Tag: soul

Shedding

In the second week after my first chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer, I began to lose my hair. Like a white angora cat, I shed hairs everywhere: on my clothing, in the shower drain, on my chair, in my hairbrush. Sometimes they drifted down onto my shoulders like cherry blossoms in the springtime; other times they clumped like small snowdrifts on my pillow. All of it strangely fascinating to me, as if they were bits of my identity falling away, freeing me even further at a soul level.

That may seem an odd way to view it; yet the process feels symbolic of a larger shedding that occurs as I clear out the clutter of a lifetime of identities. To be human is to move through many experiences and identities. I used to gather identities like flowers in a basket (flower child, activist, feminist, lesbian, writer, editor, spiritual seeker), feeling glad that I was eclectic and not tied to any one self-identification. I felt freer that way. As the years went by and my spiritual practice expanded, I began to realize that freedom is a much more expansive designation when viewed from the soul’s perspective.

The soul is pure being. It has no identity in the way we think of that term. The soul comes into physical form to experience life as a human and to evolve and expand its beingness. It has no attachment to any one identification we may claim as we pass through our lives. When we begin to drop attachments to particular identities, the soul moves to the forefront of our experience. We begin to experience being in an entirely new way. And we see more clearly, and intensely, the world we are passing through here on Earth.

I first experienced this “dropping” of identity when years ago (2005), I was invited to travel to Guatemala with Maya elders Mercedes and Gerardo to participate in ceremonies at sacred sites there. I was both honored and excited because the Mayan cosmology held great meaning for me. However, the “gateway” I had to pass through was the fact that women traditionally wear long dresses at every ceremony. As a lesbian feminist, I had not worn a dress in 30 years; consequently I found my attachment to that particular identity being challenged. In my heart, I knew there was no way that I would ever turn down such a precious invitation from the elders. So that meant opening to a different way of being in the world. At the time, I experienced this as a complete falling away of who I had been before and going to Guatemala “naked” at the soul level. I honored the Maya tradition by wearing a beautiful long skirt, and in the process, I stepped into magical interdimensional experiences at the sacred ceremonies, beyond language and definitely beyond identity.

As I continued on my soul journey over the years, I found that the more I dropped identification with any identity at all, the more I experienced a beingness without beginning or end …. and the more I knew God, or Spirit, in a way I never had before. Ultimately, I came to understand that the final realization is that all identity is an illusion. Our identities are merely the costumes, or disguises, that we put on for this human ride; when we take them off, all that remains is Spirit.

So this is where I am now. Yet another identity falling away with the hair on my head. Perhaps one of the last identifications and attachments: to my physical form and what I look like. Once again, soul-naked before the universe. One definition of the word bald is “undisguised” or “unveiled.” The process of life often removes our protective veils and disguises if we don’t do it ourselves. Either way, it is liberation for the soul. I can feel that. To live my life as pure spirit, unfiltered and free. It is our collective human destiny to shed identity and shine the light of soul presence in this world.

Infinity Vision

Several years ago, after a somewhat worrisome eye diagnosis, I had the extraordinary experience of looking out my window and seeing the external world moving in perfect synchronicity to the Andrea Bocelli music I was listening to. Every detail—people walking, cars passing, tree leaves in the wind—was part of a divinely choreographed dance of deeply connected oneness. And I too was part of it. There was nothing in the universe that sat alone on the sidelines within God’s creation. And I could see this so clearly that the power and beauty of it moved me to tears. Infinity vision, beyond an eye diagnosis.

Last week something similar occurred. I was taking a late-afternoon walk through our neighborhood when I heard a voice inside me: “Don’t just walk. Look. See!” I stopped in my tracks and looked up at the sky. The brilliant blue was streaked with white clouds like an impressionistic painting. The quality of the sun’s light made everything iridescent, heavenly. When I turned my gaze to the street before me, I saw a man with his dog, a car driving past, and autumn leaves falling from trees all moving together as one. I continued to walk, and everything I saw joined the dance of beingness. A cosmic tapestry so intricately interwoven that each thread was perfectly aligned with every other, and the motion of its living presence filled the universe, and me, with vibration and light. Infinity vision once again.

These are gifts from God, available to us all. Often it is a life crisis or a health diagnosis (like my recent breast cancer) that shatters everything and allows us to see the true nature of the multiverse we inhabit. I have sometimes heard from those who are experiencing it that cancer brings with it both challenge and expanded awareness. I understand that now. I believed I was deeply spiritually connected, aware, but cancer showed me an expansiveness and complexity beyond anything I had previously experienced. It cracked me open and let the full light of infinite awareness in. When disease or illness pries away your attachment to your physical form, magic is revealed. On my walk, I stood speechless before the wonder of everything I saw. Tears of love and gratitude streamed down my face.

If you have been reading my writing over the years, you may have noticed that I have had similar experiences before. Nature is always my profound connector to Spirit and the doorway to something greater. Yet now it is somehow different. The connection is even deeper and more expansive. That is the nature of infinity. You never reach the end of its ever-increasing power and beauty. Birth and death seem like finite experiences, but they are both contained within infinity. There is no end to beingness, ever. And this is the eternal truth that sits quietly at the center of our lives. Each of us is destined to discover it at the perfect time.

Whenever it appears, by whatever vehicle, celebrate its arrival as the greatest gift you will ever receive. The cracks in your life—illness, loss, pain, fear—can be the gateways to seeing with infinity vision. Only then will you understand the true nature of your “one precious life” and all life. Each and every one of us is part of a celestial symphony. The music of the spheres accompanies us everywhere. When you are able to see beyond what your eyes habitually perceive, your vision expands, and you begin to walk on air, immersed in the beauty of infinity, loving everyone and everything around you.

A Camino: Firewalk and Life Streaming

When I first heard the diagnosis “breast cancer,” I was lost in shock and fear. How could this happen in my life? To me?! After a few days, I gradually was able to re-center in the peace within me, to remember that everything that happens in my life is part of a soul plan that I was part of designing before my birth. Nothing is a coincidence, and everything is connected to everything else. I am one soul in one lifetime on one planet. Yet I am also part of the entire fabric of being in the universe. Sometimes it takes loss or crisis in our lives to fully realize this. When things fall away or apart, the long view becomes more visible.

Illness or disease can stop you short in your tracks and remind you of your own mortality. Even if you think you are unattached to outcome or completely surrendered to however events unfold. Even if you feel connected to a greater consciousness beyond life and death. There is always more surrender available, deeper all the time. And there is always more letting go of attachment—until there’s nothing left but soul. The physical body holds within it the last attachment. You definitively let go of that attachment at death. But you can also let go of it as part of life. This is what is meant by “dying unto yourself.” You release attachment not only to your identity but to your physical form. You live your life as your soul, immersed in peaceful Presence. The same immersion in Presence that occurs at death. Only you are radiantly alive and aware.

I have experienced times of surrender and Presence on my spiritual journey, but when breast cancer came into my life, I stepped onto an accelerated path: my own Camino.* The more I trusted that I was being divinely guided on this path, the more everything flowed. During and after surgery, I felt surrounded by angelic healers, floating in profound Oneness. My physical form seemed almost nonexistent. I returned home to heal and rest quietly. A week later, the pathology report showed wide clear margins—excellent! Then my surgeon told me that new test results indicated I should probably include chemotherapy in my treatment plan along with radiation. I had already accepted the latter, but the combo frightened me. Attachment to my body as it currently looked and felt was front and center. I was being asked to dive even deeper into acceptance and surrender.

My breast-cancer-survivor friends helped me with this acceptance (as did my very knowledgeable and kind doctors), but then my own inner genie handed me a vision that changed the way I saw everything. During a powerful meditation one morning, I suddenly understood what breast cancer represented in my life. In my mind’s eye, I saw an image of burning coals, like those used in the traditional firewalk, practiced by many cultures for thousands of years as a rite of faith, healing, or initiation. Immediately, I knew that for me radiation and chemo were the “burning coals,” and that I would safely “walk” through them as I surrendered attachment to my body and trusted my soul’s journey. My Camino walk is a fire of initiation, transmutation, and expansion beyond the physical. I envisioned myself afterward as pure soul light. No attachments, just life streaming through eternity in timeless splendor.

This is our collective destiny: to walk through humanity’s fires and emerge as light, each in our own way. Every person’s journey is unique. Each soul path divinely orchestrated. On the other side of our firewalks is a Presence that permeates the universe in life and in death. In truth, they are one: infinite beingness. When we realize that, all fear falls away, and we can live our lives with peaceful, open hearts and souls.
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*The Camino is a well-known path of spiritual pilgrimage across northern Spain.

Guided

Every moment of our lives is guided by an Intelligence that we may only partially recognize while we are in physical form. It has been called variously Infinite Consciousness, Soul Awareness, or more simply, God/Goddess. We are a part of that vast beingness, and before we move from formlessness to form (birth), we choose an overview for our lives that opens us to expansion and evolving. Our physical lives interweave with one another within a vast tapestry of intention and meaning woven by that Intelligence, which we are one with. There is no experience or event, however small or large, that is not connected to that cosmic interweaving.

At this time on Planet Earth, the door to seeing this profound connection, the oneness of the entire universe, is opening wider and wider. More and more people are understanding that their lives are not random and meaningless but indeed part of unlimited micro and macro connections that make up the entire multiverse. “A world in a grain of sand,” as William Blake wrote. “Infinity in the palm of your hand.” This is the miraculous vision that is our human destiny now. To look at the sky and see eternity and gaze at a field of flowers and see heaven. Or to experience each event in your life as rich in both connection and direction.

That is where my breast cancer experience has been taking me. From the moment I had the impulse to check my breasts only two weeks after a normal mammogram, I knew that something greater was at play. I didn’t make a conscious mental decision to do a breast check (before this, I never checked my breasts). Suddenly my hand was checking my right breast and almost immediately located a lump there. It was subsequently found to be cancer, stage 1, and I had surgery to remove it and the area around it. I have been continually moved to share this story and urge others to check their breasts (both women and men can get breast cancer). And to write about allowing not only your hand but your whole being to be guided by a power beyond human knowing, which shows itself in synchronicity, intuition, and inexplicable “coincidences” that move your life in certain directions.*

To trust in your soul’s wisdom and God’s presence can fill your life with inner peace and outer calm. No matter what happens, however painful or beautiful, it is all part of the flow of human evolution into the Light. A light that humanity and our planet is destined to shine in the cosmos. That may sound like wishful thinking or new age speculation, but I assure you that the more you notice the connections between seemingly small events in your life, the more you will see those light-filled connections everywhere. Every person you meet is a fellow traveler. Every experience you have guides you to deeper awareness. Don’t miss it. You will be grateful beyond words to discover that life is not pointless and cruel but always divinely guided in love. I am.
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*As I waited in the hospital for my second breast operation (to achieve wider clear margins), I watched surgery scheduling delays unfold around me. My own operation originally scheduled for 1:40 p.m. ended up taking place at 3 p.m., thus placing it in exact alignment with the powerful balancing energy of the Autumnal Equinox at 3:20 p.m. Perfect synchronicity beyond all human planning.

You Are Here

Do you recall the maps in public places that help you find your way? There is usually a circle or an X with the notation: “You are here.” X marks the spot where you are in the “real world.” From there, you navigate the path to your destination. In life, without maps to guide us from birth to death, our course is less certain. We tend to wander at first, gradually gaining momentum and direction, then perhaps pausing at some point to contemplate the big picture. Our minds often wish we had something as simple as a map to direct us on the perfect life journey. We sometimes question where we are going and if we have made a wrong turn, a fatal error in judgment. What we don’t realize is that there are no errors.

You are always being moved by life force energy, a physical conduit for soul presence in the world. And that soul presence knows exactly where you are going and what your life purpose is. In the realm of spirit, before you were born, you chose the path for this lifetime, and your soul is the inner reminder of that choice. Whenever you feel as if something inside is moving you toward a certain decision or destination, that is your soul. The map you have been looking for outside yourself is within. And your soul’s guiding voice speaks to you through your intuition and through synchronicities. Sometimes in the words of a friend or even a stranger at just the right moment. If you listen and look, the clues are everywhere.

And the good part is that you can’t make a mistake. Wherever you are meant to be is where you are right now. Isn’t that a surprise? Even if you don’t really like where you are, it’s where you are supposed to be for the purposes of your soul’s journey. So, instead of complaining or resisting, try accepting and surrendering to what is actually a divinely orchestrated life course. Look around. What wisdom is hiding within the shadows of your own perception? Imagine that this very moment holds the secrets of the universe—switch on the light of your awareness and receive them. Take a deep breath and see the world with the eyes of your soul. If nothing is a mistake, then what am I being given now, here?

In each breath is all of life. Each moment holds the infinite Now. You are not in this lifetime to be forever lost and confused. You are here to awaken and fully live with spirit. That is the collective purpose of all our lives on this planet. The truth is that there is no path. There is only here. Your consciousness contains the universe within it, and that is what you are experiencing. Beyond time and space. When you fall fully into that realization, you align with your soul and with God in completely synchronized loving awareness. Some call this God realization or enlightenment. Something that has always existed within you, within all of us.

So you can stop wondering why you happen to be in this particular place with these particular people at this particular time. You are all here to shine your lights and to see more clearly because of it. You are each a catalyst for one another’s unfolding and evolution. Wherever you are and whatever you are doing, it is perfect. Inside the simplicity of “You are here” is the recognition of eternal Presence and divine design.