And What About Our Mourning...

A friend asked me about advice for mourning. It brought up images of mourning for the loss of a person in our life as well as the loss of hope with life. I thought of the grieving that must occur when we have a significant loss of even a set of beliefs about who we are in this life experience.

"To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness."

- Eric Fromm

People mourn in different ways and for different reasons. The feelings of mourning or grieving are important. The first experience is typically shock and numbness. This reaction exists not only when we find out about a death that greatly impacts us, but it can also be when we believe that hope and faith in a particular way of life is gone. We can grieve the loss of a job, our ability to walk, and a political or global situation.

“Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing...” 

Elizabeth Gilbert

As humans we have egos. Egos are what keep us from spiraling off the planet. We need them. Egos tell us which house we live in, how to buy eggs and fruit, what clothes to wear, and so many other things that help us to function and identify ourselves relative to the world. 

We attach to these Ego perceptions. We attach to the people and pets in our lives that we love and that we perceive have value to us and to our beliefs. We attach to things about ourselves such as looks, skills, and abilities that we perceive have value to us. We can attach to beliefs, hopes, and standards for how the world should work and what we value in society. When the status of any of these changes without our preparation, we first feel the detachment from this person, our self identity, or society. This is jarring! It can feel as if a limb has been torn off us. To a degree, this is true.

We all have Chakras or energy vortexes. These Chakras have a strong relationship with things around us that we attach to.   The end of these cone shaped vortexes envelope and have a real exchange with the energy of a person, our beliefs, and society. When something is taken away from that Chakra, we experience it deeply. Think of when a bandaid is torn off of our skin. At the very first moment it is not felt, however shortly afterwards it can be extremely painful. The pain of loss can seem unbearable at times. None of us should judge the level of pain, the validity of the pain, or the duration of the pain that comes with mourning; not for ourselves and not for others. This is a unique journey.

 After the shock subsides, sometimes we physically see bright lights and lose our sight. We can fall to our knees and sob uncontrollably. We can vomit, shake, run as fast and as far as we can to now where...just away. We can even act like nothing just happened. We can put the trash out. We can take on extra hours at work. We can choose to avoid making any changes to our lives. Any way that we react to our loss and any way that we experience our mourning is beyond an understanding of planning how to be in the world. We just don't know what we will feel, for how long, or the evolution of the process, until we are in it.

One of the most challenging aspects of mourning and grieving is that it is not usually evident on our bodies like a broken arm. The pain and suffering is real, however it is difficult to "categorize" because emotional pain is invisible. We do not often give or receive the level of compassion, care, and respite that is necessary for a healthy grieving process.

“It was a fine cry - loud and long - but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.” 

-Tony Morrison

Could anyone truly "move on" from the construction of the Berlin Wall?

We must protect our grieving. We must consider ourselves in the Intensive Care Unit of a hospital...a hospital of wholeness. Others cannot see our mourning in the way that it is so obvious to us. And after a time, they may want us to "move on". which of course there is no such thing. That is a linear assumption. There is no moving on past a great loss, there is transformation through a great loss. 

No, the country, the world, the people could not end their grieving for all those years, until they smashed it down.

 Mourning a loss and the subsequent changes to our Egos is riddled with emotions. We must experience these emotions so that the energy can flow out and through us. We have an undetermined process at hand, and we must ride the river that we have found ourselves upon. If we do not fully immerse ourselves in our grieving process, addictions, anger, illness, and other reactions will not only rob us of this life experience in the moments of the grieving, but everything thereafter.

“It was too perfect to last,' so I am tempted to say of our marriage. But it can be meant in two ways. It may be grimly pessimistic - as if God no sooner saw two of His creatures happy than He stopped it ('None of that here!'). As if He were like the Hostess at the sherry-party who separates two guests the moment they show signs of having got into a real conversation. But it could also mean 'This had reached its proper perfection. This had become what it had in it to be. Therefore of course it would not be prolonged.' As if God said, 'Good; you have mastered that exercise. I am very pleased with it. And now you are ready to go on to the next.”

 - C.S. Lewis

What advice can be given about mourning? To do it, that is the best advice. To mourn the loss. To mourn the confusion to our Egos, whose job it is to keep us stable in a world of ever changing energy. Be kind to ourselves. Do grieving well by standing firm in its existence. And when the last salt is tasted from our tears, release all that we held so tightly, turn it over to the Divine, and open our hearts and arms to Love, Trust, Faith, and New Potential...sending a kiss of gratitude to guide what has passed into the new energy of its own light.

May Today be a First Day to Begin honoring our mourning and grieving. May we know that the transformation of our lives will be safe, even during the most painful times of shock and sadness. May Today be a First Day to Begin to accept this process of mourning. May we respect the work that is necessary for our Chakras to heal, for our heart to find its solace, and for our Egos to find new balance. We may not see or know the mourning of others and they may not see or know of ours, however it is real and it exists. It is ours and may we find the self love necessary to ask for help, receive support, and see the guidance that will surely be present. 

Getting Into the New Paradigm - Dropping Sand Bags.

The New Paradigm has a higher energy vibration. We can't get into the New Paradigm if we are carrying toxic energy.

While there has been healing work that many of us have done over the years, much of that involved our head mind thoughts and feeling reactionary emotions. Often times "therapy" work was just a way to perpetuate and swim in the negative energy. Constantly getting into the sludge is no way to raise our vibrations. Staying in the energy of "something is wrong with me"  is also keeping us in a lower vibration.

There was a time when therapy of this sort was very helpful. To begin unpacking things about us could be very good movement. Movement is essential for change. Within reason, even directed movement can be successful, however, in the long run, it is our own unique process, being witnessed and applauded in its organic display, that truly makes the difference for preparing to enter in to the New Paradigm.

The Old Paradigm type of talking therapies were good starters to an initial willingness to shift. I have enjoyed studying, collaborating, and being in rich conversations regarding many different therapeutic approaches. When therapy talking stayed in the head and thought process, then nothing really changed. It is only in the deep, gut AH HA moments that a true revelation occurs.  The bottom line outcome for the first line of introductory work preparing us for the New Paradigm is to "lighten the load".

Each negative thought creates a lower vibration "sand bag" that hangs off our hot air balloons. Talking about our sand bags does NOT mean that it drops off of the hot air balloon. DROPPING it is the only way to allow ourselves to fly higher. When we release the heavier and slower vibrations from our psyche, then we have a higher vibration. This results in our feeling more joy, happiness, peace, love, and all of those other marvelous things.These positive energies are what the New Paradigm is made of.


Really look at this picture and FEEL it...FEEL these sandbags on YOU:

With all of these heavy bags on us, how can we possible fly? Resentments, regrets, self hate, judgements of others, hidden secrets of our truths (i.e. being gay, fear of changing career paths), anger, victimization, and other lower energy vibrations bog us down. 

We must cut and release our sandbags. We can actually do this by visualizing the sand bags in our mind and seeing ourselves cutting the ropes, burning the ropes, or untying the ropes to our sandbags. When they drop, we shoot up a little higher. As we can imagine, sometimes when we release a heavy sand bag, the momentum of raising our vibration so quickly can feel nauseating and uneasy in our guts.

Soon enough we will find our balance in the lighter way in which we engage in the world. We will feel freer, happier, and have a more expansive way to see the world. When we drop our sandbags, it positively impacts the collective consciousness of humanity and aids in the wonderful momentum that is happening globally.

Yoga, Meditation, Energy work, Shaman journey work, Archetype reflection, Runes, Angel Cards, Animal Medicine Cards, Chanting, Vision Quests, Tarot, and Ceremony and Rituals, are some of the tools that we can use to help ourselves come to revelations in a deep cellular awareness level. By choosing to have an intention of Freedom, Complete Love, and Total Peace, sandbags can just start falling off as a natural occurrence to our commitment to a higher vibration.

Sometimes we can see the story and / or feel the lower vibration energy in a sand bag when it is releasing and gets dropped. Other times the releasing and drop occur, but we just experience what seems like free floating feelings of anger, frustration, desperation, etc. Allow these emotional experiences to just flow out and away. We have released and dropped a sand bag. We do not need to follow it, hash it over, dump the sand on our heads, or talk about it over and over again. We can have gratitude and rejoice when we feel the weight of a heavy sandbag go. Peace and happiness will ensue as we experience a higher ride.

May Today be a First Day to Begin releasing and dropping our sandbags. May we look to the heights of love, joy, peace, bliss, and happiness. May Today be a First Day to Begin our intention of cutting the ties of the negative emotions and the negative beliefs that keep us and humanity skimming the ground in our beautiful balloons. May we get excited, motivated, and continue feeling the good vibrations of the guarantee of the New Paradigm, soaring ever higher and higher in OUR BEAUTIFUL BALLOONS!

 

But Why Is It So Difficult and SLOW?

ARRGHHH!! This New Paradigm sounds really great, but why are things so difficult and slow moving right now?

I completely understand people's skepticism and also experiences of frustration. For the past three years I have been very intrigued by my own lack of, what seems to be, motivation. I have always been a fast moving, high energy person who consistently kept going and going and going... 

In July of 2010, after I made a major change in my life, suddenly the person who I knew could make anything happen quicker than the speed of light, well, she seemed to have disappeared!

As I spoke to more people, I discovered that in the summer and fall of 2010 many people were leaving jobs and relationships that they had been in for eight to ten years. It was like we all woke up out of a depression that we didn't even know we had fallen into. A spell had been broken.

Several people felt as desperate and bleak as I did during the beginning months. Luckily I knew the stages of what I will call a Spiritual Awakening, however that didn't lessen the pain, the confusion, the anxiety, or the hopelessness.  I knew that all of my ego constructs had been taken away from me. In my case, I chose to leave a liberal faith community that I raised my children in, volunteered for, and worked tirelessly to support for over twenty years. In leaving it the way that I did, because I could not allow an extremely unhealthy situation to continue on the part of a church leadership under which I worked for ten years, I knew that I would be blacklisted. At first I was surprised that the larger denomination, which had praised my work as a professional in my field as a youth adviser and a director of faith development, turned its back on me. Because I confronted the hierarchy and Old Paradigm views and rigid system, I was discredited in many ways. This led to the loss of a relationship with a faith and a community that I had built and been an integral part of for over twenty years. It took me a year to fully assimilate all that had occurred. While it felt like a betrayal, as some of the lay leaders of the church as well as the professional leaders in the denomination were very aware of the emotional and mental abuse that the staff was dealing with, I understood that they were too scared to stand out.  No one wanted to speak out and risk disassociation from the system, except me.

So, I left a system that I had invested so much time, effort, emotion, and money into. It was a system and as a system of the Old Paradigm, I had to be free of it. It was perpetuating patriarchal abuse, secrecy, separation, and rigid classism.  When we leave a system, we ourselves must break down. A breakdown leads to a break through. Within a month's time, one of the women that I had always felt connected to at the church contacted me. As we discussed my resignation it became apparent that we would begin our own community, and we did.

So the first thing to note is that when we shift, knowingly or by an act beyond our conscious control, we are being pulled away from something that we believed that we belonged to and that belonged to us. Our chakras enveloped that system as a part of us and when we leave, *YOWCH*, it hurts. We can also feel betrayed, rejected, and abandoned.

Lyrics:
Weapons and warfare
Leave it all back there
Tell all the powers to be
We’re starting something
Built up from nothing
Something you can’t see
And if you have a spark
Then let it grow
You feel the weight on your shoulders
Just let it go
And if you have to leave
Then, let me know
‘Cause I can go it alone
You can go it alone
You can go it alone
We are on our own
You can go it alone
This is a protest
The sound of progress
Tell all the powers to be
We’ll take it back now
Light up the black out
Rise up from your seat
And if you have a spark
Then let it grow
You feel the weight on your shoulders
Just let it go
And if you have to leave
Then, let me know
‘Cause I can go it alone
You can go it alone
You can go it alone
We are on our own
You can go it alone
And if you have to leave
Then, let me know
‘Cause I can go it alone
You can go it alone
You can go it alone
We are on our own

The most important and yet the most devastating thing is to know that we can and we must go it alone.
We have to do this:

In order to do this:

And THIS is the part that is the most difficult:

Because we are just hanging. We are hanging all by ourselves. And we forget that a caterpillar has a structure and a shape to it than must completely redefine its very solid format so that it can become something entirely new.

This cycle of breaking down, being goop, then reforming, takes a long time sometimes. When we have an entire society with its collective consciousness going through such major waking up, it is going to take each one of us an uncertain amount of time to complete this process. We will not be anything like the old creature. In this way we create the New Paradigm with New Creatures. So if during this time you try try try to get a job and it isn't working, that is perhaps because you are in your cocoon and you cannot know or be in the job that is right for you until you have emerged. I understand that this can feel very scary, especially if it involves finances. Remember that this is a collective movement, and therefore we all must step away from perpetuating the abusive economic system that exists. The current rigid structure of the economy must go through its breaking down, being goop, and  reforming cycle as well. We want changes, and they are happening. It is better that they work slowly so that we move everything over to the New Paradigm in a cautious, firm foundational way. We do not lack motivation, we are in our chrysalis stage and as such, no movement is what is necessary (yet), as lonely, confusing, and perplexing as it may feel.

It is no longer one or two people having awakenings now and again, it is the collective desire to do so. The Tipping Point has been reached...it is inevitable.

May Today be A First Day To Begin to have some Faith in each other trusting that we are making it through the difficult and slow times that are valuable aspects of a Global Spiritual Awakening.

Thank you all for what you have been enduring. I have Faith in US.

New Paradigm Explained Further...

A Paradigm is a pattern, usually of behavior. A Paradigm serves as model and is perpetuated through systems. It defines a system or community with a flow and direction.

An example of a Paradigm, and my innocent innate need to live beyond a pre-existing Paradigm, occurred when I was four years old. We lived in a terrific cul-de-sac neighborhood in New Jersey. There were many children the ages of me, my brother, and my sister. We created a lot of games that were reflections of the mindset of the  mid 1960s. One of these games was called Monster. In this game the girls would stroll along in oblivion only to be startled by an attack of the boys as Monsters. The girls would screech and run, succumbing finally to the aggressiveness of the boy Monsters.  Each run of this game lasted maybe four minutes. The game was a Paradigm. Patterns and beliefs were used as a model of the gender roles of us neighborhood children. This game bored me and did not make any sense.

One day I decided I would suggest some magnificent changes. This was my presenting a Paradigm Shift to my friends.

I interrupted the boys who were, as always, planning the start of the Monster run. In doing so I already began shifting the Paradigm by causing a change in the usual pattern of what we did.

Then I made my suggestion out loud to the entire group. I simply said that I had an idea that would make the game more fun, more fair, and last longer. No one seemed interested, but I continued. So, I would be the Doctor. Here we see that I introduced a new character into the story. The Paradigm would have to shift if there was a doctor involved. The Old Paradigm had "girls" and "monsters". The New Paradigm would have "girls", "monsters", and "a doctor". I also suggested a nurse, who in my mind was going to be a girl. So now I was shifting the Paradigm to take two "girls" out of the screeching and running group and give them separate titles. On a larger scale, I was challenging the gender Paradigm of that time by suggesting that I, a girl, would be a doctor. WOAH!!! And then suggest that a girl be MY nurse. Gender roles AND assumed gender identity! Everyone had been programmed from the adult world that handsome male doctors had sexy female nurses and that somehow there was a flirtatious thing going on there.

So, I was standing in front of the Power of the Boy Monsters and the submissiveness of the Girl Victims, declaring that I knew how to make our game Paradigm much better. My idea was that when the Monsters came out of nowhere to attack the girls, the injured girls could come see me, the Doctor, along with my beautiful female nurse, and we would fix them up. We would make them so strong and efficient that they would return to the streets. In their healed and strengthened selves they could conquer the Monsters, or at least send them back from whence they came.

Bravo, Aileen!! Brilliant!! Superb!!! Common Sense! Accolades!!

Actually, as we all know, I was told that that was the stupidest idea ever. If I wanted to play with them I had to play their way. They were not going to change the game.

 Of course I would not play their game. Once I had realized what was going on, I no longer could participate. The moment I recognized a new way to play the game, I had already left their Paradigm. My idea of changes and my commitment to those changes created a New Paradigm. I presented them with the ideas, the opportunity and first shift into a New Paradigm, but they refused. I was then in a New Paradigm. If other children had joined me or after the game finished come to tell me that my idea was better and perhaps we could play that way, then we would have started a Counter Culture. If I truly want the New Paradigm to stay...if I really believed in the new game, then I would never choose to go back and play the old game in the Old Paradigm. The group of us who only now played in the new way would have began a New Paradigm with a counter culture.

There are many beliefs and systems that shift. They shift because someone speaks up, or something happens.

In my last blog I used the Vietnam War and the experimentation of drugs from the 60s and 70s as the example of a major shift in the Old Paradigm into this New Paradigm, even if it took 50 years to begin to truly see an established new counterculture to gender roles and gender identity for example.

I seemed to have entered this world with a keen sense of doing, or wanting to do things differently. My parents individually tell the story that happened two days or so after I was born. I was born in a hospital in Washington D.C. At that time babies were generally kept in another room while the mother was recuperating. (from being knocked out and awakened to her new baby!) My parents were walking down the hallway to the big window of the nursery. There was a noisy crowd and photographers. People were pointing and talking about one baby in particular. My parents assumed it was the baby of a senator that was born in the same time frame as I was in that hospital.

When they arrived at the nursery window they heard people asking, "Who's baby is that?!". They looked and saw what the commotion was about. Among the swaddled babies lying on their backs with eyes closed, there was one baby who had unwrapped herself, some how flipped over, and was up on her elbows looking out at the people looking in. I doubted my parents rendition of this story until my father, who never would fancy himself a braggart when it came to his children, asserted that this, in fact, was true.

In my first week of life I began to shift two paradigms: new born babies born in a U.S. hospital lay on their backs swaddled, and babies of a higher social class get more attention. My parents expected everyone was talking about the U.S. Senator's baby because, for social class reasons, this baby must be worth talking about. I, on the other hand, a scraggly 6 pound 6 ouncer from nondescript parents who rented an apartment, was not worth talking about.

We have an OLD PARADIGM that is about things like, the Old Boy's Network, women getting paid less

for the same exact job as a man, women unhire-able after they raised children, a whole lotta isms, indigenous marginalization, and status symbols. Competition, greed, scarcity, and criminal fraudulent behaviors such as those by Enron, http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/enron.asp, have been a primary foundational pattern of the Old Paradigm.

Relate all of this back to my original story of boy Monsters versus girl Victims. Why did all the neighborhood children want to continue with this game? It satisfied something within them. It aided in their sense of knowing what to do...do what the tribe around you does, even if it may hurt you or cause you to live a life that is a lie.

What if someone is like me and can't live a life that is unauthentic? Regardless of the social norms and rules? What if happiness and the pursuit of happiness means that they have to leave the Paradigm that exists and create their own New Paradigm? And what if others follow and create a subculture in this New Paradigm? What if the New Paradigm was created because humanity needs to survive? People need to individually survive and therefore collectively we must ignore and leave the Old Paradigm patterns in order to find truth and happiness in a New Paradigm.

We do not want that Old Paradigm. None of us really do. It was an Old Paradigm of "keeping up with the Joneses", "Don't hang out your dirty laundry", and so many other approval based lies and omissions of who we are. People are dying because of the Patterns we established in the Old Paradigm. People are dying from suicides due to war, bullying, and non-acceptance as gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender, and questioning.  People are dying from discrimination, poverty, lack of medical care, ignorance, marginalization, and oppression. All because of an old set of patterns that we perpetuated. WE have the power to speak up. We can assert how we want to play the games, and if "they" won't listen, we walk away and do our own thing. WE begin the NEW PARADIGM. In fact, we already have.

May today be a First Day to Begin to know who we really are. May today be a First Day to Begin the courage to step into who we really are and change the outdated patterns that hurt us and others. May we all make this a First Day to Begin our commitment to this NEW PARADIGM so that we all may be happy, valued, thrive, and live a life of LOVE.

The New Paradigm= Great Time to Be Alive

What exactly is this New Paradigm that people are chattering about? (including me!)

Number 1. This guy in the following video kind of looks like me, when I had long hair.
Number 2. My daughters would absolutely tell me that he looks, acts, and sounds like me.
Number 3. I will deny it. (because I don't know anything about astrology)

But what really is the New Paradigm..besides such a gas?

It is NOT a NEW AGEY KOOK FEST (although that could be lots of fun!).  The New Paradigm is something that I actually started noticing on my own in that I didn't read or discuss it with anyone at any point in time prior to my own personal awareness of it. 

I had my suspicions that things were changing because of my own life shifts. I discovered that my life shifts would occur shortly before many other people's similar awareness would arise. Because of my professional work doing energy body work (it is like life coaching with a kick!), I was gifted to see the inside workings of people's true lives. I could match my moods, my thoughts, and my shifting perceptions with those of others.

We need to develop and disseminate an entirely new paradigm and practice of collaboration that supersedes the traditional silos that have divided governments, philanthropies, and private enterprises for decades and replace it with networks of partnerships working together to create a globally prosperous society. 

- Simon Mainwaring

When I began my practice on Nantucket in 1995, there was one other person, my first mentor Buzz Williams, doing energy body work on island. In 2013 there is probably almost thirty practitioners of healing and energy type work on this small island. 

In 2001 I opened an office in Bedford, MA. It was on the top floor of a nice strip mall. When I began, there was a dentist, a dance studio and lots of secret offices there. Also I saw open doors with one person on a computer carrying the load of an entire business. When I closed that office in 2011, there was a wholistic nutritionist, several therapists and psychologist with one specializing in transgender issues, an acupuncturist, a  Chinese herbalist, a Qigong specialist, a writing teacher, two photographers, and a few more healing arts practitioners.   In ten years the second floor transformed from a computer station to a healing station!

What I believe has occurred and reached the tipping point is the shift of intention and inspired action supporting ideals. 

We attempted to overturn the old paradigm by way of the Vietnam War and drugs. Prior to the Vietnam War, our country bonded during and over war. When the Kent State massacre/incident occurred, so much had already been changing in the country, http://dept.kent.edu/sociology/lewis/lewihen.htm

What is a country to do when its people no longer rally to turn in their pantyhose and extra rubber tires so war can be supported and paid for? The reaction to the Vietnam War was unprecedented. This was not the easily controlled patriotic band of citizens any longer. People started to think, act, and defy the Paradigm of old. 

People also began experimenting with hallucinate drugs, and medical and psychiatric support was given to using some drugs for extensive issues. Timothy Leary was encouraging people to take a massively powerful journey into their psyches through the use of drugs. This attempt to reach transcendental awareness and peace could not last because it was induced by external methods. The drugs would wear off and some people returned to their grounded consciousness while others could not. 

Many hippies who were active in the revolution of the 60s and 70s were disillusioned as the country did not change in the manner in which they had rallied to make happen. A good portion of them joined the work forces of corporate America while others did their best to go along with the gender roles and direction that still remained fairly dominant; their youthful idealism faded for a more comforting lifestyle. Still others maintained their "Damn the man" attitudes or Age of Aquarius Flower Power energy and have held firm in their beliefs on this stances.

 The 60s and 70s rocked the foundation of the old Paradigm. Shirley Chisholm, both female and black, ran for President of the United States. 

Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.

-Shirley Chisholm

We couldn't hold and ground into this New Paradigm because it was built on resistance, fear, anger, revolt, and drugs. It was the time when people pulled things down, tore things up, smashed old stories, and insisted on something new. It was the tilling of the old stagnant soil.

Around the mid 1980s, when interestingly I became pregnant and left my college career which was focused on industrial psychology, and then again in the mid 1990s, when coincidentally I decided to let go of returning to school to be an osteopathic doctor and instead learned Polarity Therapy as a healing support to my community of Nantucket, there seemed to be an extensive output of self help books that I would put list a New Paradigm genre. These books came in not as rebellious and activist works,  but rather about healing, love, humanity cooperation, and raising vibrations.

Since we moved into the 2000s, Movies such as What the Bleep Do We Know, The Secret, The Shift, I Am, and others soon started to sweep through independent movie theaters. It seems like everyone I know does yoga, tries meditation, listens and watches inspiring videos and audio stations, and Reiki. Many hospitals allow volunteer Reiki healings and my acupuncturist regularly works in a large area hospital. We are raising our vibration with loving intentions. We tilled the soil and did the destructive work in the 60s and 70s. In the 80s and 90s we refreshed the soil, nurtured its vitality and started planting some seeds.

More people are awakening to the sense of their own happiness. Men are spending more time with their children. Women are making decisions not out of acceptance or reactionary revolt, but out of freedom to choose.

We are feeling and seeing positive reinforcements, loving interactions, happier opportunities, and the understanding that unlike the self centered 80s and 90s, we can focus on our inner happiness, joy, and peace and find a satisfying life. When we live this way, in full contentment, then others are offered the opportunity to remember their true selves, their right to find inner joy, and all the abundance that comes with that active choice. 

This is a great time to be alive because the plants that we as a society worked to hard to ground, sow, and nurture, are blossoming. Life is beautiful for so many. As we each choose to center ourselves in our glowing radiant truth, it triggers the awakening in others!

"We are reluctant to live outside tribal rules because we are afraid of getting kicked out of the tribe."

"A tribe that has any control over you rules your biology."

- Caroline Myss

May Today be a First Day to Begin our commitment to the blossoming New Paradigm. May we look beyond the illusions of the the old tribe which continues to function in the old Paradigm way and give all of our energy to the life which is unfolding. May we encourage the New Paradigm of Love, Peace, Joy, and Harmony to spread globally and quickly.  May Today be a First Day to Begin our grateful confidence that all of the hard work of the past has established strong roots for the future. We celebrate knowing that ALL BEINGS will find their way on to the Ark of the New Paradigm when it is the best time for their journey. For all that have come before us, we are honored by their efforts to till the soil. May this be A First Day to Begin to show them what they have done for us by basking, dancing, and proclaiming the New Paradigm of acceptance, abundance, love, and good news. The New Paradigm energy is contagious and May we laugh and clap our hands as the domino effect of this higher vibration continues to take affect.

May Today Be a First Day to Begin our enthusiasm for the New Paradigm. May we encourage its hard won direction of Love, Peace, Joy, and Harmony to be a quick global awakening. May we look past the illusions of the old paradigm and all of the structures that have been built upon it, focusing solely on what is becoming, blossoming, and filling its space. May Today be A First Day to Begin our commitment to what is new, confident that ALL Beings will eventually be on the Ark of the New Paradigm as we experience a more expansive and loving world, inside and out. 

May 

May 

May 

 

 

We need to develop and disseminate an entirely new paradigm and practice of collaboration that supersedes the traditional silos that have divided governments, philanthropies and private enterprises for decades and replace it with networks of partnerships working together to create a globally prosperous society.
Simon Mainwaring
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/paradigm.html#b3UwHlcrCmsyzRid.99

We need to develop and disseminate an entirely new paradigm and practice of collaboration that supersedes the traditional silos that have divided governments, philanthropies and private enterprises for decades and replace it with networks of partnerships working together to create a globally prosperous society.
Simon Mainwaring
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/paradigm.html#b3UwHlcrCmsyzRid.99

We need to develop and disseminate an entirely new paradigm and practice of collaboration that supersedes the traditional silos that have divided governments, philanthropies and private enterprises for decades and replace it with networks of partnerships working together to create a globally prosperous society.
Simon Mainwaring
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/paradigm.html#b3UwHlcrCmsyzRid.99

The Meaning of Life

There are many religions, spiritual disciplines, theories, and ideas about the meaning of life. Monty Python made an entire movie dedicated to it.

And speaking of a million galaxies...that is the conversation I was having with my two good friends, Kasia and Robert last night. We began a discussion of the Hubble Deep Space discoveries in 2004. What is astounding is that this little area of the entire sky, described as being the size of a grain of sand when held at an arms length away from one's face, is listed as having 10,000 galaxies in it.

These 10,000 galaxies are in this one little area. The entire size of the sky is 12.7 million times more area than the Ultra Deep Field. So that is 10,000 galaxies times WHAT?!

“There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.”
― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

  Not only is the "sky" 12.7 million times more area than the Ultra Deep Field of 10,000 galaxies but there is the fairly well recognized notion that the Universe is ever expanding! http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dp29hu.html

Then what does this mean to our one little teeny life existence relative to the entire ever expanding 10,000 X 12.7 millions, etc, etc, etc, etc infinity of galaxies?!

What is the  meaning of our human life time here on planet Earth?

“Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons

Now, I fancy myself a bit of a visionary explorer. For example, I spent some time with a fascinating physicist in Italy, F. David Peat, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._David_Peat, during which time we discussed many things, including David Bohm's last theory, which was never reviewed in the circle of most prominence. 

Actual profound words in this moment  from F. David Peat: "Oh, my dog just took a crap."

 

 

 I spent two weeks with him in Pari, Italy, talking about the community that he was trying to build, the people who have come to visit him there, where consciousness comes from, the possibility of me building and pouring a sweat lodge based on Native American tradition, and other diverse topics. It was a beautiful experience and one of many over the years since I have been actively asking these "big" questions and searching for the answers. I have been willing to go into the deepest realms of Mystery in order to explore, examine, ask, and receive.

One magical night, my friends Kasia and Claire and I were in one of our favorite deep mystery spots on Nantucket; the artists run gallery called X-Gallery and also known as Orange Street Gallery. Claire had just learned a hypnosis style meditation in which we could follow the journey she was describing and find the meaning of our lives. Investigating mysteries with Kasia and Claire is one of my greatest joys, as well as a necessary grounding friendship connection that keeps me tethered to the here and now. Finding out the meaning of my life? With these two friends? During a magical Nantucket evening? In the artists run art gallery? Easy and enthusiastic answer! YES! LET'S DO IT!

“As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. … That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life… Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.”
― Anthony de Mello

We were in the gallery, lying around on the old wooden floors. Claire began. I could barely slow my images down enough to hear the next suggestion out of her mouth. I was sure, absolutely sure, that in the company of these two women, who I trust beyond reason, that I would find the answer to the meaning of my life. I saw myself walking down the stairs, just as Claire directed. The journey was vivid and all my senses were engaged. She offered that on one flat landing we would find something. I did. I found a refrigerator. There on my first landing was a white, old fashioned refrigerator. She then told us that we had to carry that object that we saw with us down to the next level. I was a bit frustrated with both the dullness factor of this object and the effort it required to lug it down more levels of stairs and landings.

She talked us through different levels of this descending stairway with me, all the while, carrying this humungous refrigerator on my back. 

Finally her gentle Irish voice took us to the ground floor of this visual quest for the meaning of our life. She spoke words that I can only equate as a sort of drum roll leading up to the very last significant suggestion.
There, on that level, we would find the most important and last piece of the puzzle. See this object, relate it to the first object and the journey, and, TADAAAHHHH! The meaning of life answered!

Wait for it.........

Yes, that is correct. THE LAST OBJECT, which signified a substantial bit of MY MEANING OF LIFE WAS A TOILET!

After the complete aggravation wore off, I asked the objects of my journey what they were there to tell me about the meaning of life. The toilet word was excretion, and the refrigerator word was nourishment. I tracked it even further into the most simplest form.

The meaning of life was so basic that I was both relieved and disappointed.

To take in and to release out. That was it. All that hootin' and hollerin'. All the books, the talks, the deep thinking, the Star Trek episodes...all of it, just for show. I didn't need Bohr or Einstein, Ayn Rand or Alice Ambrose. All I needed was the very simple truth of taking in and letting out. That is the meaning of life...the simple perfect movement of what comes in to me and my life and what moves out of me and my life. 

“The Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is...42!”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

May Today be a First Day to Begin to keep things simple. To search with zest, friendship, and love, into the mysteries not looking for the answers but rather to taste the experience and release the experience. 

May today be a First Day to Begin to smile while we embrace the 10,000 x 12.7 million more areas of galaxies of which we are a minute and simultaneously a precious, powerful, and significant part of...

Traditions!

Me in the traditional costume of my Alberesh Village in Italy. These are our particular colors, setting us apart from the other Alberesh villages. This costume is about one hundred years old and worn by my family throughout all those years.

Traditions!!!

I grew up with several traditions, some related to holidays and some not. In our family it was tradition for my mother to hand make all of our Halloween costumes every year. It was tradition in the spring to weed and plant petunias and pansies along the stone wall in the front yard. It was tradition at Easter time to pluck all the orange pollen laden inner stems of the lilies at our Catholic Church. It was also tradition for all of our birthday cakes to be made from scratch in the flavor and design that we wanted. One year my mother presented me with a store made decorated cake. I started crying immediately because I thought that she didn't love me anymore.

Traditions are events that are repeated, sometimes for generations. These can be family traditions, village traditions, cultural traditions, and national traditions. 

Some traditions may not make sense to people who are not a part of the conditioning and comfort of them.

And some traditions change and transform. Case in point - Honey Balls.

For many years I would make a Christmas holiday platter that featured Honey Balls or Struffoli. Feel free to Google images for Struffoli as there will be many examples. (This is just my way to justify the following story about a tradition that needed to stop.)

The week before Christmas I would visit all my friends on Nantucket with a full platter of traditional Italian treats, as well as keep full platters in my house for those who stopped by before I got to them. The center of the platter was loaded with Struffoli. Surrounding the main attraction were sweet bowknots, fig cookies, and a few other gems.

I happily made Struffoli every year for many years as the most perfect gift. During my first winter waitressing at The Pines restaurant in Nantucket, I excitedly told everyone about these incredible traditional treats. I would bring them a platter of honey balls (Struffoli) as soon as I made them. The count down began to when I would stand over a hot vat of oil all day frying honey balls. Finally the day came, and I gleefully walked into the restaurant kitchen with a platter of beautiful honey balls for everyone. People all took one and popped them into their mouths. There was no comment...from anyone. Then a waitress' daughter came in the kitchen and enthusiastically asked for a honey ball. As she started to chew, the prep chef spoke up, "You have only just begun to chew." I was shocked and hurt! 

"What?!" I gasped, "You don't like the honey balls?" Well, that opened it up and the next five minutes were filled with comments like, "Those are the most disgusting things I have ever tasted." and "I think shoe leather would rank higher...by alot..."

MY TRADITION! It was being stomped on and I had no way of ever preparing for this!

As the night wore on, it just got worse. I would pick up a meal for a patron only to discover a skewer of honey balls on the side of the plate. I looked at the chef incredulously, and he smirked, "Twice fried honey balls." And sure enough, upon further painful looking, the honey balls had gone through the frying process one more time, at my humorous expense.

The final straw came when I was going back into the kitchen as a waitress was coming out, the food tray lifted high above her shoulder. I noticed that she was swinging her head quite a bit. Something dangling from her ears caught my eye. OH MY GAWD! She was wearing earrings made from MY honey balls!! The honey glistened off her neck and little bits of confetti candy stuck there, taunting me at their displacement. I could hold on to my levelheadedness no longer. "YOU ARE ALL MEAN" I shouted, withering away.

Back at home I explained to my husband what had happened, ending with this longing statement. "Can you believe that they didn't like honey balls?!" A longing statement that hung in the air for a very long time. The obvious next move was painfully apparent.

" I  don't like honey balls." He finally said it.

"What?" I questioned, beginning to quiver, thinking of the many years of many platters that I had given to many friends. "Honey balls are gross?!"

"Yes, they are really gross."

"Why didn't you ever tell me?!" I demanded. " I have been giving them to people for years! I thought they were delicious! My family loves them!!" I was starting to feel indignant reflecting on the insane jonesing that
my family of origin and my children have for our annual Struffoli. We have been known to eat an entire freshly made platter of them in five minutes or less!

From that day forward, the tradition of giving Struffoli to friends and neighbors ended. (You all can thank Jay T. for that) My daughters and my family of origin still make them and eat them passionately.

Traditions can start out of something that was something unusual. My desperate sanity check one cold lonely night started off a twenty five year favorite tradition. 

Living on Nantucket in the late 80s during the winter was a pretty grueling experience for a mainland grown young mom, especially during the holidays. One chilly night I was alone with the girls, and having severe cabin/island fever. I bundled us all up, put them each in their car seats, and drove off from Surfside in a jolly attempt to see holiday lights. I drove...and I drove...and I kept driving. Where were all the houses loaded with bright colored lights? I drove out to deserted Cisco, and deserted Madaket, finally desperately crying and making my way out the great distance to Sconset. I think I saw five houses with holiday lights on that freezing cold, pitch black Nantucket night. When I returned home with the girls, my sanity was no better however I vowed that next year I would find more houses with more lights on this 14 miles long X 3-5 miles wide island.

A tradition blossomed which continues to this day. Whether we are on the mainland or Nantucket, or both, near the Christmas date, we pick our night, get our hot drinks (soy peppermint hot chocolate for me, hot chocolate for Meg, and usually a coffee mix for Alli), blast the Christmas tunes and drive around to look at lights. There are so many to look at, even on Nantucket! We have our favorites in both places and save them for the very last. 

Over the years my stepson jumped in on the mainland version of the tradition, then my housemate Brian and his nephew and my foster son, Adam. More recently my dear Chrissy and her daughter Hannah got the big mainland tour. Sadly, during this year's tour, the best ever house, which was in Bedford, no longer was lit up. I saved it for second to last, as is tradition, but when I drove up with Chrissy and Hannah, there were no lights! No blow up globes! No life size moving Santa in the window! No nutcrackers, no Disney characters. Nothing. That part of the tradition had changed without consideration of me. I texted the girls as I sat outside the house in disbelief. I never imagined the tradition would stop. But it did. Traditions, without our consent, sometimes just end.

Luckily I recovered hope, thinking about how I would be on Nantucket just a week later. Over the years the girls had discovered, and then taken me to an island house that was flashy and fun it its own way. Happily I report that all is well in the expanding Nantucket winter light drive.

 

May Today be a First Day to Begin to reflect on our traditions. Where did they come from? Do they still nourish us, our family, and the world? Might we need to let go of a tradition? Shift the recipients of a tradition? Grieve the loss of a tradition? Allow a tradition to transform and flow? Start a new tradition?

May today be a First Day to Begin to celebrate all of the things that we have done as they were passed down to us through ancestry, community, and a larger world. May it also be a First Day to Begin to discern that which we want to maintain, throw away, and/or reform, as it is our right and obligation to do so in our journey of expanding and awakening life!

My family village traditional festival night...pull up a chair, a platter of Struffoli, and relax. You have only yet begun to watch and listen....and chew....