On Asking for Help & Signposts

On Asking for Help & Signposts

We all need help sometimes. Some of us have become good at "making due" so much that we have learned not to ask. Many men have been taught that asking for help is a sign of weakness. Many women have been taught that, with the advent of the Career Woman of the 70s, that we must be strong and do it ourselves in order to "prove something."  

Can I tell you a secret?

Our angels sit around in chairs scrunching their noses in compassion while we bang our heads against the wall, feeling frustrated about our lives because we need help and don't know what to do. They want so badly to help us, but they can not do so unless we ask.

Do you remember when you were a child and could not tie your shoelaces? At some point, someone--maybe a childhood friend or a parent--showed you how. 

We are born knowing everything we need to know, spiritually, but we are put on this earth to learn how to manifest it, physically. Sometimes it's just hard! So just ask.

Asking is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength. When you're asking, you've realized that you need something you don't know how to manifest alone, and you are looking for whatever support is necessary to honor that heart truth.

Asking allows you to stay in touch with that bubbling hot spring of passion.

The other day I was doing some emotional sorting around what I want to manifest. I was sitting in my container garden next to brightly colored flowers. "Am I on the right track?" I asked. "Guides, please let me know!" 

I journaled my thoughts and hit on some ideas that felt very good, when suddenly a hummingbird appeared within a foot of me, peering at me as if I were some strange curiosity in her flower patch. She hovered for about 10 seconds, and flitted off. But the interruption of nature at just that moment happened to underscore the very topic I was journalling about, and I felt a deep excitement as even more ideas expanded from there. 

Moments like those are called Signposts. Ask long as you have the courage to ask your guides for help, they will always reply.

As in my case, they may not reply in words or thoughts, but confirmation will come in the form of a signpost, or some simple event that offers energetic synchronicity and exponentially expands your sense of love, positivity, or clarity.

Imagine if you met the love of your life, but you became discouraged because they said something in passing that led you to think they could never like you. You walk away from them and miss out on lovely experiences, all because you never garnered the courage to ASK for clarification.

We do this type of thing on a lesser scale everyday. We get into confusing situations, and we forget to check in with ourselves, with our highest wisdom, with our primal knowing, and with our guides. We suffer in confusion rather than taking time to simply ask for help! You never lose by asking!

On Faith

On Faith

What is faith? I was raised to belief that Faith is an action word. We often define it as "belief in something for which we have no proof," but even the early French etymology explains faith as the "duty of fulfilling one's trust." That duty sounds pretty action oriented to me!

People are sometimes afraid to believe in God. They feel pressured by religion to place faith in something for which they have no empiriclal evidence. They don't want to place faith and then be sorely disappointed at some critical moment. But what if Faith is an action we take day in and out?

What if, from today forward, you look at faith as something you do in order to fulfill that trust, and you begin with having faith in yourself? 

It is often easier to have faith in the abilities of others. We may choose to believe or disbelieve in our government leaders, our parents, our bosses, and lovers, but when faced with ourselves, if we have not developed a solid core of faith in our own ability to live, love, and prosper, we suffer. Sometimes, because we have trouble believing in ourseselves and carrying our that duty to fullfill that sacred trust with our own hearts, we look outside of ourselves for something to have faith in. We look to God, or to Angels, or to Mother Earth. But in fact the deepest lessons of most religious faiths is that God, Angels, Gaia, they are all found within us. Until we learn to see the refelction of the divine within ourselves, we can not heal that inner sense of lack. You must trust that you are worth having Faith in!

"Faith is the function of human life that dispels the dark clouds of doubt, anxiety and regret, opens one’s heart and orients it toward good," says Daisaku Ikeda. When you take up Faith as an action verb, seeking to understand how and why something is worthy of your love and energy--and how best that should be physically expressed--you unlock the gateway to a profound glimpse at real truth-- that all things are worthy of Faith and Love, for all things created are beautifully, blissfully, divinine. Once you realize this, you don't have to worry about losing Faith, or Hope, or falling into pits of despair, for that faith once found can not be lost. Even the guru who disappoints through scandal, must be recognized as part of a great teaching and learning wheel. As your fatih increases, your brilliant mind can honor the needs and duties of that faith, taking actions which support overall well being and increasing overall faith--not in any guru or physical earthly thing, but in the cosmic nature of life, and in the blossoming flower your own soul.

On Devotion

The word devotion stems from the old latin meaning roughly to "dedicate by a vow, sacrifice oneself, promise solemly" or to preach from the base or root of one's being. I'm a fairly passionate person and though I am quite comfortable with throwing love around, I do not make declarations and vows of devotion lightly. I have often known within minutes, if not hours, the love contract between myself and another. This isn't to say I can't be surprised, for the road of love between two people, whatever the relationship, can twist and turn several times over. 

And yet I've found that often deep within, we have a sense of who and what we are meant to be to one another. We just spend time (days, weeks, months) clearing old wounds, or ego, in order to fulfull that original spark of vision. 

The other day I was with a good friend of mine I haven't seen in a few years. We spent several hours talking, and I expressed that I was so excited to see her son, whom I hadn't seen in years as well. The following day, I came to her home and there he stood. He was friendly and chatty, but none of that mattered. Instantly my heart was overwhelmed with a deep filial connection I have only ever felt for my own child, and none before or since. I knew, as certain as my own breath, that "come hell or highwater" I would protect the life and interests of this little boy as if he were my own. It was an unresonable, soul-certain feeling. My friend and I talked about this, and other forms of love for most of the evening.

This is the nature of devotion. It is a vow that comes from the Great Below within all of us, from our own primal, very human selves. A vow so strong we would sacrifice our lives. This vow may be spoken or unspoken. It may blossom within us like a surprise, or burn so deeply born of karma and circumstance.

Where and how we choose to express this life-on-the-line kind of devotion is critical, for our very life is at stake. In Nichiren Buddhism, it is said that those who practice Buddhism today made a vow many thousands of lifetimes ago to flower with life, to remain in the karmic cycle of death and rebirth, regardless of enlightenment, in order to help others. It is a vow of great compassion. To live it means to release the judgements of ego completely, and honor the beauty of our human process. Some say that this kind of higher-consciousness devotion (ie to God, to the compassionate healing of Earth or Humanity) is the only place we should place our deepest devotion.

I say that devotion to a small child and devotion to God are one in the same. Both are Divine. We all are. When we honor anything in this world as we would honor Supreme Life, we heal the frayed threads of communal consciousness. We remember the greatness that we hold as individuals, but also as a collective creating life. 

And yet, devotion itself is a neutral energy. It is the expression of our willingness to give our all. If we devote ourselves to acts or routines that disconnect us from our life force, or take on committments that have nothing to do with our soul needs, we minimize the light of loving wisdom we are able to share--because this kind of devotion ultimately saps our energy. If we devote ourselves to people/places/causes that negate who we are, we eventually need to do the healing work of returning to wholeness around those parts of us that are shut down in that process. We then become busy repairing and healing our own relationship to ourselves. While this is not "bad," we can experince greater expansion by being discerning in what we choose to devote ourselves to.

  

Daily meditations and prayers, nourishing foods and activities, actions that support healthy and balanced relationships-- these are all hungry for our devotion. When we are devoted in love, we vibrate love and draw the world around us into a resonance of love. In turn, more love is created.

On Strength

On Strength

Every creature on this earth has its own quality of strength. I was thinking of us today, and how we humans are pretty scrawny when compared to, say, a lion. However, we have brilliant minds capable of creating complex structures in multiple planes of reality; just look at our physical buildings, emotional & social etiquette, intellectual abstract reasoning, religious beliefs! Yet when we talk about strength we don't often think about these human acts. We talk instead about overcoming challenges, or persevering against all odds. We tell stories in which some forceful action displays our strength. 

I have thought a lot about strength this year as I've sat with people overcoming tremendous illness, or children facing playground bullies. I honor that our strength shows in so many different ways.

To me the heart of strength is in loving oneself enough to honor the messages coming from our inner lion (or primal center of energy), and in allowing that story to well upward from the well of our being, like a song deep within our own blood, unique unto us, but asking to be sung.

When we live from our deepest truth, we are impassioned. Our blood sings. Our life glows. We are in love with life. The energy that this creates can make impossible things manifest. Inventions are created. New worlds are created.

Children are really good at living this way. They listen to that inner voice that tells them where they must go or what they must do, and because they are connected with that passion, they do it. It is a fierce primal life force energy that they wrangle effortlessly. They are filled with passion for just being alive.

When we allow ourselves to connect with our inner lion, we have an enormous power generator backing up our every move. But that isn't enough. We must also temper that raw force with loving awareness that comes through our heart. Our heart energy transforms that passion song into something that works not only for us, but that can also increase vibrations of light and healing for others in the world as well. Connecting with our passion makes us passionate, but tempering it with deep trust and reflection, this makes us strong. Possibly unbeatable! 

Real strength is being courageous enough to listen to that voice of truth in the still waters of our deepest heart, even when the rest of the world is telling us something completely different--and being willing to act upon it for a good that serves both ourselves and our community. Real strength is standing by that heart or primal truth in order to create more light and beauty in your multiple planes of reality--even if it doesn't fit the reality that is already there.

It takes strength to march at the front of a revolutionary war brigade, or to create an invention the world calls crazy. We all have the strength to do incredible things. Find your inner lion. Figure out how to honor it. Then do what's necessary to tame it so your own unique, primal song can be unleashed.