GOVERNING SHUT DOWN? In reflecting on what is currently happening in the United States government I begin that reflection process where I always choose to begin: how is what is happening out there mirroring something that I need to see in here? Whenever I find myself in opposition to what is happening or to what someone else is doing I as quickly as possible pray to open to the lesson I need to learn. I pray to surrender and to open in order to release my own internal resistance. When two or more people with opposing agenda’s strive to have their own way a battle ensues and manipulations start flying. Human beings will employ every strategy at their disposal to be right and to have their own

SENSE OF SELF After thirty plus years on a conscious spiritual path, what I have come to know for sure is that my sense of self in this world IS my quality of life. Everything flows forth from my sense of self. It is the lens through which I experience absolutely everything. I am always looking out from who I think I am. I am always unconsciously projecting out what I am not aware is primal inside. My sense of self is emotionally based and fueled. The mental commentary, though commanding, is secondary. I will always draw relationships, circumstances, situations that will be reflective of my imprinted emotional self. Thinking that you or this makes me feel this way is a partial truth that can trap us

RESOLUTION As we approach the ending of one calendar year and the beginning of another, I feel a profound call to carve out some time. I feel called to just sit and consciously be with this transition. It is such a full time of year for me and for our culture. I can feel an unusual level of busyness in my energy system. It is clear to me that it is collective, that is bigger than just me. I also feel a level of dissonance that has a similar collective quality. I feel it as a dissonant chord that is seeking resolution. It is a collective frictional tonality that wants to return to a harmonic. There is tension in the air and in the waves. So while

BEFRIENDING THE DARK On this Solstice Day, I am clearly recalling that as a child I had an unusually friendly relationship to darkness. While many children fear the dark and what might be lurking I loved the darkness for a very specific reason. Let me explain. In early elementary school, I received a toy car dashboard for Christmas. It was designed to sit on your lap, and it had a steering wheel, a working horn, and flashing turn signals. I particularly loved those flashing turn signals. I would take my dashboard down into the basement, turn off all of the lights, and then steer my way down imaginary roads. I occasionally would honk my horn at something or someone. But I made a lot of turns, primarily