Damsel, I say to thee Arise

Healing isn’t as simple as learning to love yourself, it’s going back to the places you stopped loving yourself and remembering why. It’s then holding that part of you close and rescuing them from old pain. The remembering is what makes it hard. The holding is what makes it brave.
Nate Postlethwait

A few years back while at my local church, I began preparing my heart for a special offering of what we called ‘Art direction’. I loved being an Art Director! I’d spend a couple of days really listening in the spirit for what God would offer His people thorough me and my story of redemption. It happened to be my 51st birthday and I brought my Mother Mary statue. I arrived early to go over the generalities with the pastor as the worship team practiced in the background. I told him we’d sing “She’s got the whole world in Her hands” and play with a beach ball. I wanted to honor the Divine Feminine and the Great Mother with some creative expression of the original tune.

I’ll never forget (crying now) how my pastor raised his voice at me and said — MARY’S DEAD!

I was in shock at this theological certainty and my Soul began to wonder what that could possibly mean for women everywhere. I don’t think I had any fire in me for argument because I was a bit mortified he’d done this in front of others just minutes before the service was to begin. His father then walked in and as Pastor was telling me not to bring my Mary statue up front with me, he interceded by saying “I love Mary. Let her stay.”

Last night I attended a local kirtan led by a mature, gifted artist Yvette Om. When she came from behind the harmonium for our second chant, she shined so brightly holding her guitar now– I could actually see God shining through her. I could see that this brightness is what was missing at my old church (how many churches?). God is not male nor female. For in Christ Jesus we are unified by a Spirit which is Love.

A few months after that incident at church, I had brought a chant of Jesus’s words to the dead little girl, Jarius’ daughter

Talitha Koumi! Damsel, I say to thee arise!

We would march around the space- our little band of brothers and sisters repeating the Aramaic words filled with power. I have this tattooed on my left forearm for all to see. For I am that little girl. I am her every day in every way.

Not only is Mary not dead but Anita is not dead. You are not dead, either. But you may feel like you are stuck in patterns of despair and helplessness. I’m here to announce from the rooftops that if you are willing, Love HimSelf will come find you — even in hell.

This morning my friend Mary shared a video from Safari Planet of a few people saving a baby elephant and her mother who were stuck and dying in mud. What a metaphor! for our nervous systems. I was teary while watching because the eyes of our hearts know when something is universally true. When we dissociate from our pain, this part of us goes to sleep in the psyche for her own ‘survival’ until a time comes when it is safe to come crashing through the realms of death into life. It isn’t for the faint of heart for this part of us has been lost from love for a very long time.

This part may feel immense shame. This part may feel unworthy of resurrection. This part may resist and fight for it is more comfortable in the mud. Not me!!!! I am not the one you are looking for Jesus– leave me here where I belong. After all I’ve done. This part does not not remember her original innocence for she has attached a story of her behavior.

She may have had several husbands like the woman at the well.

But this bridegroom has come with your veil and your wedding gown. This bridegroom does not see your mud. Somehow the blood of the lamb has washed us all clean. I know I sound like some kind of old time preacher now. But in my psychic reality this is exactly how my Tuesday night played out this week.

I had just spewed venom. From the pit of hell, my words spat like a demon from some dark corner of the basement of my mind where no light had ever dawned. But somehow I took this woman in pain, this woman lost from her bridegroom and I let her weep in her knowing– I am all alone now. No one could help me here. Look what I’ve done. Good thing it is NOT about me or my worthiness.

But a part of me remembered Him and I cried out that maybe Jesus could help me/her. Love was here and love was the rescuer. I was here and I was also her rescuer for the groom and I had become One. I borrowed His eyes for that moment and could only see distress– not sin, not darkness, not evil. The consciousness of the GodMan filled my heart with a vision of a child– thought dead. Oh teenage Anita was trapped in mud and didn’t know how to get up.Who put her there??

God

God, our maker who is our husband, places us in a safe harbor of sleep for an aeon because what had happened was just too terrible to face. With my God in me, I’d faced not only the pain but I bravely held myself in tenderness.

And in the morning, I the damsel in distress, did arise like those elephants. I accepted the help and reached up for my rescuer. Talitha Koumi– the arising of your original sweetness is the healing of the sacral chakra where you first discovered you are a sensual being filled with an incredible creativity. You have a voice to speak against those who’s eyes have not yet opened — speak up for the feminine, speak up for the power available to us from within. The lies being preached on Sunday’s in pulpits everywhere. These people have divided hearts and minds. Do not believe them– ask of your own Soul what is True.

Mary cannot ever be separated from Her Son. They are eternally the light of life within a great Womb. The masculine and feminine dancing at the wedding feast of the Lamb since the dawn of time. I know I have better news about the incarnation of men and women, but don’t listen to me! Go in search of the light of your very own Soul. Search for the lost and forgotten exiled parts especially.

We’ve all got damsels in distress.

P.s. today is the 4th anniversary of the passing of our sweet GodSon Kyle. I know he’s helping me extend the Truth of heaven from where he rests in my heart

How to Return, When to Return

The Heart center is the consciousness of love. And also grief.

When we practice this on our yoga mats, we know what it feels like to rest there with God. We are not alone. This becomes an embodied experience of being in Union with our Beloved. The challenge in our daily lives is that we depart. God does not.

We leave for shiny things. We leave for old patterns. We leave and we are lost from ourselves. How long does not matter because with the heart and love and shalom, only Kairos time is of the essence, not chronos.

When life brings us a storm – a fight with our spouse, an argument at work, an unkind word from someone online, news of the death of a loved one, a friend has cancer. We can begin to remain in our hearts and feel all of the emotions that come with reality. We can even build our conscious container so large that when the rage comes for all that is violent in the world, we allow that too. Now saying–

This too

This too…there is no rejection of psychic material. We are big enough to witness. We have returned to God’s heart holding our own tiny one and together we sit and allow love to rest with us. Trusting love is here, not there. Here we find our natural state of quietness. Where once there was a storm now there is the post-storm lullaby. A shush shush shushing by our Great Mother over us.

Did we forget to return? Did we falsely create a further storm upon storm, adding fuel to the fire of our intense emotions? Of course. Of course as humans who forget, we made matters worse with our stubborn need to be heard and right and strong, not yielding.

This too, is ok, because in Kairos time there is only now. Now is when we get quiet again and still. Now is when we breathe softly and once more receive God’s hope for us. For all of us.

Apostle to Christ (like Junia)

For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

We all know

this is the Apostle Paul. But it’s also me.

I remember when the Spirit informed me I was like Paul. Hmmmm. Say what ?

But yes, I sit here tonight and recall a lifetime of being an enigma to myself. So confused by my actions and inactions. So at a loss as to what made me tick, what drove my dark desires, what made me ashamed of how double-minded I was.

Teaching meditation in prison and striking my child all in the same week. Drinking to excess and starting WW3 with my spouse.

How can I be so honest about my dark nature? Christ showed me that it is ‘dead’. At the end of the day, it accumulates not. Only love lives on and is REAL. Grace is my name because I need it to be.

Anita means Grace because I needed a double portion to get to the other side of all this pain driven nature. I am no longer a dead woman walking. I am alive

and it

is the rare moment that the dead nature rears her ugly head.

Come to your yoga mat and see the stark contrast– knowing for certain that your old man Is crucified with Him and that henceforth we should not serve sin. Rom 6:6

#inchrist #lovealone #falseself #selfawaren

Poetry is Food

“When she looks back, that old young owl,

she sees that

her home, her tree

had become ravaged with wolf urine

and twisted with heat .

Curled and gnarled, she is unable to sleep there.

She begins to travel at night

because she cannot sleep in her home.

She doesn’t know what she’s lookin’ for

But she keeps goin’ and goin’.”

From Tracey Lindbergh’s novel ‘Birdie’

Shared in the book “Want” under a section called–

“What to do when a wolf has peed on your home”

I have returned home to a newly healed body after a chiropractic adjustment to my iliocecal valve released an ancient and primal rage from my psoas – the muscle of the Soul. Keep seeking your wholeness dear ones. Keep cleansing the lens though which you see the world. Be bold–

Yoga is Love

1st penned 7 years ago.

It’s 2:30 a.m. and I’m watching sister moon play peek-a-boo. Her cloud hands cover her face and then BOO! There she is lighting the night sky.

A dear, respected one has asked me an important question. I’ve been contemplating for a week how to better answer.

Are non-Christian yoga teachers sharing the anti-christ?

Let me say Love and inherent goodness in all her forms is of God-

personal love, small love, imperfect love, simple love, private love, public love, group love, big love, loud love and quiet love

My wise 70 year old yoga student early on in his brand new practice once said–‘Oh, I see what this yoga is about! Finding all the blocks to self-love.’

and I’d add making the subconscious conscious or bringing shadow into the LIGHT

But–Self-loathing is the anti-christ…fear is the anti-christ….hypocrisy is the anti-christ…greed is the anti-christ….body-shaming, prejudice patriarchy and racism, too

Most worldly paths lead nowhere but those paths where we seek the brightest stars on the darkest of nights

that lead to love, healing, connection, community, service, and hope lead to God. Most of my students have been moved to tears on their mats as they embody their inherent truth of goodness. The practice invites a deep shedding of old harmful beliefs and fear deep in the nervous systems primal survival centers.

How can we judge someone crying out for help to the nameless ONE? The moon does not care if I can see her or call her by name…she shines and does not hide her face from us but my awareness of her shifts all the time.

Prison: Home Away from Home

You might be surprised to hear that I met my “soul” in a federal prison. I started teaching meditation at a nearby facility Februrary 2014 and I kept choosing to spend more and more time behind the walls. Why? you ask..well, I am coming to realize that I am my most authentic self there. I pray to be of service as I enter and so I act with clarity of intention. I have no one to impress. There are no ulterior motives. I am not hiding behind a persona. I have no history with these people. I may never see them again after this class is completed and therefore there are no expectations of a future relationship.

I am serving without hopes of anything in return. And yet, I receive everything.

We practice in the present. We sit in stillness; allowing our center to draw forth and shine. It is simple and raw and unaffected.

It is there amongst the concrete and metal bars, I experience incomparable beauty in a place deemed by much of the world as ugly and forgotten. To me, it is the place I feel the most at home away from home.

Our Refuge, Fortress + Garrison

It is tempting to think that if only God would grant us some internal favors,

we’d be able to withstand external challenges

St. Teresa of Avila

Anyone else?

I fall into the ‘trap’ of our transfiguration being the spiritual

home that is our eternal safe house. I fall into the ‘trap’ that if

we find an everlasting Shalom within, that we might see

Eden — OUT THERE. Are you seeing Eden? Nirvana, Shambala…

Glimpses. For sure. Lord I am thankful for every sweet glimpse and will try not to be too distracted.

I am more + more glad when my friend’s virtues are celebrated. My selfishness is decreasing bit by bit. I am more and more focused on the face of Christ- who is the dweller on the threshold of my heart.

I want Jesus to be my Spiritual Flex

I want a special connection to the God of the universe

Source of every clover and cloud

I want to show up armored in the knowledge that I’m chosen

But what does His Spirit do in the midst of my wanting?

Remind me that I’m not any different

Really Lord? After all I’ve done for you

Hmmmph

I’m on my knees weeping in the messiness of it all

Who I am and who I’ve been

A nobody with a very unique somebody to carry me through days like this

Maybe He’s my spiritual flex after all, but never in the ways that I want to appear

strong…

Healing my Mood Disorder

7 years ago we had a day retreat at my church with my pastor and two participants. We ritually walked through a door threshold stating an intention.

I had no idea why my voice released this statement: I AM AN ICEBERG MELTING.

Come to see that these 7 years were about God circumsizing my heart and me yielding to healing my functional freeze state through oceans of tears. Sometimes I was being re-traumatized because I did not yet fully understand the power of yoga practice and was going too deep.

Ultimately, I was healing my sacral chakra and reinstating emotional regulation and maturity after decades of suffering from a mood disorder : PMDD, which is similar to BPD and is rooted in insufficient metabolism/mitochondrial dysfunction. I also suffered with chronic IBS during that time (no coincidence).

Read that again– additionally my drinking was further inducing depression and most certainly the potential for cardiovascular disease. We are speaking about brain energy.

I’ll never forget reading the books “Brain on fire” and “Scattered Minds” and coming to understand that my own body was allergic or attacking my mind in an attempt to wake me up to the suffering self, the pain body Eckhardt Tolle teaches about. This body within that carries death due to unresolved issues in our tissues.

I told my mother last week that I have come to understand these ancestral bodies as having ONLY two choices to carry our pain and memories of being powerless in the face of danger:

Chronically or Acutely, but no one is left without the cost.

I choose conscious healing and therefore experience the emotional intensity TODAY and then it is released. I’m not stuck any longer, nor am I broken.

This day, I am going to walk through my home threshold with a new statement–

Peace LIVES HERE. Harmony is my homeostasis. I can always find my way home to a

stable CENTER.

Whatever it is that you are dealing with mentally and/or physically, know that mind and body are ONE and you are not alone. What is most important is to maintain a hopeful and strong SPIRIT in pursuing relief. We are all in different seasons and must trust that they are varied and important.

Society is sick and we are individual cells honoring these bodies as part of the larger illness at every systemic level. It is not our fault but we have the responsibility and agency to HEAL.

It’s hard work. But knowing how deep rest is critical in finding the balance is crucial too. Growing our ability to sit with discomfort — whether that’s physical or emotional is a sign of our evolution.

We are in this together- no one battles alone and God is on our side. Seek holistic understanding — east must meet west in our wholeness. Mind Body and Spirit are a dance of energies.

I believe in US.

Flow State is Kingdom

I’m teaching my senior citizens a chakra series. For the last two weeks we focused on the root chakra. It is here that we stabilize, find secure attachment and focused attention. Begin at the beginning. Understand that your very body is the ancestors. You within your ordinary flesh contain the All.

This week we will enter the Sacral — woot woot!! the Land of relationship, flow state, pleasure and practicing letting go: into the river of life. We now have the stable container to hold the waters of life and we trust the pouring out. Here we begin to explore sensory communication from the body mind.

We trust that with rest, we will once again be infilled. We have strong boundaries here and any previous traumas and abuses are healed.

At the Sacral we feel that movement– dance, yoga, walking, strength training brings yummy brain chemicals. Movement is holy and ENJOYABLE.

“The universe (God) exists through a constant dance of consistency (Shiva) and change (shakti). Through consistency (discernment) one finds deep meaning. Through change (yielding) one finds stimulation and expansion. To find consistency (peace) within change (flow) is to embrace life’s unfolding nature (tao or Christ).”

I’m adding to the words of Anodea Judith in Eastern Body Western Mind.

Yoga is the practice which works in a spiral– we keep returning to center and along the way our awareness sweeps past debris that needs releasing. Old thinking, obsessions, patterns which don’t serve. If only we would trust these bodies in their innate capacity to heal and release. We with our conscious mind show up and yield to the ancestral actions — we don’t even need to understand. We simply with the faith of a mustard seed keep breathing, chanting, stretching and digesting our lives. Past present and future merge into a mosaic of eternal now. This is where the gods live. This is where we discern Herod from Christ. For we have had Herod consciousness too. We humbly seek the true Padre– the one united with Jesus in unfathomable love, mercy and forgiveness.

We dance here with them– the joyful trinity of our mind, body and breath within the larger context of our Divine Creator.