Lately with all of the fear circulating around 2012 including a movie that clearly paints the vision of the end of the world, I have had to ask myself. What if I only had three years to live? What would I do? How would I do things differently?

I realized that this was a theme I needed to embody. Because if we had but three years to change the world, what would we do differently?

The only world that I can change is the world within me. I can change the way I relate to the world. I can change my relationship with myself and with nature. I can change how I relate to others. I can do those things I feel intuitively guided to do.

In talking to a friend tonight I realized that narcissism, which I’ve built my life’s work around, is the opposite of transparency. And it is transparency that I most desire. I don’t want to hide who I am from the world. I want to just let who I am shine through. It is the narcissist who is intimidated by the light and tries to shut it down. I allowed my light to be snuffed out!  But it was my natural inclination to shine.  That is who I am and what I am here for. 

As I worked to understand the narcissist I had to understand also the inner narcissist; the part that resides in my shadow; the part I disown within myself.  It is the part that is not transparent, who feels shame, guilt, inadequacy and attempts to hide it from the world.  Along with those unacceptable feelings and emotions come the hiding of desire, passion, honesty, silliness, ignorance, and also the bitch, the hostility, the anger and all that is not considered attractive.  Like most I have found that I live inside an image.  I believe I should present myself in a way that is “acceptable” at least to a certain group within society. 

Yet what would happen if the world suddenly became transparent?  What if we moved through this portal as a whole and suddenly we became naked?  What if we could see the agendas, the fears, the insecurities, the lies, the deceit, and the depth of our isolation and loneliness? Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past year I’ve been diligently working on my new CD “Emergence” and was in a celebratory mood when I finally sent it off to manufacturing.  It was a lot of work, but in many ways it was effortless to produce.  Because I surrendered to a force within me that had its own rhythm and its own path to walk.  Emergence didn’t have lyrics like my other CD’s.  It was just pure expression of the feminine voice wailing, chanting and singing her songs of the unleashed spirit.

It is that unleashed spirit that I believe we are all seeking.  That feeling of being able to completely surrender to something much greater than ourselves and allow it full expression in our lives.  It is not an act of doing but rather an act of being.

During the process I came up against  a lot of opposition, mostly technical but I also had some human opposition.  It seems that the dark forces of the universe were putting obstacles in my path to prevent me from fully stepping into my truest expression.  I was challenged on many levels but finally after successfully moving through each challenge things just clicked into place and the project sort of completed itself.

The way I found myself moving through these challenges wasn’t about pushing.  It was really about surrendering.  I found myself just letting go of any and all expectation of what I thought this CD should be and simply allowed it to be what it was.  I realized that this was really a huge accomplishment for me because I had successfully learned to surrender to the will of God/Goddess and give the feminine intuitive voice expression.  Read the rest of this entry »

Deeper Reflections on the Arizona Sweat Lodge Incident

I was talking to a girlfriend who I sit with every Friday in “Women’s Lodge.”  We were reflecting on the Arizona Sweat Lodge Tragedy with James Ray and I was telling her I had just written an article about this.  The irony is we were also celebrating my CD “Emergence” going to manufacturing that day.  And the theme of “Emergence” is really about the emerging of the feminine into her rightful place of power right along side of the masculine.

The masculine energy is all about the push.  It is about the “doing!”  There is a place for pushing and doing but there is also a place for surrender and being.  These qualities have gotten a bad rap in our primarily patriarchal society.  James Ray is a prime example of focusing on the “push” to get ahead in life.  And for so many people “financial gain” is what it is all about.  It is the financial gain that gives people a sense of worth and value in their lives.  The more money one has the more admiration he/she receives.  It is the ultimate sign of success.

Spiritual enlightenment and the ability to sit still and reflect don’t figure very prominently in the average persons view of success.

From the information I have gathered James Ray’s Spiritual Warriors program was not about success but rather survival.  It was a survival program and several did not survive.  Did this make them weak?  Did it make them failures?  Or did it make them a victim of a man who was playing God? Read the rest of this entry »

Inspired by the Sweat Lodge Tradgedy in Arizona

There was a tragedy recently where three people died in a sweat lodge at Angel Valley Ranch in Sedona, Arizona.  Since I lived six years in Sedona and new Angel Valley Ranch well, it hit close to home.  I was always enthusiastic about sweat lodge and had attended many lodges myself.  I needed to have a better understanding of what happened so I looked into this a bit further.

The sweat lodge was part of a five day spiritual warrior retreat led by “Self Help Guru” James Ray whose popularity soared after appearing in the movie “The Secret.”  I watched the movie “The Secret” many times and was excited to see these principals and ideas I had been practicing for years being brought into the mainstream.  But I wasn’t really familiar with James Ray or his work up until now.  I had to look at a picture of him in order to remember which one he was.  He was a good looking charismatic man in his early fifties.  He was a self-made millionaire who charged between nine and ten thousand dollars to attend this five day retreat which ended in tragedy.

James Ray obviously had a huge following and many people made great life changes as a result of his work.  But something went terribly wrong in that sweat lodge on October 12th.  Not only did three people die in the lodge but many people were vomiting and passing out and an unknown number got very sick and had to be hospitalized.

The news suggested that James Ray who was all about pushing people beyond their comfort zone pushed a bit too far.  Although most of us can agree that it is good to get out of our comfort zone sometimes our comfort zone is what keeps us safe, literally!  At what point do we sacrifice our personal safety for the promise of personal growth?

As I looked into the story further I was easily able to identify what went wrong.  James Ray should never have been leading that sweat lodge.  Sweat Lodge is a Native American tradition that involves construction of a lodge out of  willow branches or other easily bendable wood and covered with blankets, skins and/or cloth tarps.  The water pourer has had many years of training in order to have the honor of tending the sweat lodge.  There are usually no more than 12 people in a lodge and it is the responsibility of the water pourer to be conscious of everyone in that lodge.  It is a great responsibility.  Read the rest of this entry »

I’m sitting down at my computer with my breakfast of apples, nuts and seeds, at 11:30 in the morning on a Thursday and reflecting on what I wanted to write about today.  My life is no longer traditional.  I am so grateful that I can eat breakfast at 11am and do what I love to do with my life.  Write, sing and help others to discover what I am discovering.  That we are powerful beyond measure!

After what seems a lifetime of struggle I am finally finding success in my life!  It is not the kind of success that comes with a lot of money, expensive houses and cars.  I don’t have any of that right now.  Material wealth has never been my goal or my definition of success.  To me success is to be “self ruled!”  It is to make it through the obstacle course of life and with each obstacle find more of your true self.  In the end, when all is said and done that is all we have!  It is our true self we take with us.  It is what is ancient and eternal.  Everything else is just an illusion. 

I turned 48 this year and noticing signs of aging creeping up on me.  Like most women I would love to stop the clock but I must surrender to the process.  I must surrender that last piece of attachment to the physical.  “I am not my body!” 

Youth and beauty is worshipped in our culture and I learned at a very early age if I wasn’t pretty I wasn’t valued.  As a chubby kid with braces and glasses I was the target for everyone’s repressed self hatred.  I was the one they threw stones at!  I hated being so loathed and rejected!  I didn’t understand.  Why was I such an ugly duckling?  If only I could be beautiful people would love me, right?

So my quest became beauty!  I starved myself to an enviable thinness; I lost the glasses and the braces and grew to be five foot eight inches tall.  I was, in my day, fashion model material.  I was accepted by an agency in the City and learned how to make up and adorn myself to fit with societies ideal.  But something was missing.  Where was the happiness that seemed to be the promise of beauty?  Instead I suffered endless bad relationships, a life threatening eating disorder, extreme lack of self worth and struggle to succeed in anything I did.  Read the rest of this entry »