I mentioned in earlier posts that I get a wonderful newsletter every couple of weeks from Jennifer at Uriel Heals. This was in my in-box today and I very much liked it.

There are many ways to heal your karma with others. From a spiritual perspective, you can learn the karma's lesson, apply forgiveness and your part in the lesson is over. From an emotional perspective, you can try to arrive at a resolution that the mind and ego are comfortable with, which can mean that you want recognition, an apology and acknowledgement of your value and participation. When you approach karma from the spiritual perspective, your understanding of the lesson is complete when you are able to forgive and move on. But when you look for validation from the emotional perspective, you are able to partially heal the karma but it will continue. Karma is complete when you do your part and stop.

It is written that the great teacher Jesus fed the crowds with fish and bread. This is a parable for the knowledge and understanding that he provided to them. It is not written, however, that he fed them; he merely made the 'food' available to them. It is not possible to force another to understanding, just as you cannot order someone who is not hungry to eat. When you try to force your perspective of understanding on another, it is like trying to force them to eat when they are not hungry.

Learning to do your part and stop means that you do what is necessary for your soul's understanding in a lesson and then you stop, allowing the other person to get what they need from the lesson. This may not deliver a resolution that the mind and ego are comfortable with. But that is not your part of the lesson. Your part only involves what you need to learn. The other person may have another aspect of the lesson to deal with and they will address it at a level they are comfortable with. When you force another to a level of understanding and acceptance that you are comfortable with, you violate their free will.

Each person that you have karma with has their own spiritual lessons to resolve and it is different for each of you. No one is better than or more competent than another. Each of you lives in total perfection. When you feel that another just isn't 'getting it' you are judging them based on your reality; they do not live in your reality and you do not live in theirs. When you can do your part of a lesson and stop, you acknowledge that you have learned what you need to in a lesson and you are free to move on. The other person is moving on as well, but in their own way. By learning to do your part and then allowing yourself to be released from the lesson, no matter what the outcome, you acknowledge and honor everyone's spiritual growth and free yourselves to move on to other things. And you release yourselves from your karma with others and move into relationships without karma.

My question to my own self after reading this was "How do you know when to stop? How do you know that you've learned your part?". Looking back over the lessons I've been given by the Universe, I see that there is no pat answer. You know when you know. I am thinking of a situation I experienced in my life quite some time ago. I met someone online and immediately took to him. I was at a very needy place in my life (and oh my lord, that is an understatement) and he gave me a wonderfully blank slate onto which I could project all I wanted and needed. I made this person my whole world despite never having met him or really even knowing who he was. Then my world collapsed when he suddenly disappeared. I was completely lost because when he left, he took what I thought was my life with him. I felt as if I had no reason to go on. But I did. I trudged through the days, seeking help where I could, and kept moving forward.

Eventually, I came to understand what had happened, why I allowed myself to give over my power to this person and how I needed to bring it back home to myself. These lessons took me the better part of a year and a half, truly. But once I got them, I understood why he had been in my life and knew that he was one of my greatest teachers. Because it was from that "dark night of the soul" that my truly spiritual side finally came out into the open and I started down the path I am so firmly on today. I did MY part by examining what his presence but most especially his absence meant to me. I not only forgave myself but him as well. And wouldn't you know it? As soon as I was able to do that piece, guess who ambled back into my life? But this time, something HAD shifted and I knew that I wouldn't be going back to the person I was when he first left.

I did my part. And stopped.

The five Reiki principles start with those words: Just for today and I realize that this day is the only one I can act on (in the present moment) and be concerned about. I happened upon this blog Eat4today which incorporates the same theme of being present in your life JUST FOR TODAY and applies it to eating.

One of the things Regina mentioned is that as she and her fellow students were going through their seminary studies, most (if not all) began to gain weight, as if to ground themselves as they took in so much light and higher vibrational energy. As they learned to integrate it into their being, they gradually lost the weight. I shan't blame my recent and alarming (to me!) weight gain on my forays into the world of high vibrations (since I've been in this world for going on 4 years now) yet I don't think it's totally about filling a void, either. Perhaps, in my case, it's a blend of the two. As I move fully into the world of woo-woo, it will require me to surround myself with and integrate those higher blasts of energy but that also means that I must make a stronger effort to remain grounded. Eating is, of course, one of the premier ways of grounding. In fact, I'd dare say that many lightworkers and empaths have food issues for that very reason.

I look at this issue as a call to learn ways of grounding that are much kinder to my body than hauling around extra poundage and making me sad that I can't fit in my clothes. The Universe is posing a challenge to me: What will *I* do (just for today) that allows me to keep that amazing energy in my body but also allows me to do what I need to in the physical world? So, that's my question to myself today.

Just for today, how can I ground myself without eating food my body doesn't need? I shall ponder this as I clear off my dining room table of the enormous piles of paper and crap I've accumulated over the past month.

BTW, here are the Reiki Principles as handed down by Dr. Mikao Usui:

Just for today, I shall not worry.
Just for today, I shall not anger.
Just for today, I will make my living honestly.
Just for today, I will honor my parents, elders and teachers.
Just for today, I will honor every living thing.

and in that stillness
there was a freedom I never felt before. - Sarah McLachlan

So, the messages that came through my Reiki Sensei this weekend were about sitting in the stillness. In fact, Dr. Usui was quite adamant about it. "Be Still!" he said through Regina. The guides and teachers also asked me "What's your hurry?" and admonished me to " .. slow down".

Grr. I don't really want to do that but I think I need to. I was drawn to a book that Regina had sitting out over the weekend. It's called Adventures in Meditation, Vol 1. by Carol E. Parrish-Harra, Ph.D. Dr. Parrish-Harra is the dean at the Sancta Sophia School of Wisdom and is a prolific writer and speaker. Anyway, in this book, I found a passage that spoke to me quite loudly:

"In these lessons, you are reminded to begin by just doing the work; as lessons proceed, you will be guided in how to improve techniques and move from level to level. The first step is always to begin. Refinement comes with established practice. [snip] Without practice, many additional ideas have no gift to offer."

Perhaps it is the stillness that calls me to look at spending time on a retreat or in a convent of some sort. In fact, the convent thing keeps getting stronger all the time. Not as a way of life, mind, but more as a place to visit and bathe in the sacred energy that surrounds such a place. I don't know. What I do know is that lessons I need to move to the next level await me in that silence.

Hi sweetie,

It’s a lovely day out today and I’m glad. Seeing the blooming flowers and trees brings me joy and I think of you when I see them as well. Okay, the truth is I think of you when I see anything (ha! You found me out!). As in your life you were with me in my heart, it is even more true now after you’ve moved to your angelic home.

I want to thank you for the many, many reminders that you are always with me. They help keep me focused on what is in front of me every day instead of drifting off into my sadness over missing you. Which still overwhelmes me at times but I am working through it. I still actually can’t believe you aren’t around - I think I’m secretly pretending that you are just away and being a crap pen pal. The whole thing just seems so surreal to me, you know? And yet, I know that this was the way it was meant to go down. All of it. If I hold tight to the things I believe are true in this world, and I do, then I have to believe that all of the things that have happened are lessons. We can choose to learn the lessons or we can ignore them. I am choosing to learn them and you have been one of my greatest teachers, La.

Not to deify you or anything because oh my goodness, you’d hate that. After all, you were at heart just a kid moving through life laughing, taking pictures, writing wacky comments on your blog and just living. Pretty much what anyone else does day to day. Yet, the way you worked through this illness, with that smile on your face, a sense of humor and your incredible faith is a reminder to me that guides and teachers are everywhere. Even now, I continue to be amazed at how many lives you touched in the course of your life and most especially the past few years. Amazed but not surprised. The thing that popped into my mind about it was that somehow you managed to truly “get” the essence of each person and help them feel loved for exactly who they are. You did that with me and when I looked at the big picture, I see you did that with everyone from your friends to your family (I think here of my mom and how she loved you. You always reflected that love back to her a hundredfold in a pure way, without any yuck attached to it at all. She needed that pure love, something I cannot give her. ) While it came naturally to you, know that it’s something many people are unable to do at all in their life. To radiate pure joy, love and light was one of your best gifts.

Today, your 20th birthday, I celebrate who you were and who you will always be in my heart. It is purely selfish of me to wish you were back here on this earth. I miss your presence and emails and blog entries. I miss your goofiness - which allowed my inner twelve year old to shine and feel loved. And most of all, I miss your heart - so big it couldn’t be contained. All I wanted was your highest good and my wish has been granted. Because where you are today and for the rest of all time, *is* your highest good.

I love and miss you more than ANY words on ANY pages can communicate. But you know that, right?

And yes, seriously, the force IS “really rather strong with you, Luke".

Love and stuff,
Godmommy

ps: nothing

This young woman, Jean Rohe, delivered an amazing commencement speech for the graduating class of the New School. She planned on discussing " ... social responsibility in a time of war, but in much more oblique terms. I wanted to speak about communication, and how I have found that one of my strongest and most enjoyable methods of communication is music." Instead, after finding out that John McCain had been invited to speak, against the wishes of the student body (who, in fact, they were there to honor), she revised her speech to encompass a much larger topic.

She states in her closing:

We all have much work to do, and for the most part the media do not represent us, the small people who don't hold any special titles but who feel the weight of our government's actions on our backs each and every day. I never expected to get the opportunity to speak the way I did yesterday, but I'm so glad that I did. I hope that other people found strength in my act of protest and will one day find themselves in my position, drawing out their own bravery to speak truth.

Those who know me well know my feelings about our political climate so I won't go into that here. What I do want to discuss, albeit briefly, is the strength and courage it takes to speak your truth, whether it's it front of thousands at Madison Square Garden or in front of your own parents. It can be scary to do that - it is for me, even now. As I grow into who I have always been but didn't have the courage to show or acknowlege, I understand more fully the courage it takes some of us to live our truth.

I was raised Catholic but always questioned beliefs and wanted to know the "why" behind it. For one reason or another, it never fully resonated with me in my soul but for the most part, I went along with it because in my family it was "the thing to do". As I got into high school, I began to shed those beliefs but had nothing with which to replace them. And that was okay to me, despite being quietly looked down upon in our family for not following the pack. As if, because I didn't hold those same beliefs I was "less than" what others were. It was subtle but it was there.

Still, I went on my own way, ignoring that as best I could but never deep down feeling "accepted". Over the past five years, I've found that spiritual piece of myself again and embraced it in a way I had not before. I'm sure my family would be incredibly surprised to see it flourish in the way I sense it is going to but that worries me less and less. What is important is being fully Lisa, in the best way I can.

The young woman I mentioned in the opening paragraph learned that lesson early, it seems. And good for her. We all get there in our own time, when we can speak our own truth and detach from the outcome.

What will it take for you to speak your truth and what does that really mean to you? I invite you to think more about it and comment below if you wish.

-L-

I subscribe to a newsletter from the Uriel Heals website and this bit (excerpted below) was in yesterday's offering. I am slowly changing my perspective to seeing that we choose those who are in our lives for the lessons we can learn from them. As I was reading this entry by one of my favorite bloggers, Angry Black Bitch, I pondered what lessons we learn specifically from our mothers. I will write more about this a bit later. For now, though, here's some food for thought.

There is a generation of lightworkers, that I also belong to, that has had a difficult history with their mother. This history includes a wide range of experiences that do not give us that 'warm, fuzzy' feeling when we remember our experiences with our mother. When we look at these experiences from an emotional perspective, they can make us sad and angry. But if we look at them from a spiritual perspective, our mother is the person who agreed to bring us into the world and to introduce us to our lessons.

I do not wish to underestimate the physical and emotional damage that may have been inflicted in some family relationships. Within a spiritual context, however, we choose our lives and the parents who will best prepare us to learn what we need to in this lifetime. Even after we have learned the lessons, we can have difficulty resolving our feelings about our experiences, especially our frustration at our inability to express them to those who wounded us . But there is one way to resolve this dilemma.

At some point, we can choose to stop seeing our mother from our childhood perspective, within the context of a 'mother' and everything that our society has taught us that this should mean. Then we can see her as a person, as someone who brought us into the world, as part of our soul group and someone with whom we have shared many lifetimes. In this lifetime she may not have been gentle, kind, supportive and caring-indeed, she may have been just the opposite. But when we can see her from a different perspective and view our experience with her as part of our chosen life experience, we can reconcile our feelings and honor her spirit for the part that she played in our lessons.

I found this is a catalogue for "Sounds True" products and knew as soon as I read it, that it was true for where I am right now.

"When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. - Audre Lorde

What's your guiding statement for where you are right now??

Enjoy your day!

I subscribe to this nifty daily email called "Notes from the Universe" from this interesting site. Some days they are kind of hokey and some days they hit the nail right on the head. Yesterday's note was this:

When you see things that pain you, Lisa, that sadden you, or that make your heart ache, remember... you're not seeing all.

I hope you never need this one.

All love,
The Universe

That's kind of how I looked at Lauren's passing. I am not seeing "the all" of the situation and while I am sad about her not being here any longer (and that, my friends, is an understatement), I know there's a much larger picture that I don't see and reasons why things go down as they do. And I may never know. I just have to trust that there are reasons for these things and keep looking for the lessons in them for me.

I think you'll find I talk about "lessons" quite a bit. The more I learn about the nature of the woo woo, the more I see that things don't happen randomly and, going with yesterday's post, if we pay attention, there's so much to see and learn from. You come into the world with lessons to learn and the Universe presents you a myriad of ways to "get it". Each time you fail to find the lesson for you inherent in the situation, the Universe is compelled to show you again but this time a tad more clearly (i.e.: a larger THWAK! on the head). Thwacks hurt, y'all. This I know well.

We can't know "all" but we can know our little piece of it and pay attention. (OOOH! There's that subject again!)

Happy Wednesday!

One of the things I most love about my life is the appearance of things that might seem merely coincidental to others but to me are messages. Guidance from Spirit doesn't always come with a big clap of thunder and announce itself. (I wish it would sometimes, but it doesn't seem to work that way, alas.) It sneaks in on "little cat feet" (apolgies to ee cummings) so so quietly that you hardly know it's there.

I think the trick is this - ASK for guidance and messages from your angels and guides. Then, pay attention. And this is the hardest part for many people, especially those who think that things happen randomly. Rose taught me to "trust what you get" when you ask for something. I've never gone wrong doing that.

For instance, after my most beloved goddaughter passed away in March, I asked her to let me know she's around in spirit. I was driving home at the time I asked and as I made the right turn onto my street, my pocketbook fell off the car seat. When I pulled into my driveway and leaned down to pick it up, the only thing that fell out was a small metal angel I kept in a secret pocket in my wallet. I smiled because I know this was what I asked for - a small sign. She knew I paid attention to what I got and so she sent it to me just like that. I thanked her for letting me know she was there and put the Angel back in my wallet.

Oh, and that's the other piece ... always be in gratitude for what you get. I don't take their communications for granted and always thank my angels and spirit guides for sharing themselves with me.

So, it boils down to three steps:

1. ASK! (This is a hard one, I know)

2. Pay attention to the small things! (easier for me)

3. Show gratitude for what you get (regardless of what it is because it is meant for you to use to move to the next step).

Blessings as you go about your day.

So, yeah. I have been mucking around with the template and am working on making the feel of the site more like me. I think this is a good start.

Last week on my regular blog Snarkypants was "Magnificence Week" - and I challenged my readers to list five magnificent things about themselves each day for five days. They totally rose to the challenge, too! I really appreciate that they opened themselves up to trying something new and I promise not to throw out a challenge like that tooooo often!

I am fortunate now that I know my strengths and love myself for them. There was a time when all I could see were the flaws in myself ... not thin enough, not married soon enough (for my family, anyway), no children, not following a traditional catholic path - all the things I thought others wanted of me. Sure, I was smart and a good writer but 38 and not married?? GASP! It took a lot of work on my part to accept who I really, truly am. And not only accept that, but actually like who I am.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it wasn't hard for me to list the ways I am magnificent. What was hard was getting to the place where I could let them flow freely. I think I'm there.