AVOIDING THE VOID? Every morning when I journal I pray some version of “I am willing to will the will of the One.” I rarely use words in prayer, and, I have a strong and abiding sense of that prayer at the felt-sense level. It is where I begin my day and where I live from. Lately I have been feeling very vulnerable, exposed, and shaky. That description might send some into dread. I have learned to lean into those feelings. I have some uncertainty in my solar plexus, some fluttering in my heart center. In the past I would do everything possible to deaden and to suppress those feelings. I had an entire repertoire of ways to do that. I could not tolerate the feeling of

A LEGACY IN ME I am barely on this side of saying good-bye to one of the great loves of this lifetime. It was not a surprise that Tony transitioned. He had been ill for a couple of years, and his condition had worsened to the point that we knew death was coming and most likely soon. He had chosen to cease any more treatment, and with that decision I could feel the aperture open to the next realm of experience. Over the two years he fought hard. He eventually gave into every treatment option he had said that he would never do. The will to live is strong in all of us, and for Tony it at times felt insurmountable. And yet after a long and

GETHSEMANE While I have not been engaged in traditional Christianity for more than forty years, the images of this Lenten season and of this Holy week are more intimate, profound, and transformative than ever. Something shifted in me decades ago when I discovered that I was not to walk a path of worshipping a historical Jesus or any Messiah. I am here to walk and to live the path of Christ Consciousness, which is a living, vital, presence within me. The man Jesus has been used as one of the most divisive figures in human history. I find that tragic beyond description. Those who use him to exclude and even damn others seem to have lost touch with the essence of his message. While the records we

ENOUGH DRAMA? My first professional acting job after moving to New York City was on the ABC soap opera LOVING. Though it was not the work I really wanted to do it was a paying job in the industry and so I grabbed it. It was the beginning of consistent television work that helped support me while I tried my best to obtain more time on the stage. I often joke that I worked in soap operas until I realized it was redundant. I seemed to thrive on drama in my younger years. If I couldn’t find any in which to insert myself I would create my own. I did not know at the time that it was the result of an internal chemical addiction. I needed

WILL While I have never considered myself to be a strong personality type I also recognize that there have been times in my life when I was extremely strong willed. If there is indeed a cosmic truth to be revealed in the qualities of the horoscope than I am for sure a classic Taurus. There have been more than a few situations in my life in which I have felt compelled to really dig my heels in. I remember being a four year child and refusing to eat the yams my mother put on my plate for dinner. My mother was formidable, and she decided I would sit at the table with those yams until I ate them. I decided I was not going to eat those

JUSTIFIED RETALIATION? Someone else’s bad behavior is never justification for my own. While we as human beings are hardwired for defense and for retaliation we are also cosmically destined to rise above and respond beyond those primitive automatic reactions. I don’t recall the last time I had to defend myself against a physical attack. It was most likely forty years ago. It has not been nearly that long since I went into a defensive posture because someone didn’t agree with me or because I was personally offended at something someone said or did. It could even be the look I am seeing or perceiving on someone’s face. Perhaps it is the tone of someone’s voice, or the perceived slight of not being acknowledged properly when I entered

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