We talk a lot about consciousness—what it feels like to be conscious, and how spiritual awakening happens. 

Many of you started to notice an increase in your awareness around the Shift at the end of 2012. It's as if everything amped up—you felt more intuitive, more empathic, more connected. 

But now we're in 2019.
And the Shift isn't a shift any more.
​It's the new status quo. 

Which means that whereas before you received information from one dimension—but now, there's information coming in from everywhere, from multi dimensions. 

You sense more.
You feel more.
You exist in the middle of everything happening all at once, and you know it all without even trying. 

Welcome to spontaneous enlightenment. 
It is a hallmark of this new year.
And there is more to come. 

So many of you are empaths, intuitives, sensitives—which means you spend a lot of time living in the etheric realms. 

You might spend a lot of your time betwixt the worlds, so that you are "disassociating" and going instead to visit:
• Guides and Angels
• Other spirit beings
• The Departed
• Past and future lives

Or maybe you are very good at astral projection—you travel far and wide in your dream time, or in your meditation, or maybe just when you are spacing out and relaxing. 

You're more "there" than here. 

This is normal for sensitives--you don't need to change anything. We are used to living between the worlds—living as soul first, human second. 

However, if this is causing you any anxiety, which it sometimes does, one immediate fix is to get grounded. To literally, to do something earthing with nature—barefoot on the sand,   barefoot in the dirt. 

This will bring an immediate shift to NOW, that will help you return into your body, and connect with everything that you love here. 

Plus, it's just fun to go barefoot, isn't it? 

Have you ever intentionally experienced a slowing down of life's pace?

This being "off schedule," when you're not sick or laid up, but instead intentionally taking a break from your normal responsibilities and patterns, quickly creates new understanding.

In Cuba, we stayed at a private home in Guanabo a few blocks from the beach. It was stormy during our visit—not safe for swimming. So we sat under the covered veranda as the rain fell, and we played dominos. 

Anyone can learn to play dominos—beginner to master. It's a game for four people, designed for idle hours, when you have time to talk and linger. 

We spent many hours with the tiles as the rain fell, and during this time of enforced idleness, I began to recall the sweetness of life not centered around the internet, "to do" lists, responsibilities. 

It's good to be focused, to be committed to your soul work.
It's also good to not take it all seriously, to have pursuits and pasttimes that are simply for your pleasure.

As the New Year begins, with all that resolution and gung-ho motivation, it's good to recall what happens when we do very little, and allow ourselves to enjoy it. 

Have you ever felt the Departed are sending you sign?
On our recent trip to Cuba, we received a very direct signal indeed! 

We were sitting on the veranda in the dark, waiting for dinner, and my son-in-law was sharing about his mother. She'd passed when he was very young, and he talked about all the things she'd accomplished and how she'd meant to him and his family.

As he talked, the wind picked up and within a few minutes we were in the midst of a storm. 

And then suddenly, all at once, his mother just arrived into the space.
Her presence was fully known. 
There was a great flash of light.
The power surged.
Everything went dark. 

And the sense of her, right there with us, was as clear as anything. 

If you've ever experienced this kind of spirit visitation, as I know so many of you have, you know how powerful it can be. 

After a few stunned moments, we went inside and ate dinner by battery-powered lanterns. 

Many Departed find it easy to communicate this way—they can easily flicker lights, knock walls, move objects, turn on a TV, play a song on the radio—and when they want to make sure that they are heard, they can even cause the power to go out. 

When we are holding the memory of a loved one, this communication happens all the time. 

While traveling last month, month, we had a chance to visit my son-in-law's art studio in the heart of Havana. 

He's been a painter most of his life—one of those people who answered his soul's calling at a young age.  

The advantages of answering your destiny early are many: you get to master your craft,  you get to complete the work you're here to do, you get to go deeper in your understanding. 

But what if, like so many of us, you don't know what  you want to do?
Or maybe you used to know, but now you're older—in midlife and beyond, and suddenly you're not sure of where your soul is calling you now? 

In The 33 Lessons, one of the lessons is "You are what you do." In other words, if you are actively painting you are a painter, if you are actively writing you are a writer, if you are actively gardening you are a gardener, and so on. 

It's as simple as not quite knowing what the next thing is, and then to begin doing it anyway. 

As souls, sometimes we're clear we're on our path.  Sometimes we're lost. 
Yet the path is always there, whether it's what you expected or not. 

Sometimes the best idea is to  start with what's in front of you. 
Chances are good, that is your right first step. 

One of the things I did in Cuba was visit Ernest Hemingway's home.

I've long been fascinated by the expat writers of the 1920s: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein, Dos Passos, Cummings, and I was thrilled to visit "Finca Vigia", which means lookout house.  

It's a true compound: acres of gated privacy and palm trees, a large house, servants' quarters, lookout tower, outbuildings, patios, a swimming pool, even a fishing boat in dry storage.

As we were on a private tour, I got a chance to tune into the energy of Hemingway's spirit—it's a practice I know many of you also do, when you are in places where famous people have lived. 

Most of his energy was condensed in his writing room—Hemingway wrote at a standing desk while standing on an animal skin, so as to be imubed with the animal's power. He drank while he wrote, and when he could not write anymore, he rested on a bed with a dark blue coverlet.

As I tuned into the energy of his objects and his spirit, my first sense was of his dominant personality, which did not surprise me. Under that was need for compulsive organization, a kind of obsession of doing things "the right way."  Under that, a sense of being lost—this was something he did not want to show. And under that, the despair of never feeling understood. 

This is what I received, my own impression outside of all the many anecdotes about him. 
I felt compassion for his suffering, and wished him healing in his next life—I imagine he's reincarnated already, and is here among us. 

Hemingway was one of the most acclaimed writers of his time—world-renowned for his adventures, a personality bigger than life. And yet a person working on his soul growth. 
​
As we all are.