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    Winter Solstice meditation.

    We sink into the deep and restful quiet that is winter. 

    This night — the Winter Solstice on December 20 — is the longest night of the year in the western hemisphere; it is the night in which we stay awake, waiting for the light to come.

    I invite you to sit with a journal and contemplate what you have learned as you put 2013 to bed—a very big year, a year of enlightenment, a year of consciousness, a year of spiritual awakening for many.

    I also invite you to begin to create a new reality for 2014; to use this still, quiet, deepening time, to begin to imagine a new way for you to be in this world.

    On Solstice, it is good to be outside, in nature, and to recognize yourself for both your human and divine self; animal and etheric.

    I invite you to journey within on this day, in the stillness of the night, as you create intention for the new year.
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    Into the woods we go.

    If you are able... if you are in an area that is fresh dusted with snow, or even if you are in any area that is still and quiet and private... head there today, tomorrow, as soon as you can.

    The trees hold great healing for us all. They are not nomadic, but instead sentient beings that Stay In Place for perhaps hundreds of years, watching and waiting, and knowing all that is.

    To go into the trees, snow or no snow, is to become a part of that magnificent stillness and energy that is God/One/All/Divine.

    To go there is to be blessed; it is a way of opening and preparing for Solstice, the longest night, soon to come.
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    Being in Seva (Service)

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    After one too many Black Friday Sales, the Grinch ended up with his heart two sizes too small.

    Luckily, you don’t have to.

    Because even Mr. Grinch… the mean one, the one as cuddly as a cactus… was able to change.

    Even Grinch, during the holidays, was able to open his heart—so big that it busted right out of his chest.

    The secret? He started giving.

    He started practicing seva, or service to others—and in the end, he returned the tree, the toys, why… even the roast beast to all the lovely Who’s of Whoville, as they sang their Who song.

    Ahhh…..

    As you’ll notice, the reason for the Grinch’s new raison d’ etre was the same reason that Santa is always so jolly—he spends his time, every single day of the year, 24/7 directing the elves to make gifts for other people.

    Nope, you won’t find Santa skulking around Black Friday sales, hoping to beat out everyone else for the best deals. Instead, he concentrates on giving all year round. It’s that giving that puts those merry dimples in his cheeks!

    We sometimes forget that the joy is in the giving—not the getting.

    That joy—connection and love combined—is its own feeling, separate entirely from material possessions, having and hoarding of “stuff”.

    Joy comes from seva (service) to others
    And right now, you still have time to bring some of this joy into your own holiday, by planning some acts of seva (or service) before the New Year’s ball drops.

    When we give to others, we give to our selves.

    From a spiritual perspective, seva, or the act of service to others, works because we are all One. When we tend to the least of us, we tend to the all of us. When we bestow gifts, friendship or help to another, this is the same as bestowing it upon ourselves.

    None of us are separate. Seva or service allows us to give freely from our selves, and in doing so, we become aware of our infinite and endless connection as souls.

    The Grinch busts the myth of scarcity
    “But I don’t have enough for myself,” you might say. “I’m struggling to make it as it is.”

    The Grinch busted through this myth, by understanding that abundance—true abundance—is not found in material STUFF, but in the opening of our hearts into compassion, connection and love.

    Seva, or being of service to those you love, those you don’t even know—and even those you might not be too fond of…. well, it opens your heart. On an energetic and spiritual level, there’s nothing quite like it.

    This season, be a Grinch. Not the dour, miserable version. But the the tree-hustling, roast beast carting, present returning Grinch of your true heart. Give to someone you know, someone you don’t know, even someone you don’t like. 

    Notice how your heart busts right out of your body.
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    Support Your Sisters.

    Image description
    A few years ago, Libby Bailey arrived to me as a client in that serendipitous way that people often find each other.

    She'd just returned  from a trip to Tanzania, and had some difficult choices to make—should she stay in Portland, where she was a successful realtor living a life of financial abundance--or should she give up everything—her house, her career, her relationships, her entire life—and go where she was being called.

    We sat together that day, and it became magnificently clear that Libby's calling was no small thing—it was a giant trumpeting herald, a gigantic, life's purpose request from the Divine/Universe/One/All to leave everything in her current reality, and go and serve.

    Libby looked into her heart—and she answered the call.

    She moved to Tanzania, where she has founded Your Sisters, an orphanage for girls, and community center to help women and children of the area.

    Today, the orphanage supports seven girls who are either double orphans, single orphans or girls whose families can't care for them. All receive a full education, in addition to shelter, food, and love.

    This is a small charity with a very, very big heart. These are real girls, making their way in the world... the money that arrives helps them directly and makes an enormous impact. 

    ​If you can, please donate.  If you can't donate financially, please support with your intention and love.
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    Noticing the particulate.

    At some point you stood there, in the first living room you ever knew, when you were new to the world, and life seemed simple. And you saw it all with new eyes: the old sofa. The worn table. Toys scattered on the floor A big picture window to let the light in.

    And at some point, you were playing in this room: maybe it was Saturday and your father napped on the sofa. Maybe it was a weekday, and your mother was in the kitchen. Maybe you were happy; maybe you were sad; maybe you’d been jumping on that old sofa, or making a fort out of the couch pillows.

    You simply being yourself in your body. And then, in that moment, something shifted. Perhaps you caught a glimpse of a spirit from the window’s corner, or perhaps something flashed in your eyes, a ray of sunlight glinting in a way you’d never seen it before.

    You were so young then: two, three, four.

    Everything was still wonderment, but already, you’d started to know pain. Everything was still wonderment, but already, you’d begun to forget.

    The stars in your eyes had not completely faded, but they’d become shrouded, so the dazzling deep knowing of the Universe faded to a kind of vision you’d forgotten how to use, a type of seeing that was not useful for earth life.

    And yet, with this particular flash of light, it all came back to you: the sun streaming in and illuminating clouds of dust in the air, so that everything in your view were specs and glints and orbs of light, particulate upon particulate, a light-filled energy field.

    And you understood once again, what you had nearly forgotten, that this is what we are: particulate light, floating in constellations, floating in universes, mixed and melding, always light. This is energy, this is love, this is Divine, this is us. You knew it before you were born. You remembered it again when you were young.

    You can remember it today.

    As you begin to see this stuff of the Universe with your adult eyes, the visible manifestation of what we call Divine, it is easy to recall more fully who you really are, what we really are: energy, light, love.

    It’s all around you, it is you—not just what is seen, but what is also unseen: the energy within the energy, the space within the space, the universes within the Universe.
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    Bloom when you're ready.


    There’s a particular rose bush that sweeps over an archway in our garden. Most of the year, it’s just a mass of green. But at some point, a profusion of tightly held buds shows up almost overnight

    One day there’s just leaves—you could go out with a magnifying glass, and no bud would be there. The very next day, you can’t see anything but the buds; they’re everywhere, the branches are laden.

    It’s just a matter of time.

    During the last weeks of June, when the buds are preparing to bloom, I might head out there every afternoon, looking for the tell-tale signs of pale white petal.

    But it’s like waiting for popcorn to pop on the stove. All you can do is heat the oil, stand clear—and after waiting what seems like an eternity, you take your attention away for one second, and suddenly popcorn is flying wildly around the kitchen, while you madly race to find a cover.

    The roses are like that too. Blooming when we least expect it.

    One day, after we’ve tired of searching the buds to see if they’ve opened, we’ll awaken to the sweetest most heady perfume wafting in through the open windows. ... the roses have bloomed, and it is a delirium of scent and color and beauty.

    People are like this too.

    One minute you’re tight in the bud. The next you’re exploded into beauty, fully expanded in yourself.

    This happens repeatedly in your life, over and over again. Bud to bloom. Always, in the timing that is exactly rights for you.