Soon it will be New Year’s, and our year will be tucked away in the memory box, a past that is complete.  
 
Consider at this end of the year, how you will inhabit next year. You get to choose, with your intention and your awareness, how you will inhabit this lifetime.
 
You get to choose how you will inhabit this new year.
 
As you celebrate and mark the passing of this year, tucked away into the past, never to be revisited or returned to, do so with heart brimming:
 
• For all that went well.
• For all that simply was.
• For all you learned.
• For who you have become.
 
Tomorrow is next year.
The sun will rise. 
And the Light will return again, to illuminate us all. 

Maybe you've just finished dinner and are getting up to wash the dishes, and an understanding will suddenly fall upon your shoulders: Here I am. This is my life.

Or maybe you're waiting in line at the espresso stand, and it hits you: Some day I’ll die. I'm soul in body.

Or maybe you're in a deeply passionate moment with a lover, and it arrives to you: I'm here now. This is what I’m experiencing.
 
You have a moment of understanding outside of ego or identity that arrives without anticipation or expectation. You just open up into it.

​And you understand yourself as soul in body, and you feel this as awe and gratitude, that this reality is yours. 

This moment of observing the self from soul perspective is a kind of manna from the Universe, the beautiful gift of deep knowing of the profound experience of being soul in body.

This fills ups, lifts us, and carries us into emotions such as awe, gratitude and bliss.  
 
You can’t create these moments. They just arrive unexpectedly, like a great “aha” in the everyday, when you’re not doing anything important.
 
Usually, you will find them when you are between experiences.
 
They don’t happen when you’re experiencing Now, being fully present.
They don’t happen when you’re thought looping, and being in ego identity.
 
Then happen when you are suddenly surprised by the big view: you see yourself outside yourself, as if you’ve hovered into the stratosphere and are looking down at yourself, being in your life., and you have a moment of recognition of your reality.
 
Soul in body.
Soul having experiences.
Soul in the finite container of this lifetime.
 
You recognize your true nature, in these moments. 

There will come a magical moment this winter, when you will see something, or you will experience something, and your heart will quietly unfold.
 
Everything will become sacred, holy, still.
 
And in this moment, in which you are not doing anything in particular, not having any big experience, something will shift and you will understand yourself as soul in body, Divine being having human experience.
 
It might show up as part of your religious tradition.
It might be a secular moment.
It might happen with family.
It might happen in community.
You might be by yourself.
 
This is a moment between the moments: a time when you observe yourself being your true soul Self.
 
It doesn't matter how this moment between moments finds you.
It just matters that when it does, you stop, allow it, and let it open you.

Sometimes we say we want to manifest "abundance," as if saying "money" is a dirty word.

It's true, money and abundance are very different: manifesting money is about having more zeros in the bank. Manifesting abundance is about having more than enough of what you need: a place to live, food to eat, clothing to wear.

We think it’s more spiritual to manifest abundance instead of cold, hard cash.... except it's really not. It's all the same idea: a fear of lack, manifest in different forms.

Once you get over your fear of lack, money and abundance will come to you easily.

For most of us, it takes great deprivation to learn this lesson: growing up poor, living in poverty, losing everything, begin crushed by debt, losing your job..... all of these experiences where we lose “everything” teach us that we don’t really lose what matters. 

​We still have our life force. We still are Soul. 

When we lose the fear of losing everything, we come to a place of true manifesting: we can create what we need, because we don’t have fear that we can’t.

It’s another dimension of thought that creates a different existence. If you’re broke, or fearful about being broke, don’t try to grasp more money, or or try to trick the Universe by using the word "abundance" when you manifest.

Just look at your fear.

Start there, and shine Light on it. As soon as you lose fear about lack, money and abundance will arrive.

Wishing you a day filled with all the high holy of the season. 

And a little musical interlude from Wiseman3.

Santa, are you listening? More Wiseman3! 
​
I hope this brings joy and a smile to you, as you remember what it was to be young. 

It's said the first wise men came from the east. 

But some years ago, the OTHER wise men, aka Wiseman3, were goofing around in the basement of their childhood home in the forests of Oregon.

​This is the holiday song they sang: 

Last Saturday, I had a grand adventure that filled with me profound feelings of connectedness, expansion and joy.
 
Did I go to a big concert?
Did I attend a holiday party?
Did I purchase something expensive?
Did I travel somewhere exotic?
Did I achieve a great accomplishment?
 
No.
 
Instead, I headed with my husband to a park nearby, and we gathered chestnuts.
 
It was nearing dusk; the kind of wintry gloaming where the air is moist with rain and the earth smells dank. We headed toward the river, to where a mighty chestnut stood. Scattered underneath were thousands of prickly green pods, burst open with their treasures: glossy brown chestnuts.
 
We gathered them up, and we experienced it fully: the slick feel of the chestnuts, the muddy ground, the trees in presence all around us, the sky faint and grey, the drizzle of the rain.
 
It was a nothing experience, really. The kind of thing a lot of people might find strange or odd or peculiar.
 
Yet I have found that these small moments open me into euphoria: these moments that take me out of self and into Self, where I find myself fully enraptured.
 
You can find and create these moments in your own life easily, as you create more space in your life, so that the season can find you.

There isn’t any way to get away from others; we’re all One, all the time.
There isn’t a way to stop sensing what others are feeling; we are all connected.

However, we can take some breathing room from others, by creating private space that lets us connect to the wisdom of our own soul, and to the deep healing and understanding of the natural and spirit world.

This taking private space might be seen as a way to slow down, not block, the thoughts and feelings of others. We simply remove ourselves from the vibration of drama and dysfunction, or from the vibration of too much exposure, and instead decide to exist on a plane where we experience peace, spaciousness, relaxation, and non interruption.

When we exist on this plane of private space, we are able to work creatively, work spiritually, and enjoy exploring other realms that are just as real as this real world.

We can’t ever be separate from others, because we’re all One. But we can choose to inhabit different, higher planes, and enjoy the spaciousness and freedom that is there. 

If we’re very lucky, we experience a deep, dreaming sleep, and wake up feeling refreshed, new, reborn: as if we’ve been bestowed a blessing upon.

In our dreams, we might have done magical things: swum with mermaids, or talked with flowers We might have met our guides, and received teachings or messages. We might have seen a difficult situation in our life, easily resolved. We might have spent time with a beloved departed, and received comfort.

The thing is: dreams are real.

Even though we experience dreams on the etheric plane, they provide us with the same level of healing, comfort and emotional understanding that we experience in our earth life.

If you have unpleasant dreams, these are provided to you as ways of dealing difficult situations: it’s time to correct aspects of your life that aren’t working, are finished, or are no longer needed. If you have a dream that is sheer joy, such as talking with a mermaid, or flying, simply enjoy it: this is reality too! It is a blessing, a comfort, a gift of joy.

When you have a profound dream that contains a message, vision or knowing, write this dream down and post it somewhere you will see it. This guiding dream will be a marker on your path. 

​When you hug someone, a whole chain reaction of endorphins and love and yummy feel-good feelings get released, for both the hugger and the huggie.

​When you hold someone’s hand, this same happens. When you put your arm around someone, in a romantic or friendly way, or even in professional side-hug way, the same thing happens.

We receive a blast of connectivity, the walls of perceived separation break down, we allow our auras to merge, and for just one tiny moment, we connect as One.

Some people are very good at this: open and affection. This warmth is easy for them. Others are reserved, painfully shy, have trouble being touched. this warmth is especially important for them.

Notice today, how many people you touch in a warm, friendly way: a hug, a hand shake, a pat on the back. Notice how many times you are touched.

Becoming more open as a soul, means that you will become more spontaneousy affectionate.

This idea of nations, factions, areas, regions, races: it will all dissolve, over time, and and we will understand ourselves as humanity.

Right now, we’re like a body that has gotten confused: each part of the world, a different body part: the right arm is Africa, the left foot is China, the stomach is America, and so forth.

And we think… oh, if I just make my left foot, or my right arm or my stomach to be absolutely pefect, thenthe body will be fine. If I just make my left foot really, really strong and fit, then all will be well. But of course, this is not true.

We’re One body. All the parts must be working, fit, strong, healthy together.

If one part is strong and the others sick or weak, this is not a healthy body.

When we finaly see the world as One, we will understand this. We will, then, begin to raise our entire Self up. 

People are starving and suffering, being shot at and raped right now. No matter when you read this, it’s happening, right now. Why is it so, that some have such luxury and providence, and others survive in the most meager, violent way?

It is because we are not all conscious.

It is not the idea that those who have abundance are conscious, that they have manifested this for themvselve, and those who are poor don’t know how. This isn’t true.

It is true that struggling is a choice, and that a lot of times we choose to live a life of pain and struggle. However, what it's even more true, is that we are One.

What affects the least of us, affects the All of us.

Until we become conscious, and this includes the haves and the haves not, there will not be equality or freedom for anyone. To have abundance while someone else starves; this isn’t freedom. To have peace while someone else is in agony; this isn’t freedom.

We must each raise our little light, so that we are all Light together.

This is how we become conscious, and change the world. 

You’ve probably heard how a using a crystal can help clear you? How the nature of the crystalline energy serves as a way of balancing, healing or clarifying you?

The same thing happens with nature, but on a bigger, more diverse scale.

When you first enter into a patch of nature, whether this is the more subtle nature of a park setting, or into wild nature that is rarely inhabited by humans, you can feel it.

In some big nature, the feeling is such high holy it almost feels frightening; there is the sense that you are not in charge here, because you are not.

In nature that is more used to humans, such as field, meadow, forest, there is the sense of great liveliness and aliveness, of all sentient beings, of course plants and rock and lichen and moss included, celebrating life with you.

You enter into these spaces, the high holy, the lively holy, and every cell of your body, both physical and etheric, responds in awe.

Nature clears us, because it takes away all illusion that our egoic lives matter: striving, doing, succeeding, needing.

All of that becomes nothing, when we are in nature, and when we understand nature is what we really are. 

In my own life, I’ve inhabited a lot of skins: daughter, student, lover, wife, mother, worker, teacher.

At the time, each seemed so important:  I “had parents” or “had a career” or “had a partner” or “had my life’s work” and so on.

Of course, we can’t have anything.
Nothing can be possessed, we can’t take anything with us.
We can’t even "have" it now.
We can just be in the experience.

When you consider your identity, or the skin you are wearing right now, consider it like a scarf you might put on for the season. Wear it for a year or so, wear it every day, all the time, with delight!

And when the time comes, take the scarf off, and put a new one on, that better reflects who you are, how you want to live, and what you have come to understand.

Try on many scarves. Until one day, you’ll find you don’t need to wear a scarf at all. You can show up as your true self, without need for identity, transparent and open to everything, leading from soul. 

If you have children, enjoy them. If you don’t have children, enjoy this too. If you’re letting go of children as they leave the nest, enjoy this also.

We are here to live in many ways, and to experience many identities.

You might be daughter, lover, mother, grandmother. Yet each of these stages isn’t meant to last forever; there’s a time to be in each stage. And even when you are deep within each identity, you must remember that all identities are simply illusion, projection, mask: they’re not your true self.

Don’t mourn the passing of an identity: if you’ve been a mother and now your children are leaving home, don’t hold yourself or them back with tears and guilt. If you’ve been a lover or spouse and now a relationship is over, don’t hold yourself or the other back with fear and shame.

Everything comes to its natural conclusion. Some identities hold for a lifetime. But most do not. Most identities are stages and passages that we move through. It’s natural to have change, letting go of what’s done, and transitioning into what’s next.

When you reach the end of your life, whenever that is, you’ll look back and not be concerned with all those identities you grasped so fully. You’ll remember the small thing, the small experience: holding hands with someone you love. The beauty of flowers. The way the air felt on your skin.

That’s the real stuff: your experience of Nowness, no identity needed. 

If you’re every in a hurry to get somewhere, or you’re running late for something, you can see what happens if you experiment with time.

Time isn’t this set thing: a minute isn’t really a minute, it’s just our perception of a minute.

If you begin to allow yourself to experience Nowness during that minute, you will find something unusual happens: your experience of time either speeds up or slows down, depending on what your intention is.

And, as you shift your perception of time to the idea of “I have all the time I need” you will find that whoever is also sharing the dream or the perception with you (your boss, your child waiting at school, the person you’re meeting for lunch) will also experience time in the same way.
 
Nowness is timeless.

When we choose to experience life as Now, we enter a portal where time is fluid, and can be speeded up or slowed down, based on our vibration and our consciousness. Try it. Don’t worry about the science. Just experiment, when you are running late, with being in the Now.

And notice that time will expand, so that you can create the reality you need. 

I’m not all light. Neither are you. No one is, or can be.
Even on our best days, we’re perfectly imperfect.
We lose our tempers, we’re mean to each other, we don’t respect ourselves, we sink into apathy or depression.
We make incredibly bad decisions.
We fail.
This doesn’t worry me; I hope it doesn’t worry you.
The point of our lives isn’t to be perfect, it’s just to be on the path.
The path, the spiritual path, is about trying, opening the heart, understanding, learning, letting go, trying some more, growing the soul.
Don’t worry about perfection, or being good.
Just stay on the path.
The rest takes care of itself.

If you have trouble sleeping, if you wake up in the middle of the night with bad dreams, or heavy thoughts, worries, insecurities, fears…. instead of worrying about insomnia or fretting that you’re not sleeping, you can let this wakefulness be a gift to you.
 
The wee hours of the morning are the amrit vela, the nectar hours, in which it is especially easy to connect with your guides and spirit helpers, and to mediate upon your true Divine nature. It is a beautiful time to sit up in bed, covers warm upon you, by yourself or with a partner slumbering beside you, and meditate.

The vibration is quieter at this time, because so many beings are asleep. You catch fewer thoughts of others; the electrical vibrations are lower at this time. You can connect more easily in this stillness; you can listen to your own heart a little better.
 
Sit up, close your eyes, and connect in. Ask your guides to be with you and to inform you on what is most important for you to know. Sift through the parts of your life that still need healing. Attach to your dreams, and allow them to become manifest.

In this quiet, still, deep time, you will rejuvenate yourself even if you do not sleep. Use the nectar hours as a gift; you have been awakened by the Universe from your sleep, so you can wake up your conscious understanding.

What is your relationship to your body? Do you have shame about your body or wish it were different? Do you long for the body you used to have, or wish for the body you hope to create in the future? Do you feel your body is not really you?
 
The thing is: this body you’re in? You’re not separate from it.
 
It’s been given to you as very efficient way to learn soul lessons, and what’s more: you chose this body, when you entered in as a soul.

If your body is thin, you are likely learning lessons associated with thinness, such as fitness, attractiveness, detachment, starvation, weakness. If your body is fat, you are likely learning lessons associated with fatness, such as sloth, power, discomfort, protection, gluttony, shame. If your body changes a lot in your lifetime, you will learn to let go of many identities.

Regardless of how you feel about your body: you can’t be separate from it until you die. You can change it with diet and exercise, or it may change on its own from age or illness. But you can’t crawl out of it. You can’t separate yourself from it. The only way out of your body is death.
 
As long as you’re living… you might as well make peace with this body that you’re in.

If you’ve been deep in your practice of spiritual intuition for a while, you’ve become accustomed to going into meditation, rising up to the level of vibration where it’s easy to communicate with your guides, and finding your beautiful guides waiting for you, with their familiar faces and dress and essence right there, supporting you and loving you.
 
Except, sometimes your guides change. The beautiful familiars are not there. And instead, there is a new guide, or guides waiting. This often happens when we need help with a specific problem: for example, if you are deep into a work project, a guide may show up who is a specialist for you to call upon and ask for advise. Sometimes a guide will show up with a clipboard and checklist, to help you stay focused on all the things you’re meant to accomplish, no putting it off any longer!
 
But, more likely, you receive new guides or a new guide when you are moving from one level of understanding to the next. The former guides have taken you as far as they can. Now you’re going further, and they’re handing you off to the next group; the group can take you to the next level of understanding.
 
It’s normal to feel sad when familiar guides aren’t there. But if you look closely, you will see the beaming love and support of the new guides, waiting to help you now. 

Our deep feelings inform us: how we feel in our gut, what we feel with certainty. It’s important to pay attention to these feelings.

But our fleeting feelings, our moods: these often don’t have anything to do with what we feel and know deeply.
 
It’s important, when you’re feeling something, to take a look at if it’s a passing thought, or something real and deep and true.

For example, when you wake up in the morning, you might feel grumpy and want to be left alone; it’s hard to move in the noise and disruption of the day. But these feelings are related to things like your core personality needing more time to transition, or the fact that you’re too tired and need more rest. They don’t speak to what you really feel, about the opportunity to get up in the morning and live your life.
 
You might be deeply happy with your life, you might be deeply dissatisfied. But the way you feel as you transition from sleep to waking, may not be an indicator.

As you feel irritation, overwhelm, grumpiness, stress and so forth, take a look at if it’s a true, deep, in your gut feeling: or just something passing, a reaction to the impetus of the outer world. The real feeling should be paid attention to. The other, let go. If you’re not sure which is which, start paying attention, and see what you notice.