The Ending is Sweet

Friends, if we are a small human with no concept of history and battles, no concept of kairos time, we will find ourselves powerless living in our heads — where the past and future are stored, conveniently. In this headspace, we are not required to come down off our cross, off our high horse and serve the real world. No, we are too busy– busy judging and worrying, busy planning and ruminating. We have no energy to serve our souls or those we encounter. We are exhausted.

Sound familiar ?

It’s in our incarnation that we embody the spirit. In this teeny tiny body that is finite we uncover our capacity to carry the infinite. This is not something our brain can hold and so we must feel it with our hearts. We must draw close to God and one another and feel each other for our humanity depends on this sensing function.

When we do draw close- what do we see with our one eye open and one eye closed? We might see fear, or grief. We might also see ‘sin’. It is only with our growing awareness that our surrender to God’s vision for humanity might save us from ourselves.

And so this sweet and happy ending comes to mind. This long- awaited homecoming into the arms of Creator. Let’s not wait until after we’ve left these teeny, tiny messy bodies, ok? Let’s allow the kingdom of heaven to impact us in the world. That will require vulnerability and courage. For each of us, it will be very different.

Sometimes life/reality/God gives us our medicine watered down. And other times we have no capacity to take in the diagnosis, the accident, the abusive voice, the cheating, the lies.

Our inner child is part of how we grow capacity. We refuse to self-abandon. She’s always included– this innocent one. This creative one. This one desiring fun and connection. He draws close to adult me and wants to feel safe. Will I allow their safe expression?

So if you are like me, you are trying to take your medicine (nutrition, balance, strength, tough conversations, cleaning out the closet for gosh sakes!) and you are not giving yourself enough moments of awe and wonder. Let us walk in nature and allow the largeness of the universe to right -size our worries.
And once again we will draw close to our friend and hug them with genuine care. We will bake those cookies, singing our song into the batter. We will shoot off that encouraging text. Because we matter. Each of us really matters.

The Ending is Sweet.

I am Word made Flesh

I’m often contemplating the shape of the cross. What does this vertical “On earth as it is in heaven” goal mean?

What does the horizontal truth of a wide and gracious

energy or spirit that is far-reaching east to west?

What feels prescient this week is the humility of embracing energy healing that is pure grace.

I went to a Biofield tuning session a few weeks ago and I literally FELT the restoration of water being poured back into my guts, my solar plexus.

I didnt’ have to do anything but believe and in faith trust the practitioner of this amazing frequency healing through the use of tuning forks.

But that’s not the whole picture of course– in these bodies are charged with all the movement, all the nutrition, all the connection to our neighbor. There’s action!!

It’s not all rest and digest

It’s putting legs on our faith in a way that is ordinary (weights, service, fasting, cardio, sweating, cold showers, journaling etc)

And the cross will always be the shape which informs my living in harmony with Christ. The doing, the being, the not bypassing…

The healing is a restoration of immense magnitude!!

We are Word made flesh.

#incarnation #embodiment #kamikaze #anchor #pentecost #HolyGhost #MindBodySoul

Walking Upright

I had a dream I was on vacation with a huge group of people last night. We were now an hour from our rental house and nearing the airport to fly home. I had left my car (read; Soul) at the house thinking we’d be going back. When I realized anyone who had a car (soul)among us, already knew and didn’t need to be told, was prepared, I was so angry!!

I went around yelling and asking– why didnt anyone warn me?? Why dont you care? Don’t you see that I have no way to get back– I have the keys!! and the husband of the homeowner cannot bring it here because of this.

No one would listen for more than a moment before going back to their vacationing fun and laughter. I was soooo distraught!!

This morning I came upon a rejected part of my psyche. A former ‘bent over woman’ like the one in Luke 13 crippled by her afflictions (trauma). But when she encountered God’s care,she was straightened.

Yesterday at pilates with my friend Irene leading, she had me do an exercise back against the wall and it’s very awkward: I feel hunched. She said “You don’t have kyphosis but you are compensating from a lifetime of this posture”. I understood that ‘this posture’ was a protection for my tender heart– an attempt at holding myself from further harm.

my first years practicing yoga in Colls at YogaWood with Beth Fill, that was the number one noticing– I left feeling taller, upright and straight. This alignment was the beginning of healing my gut-brain axis; my courage center. I’d been ‘crippled ‘ by the spirit of powerlessness and emotional instability for decades. I even went to a neurologist complaining of early Alzheimers and was told I ‘was a bored housewife”. The truth that was relayed was my brain was inflamed and reading Gabor Mate’s “Scattered Minds” and then “Brain on Fire” by Susannah Cahalan were pivotal in healing through a combination of east meets west– faith and practices. Discipline and surrender in order to enter flow state and enjoy meeting Jesus face to face.

Restoring wholeness to MIND is the most difficult embodied path because we are challenged by the culture every step of the way but the Kingdom of Heaven as I understand it, is much more merciful and grace-filled. Still human of course but infused by the divine. It’s not ever been two. It’s simply the original design before the infection of shame and the wound of separation.

What It’s Like to Be Incredibly Unrealistic (me)

Today I went on an audition in Phila. South Philly to be exact– a block from the restaurant Stogie Joe’s. Maybe 11 years ago, I was there enjoying a drink with girlfriends and noticed a sign advertising “Sinatra Sundays’. Well, My Uncle Benny adores him so I told them, I’ll be back with my family for that!

Fast forward a few months and there we sat, all 12 of us, enjoying some of the city’s best pizza and a fine rendition of “I did it My Way”. When I got home I turned to FB to ‘like’ the Stogie Joe’s page and there was the last name Iovacchini. Mary Iovacchini ‘liked’ Stogie Joes. Hmmmmm. I was supposed to grow up with that name. I’d found out about 8 years prior that was my birth father’s name– and you don’t see it too often. At this point, I’d met my half-brothers, their children but no one else (and certainly no one near Philly).

I decided to write to Mary I. Hi!! We might be related. I’m an Iovacchini too. Mary replied right back– cool! She’d married one and didn’t I know that the restaurant which brought us together was owned by her husband’s cousins. Maybe they were my cousins too? I was so hungry for information, for family connections, for pieces of the puzzle. Mary, would you have coffee with me?

Our two hour long conversation was like water for my parched soul. It was as if this divine appointment was part of an unfolding story that only God could write. Dad had left before I was born and I’d created quite the realistic yet unhelpful story of my own for decades–this story now percolated in my subconscious mind and felt a lot like unworthiness and shame with words swirling around like ‘bastard’ and unwanted.

Let’s circle back to today and that audition, shall we?

I was so so brave.

On my walk from the car, I heard in my spirit about how all of heaven was supporting me. And by heaven, the Lord meant my ancestors. I also understood that heaven was below my feet and was rising up like a geyser of love or I was the rocket ship hovering over the base of fuel ignited and preparing the vessel to take off. I felt powerful!! I felt that my soul was charged and the art that I made yesterday tittled ‘Voltage’ was hard at work– propelling me toward goodness, fun, connection, and success.

My ancestors (first, I’ll speak about the 2 paternal grandparents that I didn’t meet) were alcoholics and abandoned their 3 boys to the Philly orphanages…separated into three facilities. Breaking up their brotherhood forever. And My Oma who helped raise me, never seemed to get out of survival mode. Her own husband divorced for being alcoholic and working full time– peace came in the evening with a cigarette and her crochet needles. But mostly I saw her struggle, anxious…secretive.

Did any of these people live in anything but a realistic way I ask you?

So today, when upon returning home to my loving, supportive husband, he asked me to be realistic about the likelihood that I’d get a callback when the others were professionally trained actresses and me, well I had a few classes of improv under my 59 year old belt. My initial response– my very ordinary response was “You are right. Of course I should be realistic.” but my words were hollow.

So I climbed in the hot tub to pray. I’d asked a dozen people to pray this specific prayer– that I’d have a door opened to be surrounded by like-minded creative people. So when one of those friends texted me with “what did you discern about the like-minded people’…this is my response.

My mind is like this– unrealistic

I understand that those who break free from generational patterns of trauma might lean into this magical way of thinking. Not in way that disregards all the hard work but that counts the emotional labor and prayers as the hardest work we do. To believe again.

To believe in possibility and breakthrough — not necessarily that we end up on stage performing but that we live from tenderness. That there are no more monsters under the bed. That my inner child is safe to be completely and utterly unrealistic. Dreaming and planning and enjoying her little funny silly self.

And that ‘big me’ has plenty of space for her to play. Because the opposite of trauma just might be play.

I know my ancestors unlived life in me is cheering today– Go, Anita Go!! Keep

up the unrealistic expectations that God is real, the spirit of God grows us way beyond

living realistically.

A life of faith is oh so unrealistic — thank God for that!!

Understanding God and the Human Nervous System

We see how God entered the human nervous system especially as we contemplate the cross of Christ. Did Jesus dissociate when he cried out– Abba, Abba why have you abandoned me?

I have thought so yes but in a sense, there was still a part of Him who understood the mission. Take the trauma of the people of the world and transmute it– once and for all. Turn pain and suffering into a creative new life force filled with connection and restored to a primordial power.

When the nervous system is regulated- the fear and memory of nervous system activation for survival has been healed ancestrally and personally. Can you even imagine this?

You must– you must 1st imagine and visualize this level of peace, safety and divine guidance. A God who breaks His own patterns and recollects us to the primordial system of the fascia. Yes, still physical– still in and of the body!!

Spiritual and harmonized while remaining in Her– the Source of all. In HIM, the placenta, the Lion, the Dove: All the metaphors apply here. It’s the best news about the sound of Heaven. The echo of the Ommmm. The frequency of Love and power.

Flowing to us and through us– uniquely singing our small part in the great Chorale — where the spiritual heart is able to be an open vessel for God’s mysteries.

This is my prayer over you today and in the season to come.

That all people everywhere trust in the consecration– you are a sacred and holy people.

Madman or Magician

I’m listening to a podcast with Elise Loehnen (Fissmer) Pulling the Thread. SHe’s interviewing author and psychotherapist Karl Deisseroth Md, PhD. As they discuss what in the DSM responds well to meds and what rooted in childhood trauma does not, I had the insight– the download so to speak– only that which originated as a mismatch to the new life in relationship can be repaired in relationship– the same relationship– parent to child. Not in the natural but as an adult in the spiritual realm. The OT ends with the reconciliation of parent and child– powerful huh.

Well, we are part of God’s internal family system. We are a cell in the body of God so to speak. The micro to the macro. We look like our Abwoon (parents). Our natural life is aligned with the Great Mother and we operate like nature– letting go, growing, planting seeds of compassion. Letting go, expanding consciousness, growing a seed of mercy….did I say Letting go?

We have the innate need to connect with, rely upon, be supported by, guided etc. by the invisible Source of our Being. If we neglect this deep Soul Truth– we suffer. But we don’t recognize suffering if we look to the world. No, we look like the world when we are striving, grasping, complaining, worrying, gossiping etc. Abba does not judge this. This is part of being human and growing and maturing

Abba is the perfect harmony of meeting us in our messes and helping us up out of the pigslop and finding our way into better quarters. We MUST awaken to growing worthiness, growing in thriving and leave behind our old self. As a new creation we are constantly making stuff– encouraging others, building others up, connecting heart to heart. Then RESTING. deep soul rest which restores the brain.

But Trauma– light in need of mending. Light that’s chaotic, distorted in the nervous system, in the fascia is the suffering self . We despise her, she’s a stranger. Annoying. Demanding, too much– too horny, hungry and greedy. But you see– Abba knows she’s trying so hard to FEEL alive!! She’s doing everything in order to know she exists and can experience pleasure and yes pain. Contrast is needed. We often hear it called the life and death of Christ in us.

We need light and dark. Matter and energy. Spirit and dust. masculine and feminine. They dance– not compete. But when I was in my trauma brain I had an inner enemy…I was always hating on my self, my body, my behavior (or lack there of), but too much ‘me’ was the problem I needed to have children, be of service, get outside of myself and understand the law of karma. I needed to keep caring about others and bumping off them to see myself better, more clearly and see the ways I was NOT the woman I thought I’d be…I was on a collision course to divorce if I didn’t get my act together. And yes, I often created outer enemies too– projections.

ultimately, with nervous system regulation we are within ONE voice. and that voice is rooted in Love. Nervous system regulation is not ease, it’s not peace, it’s not anything but connection to Self. We remain. We do not abandon ourselves, or berate or shame for having human needs and desires.

Whether it is your own mind’s voice or when you hear from the shepherd, it is love. Your parts are organized and your intuition is organized and your Light is organized into a grand symphony playing– magical. Not madman. No fear of being crazy. It is a world who does not communicate with their Abba that is crazy. Every Child of God has access to their spiritual parent– unified. You are back in the arms of a sweet safe One.

John 3:5. It’s a brain wave pattern restoring that frequency from first year of life.

Dharma + Karma in Harmony

We are in our own way! I was at the neurologist over 11 years ago complaining of memory issues, brain fog, mood swings and guess what he told me–

You are a bored housewife. I was so very angry at that rude man! Didn’t he know that I had 3 part time jobs?

He brought the sword of truth to a place that needed the pain of Christ to divide up my small ways of thinking patterned in a hostile past. I was repeating my trauma conditioning without being conscious. I get frustrated with myself. And I get frustrated with others but our heavenly Abba is simply never frustrated with us. He will keep dropping hints until we are ready to make the change because we need new energy, new inspiration and purpose to drive the action.

The only way to new neural pathways and a new good life free of self-imposed suffering was daily bravery. Stretching who I thought I was and what I was capable of.

Here I am all these years later and nothing has changed at 58!

I am a lifelong learner evolving and finding ever deepening faith and meaning.

We must all balance the forces of foundational dharma (stability, structure, fundamentals) with the forces of karma (mobility, chaos, change, growth).

Yoga is one powerful daily ritual which brings structure to the inner chaos of the subconscious mind, merging consciousness and unconscious (hidden cosmic) power so that we can be of service in big and small ways.

Jesus brings the sword and we must trust when we hear the words which are meant to challenge and anger the tiny, fragile ego– there’s more of you to BE. Inhale the Ruach of the Living One deep into your belly. Fill your whole body with the breath of new life and exhale deeply, sighing out a loud trumpet sound of stress. Again and again until you are more sure of your abiding in God’s body and heart.

Receive Divine Love and go!!

We are not Lot’s daughters

Hubby and I walked over the bridge today from Jersey to Philly. Bridges have often been portals for me to process. I got to thinking about the bizarro story of Lot’s daughters sleeping with their father in Gen 19. Any time there is a strange scripture that on the surface makes no sense, we can be sure to dive deeper and ask the Holy Spirit to inform us of meaning. Earlier in the day I was contemplating our belly button (see me literally naval-gazing) and it’s connection to our mothers and how once disconnected they are actually scars representing our severing from our earthly parents.

We are children of God.

All of Creation awaits with anticipation for the sons and daughters to be revealed in order to trust the unfolding of the path of Christ’s resurrection life– fueling us and healing us from our traumas. Trauma remained in us as stuck depressive energy for too long– we did not know we could freely grieve and freely express our anger to the Lord, but we are emotionally maturing.

Our father is not of this earthly realm and when we ‘sleep with’ him in cahoots with a powerless parent, we will produce fruit that does not remain. We will see that this father has become our maker and we are bound to the ways of the world– our lusts will drive us, our wounds will cause us to seek success in unhealthy ways and our ties to the lower thoughts of jealousy, comparing, and lack will fill us with despair. We will not see miracles for our children and our grandchildren.

More importantly, We will not see that our Heavenly Father has placed manna all around for our consumption . We will miss that this prana is energy as fuel for our bodies and minds because it is from above– it’s spiritual nourishment in the form of relationship. In the form of remembering who and who’s we are. We will build the door to heaven in any way we see fit for we were created to fight and battle for this union: when we have momentarily forgotten our birthright. We are not fathered by this ‘man’ down here– no, we have an Abba who took on human flesh to win back our souls.

An Abba who did HIS OWN DIRTY WORK in the body of the Son.

One who delights in us and repeats all day every day– You are my sweetie, just My best girl. You hear me? You are mine and I am providing the resurrection life. Lean in. Ask. Seek, then wait on me. Trust the seasons– the living and the dying, yes but this can be in a day or a week or a year. We do not control the chronos time. All we can do is our spiritual disciplines which help us enter the mind body spirit trinity of kairos: where heaven meets earth. “Heaven is here, when the mind is clear” croons MC Yogi.

Abba promises –I will show you that you are cared for and loved. Do not for one moment be anxious. Turn your eyes to Jesus- the one who carries your bricks on his back. And like my friend Jane’s vision from Him, He will hand them to you, to place in the earth as your incarnational career. Yes, your whole job is to simply be you. Be the best most authentic and vulnerable courageous you you can be. You are innocent and you are bold. Be not afraid daughters of our King– love wildly and dance as if all are watching!! They see the life of the Son in you and on you. We are here to display the image of Christ in our lives as we glorify our sweet and sacrificial Father in heaven. Then the whole earth will sing with the assurance that She too is included in the plan. All are included. All get to participate. Arise. I say to you Arise!

Jesus is our Sabbath Rest

Day two of grief: the day after our sweet golden retriever Sierra left us, I’m wont to sit with my Jesus and listen.

Jesus rests me

Jesus lifts me

Jesus is a frequency as am I

This frequency shatters illusion for it is Truth with a capital T

Jesus cannot leave me

Jesus is my rock

and my living well of energy

Free energy- no need to draw upon systems built for this age

His system is built for eternally knowing who I am

I cannot forget for I enjoy secure attachment
Even my grief does not destabilize me

Every wave that hits is another opportunity to reach for his hand

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…