Category: Personal blog

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I am the gardener of my psyche.

I make it a practice, to allow myself to be still, where I spend long periods of time in nature.

I often find myself sitting on the bluffs by the ocean, allowing the sun and wind to hold me in a warm cocoon of cool sweeping movements. The pulse of the breeze brings the smell of fresh ocean air, and the living fragrance of nearby flowers and plants. The fullness of my breath becomes the intersect between my inner worlds and the life around me. The infinitude of the ocean allows my mind a certain freedom, where my imagination explores its edge. 

There are worlds always moving within me. 

I find it very important to be as close to these worlds as possible. In these inner realms, I hear messages bubble from the depths of my subconscious, accompanied by elaborate visions of colorful blossoming patterns flowing into melodic passages and tones. The patterns swirling within my psyche arrange themselves into potential paintings, music, and written word. 

Sound and color have little to no distinction in my inner realms. When I paint, it feels as if I am composing music. When I compose music, it feels as if I am painting. And when I write, especially if it is poetic, it simultaneously feels both musical and colorful. It is all one and the same.

As I witness these beautiful patterns flowering within me, watching them organically take shape, I recognize that I am receiving, synthesizing, and translating light. I am receiving light, as a raw living informational substance, and then I am crystalizing it into form. Just like a plant – receiving light from the sun, and through photosynthesis, it creates new leaves and flowers – beautiful, and often colorful, geometric expressions. 

I am no different. I am translating light into form, just as the plant kingdom. My creative process is my version of photosynthesis. 

My creativity is directly connected my unique niche with the greater sphere of life. Just as the role of a plant is to convert light into another form to be utilized by the life surrounding it, my role is the same. 

In uncovering our niche, we strike the source of our deepest joy. We rediscover our place within the tapestry of existence. In this, we join with creation in a balanced exchange of giving and receiving, from a place of naturalness and authenticity. We relate to life from that place of true reality within ourselves. 

In uncovering our niche, we must find balance between celebrating our distinct essence, and honoring what is shared. But before we can honor what is shared, we must first embrace what makes us different, because it is only through our differences where we discover where our unique parts interlock within the whole. This is where we fulfill our niche. And it is only through fulfilling our niche, where we truly understand our connection to the rest of life. 

Just as each flower translates light into a completely unique color, fragrance, and shape, so too are we each meant to translate light in our own unique way. It is through uncovering this unique expression, where we come to know who we actually are. We can’t know ourselves without knowing our function, and we can’t know our function without knowing ourselves. 

We must learn what it means to embrace ourselves, fully. 

When we deny ourselves, wait for someone else’s approval in order to be ourselves, or when we diminish ourselves through comparing ourselves to others, we do the world a disservice. True service and selflessness come through embracing one’s unique essence fearlessly and courageously. 

In my own journey, what this has meant for me, is that I must prioritize my unique creative genius above everything else. My creativity is the vehicle of expression for my core essence, thus it is the most integral aspect in fulfilling my function.  

I come to know myself, through that which I create. 

So I prioritize time to sensitize myself to my inner worlds. I find myself watching and waiting with curiosity, as I move through a process that is beyond my rational understanding. 

It often feels like I am pregnant, like there is an entire universe that is about to rise up from within me. At the same time, it can feel like this random anebulous soup, where I can feel something formulating, but it is still sort of senseless and vague. But it is never dry in this space, for I sense an incredible richness to what stirs within me. 

It is precious, to bear witness to this process, almost like if you could watch an embryo forming within a womb, starting from something totally unrecognizable morphing into something human. It is a miracle. I am watching the miracle of nature unfold within me, as I learn to get out of the way of nature’s intelligent design. 

And that is exactly what I am doing, allowing something of nature to grow from within me. 

I am the gardener of my psyche.

I plant seeds and tend to the garden. I prepare the environment, and then I must get out of the way, so that nature may grow of its own volition. 

I sensitize myself to the biosphere of my inner landscape, noticing the subtleties in ambiance, and the movements of cycles giving way to the inflections of seasons. There is a deep listening occurring. I take note of the subtle changes in mood, feeling, inner vision, and I wait and watch carefully to see what starts to sprout. The creative process is very sacred, very live-giving, especially when done with sensitivity and care. Just as a garden, my psyche is the intersect between my sense of self and the wilderness of nature.

We must remember, that we don’t create who we are. God, nature, designs us. Our job is to allow ourselves to grow into what we naturally are. This means trusting the intelligence of nature within us. And this often means simply just being still for a while, creating space within ourselves so that nature has room to work its magic. 

Every day, I find myself deepening in the realization that I am simply an apprentice to that which desires to reveal itself through me. I must learn to obey its call, yield to its will, and how to hold space so that it may grow in accord to its own rhythm. It is that pure, blossoming revelation of nature, of Divine Will, that I must learn to nurture and support. This is my teacher. It teaches me how to truly live. It is my central sun, through which everything must orbit. 

If I choose to disregard this central sun, the source of my creative light, then my world is thrown into disharmony, and I try to live by something that bears no real life. In this, I deny my function, and I live as something that I am not. 

I must approach myself, and the seed of nature within me, with great humility and love. 

I know all too well what it is like to ignore that central sun, and to allow some hollow idea to take precedence over my own inner light.

I’ve spent a lot of my life zipping around from one thing to another, trying to prove something of myself to the world – trying to prove my value, my worth. In my constant striving, I depleted myself, and no matter how hard I tried, I found myself in a constant state of angst. My main subconscious intention was to gain the approval of others, so I was always seeking external validation. I was lost in a world of mental static, mulling over menial circumstances and shallow relationships, trying to establish a false form of value and security. Constantly worried, constricted breath, and a cloud distorting my mind – I tried my best. Eventually after failing enough times and exhausting myself, I gave up. 

And this giving up looked like the ultimate failure to an old version of myself, but in reality, it was not so much a failure, but a success on behalf of life, to get me out of my own way. 

It’s funny, the ways in which life creates tension, so that it may find resolve. Those moments where we feel we have failed, where we feel we have let ourselves down, are actually those points where life has its greatest victories in us, where we finally allow an opening for something real to rise up from within us, just as a rose breaking through the concrete in a place where nature was once deemed forgotten. 

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The Secrets of Death and Rebirth

One of the most fundamental cycles that we see repeating itself throughout nature, is the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Everything in our physical existence goes through this process in its own way. Galaxies, forests, mountains, birds, people, buildings (elemental, plant, animal, and human) – everything in physicality is joined together through this common process. 

When there is a cycle that is so deeply fundamental to the way this realm operates, we can guarantee there’s something significant encoded within it. We can look at this physical existence as a language, and this language is in constant communication with us. When there is a common motif that is repeating itself throughout everything in existence, there is something very important being communicated. In studying the language of nature, we must notice the repeating patterns, for this language is a gateway into higher knowledge. These patterns repeat for a reason.

In my own personal journey, I came to understand the cycle of life, death, and rebirth through the symbolic language of Christianity (Catholicism, to be specific). As I grew up Catholic, there was one symbol in particular that was deeply ingrained within my young mind: the symbol of Christ being crucified on the cross.

As a young child, I remember this symbol being very grotesque and brutal. It sort of haunted me, you could say. The graphic nature of this symbol clashed with the innocence of my childhood: Christ wearing a crown of thorns, blood dripping down his body, giant stakes impaling his hands and feet, puncture wounds in his rib cage, his mouth gaping open as he took his last breaths of air, and his eyes rolled back in his head, his face contorted in pain. The image serves as a psychic trauma for one who is not yet initiated into its deeper meaning.

This symbol confused me growing up. I remember going to mass with my parents on Sundays, and the priest would be talking about all of these beautiful things – serving humanity, compassion, the forgiveness of sins, etc, and he would brilliantly interpret scripture. But as the priest spoke and prayed, behind him hung a massive depiction of a man being brutally tortured and killed. So, in my child perspective, the priest was seemingly saying one thing, and then this image was seemingly saying the exact opposite. I was being sent mixed messages. 

I remember thinking to myself, in my own six-year-old sort of way:

“Are we psychotic? What if a group of extraterrestrials came down and watched us having mass? They would think we were either cannibals or savages. They would think we were engaged in human sacrifice. They would probably think that we were violent, and terribly confused.” 

I remember asking my mother about the meaning of this symbol, and she said:

“Christ took on the sins of the world, and died so that they may be forgiven.”

I had absolutely no idea what this meant. I remember trying to solve this statement like a riddle: 

“Do I not have to worry about my sins anymore, because Jesus already died for them? But then why do I still need to worry about going to hell? Or did everybody just go to hell before he died on the cross? And once he died people could be forgiven and go to heaven? What does this statement mean exactly? And how do I relate to it?”

Something just didn’t make sense. There was a lot of confusion, abstraction, and a tremendous lack of clarity around the meaning of this highly revered symbol. There had to be some sense to this gruesome image that was so prominent in my childhood. It wasn’t until I got much older, into my mid 20s, until the deeper archetypal richness of this symbol became revealed to me. 

We can only understand symbols and concepts through the level of our own consciousness. As humanity is evolving, we have more understanding of the human psyche than we ever have before, we’re understanding our emotions in completely new ways, and we’re gathering a deeper understanding of trauma, how it works, and how it is healed. 

We can take these new understandings and apply them to this sacred symbol. Some people may argue that this symbol bears no relevance to us anymore, but I believe that this couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s meaning just needs to be clarified. I would say that this symbol holds more relevance for us than it ever has before, especially if we are bold enough to move beyond an outdated view of it (rooted in the projections from a less evolved phase in our evolution) and we allow ourselves to see it for what it truly represents. As we allow this symbol to be revived within us, the whole paradigm built upon our relationship with the archetype of Christ begins to take new shape. With this revival, we move into a new paradigm of what Christ represents, and we evolve our relationship with It. In this, we deepen our relationship to our own innermost expression.

The symbol of Christ on the cross is the visual declaration of the deepest function that pain serves in this physical realm. 

When we can understand the inner mysteries of this symbol, then we have a much broader understanding of how this universe is orchestrated, and why everything in our lives is arranged in the way that it is. This symbol provides some of the deepest insight into how this physical universe is set up, how it is coded. 

Let’s start with language. Let’s start with the phrase that riddled me as a child:

“Christ took on the sins of the world, and died so that they may be forgiven.”

Let’s start with the word “sin”. The original Hebrew word for “sin” generally meant “to fall short” or “to miss the mark.” So, spiritually speaking, a “sin” is nothing more than a misunderstanding, a misperception, an illusion. If we look at the illusions of this realm, all of the things that distort our perception of reality – our fears, our emotional wounds, and our traumas – they can all essentially be stripped down to one fundamental belief: the belief in death. 

Think about your fears. When you trace every single fear that you have down to its core, you will see that they are all fundamentally rooted in the fear of death. So, when Christ took on the “sins of the world”, Christ took on the one fundamental illusion from which all other illusions stem: the belief in death. The deeper purpose of Christ’s crucifixion, was so that he could directly confront death, in order to prove its unreality. So, it was through Christ’s resurrection on the third day, where he was actually able to reveal his deepest teaching to humanity: 

Death is not real. 

This is a very deep teaching, and there has been a lot of confusion surrounding how this teaching directly applies to our everyday experience. This teaching has been distorted several times over. It has been completely obscured, and virtually lost due to humanity’s unreadiness to grasp the deeper wisdom of this symbol. Now, humanity is at a place in its evolution where it is ripe to integrate this symbol’s authentic meaning. 

The story of Christ provides an equation, a formula, for human liberation. If we are not understanding how this teaching applies to us in a direct and obvious way, then we are missing some very vital information about how to approach our relationship with life, and how this whole physical realm is operating. So let’s explore this. 

One of the protocols for “Earth school”, is to take on certain wounds and inner challenges upon coming into a body. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your childhood was, or how ascended you believe your consciousness to be, if you are in a body, then there are internal challenges that you are working with to help propel your evolution forward. These wounds and challenges are nothing to be shameful of. They are ultimately creative, and they inspire you towards your highest expression. They have a higher function, just like everything else in existence.

What our wounds actually are, is they are the unique and individualized expressions of the belief in death. 

In learning how to relate to our wounds in the most loving and constructive way, we are able to confront the belief in death within ourselves. In this, we become as Christ. So, you can look at your suffering, your darkness, as the “womb of Christ.” 

In addressing our pain, this does not mean that we retraumatize ourselves. It means that we create an atmosphere of safety within ourselves so that we can confront our wounds in the most loving and healthy way. 

So, what this looks like, is when we find ourselves in pain, then we learn how to be with ourselves as our own best friend in the midst of our darkest hours. 

We each have an inner angel, an inner expression of Christ. The qualities of Christ become integrated within our character as we develop our relationship with ourselves. As a natural byproduct of relating to ourselves as Christ, we bring our highest qualities forth into every other relationship. And it is the aspects of ourselves that are suffering the most that call this inner angel forth from within us, out of necessity for healing. Our deepest pain summons this inner angel to display the grandeur of its wings, it calls our inner Christ forth into resurrection. It is in this space of confronting our wounds, where we develop our highest qualities: courage, honor, compassion, strength, wisdom, and true understanding. It is only here, where our love becomes truly unconditional. We embody Christ upon facing the illusion of death within ourselves.

So when you are in pain, you must ask yourself:

“How loving can I possibly be with myself in this moment? What is it that I need to tell myself? What is it that I need to give myself? What are my real needs, and how do I meet them in the healthiest way possible?” 

When you can be with yourself in this way, holding yourself in the highest form of reverence for everything that you are going through, while fully allowing yourself to feel everything that the experience has to offer, then the mirage of death will begin to disappear. You will find yourself crossing the threshold into greater life. 

It is ironic, because these portals into greater life are coded into us (disguised as our wounds and fears), and most of humanity goes in the complete opposite direction. Most of humanity runs away, avoids, distracts, lashes out, attacks, defends, and denies. Many of us do everything that we can to run away from the very thing that will grant us the greatest freedom.

And this is why the world is the way it is.

Most of us are so terrified of facing death within ourselves, that we inflict it on the world around us, in a desperate attempt to distance ourselves from our deepest fear. And so it is in learning how to properly address our wounds, where we confront death within ourselves. This is how we come to reverse the thinking of the world. 

Spirituality is ultimately about learning how to entrain to the mind of God – learning how to perceive through the eyes of the Creator. This being the case, if God knows no death, and if God dwells in eternity, then how do we suppose God perceives the cycle of life, death, and rebirth? 

All God sees, is life moving into greater life. It’s our human dilemma, where we think we actually lose something upon moving into greater life. This is ultimately what pain is trying to help us come to terms with. 

The deepest function that pain serves, is to liberate you from the greatest fear that you have ever known. 

Earlier I had stated that the story of Christ maps out a formula for liberation. Upon using the word “liberation”, I want to be as clear and direct as possible in how I am using this word.

When speaking of “liberation”, I am using it in reference to the cycle of death and rebirth – the “karmic wheel” that mystics have referred to for thousands of years. In order to free oneself from this cycle, one must learn how to change their relationship with death. This whole realm is built upon the intention that soul will eventually come to meet this achievement. Once we come into an unconditionally loving and empowered relationship with death, then death has nothing more to teach us. 

This pattern can be clearly witnessed in trauma and reenactment. A trauma repeats itself through reenactment until one can learn how to change their relationship with the trauma. Once one has come into an empowered relationship with regards to the trauma, then the trauma has nothing more to teach them. The cycle of trauma, and the cycle of death and rebirth, operate in the exact same way. This is because they are one and the same, and they operate under the exact same algorithm. 

Like I mentioned earlier, it is important to notice the patterns that we see repeating themselves throughout this physical universe. They are codes. They are formulas. It is language. And in understanding what this language means, then we know how to orient our relationship to life in a way that allows us true liberation. 

I would like to acknowledge the source of where this information is coming from. Much of the information that I receive and present comes to me via dreamtime. For years, I have had ongoing communication with the angelic realm through my dreams, where angels (or guides) often relay information to me about myself, about other people, and about the nature of spiritual development. 

There was one dream that I had in particular, where this angel appeared to me with a book in his hands. The angel had these glowing crystalline blue eyes that I will never forget. The clarity in his gaze served as a window into the world of beauty from which he came. The book he was holding was rather large, and looked very old, emanating a depth of holiness that touched an ancient knowing within me. As the angel opened this book, there was a primordial language artfully written across the pages. It looked like it could have been Sanskrit, or something. Next to the text, there were beautiful images of these beings that were illuminated. They looked like masters of some kind. As this angel showed me this book, he emphasized the images of these “masters”, and he said:

“Those that are bound to death, cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven.”

And then he repeated the statement.

The beautiful and penetrating eyes of the angel, the illuminated images of these “masters”, and the phrase which the angel repeated – the whole experience of this dream has been gestating within me, awaiting its proper expression, so that it may somehow cross the bridge into my outer reality. It has been waiting to be be extended, for the message in this dream was not meant to stop at the confines of my personal inner experience. It was a message for humanity.

The confusion of my childhood relationship with Christianity, the journey of trying to find God in the depth of my darkness, and the esoteric dimensions of my dream life – they all converge and resolve in this one statement:

The deepest function that pain serves, is to liberate us from the illusion of death.

Pain is a liberating force, when seen in its highest expression. When we develop a relationship with pain where we clearly see its higher purpose, then we can actively relate to it in the most creative and unconditionally loving way. It is the relationship we cultivate with pain, that ultimately determines our level of mastery in this realm. Most importantly, it is our relationship with pain that determines the depth and quality of our love. 

When we confront our pain in a loving way, we come to face the illusion of death. When we face the illusion of death within ourselves, then we no longer try to distance ourselves from it by projecting it outward. In this, we relinquish the subconscious desire to enact death upon the world around us, and we put an end to the cycle of trauma. Undergoing this process allows us to be an effective vehicle for the Divine to reveal itself in the physical world, for we are the instruments through which God is made manifest in this universe. 

As human beings, it our highest function, to reveal the beauty and love of God through the uniqueness of our expression. It is in this function, where all of humanity is forever joined, and where every being is celebrated and honored for the uniqueness that they are.

It is through facing death, where we prove its unreality. 

It is through facing death, where we cross the threshold into greater life.

And it is through this process, where we reveal ourselves as the radiant light of Christ.

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The Truth About Forgiveness (The 3 Phases of Personal Transformation)

Forgiveness has been a very important concept within spirituality and religion for thousands of years. It has been heralded as a liberating force, for as one learns to forgive, one is freed from the bondage of their past, and they move more graciously into the embodiment of their soul. 

This being the case, we engage in many ritualistic things surrounding forgiveness – we participate in forgiveness ceremonies, cut cords, repeat forgiveness mantras and prayers, so on and so forth. As we do all these things around forgiveness, often the very things that we are trying to forgive continue to resurface in our lives. As this happens, we will commonly respond to them in the same reactionary way as we did before, thus we perpetuate the cycles that bind us to the traumas of our past. Many people do their best to apply the principle of forgiveness, in order to free themselves from this cycle, but collectively, there has been a lack of clarity as to how to effectively “forgive”.

Collectively, our consciousness has not been in tune enough with its own inner workings to grasp the deeper meaning of forgiveness. We have also not been at the proper level of maturity, because in reality, it takes a tremendous amount of personal responsibility to sincerely apply the principle of forgiveness.

As we develop spiritually, it’s imperative that we learn what forgiveness actually is on a deeper level. Forgiveness is the principle that guides the process of transformation that the soul undergoes through its human experience. This being said, as we understand what forgiveness is, and how to apply it in a direct way, we more effectively allow the blossoming of our soul to occur. We work more in harmony with higher spiritual processes that guide the course of our evolution. 

So, I’m going to be outlining this process of personal transformation and how it applies to integrating forgiveness on a deeper level. There are three main phases to this process of growth. You can think of this as almost like a “map” of soul development. 

For me personally, I stumbled upon these insights through a wound I that I had with regards to the masculine archetype. I was once asked to do a public talk on Father’s Day, and so I started to prepare for this talk through meditating on the archetype of “the father”. As I would meditate on this archetype, holding it in my inner vision, I began noticing these little obstructions popping up in my mind’s eye. It was similar to as if you were looking at a big beautiful painting, and then all of the sudden you notice this tiny crack in the corner of it. Before you know it, your entire awareness gets collapsed into this little crack, this little blemish. Then that tiny crack becomes the only thing that you can see. 

This is what was happening to me. I decided to sit with this little “blemish” in my mind’s eye, to see what was there. And as I sat with it, I noticed some pain, some sorrow, and the very first thing that began to surface were these feelings regarding my relationship with my father. I just want to say that my father is a beautiful man, an incredibly saintly figure. I owe him my life, my everything. He is my father. The feelings of emotional pain that arose within our relationship had nothing really to do with “him” as a person, but more so the paradigm that we operated within.

In the world that my father grew up in, your sense of worth and value as a “man” was predominantly based off of your ability to provide for your family. My father took this idea of what a “good man” was, and he gave it his everything. He would work 50, 60, 70 hours a week. He worked his ass off to provide. But in spite of his incredibly pure and heartfelt intentions, I could not help but notice this incredible gap, this distance, between us. As a child, and as an adolescent, I could not help but notice this intense yearning that I had for a deeper emotional bond and connection with him. 

This eventually led me to think about the relationship between the masculine and the feminine. This brought me to reflect upon my past relationships with women. I noticed that just about every single woman that I had ever been with, has been working through some form physical or emotional trauma with regards to their relationship with the masculine archetype. 

This led me to feel more deeply into the collective, and I began recalling the plethora of sexual abuse and derogatory behavior that men have enacted towards woman for thousands of years. I also began reflecting on our political system, composed mostly of men, who send younger men off to war to be killed, when these older men should be their mentors and their guides. The distance, the emotional neglect, and the lack of trust is huge between older and younger men within our culture. 

This made me realize that if we are to truly honor and love “the father” in a genuine way, then there is a very deep process of forgiveness that most of us are needing to go through. There is a wound here for almost all of us, in some form or fashion. 

It is imperative that we not turn away from our pain, but rather go into the wound and shed light on what is there. For instance, if someone is needing to heal through a very deep childhood trauma, and they are disassociating from it and solely focusing on positive thoughts, then they will not completely free themselves from the cycle of reenactment. It may serve as one phase of growth for them, but eventually they are going to need to gather the strength and the courage to go back into that wound in order to reclaim the sense of self that they felt that they had lost. 

We can understand the wound as a gateway to our highest expression, once we are willing to shed light upon it. In this, the wound comes sacred, because within it there is a code, a formula, a process, for transformation. This process of transformation is intrinsically connected to integrating the principle of forgiveness. Like I mentioned, there are three distinct phases to this process. 

As most of you know the soul comes here with a certain set of gifts and talents that it’s meant to share with the world. It also takes on a certain set of inner challenges, struggles, or “wounds” that it must work through over the course of its life here. And so the process of transformation is governed by the relationship of these two polarizing aspects within the individual (one’s gifts and one’s wounds). Over the course of one’s development, these two polarizing forces slowly get brought closer together, and eventually they become integrated into one cohesive expression. The things that you have struggled with more than anything eventually become integrated into the expression of your greatest gifts. Your inner wounds play an integral role in the revealing of your innermost genius. In other words, your weaknesses eventually become your strengths. 

There are three distinct phases to this process. Each phase is dictated by how one relates to their inner struggles. 

Phase 1: 

Disassociation – You feel powerless to your inner struggles.

In Phase 1, you feel completely powerless to your inner struggles. You feel helpless to confronting them in a healthy and constructive way. In your feelings of helplessness, you end up participating in dissociative behaviors, as an unconscious attempt to separate yourself from your inner struggles as much as you possibly can. You end up creating distractions, addictions, projections onto other people, and you end up blaming the external world for how you feel. So basically, there is a negation of personal responsibility. 

This negation of responsibility is not out of malice intention. It is simply arising out of your feelings of inadequacy in relation to addressing your wounds in a healthy way. In other words, you simply feel powerless, and you must learn to work through your feelings of powerlessness in order to free yourself from the unhealthy dynamics that you have created. 

It is important to realize that there is nothing wrong with this phase, it is just the first phase of maturity in this process. Nobody stays in this phase forever. Life eventually initiates you out of it (whether it be this lifetime, or one hereafter). 

The role that your inner challenges take on in Phase 1, is like that of an inner monster that sort of taunts you from the inside out. 

Eventually, life will push this you into a situation where you realize that your dissociative tendencies will not work for you in the long run. So, you will have an internal awakening, and this internal awakening leads you to Phase 2. 

Phase 2: 

Apprenticeship – Your inner struggles become a source of self-knowledge.

In Phase 2, you become an apprentice to your inner struggles. So there is a shift in relationship that occurs in how you relate to your wounds. Rather than it being this monster that tortures you from the inside out, it becomes a teacher, a guru, a guide. You learn from your wounds, you study them, you open up communication with them and they become a source of self-knowledge 

Phase 2 generally comes about when you go through a crisis period in you life. A “crisis” is like life’s way of trying to get you to address your own needs in a deeper way. It is life’s way of getting you to take care of yourself on a very raw and genuine level, in a way that you probably never did before. So Phase 2, is essentially the phase when you become initiated on to your healing path. After spending a certain amount of time developing in your healing path, you progress to Phase 3. 

Phase 3:

Integration – Your inner struggles become integrated as a part of your gifts to the world. 

In Phase 3, there is another shift and how you relate to your inner struggles. Rather than being this guide, or this Guru, that sits sort of removed from yourself, they get brought completely into you. They become fully accepted and embraced as a valuable an integral aspect of your experience. They begin to become utilized as a source of self empowerment, as a vehicle for the expression of your gifts, and a means of service unto others. 

We will go through each three of these phases multiple times over the course of our development, with regards to many different themes that we are exploring within ourselves. We have to remember our healing doesn’t occur in a straight linear way. It occurs within cycles within cycles, kind of like a Fibonacci spiral. 

You may be asking yourself the question, what does this have to do with forgiveness? 

This is the process through which we integrate forgiveness on an emotional and experiential level. 

When we are talking about genuine forgiveness, we are not actually talking about forgiving anything outside of ourselves. If we’re ever talking about forgiveness with regards to something or someone outside of ourselves, then that is a very shallow and superficial idea of forgiveness. 

What forgiveness actually is, is learning how to relate to our painful experiences, and our inner challenges, in a constructive, self-empowering, and self-loving way. It is about coming into a right relationship with our “painful experiences”, and being able to relate to them from a place of unconditional love. It is about your relationship with yourself and your experiences, and it ultimately has very little to do with your relationship with anything outside of you. 

Let’s say that someone has wronged me, and so there’s a wound that is active in me, and I am trying to forgive this person. I will not be able to actually forgive them if the wound is still alive in me, no matter how hard I try. So I have to relate to that wound, to that painful experience, in a new way. I must relate to it in a more constructive and self empowering way. And once I integrate that new perspective in how I relate to my experience, then that negative charge between me and that person is gone. I don’t even have to try to forgive that person, because I’m already moving on with my life. 

In understanding the true nature of forgiveness, we realize that our relationship with the external world is nothing more than a reflection of how we relate to ourselves. Everything we feel in relation to something outside of ourselves points to some aspect of how we relate to ourselves. With this, we deepen our understanding of the relationship between the internal and external realities. We must first address the internal in order to meet its reflection outside of us.  

In my own personal experience, as I expressed earlier, a huge forgiveness lesson for me has had to do with my relationship with the masculine archetype. 

One of my biggest struggles growing up, was understanding my heightened sensitivity as a male. As a little boy, I was not into competition, I was not into sports, I was not into a lot of the things that most little boys were into. I came across as sort of weak and effeminate to the people around me. My parents could see this, and I could tell that this really concerned them. Even though I could feel their concern on a subtle level, it didn’t really affect me until I hit puberty. The gender roles become very defined at this stage in life. I found myself at a terribly awkward predicament at this juncture, because I wasn’t fitting clearly into either gender category. I had a lot of difficulty relating to fellow males my own age at the time. 

At that pivotal period of development, young males try to initiate themselves into their masculinity. They are a little bit more aggressive, a little bit more competitive, a little bit more rebellious, and through their display of “masculine” behavior, they develop hierarchies amongst themselves. There is an unspoken language that is being expressed amongst young males at this time. 

I had no idea how to relate to any of this on any level. It was just like a completely foreign world to me. I began to feel very alienated from my own gender. Not only did I feel alienated from them, but I was viewed as the weakling, or the runt. I was kind of like at the bottom of the totem pole in the eyes of most males – the pansy, you could say. I was the soft one. I found myself in a lot of circumstances where I felt incredibly disrespected and dishonored. It was very uncomfortable. 

I also had a very awkward relationship with the feminine. When I was about 15 or 16, I started to date. I was terribly insecure with myself regarding my masculinity because I was not mirroring the typical models of maleness or manhood around me at all. In fact, I was the exact opposite. This insecurity made my relationship with the feminine very awkward and uncomfortable. 

This led me to see myself as being completely defective as a male. And it went deeper then that, to where I felt defective on a core identity level. So, there was this belief that was operating in me – that I was deeply flawed at the fundamental core of my being. There was something terribly wrong with me, and that God had made some atrocious mistake upon my creation. This is a belief that I’ve really had to work through, and I struggled with it for a very long time. 

As I approach my late twenties, and I step more courageously into my career, I am realizing that a lot of the qualities that I once saw as weaknesses are now serving as my greatest strengths. My softness, my sensitivity, my empathy, my receptivity – all of these things are a tremendous asset to who I am as an artist, a healer, and as a messenger. 

10 years ago if I would have been addressing this aspect of myself, it probably would have been 1 o’clock in the morning in my parents house, in a bathroom, with a bottle of vodka and one hand and a box of sleeping pills in the other, trying to get as far away from myself as possible, because I didn’t know how to accept who I was. 

And now, 10 years later, I am addressing the exact same aspect of myself writing in this moment to you, about the process of transformation, the true meaning of forgiveness, and about our relationship with God. I relate to my inner struggles in completely different way than I did in my past. This is how I know I’ve transformed. So you can see, I’ve had to move through these three phases with regards to this particular theme. 

My process of forgiveness has not been about forgiving my family perceiving me a certain way, or for forgiving the world around me for seeing me in any particular way. It wasn’t about any of this, on a deeper level. 

I had to forgive myself. 

I had to forgive myself for buying into the illusions of a world that was not at the level of awareness to see me for who I actually was. 

I had to forgive myself for buying into the illusions of a world that mistook strength for weakness, and weakness for strength. 

Forgiveness has nothing to do with forgiving anything outside of ourselves. And if we are ever trying to do this, we must remember that this is a very shallow, surface-level attempt at forgiveness. 

When we can take any experience that comes up in our life and see it as a way to empower ourselves, and to connect with ourselves in a deeper way, then that is how we learn to actually integrate forgiveness. 

Of course if you explain all of this to somebody that has just been through a traumatic event, they are not going to understand this in the state that they are in. That’s why there are three steps of integrating forgiveness on an emotional and experiential level. It is not enough to understand forgiveness conceptually, because it needs to be integrated emotionally. This part usually takes some time. 

True forgiveness is a process of integrating the perspective that everything in our life is here to serve us and empower us on the deepest level. It is ultimately about freeing ourselves from the illusions of the world, through learning to perceive our darkest experiences through the context of a higher perspective. 

Forgiveness is the liberating principle that guides us through the alchemical process of personal transformation. It is ultimately about coming into right relationship with one’s self, so that one can cultivate a right relationship with life. 

In this, we learn to use every experience and relationship as a means to empower ourselves from within. 

The deepest function of everything that exists in physicality, is to liberate the Spirit within it.  

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How Do I Accept Greater Responsibility Without Having Anger or Resentment? (Going Through an Initiation)

Every Thursday evening I facilitate a “developing intuition group” locally here in Mendocino. We do a variety of different exercises geared towards strengthening one’s ability to access and utilize their intuition. This week, each participant anonymously posed a question regarding their life that the group focused on receiving intuitive guidance for. One of the questions was:

“How do I graciously accept more responsibility, without harboring resentment?”

I had been pondering this question myself earlier in the day while processing my own life, so it was a good opportunity to actually take the time to give this a thoughtful answer:

When life calls us forth into greater responsibility, it usually comes in tandem with a new level of maturity that we have stepped into. It means that our capacity to handle complex situations has expanded, and our thresholds for growth have widened. This type of responsibility typically means that we are being called out of some form of isolation, and into a deeper level of connection and service to others. We are called to give up an aspect of ourselves that kept us separate and hidden from life, in order to merge with life in a more courageous way. This pushes us out of our comfort, and so our feelings of powerlessness become challenged. Then some dormant force gets brought forth from within us, and we step into a new arena of self expression.

The child must one day grow into an adult. This transition happens as the child’s blossoming maturity is utilized to meet life’s challenges. The maturity continues to deepen as the child learns to relate to others with greater mutuality and reciprocity. Because a child doesn’t have full autonomy, the child can’t meet their own needs, so the world “revolves around them”. They are fully dependent on others. Once autonomy is reached, the “child” must  learn to meet their own needs, and how to also give back to the world in beneficial way. This calls the child out of a “me” centered universe, and into a “we” centered universe. Psychologically, as human beings, we will go through this process several times over the course of our lives. This is the true purpose of initiation. 

In initiation, a part of the “child” gets leeched out of us – the part of us that is self-centered, that feels helpless to addressing our own needs, and who is incapable of fully giving back to others. And in this, there is of course a “loss of self” that may temporarily cause suffering. But this “loss” is met with something much greater – a depth of connection to the whole of life, service beyond oneself, and the fulfillment of personal empowerment. 

The “anger” or “resentment” that comes with greater responsibility is often associated with underlying feelings of powerlessness that come with us not realizing our ability to asses the situation at hand. In allowing our natural maturity to rise to meet the occasion, the personal power is uncovered, and the anger subsides. In fact, life is actually conspiring to have us uncover deeper recesses of our personal power, hence why our feelings of powerlessness are being poked at. In other words, “trust the process”. It is all part of moving us into a greater expression of ourselves. The anger, the feelings of powerlessness – it’s all okay, and a very natural part of the transition. It all provides us with a humbling opportunity to surrender our personal will to a Higher Will. In this, we allow the organic unfolding of our soul to occur, and we learn to work with life, rather than against it.

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Attuning to a Higher Perspective

There are phases in our growth where we go through a sort of in-between stage, where we are in transition and feel as if we are in a lull. We are forward focused, our hearts set and vision fixed on the next steps, yet we need breathing room to integrate our past lessons, and to prepare for what is about to come. This can often be a confusing period, where we can feel stagnant, lost, and stuck, not quite knowing where to land our next steps. When we are in this phase, our willpower works against us. We try to use it to push our way out of feeling trapped in purgatory, yet higher forces close all roads forward until inner maturity has been given the proper time to ripen…

For me, I went through a year of feeling completely and utterly lost around the ages of 25 and 26. I wanted so badly to move forward in a career, to be an entrepreneur, but despite my best efforts, nothing was activating. I had just left a job in Philo, CA as a garden teacher at an education camp for at-risk youth. I went to Mount Shasta, CA and camped in the forest for several weeks to gain a sense of clarity on where to go next. From here, I decided to go to the Bay Area to try to “make it” as an artist and a speaker. Long story short, I lasted a month in the Bay and my time there ended in total disaster, where I lost virtually all of my money. Seeking familiarity and safety, I decided to go back to Mount Shasta. I ended up renting a room in Weed, a small country town about 15 minutes away from the mountain.

I worked at different schools and at a local cafe to get by, and really found myself having an extraordinarily difficult time paying rent every month. I prayed and prayed for a sense of direction, and certain insights would come through, but it often felt vague, and due to the innebulous nature of the insights, it was difficult to put them into action. So this period became a sort of drawn out lull.

One of the most pivotal experiences that occurred in this period came in a rather mysterious walk that I had taken one afternoon before working at a school. I took a walk on a trail not far from where I lived that weaved through the forest behind my neighborhood. It was autumn, and the air was cool and still. The evergreens towered above me like giant statues rising from the Earth, with their gnarled trunks and twisted branches sprouting bright green brussels. The ground was of an amber-light brown dust with grey and bumpy gravel. The sky was blue, clear and open.

As I walked down this path, one particular tree grabbed my attention. It actually caught me off guard, as this tree seemed to leap out at my awareness. The tree was completely lit up in my mind’s eye, and it almost felt as if it was sending me some sort of signal, communicating to me on some wavelength that my conscious mind had previously been unfamiliar with.

I walked over to the tree, and I stood there with it, a little unsure of what exactly was happening. It felt as if this seemingly silent and slumbering creature was actually speaking with me. There was an undeniable form of communication that was evident between us, though my rational mind was at an utter loss for comprehension. Upon soaking in this bizarre sensation, I decided to try talking back. I talked back in the best way that I knew how; through my voice, with words being the vehicle for organized thought. As energies where exchanged, I felt a deep love, an ancient kinship with the tree. I spoke words of appreciation and love to this being, this being that seemed to have reached out to me. There was almost a strange sense of familiarity. As I was in this cocoon of heartfelt communication with this new friend, I felt my reality begin to shift. I felt my mind and my perception becoming entrained to a different vantage point. Something in my awareness was being altered. It was almost like someone had turned up the dial on my scope of reality, and suddenly things seemed to be vibrating at a much faster rate.

Everything that I rested my eyes upon brought out certain qualities from within my inner vision. These qualities were energetic, yet they had a depth of presence – an ancientness, a wisdom, and a deep holiness and beauty. It was as if my mind had been attuned to a higher perspective, and there was this pulsating quality of love that was hyper present. This interspecies communication had activated something deep within me.

I was now resting in a state of awe as I breathed into this new, yet seemingly primordial perspective. I soon realized that I had to make it to work on time, so I decided to head back and get ready to go to the school. As I walked back into the neighborhood, I felt a very noticeable sense of peace, and the people that I passed by looked more beautiful and alive than I had ever seen them. They were radiant, and this greater aliveness I was witnessing made them look slightly animated and cartoonish.

As I walked into the school, I was taken aback by the purity and innocence of the children. They were all around the ages of 5 or 6, and I was seeing them through a greater clarity than I ever had before. I remember the style of their clothing striking me as being very bizarre, wearing goofy shirts and backpacks with logos, brands, and pictures of characters from movies and t.v. shows like Spiderman and Wonder Woman. The children looked like angels that had been sculpted from the pure, raw elements of the Earth and Sun, and there was a depth, an ancient holiness that they all possessed. The cheesy trends of the culture that were reflected in their attire didn’t match the depth of holiness that they emanated. I remember thinking that these children should be dressed in white and golden robes, akin to some beautiful and advanced civilization, to reflect more of their true identity. Maybe it would help them remember.

As I walked through the class assisting the children with their homework, one little boy with pure blue eyes looked up at me and studied me for a moment. In fact, he didn’t just look at me. He looked through me. As he observed me, looking somewhat intrigued and bewildered, he eventually exclaimed:

“You are an angel.”

He continued to stare at me for a moment, as if he had uncovered some hidden secret. He eventually went back to doing his homework, but throughout the class, he would periodically glance at me with this peculiar sense of curiosity and recognition. Children have an extremely heightened intuitive sense, so I know that his sensitivity had picked up on this wavelength that I was operating on.

As my journey progresses, I notice that I periodically go into spells of this heightened perception, where it feels as if the Kingdom of Heaven has laid itself over my vision. It becomes exposed, obvious, and present. This perception always feels more real, more genuine, and more natural than anything else that I perceive. And I know that this is not just an isolated incident that I am experiencing, for it is a collective evolutionary experience many are having. Our minds are entraining to higher forms of vision, and the conditioned perceptions of the past are losing their grip. We are entering into a new world, as we fine-tune and adjust the way we look at it. We are allowing our vision to adjust to the sight of a new perception, where holiness is not some obscure spiritual concept but is seen and felt in real-time, as the dominate quality that permeates everything. And this quality is seen and felt as an energetic signature, acknowledged through an inner recognition.

And so this “lull” period for me seemed to be a phase of readjusting my sight. Of reorienting my “vision”. Here I was, trying to leap ahead, to move forward, in a premature and superficial kind of way, when the real momentum was contained within my innermost perceptions. I was (unknowingly) allowing myself time and space to readjust, to refocus my mind, and to see things more as they really are.

So often we think we are trying to do one thing, while the soul is doing its own work upon us, in its own time, according to it’s own intelligence and wisdom.

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My Story of Self-Acceptance

One of the biggest struggles of my life has been self-acceptance.

As a child, I grew up feeling completely unworthy of acceptance, and in this, I was conditioned to base all of my decisions off of getting approval from others. All of my precious life-force energy went to everyone but myself, and I became what felt like a slave to those whom I considered to be my closest connections. This led me into many emotionally abusive dynamics. I felt this unbearable fear of sticking up for myself, communicating my own needs and desires, and for just being “natural”. I would constantly be scanning and reading other people, so that I could mold myself in accord to their energy, and what they needed in order to be comforted and soothed. A lot of people enjoyed my company for this, and I became the confidant for many, as I naturally had a very soothing and receptive presence. Yet despite how close and intimate people felt in my presence, I still felt completely isolated and alone. I felt completely locked away inside myself, and I didn’t understand how I could feel so alone, when so many people felt so close to me. Even in my closest connections, I felt totally unseen. And none of this was the fault of anyone with whom I was connected, for it was my own fear to actually reveal who I was. If people knew who I was, then they would see that I wasn’t the person that was specifically molded to sooth them. I was someone else. And I feared that if they saw my truth, that I would be rejected, and be further isolated. I spent years in these painful dynamics, not able to clearly recognize what I was doing, and why I continually struggled with a deep sense of isolation and feelings of depression. This led me into many self destructive habits, as a way of coping with my feelings of suppression and loneliness.

And this is just how I thought love and connection worked. You sacrifice yourself for the sake of making others happy. That was my definition of love, as I understood it. So, if I was being so “loving” to people, then why was I in so much emotional pain? Why was I developing addictive behaviors? Why was I being manipulated and emotionally abused by others? Why was I always in poverty? And why had I been contemplating suicide? Is this just how “love” works? Something wasn’t right…

This was all due to my own self-rejection. I had mistaken self-rejection for love, for humility. And at the heart of this was a shame-based identity. I believed that at the core of who I was, there was something terribly wrong with me, that if I was to be exposed for who I actually was, that I would be uncovered as a deeply flawed and evil being. The methods that I had developed of coping with my emotional turmoil (my addictions and my self-destructive behavior) were proof of my deeply flawed identity. These habits kept validating the belief that there really was something wrong with me. And because I was wearing a mask, no one knew how much pain I was actually in. Everyone just thought I was “chill”. And no, I was not “chill”. I was struggling with deep inner turmoil, but you’d never know it.

About 2 years ago, I hit a low point. I was living in a tent in the forest by myself in Mount Shasta, California. I went there to go on a physical and emotional cleanse, to have a “spiritual experience”. But I did not experience what I was intending to, for I ended up sinking into a very deep level of depression, and went through episodes of trying to fast and then I would binge eat to the point of getting sick. On top of this, I was processing a pretty big break up with a partner for me at the time as well, and was feeling more alone than I ever had.

Then I just gave up. The only thing I knew to do was to pray. I had tried so hard my whole life: tried so hard to be “good”, to be “spiritual”, to be accepted, to be loved, and I was completely exhausted. No matter how hard I was trying, it wasn’t putting an end to my emotional pain. At this point, I had completely given up on the healing process all together, as I was so fed up with “trying”. So the prayer came to me:

“God, may this pain be transmuted into medicine for the healing of others.”

I didn’t know what else to do, other than to say this prayer. In the midst of my depression, in the midst of my binge eating, in the midst of my isolation, in the midst of my despair I would repeat: “God, may this pain be transmuted into medicine for the healing of others. I don’t know what to do with this, but may it one day be utilized as a source of healing, compassion, and empowerment for other beings.”

Then my life began to shift. It was right after I began saying this prayer, that my path of service began to unfold, and I started delivering my very first public speakings. And what were my first talks about? – The archetype of the wounded healer, and recognizing the connection between our deepest wounds and our greatest gifts. I was speaking right from the heart of where I was at the time. And of course, to move from such a deep level of shame and isolation into the public arena to speak in front of groups was absolutely terrifying, and I had several embarrassing and vulnerable moments delivering my first talks. On one speaking engagement, a man actually came out of the audience to give me a hug in the middle of a talk because I was so nervous to be speaking in front of a group. Despite facing my deepest fears and insecurities, God had given me direction, and I had to follow through. And thus my purpose had become the purifier of my pain.

Now, I’ve had over a year of public speaking under my belt, and I’ve had the blessing of being a regular speaker and presenter at the Mendocino Center for Spiritual Living. What a blessing it has been to hone my craft, my message, the expression of my deepest love. I am beyond grateful for the opportunities that God has given me to share myself with others. The sharing of who I am has been the most healing force that has ever come into my life. In fact, it has literally saved my life.

And this story is far from over. This is still just the very begining for me, and I am still very much in a deep healing process. I am realizing more and more on an emotional level that I am not flawed at the core of my being, that there is actually something deeply profound and beautiful where I once thought there to be a mistake. I am learning that I can have connections that are REAL, not dependent upon my capacity to just sooth someone else.

So I extend a deep heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who has ever supported me, loved me for who I am, and who has inspired me. I offer a thank you to everyone who has ever offered me a moment of connection and acceptance. And I offer a thank you to all of you that have loved me and accepted me in the face of my downfalls and struggles. Thank you from the depths of my heart, I love you. You mean more to me than you will ever know.

I share just a piece of my story, knowing that it reflects something within you also – your own process of self acceptance, of blossoming, of overcoming your struggles, of understanding what it means to truly love yourself, and thus another.

You are never alone in your your pain. Every struggle you face will be transmuted into medicine for others, for your deepest wounds are connected to your greatest gifts. May you always have compassion for yourself, that you may also have compassion for others. You are loved beyond comprehension.

So, I leave you with the prayer that changed my life:

“May this pain be transmuted into medicine for the healing of others.”

God bless <3

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My First Awakening: Rebirth in Appalachia

I remember the phase in my life when I first went through my initial “awakening.” I had decided to leave behind my old life in the realm of academia as a budding classical musician, and entered the world of the mystic, attempting to completely whitewash my old identity. I traded in the stiff and stuffy classrooms and recital halls for lush forests, blossoming gardens, and for the wild and mysterious expressions of the Earth. I moved from the town where I went to high school and college (Myrtle Beach, South Carolina) and moved onto an artsy hippy farm in the cascading Appalachian mountains of North Carolina, just outside of Asheville.

On this farm, there was a community of young artists and travelers that was always in flux. There was one young man who had inherited the property from his family, and he opened up the land to traveling artists, musicians, and mystics – to those in the phase of the wanderer. The farm was a nexus point for old souls, and for those living on the fringe of our society. Many of them where folky, funky, and mystical and just plane far out. Some of them dressed as if they had just time traveled here from the Biblical era, dawned in loose flowy attire with white, brown and maroon Earth tones, while others dressed themselves in bright flamboyant colors, like pop stars from 70’s, and others would wear overalls and plaid shirts like your stereotypical farmer. There was a whole congregant of characters that seemed to be from different dimensions and timelines, all gathered here searching, seeking for something.

The land was lush and alive. There were rolling hills with gardens that where bursting with life surrounded by moist deciduous forest. The soil was teeming with vitality and the minerals gave it a gold tint that made it sparkle in the sun. In the Spring, everything exploded with greenery and the womb of the Earth gave birth and overflowed. Summer was hot and vibrant, and the land seemed to buzz and hum as insects and birds fluttered around, sustaining the rhythms of nature. In Autumn, the forests became painted with reds, golds, oranges, yellows, and greens, and as these erupting colors would kiss the open sky, the breeze would carry the coolness of transition. And the winters were stark, brutal, cold, snowy and isolated. Warmth was a commodity that wasn’t always easy to come by.

And here I was, in the midst of this place. Searching for myself, looking for an alternative to the plastic suburban sitcom life that I had grown up in. I deeply began to question who I was, what I was doing with my life. Little did I know that this was just the beginning. I was at the infantile stage of birthing a completely new self. This was the begining, as well as the end of me. I was starting to undo my conditioning, and I was holding space for something new to reveal itself. I was in a place of deep discovery. I still clung to aspects of my old identity out of familiarity and safety, while at the same time, this new essence was emerging. It didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know if I could trust it. I was getting glimpses of a future me, of a future earth, yet it was still such uncharted territory. And there was still several layers of doubt, hesitation, guilt, and pain for me to move through, so I took it day by day. Listening, examining, exploring, and being. Patience began to be integrated as a virtue.

 

It was here that I began to actually observe myself. As I observed myself, I noticed an overwhelming amount of guilt that I had, for simply existing. I was uncovering this deep part of myself that felt flawed on a core level. I began to become very aware of how much I had rejected myself over the course of my life, and I began to have these vague, yet direct realizations that a huge part of my journey would be revolved around healing this core guilt. This inner agitation was calling me to adapt and to grow in a particular direction, one that was pulling me to understand the nature of emotions while learning how to resolve this core guilt and shame.

Thus a message had bubbled up deep from within the recesses of my soul, relaying the primary intention of what I came here to learn:

How to accept myself.

How to accept myself, that I may full heartedly accept others.

This propelled me onto the path of uncovering my innate gifts, to see what treasures where teeming within my own watery oceanic depths. It also lead me onto a path of apprenticeship, where I began to study and observe that which caused me to suffer, that I may learn what it has to teach me, and what its function is in my life.

Several years have passed since my second birth in the Appalachian Mountains, and this soul continues to blossom and expand. The premise of my life was given to me in those mountains. My mission, you could say. Like a commandment from God, revealing itself through the sloppily scribbled and crinkled pages of my first journal, I was told what to do with my life:

Accept myself, and heal the guilt that has binded me to an illusion of who I thought I was.

And thus, the journey continues…

 

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Slowing Down, Trusting the Inner Voice

The other day, I visited a spot here in Mendocino that I go to often. It’s a secluded path along the ocean, where there is a vast expanse of open meadows with gentle rolling hills, spotted with patches of yellow, purple, and white wild flowers softly blended against the swaying golden-green grasses. The meadows flow gracefully into the Pacific Ocean, where rocky cliffs, tide pools, and the distant yelping of seals join the two worlds. It reminds me of something out of a fairytale. I listened to the waves and watch cloud kingdoms of grey and white move across the sky. The air was cool and misty, and the golden sun casts its rays upon the water, making the ocean dance in a dazzling display of light.

I found myself reflecting on this sort of awkward, “in-between” phase of life that I am in. It feels a little bit like being in limbo. I’ve spent the past few years in a bit of survival mode, feeling like I had to push against a lot of things. Pushing myself to get “out there” as an artist, pushing against a lifetime of insecurities to get in front of audiences to speak, and pushing myself into adulthood, into trying to make money and support myself. Not to mention bouncing around trying to find a “home,” from living isolated in the forest to houses full of partying college kids in loud bustling cities, trying to uncover who I am, where I belong, and what I actually have to offer the world. I’ve met some beautiful people along the way, but for the most part, it’s been a pretty solitary journey.

But now, I find myself at another turning point. I find myself safe, grounded, and stable for the first time in years. I’m recovering from the desperacy of survival, and actually starting to trust where I am. I feel almost like a feral animal being brought into a safe domestic home for the first time, still a bit skittish out of necessity to survive, but slowly learning to trust the generous hands that feed it.

I am thankful for the openness in my life now. Moving around helped to break me open, to shed layers, to reinvent myself, but then it began to feel like a distraction from the real work that needed to be done. Rather than scurrying around bouncing from place to place, there’s space to go inward. Space to heal. To feel. To trust.

Things are much slower now. And the “slowness” has been an interesting thing to work with. It’s very nourishing, but then at times I wonder if it’s too much, if I am being deceived by it in some way. Sometimes I wonder if I should be making bold leaps and strides into the career realm, into making more money, into this or that. But as these thoughts come over me, a strong yet very gentle voice begins whispering in my ear, speaking to me of patience and acceptance. It tells me to honor where I am, the phase that I am in, and to absorb as much as I can from the moments that are put before me. It tells me to honor the process, and that I am in the midst of greater rhythms and cycles than my mind can even comprehend. It tells me that there’s still a very long road ahead of me, and that I don’t need to “skip steps” to make it where I would like to go.

This stern and gentle voice has been with me for a long time. My path being as solitary as it has, it’s been my best friend, and my greatest companion. It’s been there when no-one else has, and it’s always offered me unconditional acceptance and support. It’s nurtured me in my darkest hours, and it’s given me courage when I was sure that I had none. It was with me when I was homeless and heartbroken sleeping on the streets, when I mustered up the courage to give my first talks, and even as a young child I remember it speaking to me, leading me into my early interests with animals and the natural world. I remember it also surrounding my early curiosities around God. It has only ever spoken to me in a loving context. I’m amazed that I still continue to question it at times…

One of the greatest things that I can think of to do with my life, would be to honor this voice, by extending its love and its wisdom… To give it complete freedom of expression.

If I could move through enough fear, enough doubt, and move through enough self-judgment in order to allow this voice to speak openly with conviction, to extend to others the wellspring of love, compassion, and support that this mysterious voice has extended to me, then that would be my greatest gift.