Astrology

The amazing thing about astrology is that it can offer so much insight into one's energetic nature. You could be worse or better or different, but you're not. Astrology isn't about determining your worth or value, but really just designed to give you insight so you become familiar with your energies and know how to build to your strengths, meet your challenges, and fully explore your opportunities.

Self-knowledge is the key to acceptance, which is ultimately the key to fulfilling your pure potential. Once you know who you are, and lovingly embrace and accept all the energies you've come with in this lifetime, and STOP fighting yourself, then you have more fully available energy with which to make choices that honor your best self.

Healing

The most important thing I've learned about healing is that you don't have to go through the details of the past to begin moving forward. But it only works if you do it with love.

Guilt, shame, anger, frustration, disgust, regret, heaviness, all stand in the way of the good stuff, the better stuff, the best stuff.

Making Meaning

I've tired of the great need to make meaning, the endless search for meaning, the compulsive urge to create meaning. The need for meaning is measured by sorrow. No sorrow, no search for meaning.

No one ever asks why or why me in the middle of happiness... No "why did we have a wonderful, beautiful baby?" No "why did I meet the perfect partner whom I love endlessly?" No "why are my finances so strong?" No "why am I so healthy and well?"

The "why" always shows up as sorrow's shadow. The need for meaning, for answers, always accompanies the tragic, the flawed, the grief-stricken, the fallen, the wounded, the injured. I understand the desire to know answers that make sense out of the senseless, and have invested every ounce of who I am in tracking down meaning.

But I'm at a different point now somehow. I don't want answers to questions. Now, I want to live as freely and fully as I can, fearless both because of and beyond any answers I've gotten so far.

Instead of chasing after meaning, I'm letting it come to me. And it's showing up in the most ordinary, wonderful places and people. It's rarely accompanied by angels singing or bright, white lights, and it doesn't take me out of myself nearly as much as it resonates with the best of who I am.

Feels good not to be seeking, searching, struggling, begging the universe to reveal its secrets. I'm making friends with the universe and I'm not so sure it's been keeping secrets anyway....

Not Good Enough

Guilt and shame, awful secrets, destroy the soul from the inside out, toxic and corrosive, eating away at self-respect and self-worth. But there is something equally soul-destroying: undervaluing yourself. Settling for what you think you can get, instead of what you truly want, erodes you self-esteem as badly.

Whatever you've convinced yourself is "not good enough" about you, is the weakness that then defines your decisions. If you don't value yourself professionally, maybe you settle for a job you hate, doesn't pay enough, doesn't honor your talents. If you don't value yourself personally, maybe you settle for relationships that are painful, dishonest, empty.

And when weakness is stronger than any other feeling, when your own bad feelings about yourself are stronger than everything else you know about who you are, you accept people and circumstances into your life that are a practical reflection of that negativity. They are then a constant reminder of your weaknesses made real.

Their presence is painful on their own because of what they are, but even more so because of what they say about you. The awful feeling that you think you aren't good/smart/ special/thin/talented/interesting...enough to live the life you really want, to be the person you really want, to have the relationships you really want.

But acknowledging who you know yourself to be at your best, and admitting that you want a life that reflects that, is an act of courage that is step one toward creating/restoring the life of your dreams. However scary it is to put yourself out there honestly, being clear and simple and straightforward, where others can see and judge you, is actually the freedom you've longed for.

And all the stuff that falls away when you stop hiding yourself is stuff you never wanted anyway.

Spiritual Expert

So many people are looking for the answer. They ask for answers of certitude from spiritual experts, hoping that someone else's experience will point the way for them, a guiding star to lead them toward enlightenment, understanding, transcendent truth. It's natural to see someone with what you want, and want to know how to get it for yourself ~ like peace of mind or an ability to be easy when circumstances are difficult.

The endless marketing in books, magazine, tv shows and the internet features experts on every possible topic. And we are encouraged to become our own experts by consuming the advice and experience of these folks in every field, from real estate to cancer treatment to perfect marriages to diets. It's a tempting notion - to think that since we have access to information that we can/should know the 'right' answer to every question. Of course, you want an expert guiding you if, say, you need tax advice or are having heart surgery.

But when it comes to spiritual matters, what does it mean to be expert? Does it mean that you've read so much scripture that you can literally cite chapter and verse? Does it mean that you've immersed yourself deeply in your spiritual practice? Does it mean someone who teaches others well? Does it mean someone who is articulate and convincing in winning converts to their beliefs? Does it mean someone who puts their principles into practice?

There is only one thing that a spiritual expert can actually be expert about, and that is themselves. A real spiritual expert is someone who has made the choice to live each minute with the careful intention of improving their character, circumstances and relationships using spiritual knowledge, practice and principles. It's as easy to do in India as in Indiana, and it's also as hard.

And when you focus so intently on yourself, you begin to understand how you think, what generates your feelings, how habitual you are, and what it takes to enable you to transform, to become more the person you want to be, and less the person you have ended-up. Your study will be about what you need to know, what is helpful for you, what is true and real in your life.

And if you're successful at making the changes you want in your life, folks will start asking you questions, hoping your experience and expertise can give them the insight and inspiration needed to make similar changes in their own lives. But what you will have really become is an expert on your own transformation. It may or may not work for anyone else.

Even the great prophets learned most what they needed to learn. They become experts on their own journey into perfection. Buddha's journey didn't satisfy Christ, whose journey didn't satisfy Muhammad, whose journey didn't satisfy Joesph Smith, whose journey didn't satisfy.... And on and on it goes.

Certainly, if your prophet, guru, teacher, guide, leader, is the embodiment of spiritual attainment, it is natural to want to follow in their footsteps. It's so much easier than forging the pathway anew, having no idea where to go on your own. And that is the admonition for all followers - to follow well.

But even if you put your foot step-by-step into the footsteps taken before you, there's a good chance that your footstep is a different size, that you stride is a different length, that your gait has a different rhythm. And so all your following will inevitably pull you out of yourself.

Now, that's what so many people are looking for: The One to follow and pull you out of yourself, since heading in your own direction is what got you in trouble to begin with. I have to think though, that each expert, each spiritual leader, each 'steps-worth-following' prophet, wants you to become your own expert as well.

Two Years

It's been two years. Two years since Neptune decided to park herself on my Descendant, turning my T-square into an unavoidable Grand Cross. It left me impaled indelicately at the center of it, twisting and turning and finding no relief from Neptune's relentless dissolving. Every structure, every discipline, every firm boundary previously welded into place turned flimsy.

So much has disappeared in that time. So much has come and even more has gone: jobs and roles and living spaces and friends and associates and addresses and phone numbers and the essential meaning I had assigned to my life. I miss some of it, and others of it I am relieved to be free of. But the underlying truth to all of that is that whatever has faded away from my life, or whatever has been yanked out of it, left because that energy couldn't be sustained.

I have no space for complication, confusion or chaos or the accompanying excitement and drama that are their inevitable companions. I don't need the distraction or the hopefulness of illusion.

I have a couple of movies that seem to bookend this experience, one a story of loneliness and loss, and one a story of connectedness and family. And both end with tragic death, which is the essential human reminder to PAY ATTENTION while you still can. They nicely reflect my own journey, my own waking up to how meaning truly gets made.

It seems a great gift to live long enough to realize that truth and wisdom aren't about the answers nearly so much as the questions. I am deeply suspicious of anyone claiming to have the answers. I was that person for too long, and it carries with it the kind of arrogance that instantly separates you from everyone else. I know some answers, and some that are exactly right for me. But all the answers? To all the important questions? That's got to be reflected in the quality of love you have for everyone else in our very crazy, deeply injured family of humanity.

I don't want to read more books or listen to more lectures right now. I don't want to consult more experts. First, before you say a single word, show me your heart, and how well it works. Then I'll know how true your answers are.

Being Important

I had an idea when I was much younger about living 'an important life.' I wanted to make a difference and be someone who counted, someone who mattered. I didn't want to get stuck in ordinary life, doing ordinary things and being ordinary myself.

Perhaps it's maturity, or experience, or tiredness, or just the realization that 'being important' is a completely artificial construct, but this notion now seems so arrogant.

What is important? And to whom? The important people in my life aren't global movers and shakers, decision-makers and the rich and famous. The important people in my life are the ones who love well, offer caring and support, value what I have to offer, and have time to share a laugh or conversation or even silence.

It is said that "G*d is pleased with an honest heart." Probably 'cause He, along with everyone else, is pleased with the simple, the pure, the real, the truly important. G*d is smart to be pleased with an honest heart; that's important stuff.

I Have a Dream (too)

I know MLK, Jr. had a dream, and I had one too. It just doesn't work for me anymore. It wasn't as universal as MLK's perhaps, or uplifting or inspiring. It was about helping others and making a difference, and that part of the dream still exists.

But the part about how that's going to look, how it will happen, what it requires, has evaporated into smoke. It's gone, and the little that's left is fading quickly, and I can't remember the details of it anymore, like the faint remnants of a dream that you awaken from too quickly.

This awake-dream is fading just as fast, finding no firm footing for it in my life. And I'm moving into my life more and more, leaving some dreams behind, dreaming new dreams whose details are crisp and clear, and whose relevance I can understand.

Journey (Not the Band)

I embarked on this new journey many months ago now. And it has been absolute upheaval since then, but of the most necessary kind. I've given up almost everything but my kitty, who has kept me good company on every part of this journey. Her furry blackness is always a comfort.

I am waiting to sail into the place in my self and in the world where everything finally makes sense. Where I finally feel at home. Where I finally understand my place and where I belong. Where I finally feel fully connected.

I have striven to be an expert, offering my experience and understanding to help others with those very same questions and issues, but I have so little to really offer. I know a lot. I've experimented with a lot. But I don't know the answers for myself - how can I really offer this stuff up from the deepest kind of knowing.

I can't. I can ask questions, offer insights, free up someone's thinking, but I'm not an expert. There's so much I don't know, and so many answers I don't have. And there's no relief greater than admitting to that.

I don't know what folks should be doing with their lives. We can never go wrong being kinder, more loving, more curious, more genuine. But I don't have answers to problems or solutions to issues. I just know how to dig and dig and dig to get to something more true within myself.

It's only one skill, but a fairly useful one. Requires a lot of stamina. A LOT!

Not So Easy

The hardest thing about not knowing where you're going or what you're doing is the not knowing part. Especially if you're someone who likes to have a sense of purpose, a sense of direction, a sense of control.

Because when you don't know, you don't have much of a sense of anything other than some interior compass pushing or pulling you in some or another direction. Which is, at best, difficult to describe or explain to others. And, at worst, you wonder if it's just your imagination at work, pulling you in the wrong direction.

The fear of the unknown is a powerful deterrent against new choices.

Human Need

The raw face of human need is tragic to behold. At its worst, a potential reminder of who we ourselves might be at our lowest. The loss, the loneliness, the lack of... as corrosive as acid, eating away at the soul.

It's heartbreaking to live in a world where human need exists, where basic requirements like love, belonging, understanding, kindness and caring are missing. Heartbreaking even more still to be the one in need.

Isn't this stuff as essential as food and water and shelter? Isn't this the stuff that makes keeping the physical alive worth doing?

In the Fullness of Time

Everything happens in the fullness of time. No matter how strong the temptation to rush and push and force, things have to unfold in their own way. And it usually turns out to be for the best.

There are things about yourself you need to know and learn and discover before you are ready for the dream to come true. It is those moments of waiting, having the luxury of time to think things through, that unlock keys to magical places within.

So often, the dream comes complete with every detail ironed out, every nuance crafted, every subtlety manufactured. But reality leaves plenty of possibility unformed so that all the stuff you never imagined, but will actually enjoy more, can find its way to you.

Requirements

My emotional life is requiring the kind of attention its been denied for this entire lifetime. I have so little fluency in speaking this particular language. I can write, but to express feeling, especially in the form of feeling instead of words, is so foreign.

I am practiced at speaking the language of thoughts and ideas, of spirit and philosophy. Emotion overwhelms and confuses me, hitting too close to home to comfortably share.

This too, I suppose, is part of this new journey....

Flood of Relief

Relief floods over me, having left behind the constant humming energy of the city. I always thought I loved the never-ending movement of life there, but freedom from it is softly exciting. I can breathe all the way in and out, not bothered by the feeling that I have to be somewhere, that I have to do something, that I have to be someone.

I am just here, learning what it feels like to relax and let every part of myself open, inhaling and exhaling fully, no pressure, no stress, no requirement.

Letting Go...Letting It Go

How do you let it go? How do you let go of the thing that keeps gnawing away at you, feeling wrong and on some level just awful? How do you move forward when the hook of someone or something is buried in your emotional flesh, the pull of that sharp edge ripping deeper into you every time to try to move away from it?

How do you stop feeling the pain of the injury? How do you alleviate the constant pressure of something foreign making a home in you? How do you free yourself from this thing without creating even more injury, without deepening the wound?

Maybe you move back a little, easing the tension, creating some slack. Maybe the constant trying to "move on", "move forward", "get over it" is just moving too fast, and that speed is the very thing that's causing that hook to dig deeper and rip further. Maybe you can't actually move forward safely until you let yourself off the hook...

Uncomfortable Lessons

What I learned from that one was that I needed to say "yes" to stuff that I simply refused to acknowledge as possibilities, fancying myself beyond the world of human beings. I was lost in the world of spirit, certain that the company of invisible angels was enough to ally any loneliness.

And what I'm learning from this one is that I need to say a deeper "yes", not getting stuck at halfway solutions, accepting both the humans and the angels, and that part of me that's both as well.

Standing in Judgment

I don't much care if people like me or not. That's their choice, based on who they are, much more so than who I am. But I cannot stand being judged by others. I cannot stand the look of dismissal, condemnation, rejection or disgust that appears once judgment has been passed and I have been found lacking.

It's not because I'm so sensitive to what others think of me. I'm a bit indifferent to other's opinions in a personal way. But what I cannot bear is the hubris of another human being stepping into the space between me and G*d, inserting themselves with an authority completely of their own making, deciding somehow that they have the right to pronounce judgment on me.

It is the ultimate arrogance to assume that you are separate from humanity yourself, and that that separation confers special powers and privileges on you. I think G*d Himself doesn't judge, but simply lets the laws of action and reaction play out, each of us harvesting the fruits, bitter or sweet, of our own choices and decisions.

Why would G*d judge us? He is love. His role is not to judge, but to purify, transform, salvage, uplift and sustain the grievously injured souls of the world. Like any good emergency room doctor, He isn't standing around trying to decide if the patient is worth saving. He knows the value of human life better than we do, and takes immediate action to help the wounded.

Taking on the role of judge happens when you are so disturbed by your own human weakness that seeing it in others threatens you, and so you need some clear way to separate yourself from others. Thinking that they are wrong or defective, and that you are different or better, makes you feel safe and protected. Needing some insurance that you are not the things you reject is quite understandable. Deciding what you want and need to feel safe is fine.

But harshly and coldly judging the content of another's character to ensure your own safety and security is never fine. Anyone who judges another that way doesn't have the kind of love, concern and generosity in their own heart to truly understand anyone else. Human judgment is destructive on every level. It destroys self esteem, it destroys relationships, it destroys societies, with its haughty assumptions and inherent limitations.

If G*d Himself does ever actually judge us, it is with so much love, so much compassion, such deep desire for healing, that His concern itself feels like a blessing.

Confusing Pleasure and Pain XV

The thing about abuse is that you are always wondering. Every new person who comes into your life makes you wonder, "are you the one?" Are you the one who's going to hurt me? Are you the one who's going to destroy all I've worked so hard to fix? Are you the one who's going to turn everything upside down?

Because no matter how good things are, no matter how wonderful they feel, that question is always lurking, defining all your interactions more than you know. It is a constant companion, this question waiting to be asked.

You watch too much, too carefully, too intensely, trying to answer it without having to ask. Trying to know if this really is ok, but realizing you can't know. That the very nature of intimacy is vulnerability, and it's the one things you can just never know about. Because no one ever does.

Every Minute

Every minute is a choice, a chance to move in a different direction. No matter how little breath is left in your lungs, no matter how heavy the weight on your chest, no matter how strong the churning in your stomach, every minute is a choice. Every minute is a chance.

And no matter what the consequence, it's better to move forward, to move ahead, and make the choice you really want to make, no matter how much fear, terror, dread and emotion you feel. 'Cause you know the choice you want to make. You know the choice you always wanted to make. You just never did. Until now.

Now you are making that choice. And, for as scary as it is, it's also the exact thing you really want. And in that is freedom. In that is truth and reality and liberation.

Confusing Pleasure and Pain XIV

The thing about abuse is that the secrets you carry are toxic sludge. And you have become the vessel for this toxic waste, its corrosive nature eating away at the inside of you, from the inside of you.

And as you lose strength from the Herculean effort of merely surviving, you think that the sickness you feel is coming from you. That you are the source of this disease. But it's the toxins that swirl around inside that have made you sick, and will make you sicker still the longer you hold onto them.

There is no safe way to keep this much disease housed within you. There is no emotional or mental or even spiritual strength that will overcome such sickness when it has made its home in you.

The secrets must be evicted. However that needs to happen, whatever method, you have to free yourself from the sickness, from the secrets, before real healing can begin.