Category: Rainbow consciousness

This Is Life, Now

In a conversation with my doctor at my annual physical, we talked about various things, including the current state of the world and how people are reacting. We agreed that in order to get through these tumultuous times, individuals don’t need prescriptions or palliatives, distractions or diversions. This is just the way life is now. It is what we are experiencing on Earth as our species and planet evolve. And there is more change to come. Within change is hope, possibility. If I focus on accepting each moment and envision the light ahead of me and within me, hope opens up in my heart. Peace becomes tangible. I can feel it and glimpse it in the world.

That seems to be the wisest perspective for me, as I negotiate my day-to-day life through change after change. My feelings are unpredictable, not necessarily tied to a specific event. I’ve thought perhaps it is post-traumatic stress, after surviving breast cancer, three years of a pandemic, the passing of dear friends, as well as the ongoing challenge of a country (and a world) at war with itself. Or, more immediately, it could be tied to the fact that Anne and I are in the midst of a move between two towns, each very different from the other. Our third move in five years. We are trying to get our bearings, feeling our way. Not everything is cohesive or understandable. It’s a mix.

For instance, across from the building where we live are thick woods on adjacent land. From our deck we can see blue jays and robins in the trees and stunning blue skies above. Each morning the view is lovely, the sky and clouds ever-changing. Our neighbors are friendly and welcoming, one bringing us homemade pumpkin bread the day we moved in. Meanwhile, down the road is a pistol and rifle club where we can hear gunfire in the distance if we are outdoors. A few yard signs advocate stopping a state bill that would tighten restrictions on gun possession and sales. Unsettling, to say the least.

Two or three miles away, the public library has an excellent educational display about books now banned in the U.S., including The Color Purple, Beloved, To Kill a Mockingbird, and books with LGBTQ content. Many libraries and bookstores in Massachusetts and elsewhere have such displays and encourage people to buy and read these books, which are often literature classics. In addition, a number of cities (like ours, thankfully) have passed ordinances in support of the LGBTQ community. All of this is life now, for us.

The other morning on my daily walk, I encountered a woman, also walking, who began to talk to me in Chinese about all the weeds and plants at the edge of the woods, breaking off leaves and pantomiming rubbing them against her skin. “For healing?” I asked. She nodded and continued her explanations, not seeming to mind that I didn’t know Chinese. I listened for several minutes until she finished, and as she turned to walk away, I thanked her for sharing her knowledge. This too is life now: strangers speaking to each other in different languages, not fully understanding but listening just the same.

Could it be that my entire consciousness, as well as our global consciousness, is experiencing a major shift of Earth-quake proportions? Everything is changing, and nothing will remain the same, including how we perceive and how we listen, who we think we are and how we think. We may continue to face challenges and fear-based events, but if we look up at the heavens and in each other’s eyes, we can find inspiration, strength, and the courage to continue. All I can do is wake each morning with an open heart and peacefully surrender to my soul’s life journey and what the day brings. This is my life, now. This is our life now.

Love, Peace, and Flower Power?

My generation was born in the years after World War II and the Holocaust. The horrors and suffering of that time were still in our parents’ consciousness when we were conceived. If cellular memory can be transferred parent to child, then we emerged with our own unique consciousness that was a mixture of the pain of the past and hope for the future. We carried that through the years of our growing up and coming of age as we witnessed the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War on our TV screens. At a certain point, we ourselves birthed a new awakened awareness, informed by global events but also infused with a positive vision for humanity that we had come to Earth to express. We became the activists and flower children of the late 1960s and 1970s. In the midst of the world’s conflicts and hatred, we spoke our simple truth: Love, Peace, and Flower Power.

In 1969, “in the streets of San Francisco,” I wore flowers in my hair, moved by a belief in loving connections beyond my one individual lifetime. I, and so many others, held that belief in our hearts for decades, working individually and collectively for a more compassionate world based in loving-kindness and equality. We may not use those words now in the 21st century, but the sentiment still rings true for many of us. The question is: Is it still relevant?

What is the state of human consciousness and inter-relationships on this planet? Is love of others and peace on Earth really possible? Many would say No, humans hate and kill one another again and again. Yet, that’s not the whole story. In so many places, what continues to flower (!), in spite of all odds, is kindness and mutual support among people in diverse communities, as well as the courage and strength to persist and survive. Perhaps balance is slowly being restored.

In singing, in speaking, in sharing, we express our humanity, heart and soul fully engaged and interactive with others and with the positive energy of connection and love. We come together in unity for the common good. The deeper truth is that the future is being lived now. This moment is all we have, according to the wisdom of elders in so many cultures. What you sow, you shall reap, moment to moment. Live love, and love moves through you in circles of reciprocity and expansion within your lifetime and beyond. Together we are a living breathing mandala of possibility and wonder. We are colorful bits of light dancing within a cosmic kaleidoscope. We are Spirit in human form.

So perhaps “love, peace, and flower power” never becomes obsolete, outdated. The specific words may change, the clothing and hairstyles differ, but the living spirit of humanity always holds within it a seed of compassion and care for others. Love is timeless, peace is within us, and nature reflects back to us the beauty of our own beingness in every flower that blooms. This is the vision I have held all my life.

Say It Loud—Now!

With the passage of legislation in Florida restricting discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, the “Don’t Say Gay” movement is gaining national momentum. Similar legislation is in progress in multiple states. Those of us in the LGBTQ community who marched for our rights in the 1970s­–1990s can hear echoing in our ears the rallying cry we chanted then: “Say It Loud: I’m Gay and I’m Proud!” The right to be who we are without fear or shame; the end of hatred and violence directed at us.

In 1975, a group of teenagers sprayed mace in my eyes for holding hands with my girlfriend in public in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2014, almost 40 years later—also in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in public—my partner Anne and I were married after 31 years together. Massachusetts was the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2004. Huge changes in those years; huge shifts in the collective consciousness. Even rainbow lights on the White House when same-sex marriage became legal in all 50 states in 2015. And now this frightening backlash. But we cannot allow ourselves to be silenced again.

Human rights are in jeopardy world-wide. In the United States, immigrants and Asians have also become targets for hatred and attack, along with Jews, Muslims, and people of color from diverse cultures. Hard-won women’s rights are threatened as well. ”Make America great again” translates as the desire to erase from existence anyone who doesn’t fit into the dominant patriarchal paradigm (white, Christian, heterosexual). This is the face of fear of difference, growing stronger and more widespread. I am reminded of the oft-repeated quote by Martin Niemoller regarding the systematic purging of groups in Nazi Germany: “First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.” He continues naming group after group and finally ends with: “Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.” Chilling history lesson. It’s on each of us now, at this time, to speak—to “say it loud.” Don’t wait until you are left standing alone.

So here we are, witnessing threats to the growing universal acceptance of all peoples. What we thought we had moved beyond is once again at our front doors. Anita Bryant was not the last antigay vigilante. The Klan still exists. But giving up and living in denial is not an option. We were born for these times, like it or not. And we came here to do it differently. Not with fighting and aggression but with peace and kindness. The individuals who act from hatred are filled with pain themselves. In our hearts we have to hold empathy for all.

So I urge you to “Say Gay,” to say “Black Lives Matter,” to say “Stop Asian Hate.” Say it with conviction but not hostility. I encourage you to speak with truth, love, and compassion to everyone you encounter in your life, whatever they may believe. And to live that truth every day. We must continue to remind ourselves that love is stronger than hate, and fear is an illusion that can dissolve in the presence of a courageously peaceful open heart.

Inside the Rainbow—Book Excerpt*

There are at least 7.8 billion ways of seeing a rainbow, each one perfect and true. A scientist sees refraction of light. A poet sees transcendent beauty. A child sees magic. A spiritual seeker sees the gateway to heaven. Someone who has suffered great loss—a loved one, a home, a job—may see a sign of hope in the midst of their pain. What if our individual experiences of the world, of Nature, are how we discover meaning in life, how we connect with our souls and find God, or Spirit? What if spiritual connection is not about struggling to understand mysteries but instead just opening our eyes to the extraordinary beauty before us? Step inside the rainbow itself, and a world of vibrant color and divine light opens up all around you.

In the film The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy imagines a distant place beyond the rainbow where dreams come true. When she actually travels there, she discovers that her dreams have already come true within the home of her own heart. This home that lives in each of us is our soul’s connection to all of life. When we come to know Nature as a reflection of that connection, we understand that Spirit is embodied in everything we see. Inside the rainbow is your soul’s home.

It is not really necessary to travel to Oz or across vast continents to ancient holy shrines to live your dreams or find God. Every time you walk out your door you have that opportunity. Nature herself is a sacred temple that encompasses the entire world. In every tree, flower, butterfly, or rainbow is Spirit’s essence, the source of all life everywhere. The experience of God can be as simple or as complicated as you make it. It can have many layers or just one. It can be ecstatically joyful or quietly peaceful. It can be all of these simultaneously. Because God is everything. There is nothing that we perceive or experience that is not God, including ourselves.

God lives within our souls, so all that we see outside us reflects this inner core of peaceful, loving awareness that encompasses the universe. It’s impossible to describe Spirit in one definition, or in language at all. The greatest sages have said that the truest experience of God is in silence. Words limit the magnificent splendor that is divine consciousness.

All my life, even as a small child, I found that Spirit lived in the stillness of the natural world. I didn’t have words for it then because I wasn’t raised in any religion, but my heart always recognized the beauty and wonder I saw all around me in the birds and trees and flowers. It was an experience I have carried with me and deepened throughout my life. And it is available to every single person on this planet.

You don’t need to attend a religious service or spiritual program to know your soul and God. You just have to open your mind and your heart to the possibility that God and Nature are the same thing. If you do, I promise you, the entire world will begin to shine with a light that defies description. And you will understand at the deepest level the sacredness of the natural world.

The miracles and wonders in Nature awaken our own sense of the miraculous and wondrous, which is the Spirit inside us. The God within you and the God in Nature have been with you all your life, just waiting for you to see them as part of the oneness that includes all of us on this planet.
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*My new book, Inside the Rainbow: Soul Connection in Nature, can be purchased online in print or digital form at Amazon: https://amzn.to/3vvBuLo.
Book Launch/Reading on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLV7VxUU47k.

Life Review: A Preview

When you reach the end of your life, you won’t look back and wish you had made more money, owned a condo in Aspen, or won a Pulitzer prize. None of that will matter. What you will see is all the people you interacted with in your lifetime and how you affected them. In a split second of life review, you will experience yourself as others experienced you and how they felt in being with you. You will know firsthand the love, caring, hurt, or thoughtlessness you energetically transmitted through your words, thoughts, and actions. Your lifetime effect on everyone and everything (including animals, plants, etc.) will be God’s gift to you at the moment of your transition out of the Earth dimension. Instant karma.

How do I know this? Well, of course, nothing is completely “knowable,” but I feel the truth of it in my soul. Those who have had near-death experiences describe life review, as do great wisdom-keepers in many traditions. As the years go by, I am also starting to experience moments of this kind of intense feedback about the effect I have in my life. I often feel inside me the reaction of another to my words or actions. My energetic presence bounces back to me in every moment. I can either deflect and ignore it, or I can receive it as a divine GPS system which guides me to greater kindness and compassion.

This is what life is all about. We have a vast number of experiences, individually and interpersonally, which help us to evolve into deeper alignment with who we are at the soul level: pure loving awareness. We—meaning our souls and God—designed our lives for this purpose. The evolution of humanity and a planet, foretold for millennia. And the end-of-life-review is part of that evolution. A life review that is now edging backward into our lives before the moment of death to show us that the wisdom and perspective that come at death can also inform our lives now, if we are open to it and fully allow it.

It’s like climbing to the top of a mountain or flying in a plane at 35,000 feet. The Earth is spread out below you and you see that you are only a tiny part of something so huge it is beyond imagination. Infinity presents itself to your consciousness. Indeed, your consciousness is infinite. When you open the door to that expansive awareness, you begin to see with the eyes of the soul, as God sees. At the center of everything, including you, is pure love. When you can see that clearly and live as that, you have fulfilled your human purpose. Every one of us here on the planet now is on that journey of remembering and fully embodying who we are. Our hearts are guiding us.

As each day passes, I feel a greater sense of the impeccable timing of our Earth journey and our human evolution. We are awakening more and more, and as we awaken, “life review” becomes not solely a final look at a life before dying but also a moment-to-moment feedback loop that shows each of us how closely we are aligned with the love within us. The things that don’t matter fall away, and we live life knowing that what you feel, I feel, and vice versa. At the deepest level, there is no separation. There is only oneness. And as far as you can see, a rainbow of light.