​When we are doing intuitive work, we talk about the idea of deep knowing, or knowing in the “gut.” For most of you, this is the dominant intuitive skill that you possess: you simply “feel” how things are. You are empathic, and you know by deep knowing.

But, there is another kind of knowing that is different than deep knowing, even though the names are similar.

This is direct knowing.

You might think of it like this: deep knowing is how we are able to see, hear, or feel a truth, or a part of truth about a particular person, place, thing, situation, or relationship.

Direct knowing, is when we experience spiritual truths directly.

For example, in deep knowing, you might pick up a person’s wounds, past trauma, and emotions immediately and without background or familiarity: you see an unknown person at the grocery store, and you just “know” everything about this person.

In direct knowing, you might be walking in the woods or meditating or just doing nothing, and suddenly your entire being dissolves and you know yourself as That.

There is no story, no symbol, no emotion. You just exist as a spiritual truth.

We use deep knowing all the time. Direct knowing, is something that might come to us a few times in a lifetime, if we are lucky.

Think about the difference: between the more homey way of deep knowing, and the bigger, fully expanded, holy way of direct knowing.

They’re both wonderful. They both complement each other. And they are both yours, when you start to open, relax, and pay attention.

Have you been sleeping lately? My deepest hope for you is yes.

In sleep, we are healed. In rest, we are healed.
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So often, more important than anything else you do, our need to rest must be acknowledged.

Try it, for two days. Sink into slumber early. Take a warm bath. Turn off the TV and computer and smart phone, all distractions that exhaust us, and just crawl gratefully under those covers an hour, two hours early.
Sink into your dreams, and be informed by what is revealed to you there.

When we allow rest, we allow healing. When we allow dreams, we allow the Universe to come to us in ways that are miraculous, Divine, and extraordinary.

Allow this for the next two days, and notice how much better you feel, how much better your life seems.
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In rest, we are made whole.

I am noticing, and noticing again, the amazing shifts that are happening all around us. We’ve talked already about how some of you struggled and wailed through the past... and now you’re moving along like gangbusters, facing your life in a new way.

Others of you are just starting to feel the effects of awakening now, as in right now, this moment. What I am seeing most here is folks who are breaking karma—actually trouncing long established patterns and saying “no more” to these patterns in their lives.

If this is you, you may be:

• Moving to another location.
• Moving to another living situation.
• Quitting a job that no longer serves.
• Ending a romantic relationship.
• Ending a habit or addiction.
• Ending a habitual thought pattern.
• Breaking off relationships that are toxic and negative.
• Breaking away from ways of living that are dull, numbing, boring.
• Refusing to accept situations that are low vibration. Turning away from low vibration media.

With all this refusal, space is created for a new kind of living. This may include:

• Stepping into your own personal spiritual practice.
• Finally understanding who you really are.
• Accepting the truth of yourself as Divine.
• Allowing yourself to live without fear.
• Allowing yourself to expand into who you can be.
• Loving yourself.
• Loving all those around you.
• Feeling gratitude for the smallest things.
• Being in awe of everything.

It feels like, no matter what stage you’re at: the creation or destruction, the Shiva or Kali, the wave building or the wave receding, we are moving in a deeper, more magical, more mystical way—we are moving in our true natures, or toward our true natures. Celebrate this! Rejoice! It’s been a long time coming.

​Many people are going through a spiritual awakening right now. It’s like consciousness, going viral.

Yet while awakening sounds so exciting, when you’re suddenly in communication with guides, angels, the departed — it’s not easy to integrate that experience into your perceived reality.

If this is happening to you, understand that the road to awakening extends perfectly, and contains all the time you need to shift, change, and transform your consciousness.

In my own situation, it took a full eight years from the time of my near death experience to my full spiritual awakening when I received and wrote The 33 Lessons. Even now, years later, I am still opening, deepening, growing.

There are two pathways to spiritual awakening: one is spiritual, and the other is psychic. The funny thing is, both paths journey exactly the same road — just traveled from opposite directions.

Let’s say you’re a guru, a holy saint or mystic deep in spiritual practice. You pray, you do rituals, you sit in mediation and connect deeply to the now. In everything you do, your focus is your spiritual development.

And yet, over time, as you sit on your prayer rug and expand your consciousness, something happens. You become psychic, simply because your consciousness has shifted — and this is what happens when our consciousness shifts.

Now, let’s say you’re walking the other road — you’re a person deeply intrigued by the possibility of becoming psychic. You train with the highest level teachers, you take workshops, you practice your skills. And as you follow this practice over time, you experience a consciousness shift that transforms you into spiritual being.

No matter if you are taking the first step upon the road to spiritual awakening or are well on the path, trust that it is the ultimate life journey, the reason we’re here.

​We are being asked once again, right now, to take a look at things that we had set up earlier in our lives, that are still ongoing, that do not serve us.

This might be family and relationship—for many of you, this is where the hammer is going to hit the nail, soundly on the head. Take a look at your family, your relationships, and ask yourself: “Is this serving me?” Not serving the small me, of ego/personality/fear. But the big me, which is your soul essence.

Is this serving me? If you are in a relationship filled with toxicity, blame, fear—and certainly, if you are in a relationship that is abusive in any way—it’s time to Let Go, and Say No.

If your current challenges aren’t in family relationships, but are around other relationships, such as business, career, groups, associations, friendships, and other relationships such as these, the question is the same: “Is this serving me?”

Not the ego you. Not the you that has goals and ambitions and so forth.

You as Soul.

Now,... when we ask this question, “is this serving me,” the key is to be very clear about your answer. For about 80% of you right now, with the energy as it is, I’d guess the answer is going to be.... NO.

No, this relationship is not serving me.
No, this association is not serving me.
No, this friendship is not serving me.

And when you know this clearly... and you will know it resoundingly, in your heart and soul and gut, the idea is to Let Go and Say No... and... wait for it...:) To do this without fault or blame.

To let go of relationships that are not serving you, and to do so without creating anger, a need to find fault, a need to pin blame.

To just understand that change is the way of the Universe... and that sometimes, we grow out of things when we least expect it...or others grow out of us... or whatever it is. No anger. No fault. No blame. Simply holding boundary, and releasing in compassion.

Take a look today, at what is bothering you, what is stressing you, what is in conflict. And then, meditate on whether the above applies.

I don’t use the word “tribe” very much in my work.

To me, it seems that the word “family” speaks of the soul cluster we’re born into: the one we’ve been with since childhood. Family is where we work out our karma from distant past and through the generations.

Tribe is what we choose: it’s the new family, the true family we seek to create, with people who we share aligned values and understanding with.

But sometimes, if haven’t truly worked out our family stuff, tribe is just a false projection: a group we call “us” even though that’s not really “us.” We’re only part of it, or we only fit in that group for a while.

Eventually, we grow out of all family, and all tribe, and simply become our selves.

On the plane back from California, I sat by a woman wearing Oregon Ducks gear from head to toe. Her first statement to me was “Are you a Ducks or Beavers fan?” to which I mumbled, “Neither.”

When we overalign with family, when we over align with tribe, we miss the true aspect of who we are, which is our Self as Divine being in earth body. We are each unique, yet even more so, we are Soul.

It’s a whole different way of looking at who you are, and why you’re here. 

Joy comes from seva (service) to others.

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.

“But I don’t have enough for myself,” you might say. “I’m struggling to make it as it is.” This may seem true upon first glance. But when you look closer, you find 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.
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Give to someone you know, someone you don’t know, even someone you don’t like. Be of service to the other who is also you.

Notice how your heart busts right out of your body. 

When I’m working with people for the first time, one of the questions I ask is this: What is your spiritual belief system?

Most people are happy to talk very clearly about their relationship to God/One/All/Divine/Universe, or whatever name they might use for the infinite ineffable.

It is lovely to hear profound, well-considered manifestos from people all over the globe:

“I used to be this religion, now I follow my own path.”
“I believe in God, but not the way I learned it as a kid.”
“I know there are Divine beings who help us.”
“I believe I am fully supported by the Universe.”
“I don’t know what I know, but I know there is more than me.”
“Everything is one infinite soul.”
I love these statements of belief!

But my next question: ‘Do you have a regular spiritual practice?’ often meets with a sort of head-hung, I’m-so-ashamed kind of response.

People feel guilty if they don’t meditate every day.
People feel guilty if they have trouble sitting still to meditate.
People feel ashamed if they don’t pray regularly.

Sometimes people think that having a spiritual practice means having a consistent, daily practice: prayers and study at dawn, yoga every day, a particular diet or routine. This is a path for some.

Others think that having a true spiritual practice leaves no room for anything else. That to be spiritual means to live as a renunciate: to leave behind family, friends, interests and move into monkhood high in the Himalayas. This is a path for some.

But for most of us, spiritual practice is the aspect of life that we somehow squeeze into the hubbub of everything else in our lives. We’re “householders,” in the Hindu term: doing our dharma in the every day of work, family, chores, community… the big ALL of life.

Now, my question is never meant to invite shame or guilt over what we’re doing or not doing the “right” way.

And it is true: some people are very consistent in their habits: Some do yoga at break of dawn, every single morning. Some read daily, studying the teachings of the great mystics, saints, and sages. Some are true bhakti: they sing and dance and celebrate daily, a regular part of their lives. Some go to community services weekly or more.

But for most of us… spiritual practice is often catch-as-catch-can. And I’d like to say—with one small caveat—that this is a fine way to run your spiritual practice.

That caveat?

That instead of thinking about your spiritual practice as something you “should do,” or as something that must be done “a certain way” or at a “certain time,” instead consider your spiritual practice as your way of being.

Not something separate from yourself. But how you show up in the world.
Not what you do at a certain time or in a certain place. But how you are all the time, everywhere.
You are Divine, all of the time.

In this way of being, of living from consciousness, of living as a luminous, radiant, being of love, you would naturally be drawn to all the practices that help you to open and expand: studying, reading, praying, meditating, walking, journaling, singing, dancing, being in nature… all of it… because these are all the ways that help us open our true Self, and become One with our oneness.

You would naturally be drawn to connecting with the Divine beings and helpers who are continually surrounding us in other dimensions, layers, and levels of Universal vibration.

You would naturally be committed to learning the language of the cosmos, because this is the language of living from Soul.

You would naturally be curious about ways to “open” into more presence.

And of course, in leaning toward the Light, you automatically notice yourself leaning away from the dark.

You would naturally begin to turn away from all those things that shut down consciousness: many habits of modern society, so many old belief systems that belong to others and to you, and certainly anything that brings you shame or guilt or unworthiness.

When you begin to think of spiritual practice as the way you are being in the world, it becomes a great joy to create space for things that help you to feel yourself as one of One.

​Have you ever been in a situation where you don’t possibly have enough time to get somewhere, do something, experience something—and then suddenly you do?

Or, conversely, have you had the sensation of losing time, or not experiencing time: you do something so involving, or so trance inducing, you actually can’t remember what you did?

For the last few years, I have been noticing with more and more regularity, how time seems to expand or contract to meet my needs or desires. And furthermore, the more conscious I am: the more awake, aware, luminous, and fully present... the more this happens.

Is this a shift in the Universe? We have certainly been shifted since 2012. Or is this a shift in my own experience? Certainly, my own ability to hold presence and to stay in the moment has increased exponentially greatly over the last few years. Or, perhaps it is a combination of both.

In any case: it seems clear that there is a new wrinkle in time.

We already know we can move beyond the veil, or into other vibrational dimensions where we can easily sense and communicate with guides, the angelic realm, and our beloved ancestors. We also can move beyond the veil of time: back to the past, forward into the near future.

Now, it seems our experience of time has also changed, depending on how present we are; how engaged we are in the moment.

I believe that our absolute surrender to what is, instead of forcing what's supposed to be, and our absolute engagement of the miracle of what's in front of us… by paying attention to all of it, all at once, fully being there…

Changes time.
Or we change.
Or maybe both.

​We are always invited to take off our armor:

We can stop hacking away at time and its impossible demands.
We can stop fighting chaos and the drama of the world.
We can set down our swords and let the battle rage on without us.

Whenever we so choose, we are granted reprieve... especially in the summer. And if we are wise in this season of relaxation and fun, we take ourselves to quiet green places and plunge our bare feet into cool streams, and we slow down and open up and REMEMBER why we’re on this planet.

We are here to enjoy, and in summer this may mean that you:

Live “en plein air” as much as you can.
Rise early, with the birds.
Notice the air on your skin.
Eat plant foods with vital force.
Forest bathe: just you and the trees.
Begin to observe the first sunsets of summer.
Marvel at how much Light is arriving into the world.

The world, with all its cares and worries, can wait. In summer, the Light increases and extends, so we can WAKE UP from the illusion of worldly pressures, and experience the essence of life.

​I’ve been thinking lately about Oneness, interconnectivity, and how social media or the web in general has been a game changer.

The thing is, it’s now impossible to get out of the game.

The connectivity was all there before; we just couldn’t see it, hear it... We weren’t cognizant. But now, the game’s on 24/7, in ways we can’t get out of our minds even when we unplug, turn off, disengage. We are cognizant of the energy of connection now, in a whole new way.

When you’re on social media, you’ve likely intuited or had the flash or hit of knowing about each person that you come in contact with. It’s similar to what happens when we go into a crowd... All of the information about everyone just floods in.

Social media is a template or trainer for the bigger energy that’s always been there. It can’t be turned off, because it’s what we are.

There is discomfort, as we all move to this realization. And there is also understanding, that this is what Oneness really is.

​It’s taking some getting used to, this idea of being One.

Easy to say... “we are One” etc....Heck, we’ve been saying it since the Beatles brought it to Western culture.

But the getting used to the actuality of Oneness as this becomes part of our lives, namely via the digital age, the social media age, our lives as Twitterati in which we can and do connect instantaneously with anyone and everyone at any time.

This new techno Oneness is the shift.

It’s training us to understand how intuition works.

In ten years, a hundred years... The technology will not be needed. We’ll just do it with our minds.

It sounds far-fetched, but as one who works in intuition, this is what is happening, and this is what is to come.

When it’s Friday the 13th, is it your lucky day?

I don’t really believe the Universe is sitting up there with bated breath, watching our calendar. Do you? The idea of Friday the 13th being unlucky is a very old construct of group thought, a superstition.

Same goes for old ideas like walking under a ladder, or stepping on a crack, or....

The thing about most old thoughts like this, is that they're based in fear.

I would not say that we as humans have less to fear nowadays, but we now understand that we have the choice of attitude, that we decide how we perceive events that take place...That choice belongs to us.

A lot of people will be talking about law of attraction, how we create our reality with our thoughts. Yes, to an extent.

But the Universe is also busy creating from collective consciousness, which is not always aligned with positivity.

Stuff happens.

It’s how you choose to perceive it that matters. If you perceive things small and in fear, you go down the fear path.

If you expand and look at things from a place of love, your experience is different.

Choose for yourself.

​In the news recently, a woman was caned in Indonesia for being affectionate with a man who was not her husband. She was caned by authorities, while a large group of people looked on.

We need to come a lot further in human rights, don’t we?

A while back, I wrote about how I’d stood up to a bully who was abusing his daughter. I wonder: would I have been able to do that in Indonesia? Would I have been able to run into this circle of authorities, and pointed out the bully, and told them to stop him from bullying his daughter? Would I have been able to run to the authorities, and begged them to stop caning this woman?

We all know reality.

It doesn’t seem likely that protest, in that kind of situation, would do anything.

What I can do, is write about it, and hopefully that will resonate further.

It is imperative that we can look at this idea of human rights, and what that means: for gender, orientation, race, body; for all the ways we are human, all the ways we are different and the same.

And just keep working to become free.

​I came across Downton Abbey some time ago, and for a while, I watched it with great interest. But at one point in the show, when they were well into one of the Wars, and men were getting wounded and the entire Abbey had been turned into a convalescent center, my husband commented “it’s like a cult.”

And that vague discomfort that I’d had the whole time I’ve been watching it, became very clear to me.

Downton Abbey is a snapshot of how things were at the turn of the 20th century, when Europe and America, were caught in a horrible cycle of fear and duty.

Everyone’s in lock step with group thought: they keep stiff upper lips, and do their duties and follow the rules… and this is exactly the same as a cult. It’s group thought, created by the group and enforced by the group, so that if you’re not in the group, you’re ostracized.

I’ve stopped watching Downton Abbey. I don’t need to spend another hour watching people live in fear and doing their duty and never looking up to see that they are souls, they are human beings with souls, and they can choose another path.

A lot of our ancestors, a lot of our family karma, at least if you’re of European or American descent, comes from the belief systems and the ways of living that are depicted in this show. For that, I think it’s valuable: we can see the wounds that we carry in our karmic DNA.

And yet, even though it’s an interesting time capsule, I don’t want to spend my evenings immersed in the past. I’d rather look to where we’re going, or trying to go now.

If you go to the gym and lift weights, you’ll come across this idea of personal best, personal record, your PR.

It’s the idea that each time you lift, you try to lift a little bit more weight than the time you did before.

Maybe just for one rep, if that’s what you can do.

The idea is that you’re always pushing to expand your ability to lift so that you get stronger faster. Your body catches on to the idea that you’re lifting more, so it learns to lift more.

When I go to the gym, I work on my PR often. But not every time. I’m not very interested in having experiences where I’m trying to push harder, work harder, go faster, do more.

I'm interested in being in the experience as a whole, and letting my body tell me what it needs. Most days, I experience the gym as a kind of meditation, or a clearing or a cleansing.

I don’t need to put a bunch of markers on my experience.
I don’t need to have the pressure of doing “good” or “not good” enough.
I don’t need to have any sense of failure, if I don’t hit a new PR.
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Over time, it will come.
Just showing up fully present, is plenty.

When you are working on expanding your spiritual Self, I think it’s good to take the same approach. Some days, you’ll do a lot of meditation, a lot of inner work, a lot of study. Other days, you’ll go through the motions. Sometimes, you won’t do anything: you’ll skip your practice, and do other things.

Take a look at how much you’re pushing yourself in your inner work. Being a Spiritual Overachiever isn’t very helpful. It tires you out, and wears you down, and puts you in a place where it’s hard to hear the whispers of the Universe.