping for. The question came to me, when did I loose that freedom, and I would say the day I took my first drink, which would have been 3 years later at the age of 15. For the next 25 years I was a slave to alcohol. It was my master, my lover, my companion. And in that we all know there is no freedom.

So what happens to us when we really begin to work at our recovery? Freedom does come, and interestingly enough it has a price tag as well. But the price we pay for our work on our path will net life, and not assassination. The price is one of time invested in meetings, pages that are expired on a journal or relationships that need to be let go of.

Today I invite you to ask what you are paying for, are you paying for freedom or are you moving closer to your own death. What I have learned is that moving toward our own death doesn’t just have to be through our addiction, but we can get so far away from our divine purpose in this life that we are slowly dying.

Are you free today????

Today is the second day into the spring season. I was away for a couple of days and had a chance to see some green grass and buds on trees. I wasn’t anywhere tropical but after the winter that we have had here in the mountains it felt like it. As I sit this morning and look at the grounds of the retreat center and the mountains that surround it is easy to see that we are still in between worlds here. There are patches of ground that show, but still a pile of snow that blocks one part of my driveway. I realized that even though spring has officially arrived that we are still living between worlds, or at least seasons.

As you may have noticed I find the world around me always helps me to see and understand where I am in my own journey. And just as it feels like we are between seasons here, I feel as if I am in between right now, in between what I thought my life would be at 52 and what it actually is. It is a place that happens in my recovery I notice when I actually forget who I am. One of my favorite quotes from Conversations with God is that many times “we have to become everything we aren’t to become everything we are.” I know that has been true for me many times throughout my life. Once again I am feeling that I have become everything I am not. This time however it isn’t the same kind of place, it isn’t dark, it doesn’t have me in shackles at I once was. But there is an awareness that the life I have created isn’t as fulfilling as it could be.

So the question to you becomes where are you in regard to the seasons, are you in full bloom as will happen here in the coming weeks. Have you just uncovered yourself from a something that you hope will bring more light into your life. Are you willing to identify if you are in one world/season or split. The one thing we can count on in our lives is change, evidenced by the change in the seasons and the marking of the spring equinox on the calendar. As you begin your day, or end your day spend some time reflecting on your world. There is not right place to be…that is what I have learned from the change of the seasons this year. The thing that is important is that we at least know where we are.