As many of you know, I’m not a fan of Law of Attraction.
 
Before some of you send comments disagreeing with me, hear me out:
 
It's not that Law of Attraction isn't real: it is. The Universe is continually working to bring us exactly what our heart calls for. 

But so often how we USE Law of Attraction is either incorrect, or coming from ego instead of heat.

This idea of treating the Universe as one big letter to Santa? It's not what we're here for. 

Think back to when you wrote your Santa wish list when you were six, seven, nine… well, you probably put a lot of things on that list that you didn’t really need, or didn’t even want.
 
You wanted stuff that all the other kids wanted
You wanted stuff you’d break the very first day.
You wanted stuff, just because everyone told you you should want stuff.
 
And maybe… you didn’t even want stuff at all.
Maybe, you were pretty happy with what you had and used already.
 
This idea of want-get, want-get… it was being trained into you.
 
The Law of Attraction is often misused as want-get, want-get, an endless cycle of never being happy with who you are and how you live right NOW… always searching for the new, the better, the bigger.
 
For me, it feels much better to not ask. To not make my wish list to the Universe, and instead to let the Divine choose. To let the Universe lead. 
 
I believe we’re each here for our own unique destiny, and if we show up in full service to this destiny, it’s pretty hard… no, it’s impossible… for us to miss it.  
 
If we’re here for a reason, for a purpose, for a calling… all we need to do is show up and move in that direction… and the Universe will take care of all the rest.
 
This asking for specifics: the car, the money, the partner… gosh… why do we think we know what we want now, any better than we did back when we were making our Santa list?
 
We get the car, and it only satisfies for a brief moment.
We get the money, and we immediately want more.
We get the partner, then we try to change him or her.
 
Hmmm… it seems to me that asking: this constant grasping for what we think we should have, doesn’t really make us happy.
 
Instead, we can simply not ask.
 
We can pay attention, and allow ourselves to be led, in all of ways the Universe leads us every minute of every day.
 
We attract our destiny, when we show up to who we really are. 

A few days ago I had the pleasure of working with a client who I consider to be a true mystic.
 
It’s a gift to be in Divine connection this way.
But for the client, it made “real” life difficult.  
 
“I’m spend a lot of time by myself,” she said. “I don’t have too much to say to most people.
 
And it’s very true: if you are spending a lot of time in the etheric realm; if you are spending an hour or several or many hours day communing with the Divine in all the ways you can do this: meditation, prayer, contemplation, nature… then you’re going to start to live in a different vibration than many of the people around you.
 
You’re going to live in a state of peace and quiet and calm.
While all around you the world rages in chaos and drama: the constant racheting up of the distracted life.
 
And, this creates a chasm, when you with your peaceful, serene heart, with your beautiful connection to the world of spirit and Light, attempt to make casual conversation with someone who doesn’t speak the language.
 
Will you talk about football scores?
Will you talk about politics?
Will you talk about the latest diets?
 
You won’t, because you won’t be interested in these mundane topics. You’ll have move to a place where you’re living in the etheric realm: you’re existing in a different dimension, even while you continue to live in this earth life.
 
If you find this happening to you, don’t worry about it too much.
 
It is common, in the spiritual life, to run out of things to say about the worldly life.
It just doesn’t mean much any more.
It doesn’t matter.
We’ve moved to a new place of understanding.
 
If you find yourself in this place, relax and step into your true purpose.
Let go of what you’re not.
Be what you’re here to be.
 
Many of us are here on this planet to be mystics, channels, meditators, healers, teachers, seekers… we’re here to lift ourselves up, and in lifting ourselves up to new understanding, we begin to lift the world. 

​The other day, I received an enormous package in the mail.
 
It was constructed with the impermeability of a fortress: extra-thick cardboard on the outside, and inside: layers and layers of double-dense foam.
 
We’re not talking the cheap stuff: those puffy pink popcorns that get all over everything, or those wadded up sheets of eco-friendly kraft paper.
 
This was serious foam: waffled and waving and shock-absorbent as can be, like somebody had packed a memory-foam mattress right inside.
 
And oh… inside!
 
For at the center of all this foam was a gift that made me gasp as I maneuvered it out: two gorgeous original pieces of art, beautifully framed.
 
A gift from my oldest daughter’s boyfriend.
His original art.
Art of his own making.
 
I put them on the mantle immediately, and what I noticed right away was this: they right in.
 
They like they’ve been here all the time.
They fit with the same vibe as everything else.
They fit like they’re part of the family.
 
This gift of art that you make yourself, whether you are a great artist or a beginner, whether you have a lot of talent or none, is a gift that carries the energetic signature of the creator.
 
This is why it is so magical.
 
Each brush or pencil stroke, every line or curve or shading, is something that the artist brings into the world: a personal vision of what the Divine provides to the artist as conduit, receiver, channel for the Universe.
 
If you create art for a particular person, this Universal energy is imbued in your art: you are contemplating the person as you create it. For the hours that it takes you to create your art, you are holding that person’s soul in your very hands.
 
If you select art for a particular person, you are also considering them from soul perspective: holding them softly in your awareness, trying to discern which piece will best reveal your Universal connection.
 
Go make some art today, and give it to someone you adore.
It is a gift that connects hearts, every time it is viewed. 

If you are a creative person, you may have noticed that when you become imbued with an idea for a project, your entire world rearranges itself so that you can complete this project.
 
It’s as if time slides over on the bench seat of the big old Cadillac that you use to navigate your life, and suddenly there’s all the space you need.
 
Appointments on your calendar suddenly cancel.
Meetings you “had to” do suddenly disappear. 
Tasks on the priority list shift to “when I get to it.”
Friends disappear back into the woodwork.
People you take care of start taking care of themselves.
 
It’s like the Universe becomes your personal manager, shooing everybody and everything away so you finally have time to think!
 
Suddenly, you find yourself faced with some open space: a block of time and privacy that is exactly what you need to create.
 
Your studio beckons.
The computer light blinks invitingly.
Your guitar leaps into your hands.
 
Of course, there are many other ways to be creative besides art, writing and music!
 
The point is, that when you become infused with a creative idea, when you experience a period of manic creativity where you can’t stop thinking about a project, where you find yourself in pure creative Flow for hours or days on end, it’s best to abandon yourself to this fully..
 
A creative portal that the Universe sends you through is not forever: it’s a gift. This gift of Flow, of being a conduit for Divine inspiration is precious: if you don’t make yourself available to it, it will go shut down, close, go away.
 
And as for all those other things on your “to do” list?
 
They may or may not be as important as what happens to you when you enter into a state of manic creativity, when you become a conduit for the Divine, when you exist in the highest vibration of Flow, and in this expression of your full self you are transformed. 

From time to time, I come under assault from folks who think I’m aligned with the dark because I’m a channel.
 
Some of these emails are downright scary, filled with fear and shame and accusations…
 
And the thing is, this isn’t what I do. I don’t support the occult, the dark forces in any way, and I very much hope you don’t either.
 
This dabbing in energy that is dark is no laughing matter. It’s real energy; it really exists. You can get into a lot of psychic trouble, without proper discernment.
 
And yet, at the same time, these attacks on me in the name of Jesus, religiosity…. they don’t seem very Light at all.
 
They seem stuck in the old fear, the old superstitions, the old religions that taught us there was only one right way to spiritual enlightenment.
 
I believe there are many ways.
I believe there are many paths.
I believe there are many spiritual practices, and this may well include a close relationship to Jesus, if that resonates with you.
 
Jesus, and all of the holy ones: the master teachers, the master gurus and saints, the voices of God/One/All/Divine/Source/Universe? All of these can be found, by leaning to the Light.
 
I can’t tell you how to live.
But I will say: I don’t dabble in dark.
 
Why fuss with the grey, dank, dusty, occult stuff in the corner of the room, when you can shine the Divine flashlight and illuminate everything?
 
Keep turning to Light, with whatever name you call it, in prayer, in mediation, in the deep longing of your heart, and you will notice your life getting better, your relationships getting easer, your mind getting more peaceful, your whole being, elevating and vibrating higher and higher. 

A while back, we were eagerly awaiting the release of Zoolander 2.

The movie was some 15 years in the making.
 
Not all of you know this, but my first real job was as a fashion copywriter for Nordstrom; I wrote ads for all the designer looks: Yves St. Laurent, Givenchy, Chanel, all the big fashion houses of the time.
 
So I’m really familiar with the tongue-in-cheek world of Zoolander: the runway shows, the couture houses, the celebrities.
 
When Zoolander 2 came out, it was like visiting an old friend: all of the old jokes where there, and we got them. Everything was referential: we got it. It was like being on the inside, being an insider.
 
We got it.
 
Is Zoolander 2 a great movie? That’s for you to decide.
 
But the idea of sharing referential history is fascinating.
 
Having a referential history, the way we do with with long-time partners and spouses, with family, with old friends, with people we’ve known for along time as colleagues, neighbors, community… it’s really important.
 
It’s not necessarily that they know us, any better than anyone else: because let’s face it, often family knows us less well than a new friend we might meet.
 
It’s that that they were there: they experienced it with us.
We know all the old jokes.
We know all the old stories.
We share the history.
We get it.
 
In a lot of spiritual awakening, it becomes really common to think you have to toss the baby with the bathwater: that you have to turn against all those people from the past who don’t “get it” like you do, or who don’t see things as you now do.
 
We all need to go through this breaking away process: from leaving group thought and stepping into the understand of the self as soul essence.
 
However…
 
There’s great value great comfort, in returning now and then to review all the old jokes, the old story.
 
Having a referential history with someone, with many people, brings us back to our deeper humanity .
 
We’re all in it together.
On this planet.
In this time. 
 
We’re here to be witnesses to each other.
We’re here to be part of it for each other.
We here to get it. 

Oh, this living in nature!
 
There’s this romantic view that nature is all flowers and fairies and field mice sipping nettle tea out of acorn cups.
 
I’d like to say, nature isn’t like that at all.
 
Out here where I live: mostly forest and field, surrounded by more forest and field, there’s a lot of nature all the time, and it demands respect.
 
The other night, we drove back late from picking my daughter up from a choir concert. It was after eleven by the time we reached the old ranch gate.
 
There, in the tall grasses just 15 feet away, stood two young deer, their eyes blinking red in the car lights, and their ears looking very much too big for their bodies. They stood in full attention, quivering and electric, as the car crunched on the gravel.
 
I rolled the car window down to speak to them, thoughts of joy and love in my mind: the night sky, bright with stars. The spring breeze. The waving grasses. Everything, so soft and lovely. It was nature: idyllic, peaceful, gentle.
 
And then in one great blurring moment, a bobcat sprang from the grasses.
 
He was a big cat, 80 pounds or more, with markings that glinted in the headlights. He leapt toward the deer in the space of one second, and we saw his powerful body rolling, springing, bursting from hidden crouch to full extension, as the deer bolted, the bobcat hunted.
 
It all happened in one second, maybe two.
 
We sat in the car with the window rolled down, the night air filling our lungs as we  tried to catch our breath.
 
Nature. It’s always surprising. You think it’s one way, then you get out in it and you find it’s not that way at all.
 
It’s much bigger than we think.
It’s much stronger.
 
Our place in the world, when we’re in nature.
We’re not as important as we think.

If you’re sensitive by nature… if you’re the kind of person who feels everything all the time… it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
 
This is how it is for most of us who are intuitives, healers, empaths, seekers, mystics, creatives… all of us who live off the grid, so to speak, of the mainstream.
 
There’s nothing wrong with living authentically, with being who you really are.
 
In fact, this is a sublime way to live!
 
Yet when you find yourself continually putting your empathic self out there into the mainstream world with all its rough edges, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
 
The thing is: not everybody feels everything all the time.
 
Most of the good people of the world go about their business without this profound sensitivity and awareness of every little thing.
 
They don’t feel all the energy.
They don’t feel everyone’s emotions.
They don’t instantly know everyone’s stories.
They don’t sense spirits.
They don’t have enter other dimensions.
They don’t hear the whisperings of the Universe.
 
Many of the good people of the world simply aren’t conscious yet; they haven’t woken up.
 
Instead, they’re running on the fumes of distractions that make them forget who they really are: the “to do” list, the schedule, the goal, the ambition, the drama, the wound, the rage, all making it impossible for them to notice what’s happening all around them.
 
For you, empath, it’s different.
 
You feel it all
You know it all.
There’s no way to turn it off.
 
When you’ve had just a little too much of this everything-all-at-once, when you’re experiencing a little bit of empathic overwhelm, I invite you to….
 
Excuse yourself from all the energy.
Take a break from all the emotions.
Retreat from the swirl of everyone else’s stuff.
 
The world will most definitely wait.  
 
And in the meantime, as you gather your beautiful sensitive self back into your true Self, understand that it’s a gift to be an empath, to feel it all.
 
It’s a gift of consciousness.
Celebrate this. 

This summer, my youngest daughter is working as camp counselor
 
She’s gone ten weeks, living in the Oregon woods June through August.
 
That means that for the first time in decades, I’ll be without kids.
 
When I was young, I was in a very great hurry to get going in my life and experience all things adult and independent!
 
So I took on kid raising pretty early on.
 
My path was that of the Householder: I didn’t have the years of travel or world exploration that many did. Instead, I spent my early adulthood raising one, two, three, four kids, with all the learning and growing that being a mother provides.
 
Now… that long, full, rich passage is over.
 
My older kids have headed out into the world, my youngest will go soon, and I’m already in transition.
 
Many of you have made or are making this transition, and you know the story:
 
After years of driving a car full of other people, suddenly it’s just you. After years of having a schedule dictated by early school mornings and late afternoon activities,  by lunch packing and dinner making and grocery shopping and laundry doing, suddenly your schedule is opens up.
 
The house, once so noisy, chaotic and full, now seems quiet as a church.
 
It’s a funny thing… when we’re in the midst of our own childhood, we think it’s going to last forever… we might even daydream about when we can leave and get started with our lives.
 
When we’re in the midst of the Householder path, raising kids from birth to adult, , we know it won’t last forever. Yet when we’re in the eye of the storm, it sure feels like it.
 
It can take us by surprise, to realize that both of these passages: being a child, and raising children, will end.
 
Suddenly, we are no longer taken care of by others.
Suddenly, we are no longer taking care of others.
 
Not everyone has children, or has this particular passage of empty nest.
 
But everyone experiences transitions, the times when one thing changes to another, and you see it coming, and then it does come, and suddenly everything is different and never, ever to be the same.
 
Breathe. Trust. Breathe some more.