Submerge beneath steamy waters
butt drops heavy like a stone
landing
feet settle
back of head
bookended
Breasts
like light houses
beam
shallow breath raises
belly
easily breaking the surface
ears above, then prefer below
mind much prefers below
near the ocean’s floor
No tides to disturb
quietude
this claw foot capsule
where any mum can
enter
zero gravity
I’m home sick. We can’t leave for Lake Placid because I’m all achy and congested. But I turned to an oldie but a goodie movie to make me laugh– Freaky Friday. I’ve watched it dozens of times and that’s not my norm (I generally dont enjoy repeats). But today the spirit was very alive.
I wept as I got to thinking about the ‘imposter’ who filled me with the best life she could given how far away she felt from everyone and everything. Her disconnect is truly heart breaking– God’s heart breaks for anyone who is disocciated.
The pain body which grows in the absence of the True Light is in survival mode. God loves her. I love her and am so proud of how hard she has had to work to simply be a person in a world filled with toxicity. It’s exhausting– no wonder there wasn’t anything left over for creativity. The lack of energy is real. Is that you? Simply aging and not sure what happened to your groove.
Being healed and whole feels like that crash in the movie when the real you can return..return to being natural. No anxiety, no competition, no striving. No forcing. No manipulation. no Game playing.
That crash is you being placed back in your body. Your Self– an evolving, changing, yet steadfast Self. Or Soul. The mission is complete.You feel At home.
To no longer be on the run, to no longer be in hiding due to shame is the gift of the great Love we might know as capital S Spirit who dances with our lower case spirit. In my understanding we cannot do it without partnering with our Maker. He’s the missing piece who simply shines the mirror right back onto our own glorious face. He says — look at you! Beautiful child …everything I have is yours. Healthy or sick, I am at peace because I know I am worthy.
Did you ever think that Jesus froze the waters on which He walked
A perfect balance of elements
water, earth, vapor, minerals, air
what of water? what of our emotional terrain
our stormy expressions of great suffering
Jesus froze those waters for our survival
So that we might not be flooded, washed away with the tides
Frozen is solid, steadfast in order to raise the children
and go to work
Frozen is solid, steadfast in order to awaken Christmas morning and
hug your people
But frozen is not Jesus’ highest best plan for us
No, we can thaw
We can address the iceberg melting within
the layers of grief, like layers of frozen river
underneath there is living water
flowing freely
liberated water
But we must be brave and go see who’s trapped there
frozen in time
afraid to yell. afraid to move. I’ll be a good girl this time
I promise I’ll be quiet as a mouse
Look how still I can be!
I’m not a problem at all
Look at me– I’m like a statue
A child carved out of ice
An iceberg melting
Last night I had a dream that I was observing the violence of children getting onto a school bus toward the lowliest among them. It was horrifying.
I believe the older children were a mix of special needs and …not. There was one ‘child’ the size of a one year old but unable to walk and the demeanor of being a few years older. The look on the child’s face was that of a creature. This being was not fully human but part ‘divine’…hear me out.
I didn’t expect to write that part. But as I was allowing my fingers to tap tap tap, out it popped.
Some part of me has always known this– the necessity of our consciousness descending into the creature which actually is the moment that fully human is formed as an aspect of Soul. The witness of the violence is the halting of the cycle of bullying onto the least of these.It’s how we are wired– survival.
Do something with your rage.
Spew it onto the innocent customer service clerk (guilty)
Be despicable
That’s acceptable. Argue. Get out of the car and into the face of the other driver (yeah I just did it, I would know)
Now, be the odd one who speaks about the coming of the Lord
Speak about prayer, intercession
Faith
Intuitive messages from Holy Spirit, prophetic words and dreams and they’ll have your mouth sealed shut
What is up and what is down?? How shall I be in this strange universe– a believer in miracles, and not just at Christmas but every day of the year. A woman who casts her light energy into the corners of every room she enters because it’s ours to brighten up dark spaces. Freely given– play with it. Use your imagination. Be curious.Take risks.
Or play small- don’t speak of frequency, vibration and energy. The things of the unseen realms within and beyond the physical. What’s more real? When someone doesn’t text me back and then speaks of me as if I am a problem (crying here) repeating a pattern from that first year of life. Anita the accident. Not wanted, rejected, abandoned.
Or shall I claim my place at the table, in the room, Use my voice
I may be walking on my knees- humbled by the Life of the One growing in me, but I shall speak of Emmanuel. Redeemer of my bullying ways, The ways I dont know how to be relational yet. Filled with didacticism only– tools tossed about as if it were painless to practice. Easy to be disciplined in new, strange body prayers. Momentarily forgetting the anguish of rebirth.
Follow the recipe. 3 Easy steps to wholeness.to your new life
Yeah, no. That’s totally not it
Who will be asked to serve? the ones who can see they have little to offer the King
But you might have a drum you can tap
I have a chant I can repeat
Whatever else gets accomplished is because I was loved in my lowliness
Where I would prefer to not look
For only the eyes of Christ’s witness, turn my beastly creature into a thing of beauty
An elderly man is petting his large, black lab while professing a great love
Can you see it? His large hand on the back of the lovely beast
Stroking and repeating gentle words
Words with power infused
I’m sorry I left you for so many hours sweetie
Daddy won’t leave you like that again
Daddy is here now
I love you
That man is my birth father
This moment is the 3rd occasion I am in his company and it all began 4 months earlier when I turned 50
Somehow through the Spirit, I knew he was speaking to me, my little girl inside
The one he’d abandoned a half century before
The dog was a male
and yet he kept referring to him as a her
Another tell-tale sign that there was more, much more happening right beneath the surface
of this most ordinary of moments
I left the next day and repeated this conversation inside my heart dozens of times
I now know for certain that I have a Daddy, who I’ve decided to call Padre
who cannot leave me, cannot not love and adore me
For His nature is that of sacrifice
of Peace
and of Divine Love
I call Him Jesus the Messiah
For years my students have commented on how much they love my voice while guiding their bodies and souls through yoga body prayer. Yesterday one of my senior citizen students said she was grateful for my voice and that it wasn’t ‘grating’.
I guess it’s been about 20 years now that I found myself in church worshiping and hearing my ‘grating’ voice. I felt badly for those around me and said to the One who hears our prayers– Lord, if you give me a beautiful voice, I promise to use it to praise you.
Interestingly enough, I meant my singing voice because I was thinking small! Now, not only have I taught hundreds of students in person, my yoga podcast has reached thousands and strangers write to tell me they love my voice.
During my first years on my yoga mat, I found the Ommmm especially powerful. I loved merging my sound with all the other sounds. I loved that I could play with the depth, length and whether it was quiet or loud. Turns out when you have a blocked throat chakra related to a freeze response, singing, chanting and even speaking boldly can be extraordinarily healing. Indeed, I don’t see how we can fully heal from past experiences of trauma without utilizing our voices.
For my 50th birthday I requested a kirtan, chanting party at a local yoga studio. I hired a 3 piece band and one of my favorite teachers led about 20 of us in an evening of Sanskrit chant. My body immediately leaned into the joy and freedom as I danced in my seat using my voice to give thanks to God for my life, health, family and friends. Because my body can recognize Truth, I am unafraid in making various sounds because deep calls unto deep. I do not box my Maker. I invite them out of the church and into the chamber of my heart. From within me, the One who dwells in my body temple can resonate with love, hope, joy, peace, extravagance, and celebration wherever that may be found. Even in the names of Sanskrit deities– what a mystery.
My students love my voice because my prayer was answered in a powerful way that day in church. When I speak I carry the very ruach of Emmanuel– you do too!! But first you must ask, believe and receive. Then the miracles may unfold. Be open to participating. And trust that dissonance is equally important. It’s crucial to discern what is not truth, what is birthed in fear and in opposition to love.
Watching Tina Turner the Musical and then being gifted her autobiography was more confirmation for me as her story of healing involves hours of daily chant which we now understand to be an organizing balm for the chaos of trauma within the nervous system. If you desire to be a more loving human you might try my 7 OT names for God
Yah Weh
El Roi
El shaddai Ehyah Asher Ehyah
Adonai
Jehovah Jireh
Shammah
Elohim!
You can find me chanting this on my IG
What we say and what we listen to has power– be very discerning
God is sound
God is frequency
God is Spirit
God will not be contained
Sunday morning
I had just sat in the most glorious silence
Bestowing soul rest from the merciful womb of the Divine, my Mama
I arise to use the bathroom and as I cross the threshold I am slain in the spirit
thrown to my knees with the love of my Padre
The night before my friend of over 30 years had spoken of his desire that their daughter- a new, young mother herself,
know of his wish to be a help. Not just any help but a Daddy who would sacrifice. A daddy who would
do whatever is needed (crying again here) to make her load lighter. He said it in such a tender and earnest way that my heart stored it away until this moment to inform me of a deeper, higher truth about our Maker.
Where do we see this depth, this sacrifice? One place is on the cross, another is in the womb of Mary.
I’ve come to call YahWeh Padre of late and I’m bawling now as a stream of ‘thank yous’ pour forth from my lips
On my knees on that tiny gray rectangle of bath mat
Not caring if my husband hears
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you
I see it now Daddy
You are doing everything you can to assist me in my life
Making ways where there was no way
Growing me, my capacity
Humbling me
Softening my once fearful, protective layer
I had a golden statue within, a pillar of salt
Preserved selves, melting now
And OH! the pain of awakening. I was numb, asleep
Not dead though– the best news! If you are reading this I named you from my child’s pose
I asked Padre to shower you in this way
Seize you in this way
Arrest you in this very way
Because whether or not you had/have a natural father who is like my friend, your Soul
longs for this experience of love
Being slain is the release of every fear that we are not enough
The letting go of every story
Resting once again in the womb of our Mama, nursed at the breast of El Shaddai
Manna from Heaven
Just enough for this day
KAMIKAZE KYLE
“Death and life are permeable states because
the ‘Risen Christ’ represents to us everyone who has ever died.”
I Cor 15 (version unknown)
Life is a mystery. Death, also.
Of one thing I am certain, Heaven would never be selfish and keep our loved ones locked away from us. Jesus’ Paschal mystery (the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ—the work that God the Father sent His Son to accomplish on earth) is about much more than the miracle of a physical body resuscitated beyond the grave. For every human, there is a path of ‘dying to the Self’. In Christian theology it is called kenosis (a Greek word meaning the act of emptying), and relates to our fears, and to the identification with a limited, disconnected ego. The word kenosis is used in Philippians 2:7, and says that Jesus made himself nothing. The verse translates to becoming entirely receptive to God’s divine will.
I imagine, on resurrection day, Jesus burst through each realm—from earth to hell, to heaven, and back to earth—to reveal to us what is possible.
My husband, Bob, and I have a GodSon, Kyle. Kyle passed in March 2019 after a courageous seven-year battle with a brain tumor.
Kyle, like all of us, is a child of God. God’s son. In those final months as he endured suffering, those two words, usually with different meanings, began to merge, becoming one and the same in my breaking heart: Godson and God’s son became GodSon.
When his body died, we experienced deep grief. In a time when we needed support from others, it seemed difficult for others to understand the effect of Kyle’s passing on us—we were close. This was not the passing of an extended friend. There was a stinging pain to this; even our church family didn’t seem to comprehend the relationship. It was painstaking to repeatedly explain that our grief was intense and prolonged because of this special assignment—that we needed prayers and care too. Over time, I have been able to show our community what it means to Bob and me to have a spiritual son. Once we see ourselves being God’s child, we extend this to others much more readily.
Kyle loved to express himself with tattoos and, about a month before he left his body, I was visiting and he wanted to tell me about his next tattoo (his tenth, I believe.) On that visit, Kyle found it difficult to speak and became increasingly frustrated. Mark, Kyle’s dad, told Kyle not to worry, and he pulled out his phone and brought up a picture of a skull with goggles and a helmet. It was a morbid image. For a moment, I was lost for words. Then I noticed the skull had a yellow scarf and so I said how much I loved the sunny color he’d chosen. But in my head, I was thinking: Kyle, WTF?
The next day, as I prayed for him, it hit me. That was no ordinary skull, that was a kamikaze pilot. I googled the image. Sure enough, plain as day, there he was. I’d missed it because I had been taken aback with the death imagery. I texted him excitedly: Kyle, you couldn’t have known this, but that is the name of my book. You are getting a kamikaze pilot tattoo.
(Note: even before I knew what this book was about, God had given me the unique name for it.)
Kyle couldn’t use his hands that well, he was limited to texting with emojis. He shot back a thumbs up. I typed back: We have such a special connection, you and I… I later wished I’d added: a soul connection…
And then he sent me a red heart.
Moments ago, I stopped typing this draft and went to my phone with the thought that the old text thread would be there so I could quote verbatim. But I found an empty thread. I burst into tears. Gone. Whyyyy? I wailed.
The day after the red heart text, I prayed for Kyle, again, and texted him: Buddy, you know you are not this body with an expiration date, a brain riddled with tumors. You are not a mouth that can’t form words or hands that can no longer type. You are a soul filled with love, a Spirit which soars with God throughout eternity. I know he sent me lots of red hearts that day. My heart burst; we understood one another at a level beyond language.
Kyle’s soul knew he’d put on his goggles and helmet to protect him as he traveled through the realms. No need to make that stop in hell since Jesus took care of that for all of us. Kyle was fiercely declaring: death has no hold on me. Death is not the end. What appears dead is only dormant.
Search for love beyond your fear and your limited mind. Enter your heart to discover a realm of heaven. Go searching, come looking, like Mary Magdalene did at Jesus’s tomb. Look for evidence of Heaven in your life. Discover Him in your inner world.
Wherever there is beauty, there am I. Laughter, that’s me. The break of dawn, me. A peaceful time chilling with friends, I’m right here. Tears? I am with you in your pain.
Know that this is Him, this is you, and this Him is in you.
These hearts of ours, these walkie talkie hearts that work as spiritual receptors, can receive the love of heaven and get you to feel it, all from the realm that Kyle now occupies. Heaven is within us. Heaven is now. It’s a newly opened space from where grief dug its grave in us.
We may have had a fixed idea about our physical reality. We may be stuck in our Western brain. But we can change. We can and must lift ourselves out of our despair and continue our searching in the East.
Bob and I do it for Kyle. Who are you doing it for? Who will you do it for?
Out in nature, we’ll find our nervous systems regulating, and we’ll relax and get present. We’ll invite the Spirit in and tell Her to have Her way with us. Enchant me! We consent to your action. We want to know about God’s son. We shout into the void of the night sky: “What have you done with him?”
This speaks to Christianity rooted in wisdom and mystery, recognizing us as incomplete until love opens the door to connection to the Holy Spirit. Our Eastern practices bridge the way to what was always intended but somehow derailed. I recall many occasions where the Spirit required obedience; the ‘go’ to receive or serve in ways that I didn’t often understand at the time. We follow the One who makes us “go”. He is the Life.
In my heart there is a place where paradox dwells and it confounds me without end.
Remember that the toilets are ginormous here South of the North Pole and yes, everyone absolutely needs hugs. But do we get to just eat all the gum because “It’s all grace”? Or do we do some work, sanctification-type, to reveal the Truth of a hidden spiritual reality that’s been under our noses all along?
Both!!
I have a friend in the new age community. I am fully aware of how harshly I can judge at times- no, it doesn’t work that way, I say in my head– you don’t just pay $50 and receive a download of Christ consciousness.
Or does it?
I was pedaling away on my morning spin sesh, when I felt the correction of my buddy say, “Maybe you are wrong. Maybe they do get all the grace in that fashion, all the mercy, all the LOVE.” Humbled, because yes, I have no idea how Abba works with the Gentiles “This mystery that through the Gospel, all are heirs together with Israel (us), sharers in the Promises of Christ.”
And so I recognize that there are always two factors working together because we are to be spiritually mature and also little children. We have gifts that take discernment (prayer and time) and we aren’t to flail around in our freedom potentially harming others without our masks on. (I would know– our manager at the Navy yard emailed lots of exclamation points to that ‘certain someone’ that we are to not take it off indoors no matter what!!!!)
Even me– no one was around and I was recording a one minute TikTok about Jesus. But someone spied me and decided I was a rule-breaker. Which I totally am and it has been super fun most of the time. But I get it. I’ll not do that again, cause I’m bringing lots of LIGHT to that space.
You bring your own LIGHT wherever you go– it’s all HIM and it’s all grace and I’m afraid you won’t realize it if you don’t let the dust shake off– the dust of earthly unnatural you. The posturing, the planning, the performing and the worrying keep us from recognizing Who’s right here.
There is absolutely a layer of film over our lenses that needs a good swipe.
I hope you are learning to make lots of candy for others from the grief of this time. He redeems our struggle and what was sour is now sweet eternally thanks to the Cross– but in my experience there’s a whole lot me walking and sweating with my cross, or should I say biking it of late….
Good morning my loves,
The Lord gave me a word for this new day in the life of our nation and our world.
Force v. POWER
What do we do in the world when we first discover ignorance + complicity in destruction? We may discern that we must use our voice to proclaim this enemy of the Good. We do this initially for a season as we work out our hidden strengths in Christ.
Eventually, we come to experience the miracle of prayer. Working out our faith takes extraordinary effort on our part. There is much winnowing and purification in the letting go of the worldly desires of the heart.
Ultimately, with total submission to the will of the Father, we come into our POWER. In order to receive, we simply sit and allow Grace to befall us. We will most likely weep as we release our own guilt and shame for having participated in being enemies of the GOOD. #Repentance feels amazing!! It tastes like FREEDOM.
In the space created by our letting go of control, we now are flooded with a current of pure Grace. This POWER seeks to serve Love in prayer over the ones we once tried to force to see more clearly. We are honored to extend the wisdom now in the form of being a witness to pain, no longer the arbiter of judgment.
The Latin root of the word always meant ‘onlooker, eyewitness’. Our seeing is sufficient to transform — we see through the lens of Christ.
We see with our spiritual vision into the Truth of eternal Soul identity beyond the physical.
encounterillumination 