Author: Deborah Maragopoulos MN FNP

I am a woman, a mother, a sister, a wife. I am a friend, a teacher, a dancer, a healer. I am on a great journey to find my Self. Join me. In 1984, I gave birth to a very special baby. Stumping medical experts, my son faced adversity with the wisdom of an old soul becoming my impetus to bridge the gap between the physical and the spiritual. During the harmonic convergence in 1987, I conceived a daughter. Consciously parenting two enlightened children prepared the way for an influx of Indigo children and their parents forcing me to expand my conventional medical training into a holistic healing model. I am a board certified family nurse practitioner specializing in neuro-immune-endocrinology. I have a busy holistic practice—Full Circle Family Health—and created a nutritional formula to support my patients on their healing journeys—Genesis Gold®. Although I promised my patients and colleagues to finally reveal my secrets to optimal health in a self help book, the universe had different plans for me. My life’s work morphed into a novel. Writing a story was like conceiving a child—passionate emotion—publishing was like a very long gestation—growing, changing, waiting—now in the presale period, I feel like I’m in transition—the baby’s stuck in the birth canal and my ob-gyn is out playing golf! So I blog this enlightening journey as I wait for LoveDance: Awakening the Divine Daughter to be born. {She’s due this fall…I hope I can remember the Lamaze breathing} As it turns out, I did write a healing book. Everything I wished to teach—the bio-psycho-spiritual healing lessons—are in LoveDance—in story form, the way a beloved avatar taught some two thousand years ago. Abundant Joy, Deborah

55. DISENTANGLE YOUR CORDS OF ATTACHMENT – Part One

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

Driving back home on Southern California freeways crowded with tourists taking advantage of the last glorious summer weekend…an ache in my breast, a dark shadow where the sun once shone, an eclipse in my existence…I left my daughter, my sunshine, at the university in San Diego.

How long I’ve prepared for this transition, how many soulful meditations, how many intimate conversations with so many other mothers who have gone through this phase of life. Yet in spite of all my work, during that last kiss goodbye, the cords that bound our hearts pulled so tight to nearly snap.

I released my firstborn into the world four years before, but my daughter filled up the space that he left behind, so much so that now there is a void in my heart, in my home, in my life.

Having counseled my patients, hundreds of them, through life’s transitions, I should know better, I should take my own advice. Haven’t I told them how within the web of life, we float upon the river of consciousness, connected by invisible threads from heart chakra to heart chakra? Attached to everyone, and entangled with all we love, all we hate, all with whom we struggle.

So as a mother of an empty nest, some would advise that I cut the cord for her wellbeing and mine. But that is an old paradigm teaching and an illusion for we can never cut ourselves off from creation. We are all on the web, connected together. There is only one of us here. We are all part of the One Consciousness, all cells of the One Being. Every cell in my body knows it is a part of me just like I am a part of the earth and the sun, the plants and the creatures. Research by neuro-biologist, Candace Pert PhD, has shown that even when cells, tissues, or whole organs are removed, that the cells “remember” where they came from responding more like the donor than the transplant recipient. And I am connected to my daughter, imprinted since her birth, no matter how distant she is from me.

I know this to be true, because I can feel her emotion, especially her fear…it has wakened me up in the middle of the night when she has most needed me. I trust this connection even more so than my vision. It has served me as a mother and especially as a healer. I feel my patients’ dis-ease in the mirror of my being, but I have learned over the years not to embody their imbalances. Although connected to each and every one, I have learned to disentangle from the drama of being a healer and this is what I teach to my patients.

Imagine your life color as an infinitely strong gossamer thread emerging from your heart chakra to the heart of every other living thing. Each aspect of creation has its own color, born on the rainbow of light; its own vibration, its own sound. Imagine someone you are struggling with—your spouse, your child, your parent, your boss, whoever. What is their color? Imagine their cord and your cord braided together with knots scattered here and there. These knots represent your struggles, your difficulties in the relationship, your entanglements with each other.

Most of the people I counsel—my patients, my family, my friends—complain about the dramatic struggle within their relationships, know that they must make a change, come to me for help…and I tell them to disentangle from that being they are struggling with. We do the visualization together. They see their color, they see the color of the other person, they see themselves tied up in knots, they feel this entanglement literally as an ache in their breast, but when I begin to have them identify the knots in their cords of attachment, while they can name the problems that the knots represent, they have no idea how to untangle themselves. In fact, most are afraid, most claim they cannot let go.

Upon the river of consciousness, we all float, but entangled with others we struggle for breath, trussed together heart to heart, only one can breathe at a time, while the other holds her breath and prays. Everyone in our lives is a mirror to our souls, each reflecting back what we most need to learn, the judgments we hold of our humanity. What we like in another is what we appreciate in ourselves, what we dislike is what we need to change or accept in us.

How can you see in the mirror if your nose is pressed to the glass? That is why my patients struggle with disentanglement because they cannot see clearly what the lesson is in the struggle with another.

So I help them identify the most recent knot and going back in time a few more knots. Oh, they can name the knots, but not the gifts. What gifts? What could possibly be good about these struggles? Why, I tell them, every struggle is a gift that must be unwrapped. To receive the gift, first you must recognize it as a gift. Not all gifts have lovely exteriors in fact the most precious may be very ugly.

My Nana used to wrap up her garbage. Living in the city, the more compact the trash, the more likely the trash man would take it away, except Nana used to wrap it so nicely that Poppop would find it left on the step. The trash man thought it was a gift, so lovely was the wrapping. You see, you can’t always tell by the wrapping; life’s gifts are rarely wrapped so nicely.

My husband struggled with letting our daughter grow up. Once when he overstepped his parental boundaries, she told him after raising him for eighteen years she was done! He cried, “but I don’t know how to let you go.” She turned him over to me, “Mom, remember those cords of attachment? Dad needs your help.”

So I explained the concept and he amazed me by visualizing their life colors just as I do. He is forest-green, she—golden as sunshine. He could see how they were tied together in a lovely fishtail braid, and he could see the knots, especially how they struggled with her growing independence, but he couldn’t see the gift in lifting her curfew and allowing her some freedom before she took off to college. He could only see the sleeplessness until she arrived home at night, the worry about her making safe decisions. I pointed out that unlike his good friend who had not loosened the reins on his daughter, my husband after weeks of suffering adapted slowly albeit surely, finally falling asleep well before she arrived home. When she is away at college, he will rest, but his poor friend will not.

My husband agreed, but still struggled with receiving the gift of the knot, claimed, “I don’t want to let her go.” Heartbreakingly honest. Fearing to let go, fearing that we may not be able to float on our own in the river of consciousness, not trusting that we are still connected, we struggle and tighten the knots.

To Be Continued on Friday.

54. TO HEAL SELF – Part Two

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

Healing is an innate power within each and every one of us. It is encoded, I believe, in the unexpressed DNA, ready to be turned on by the power of our intentions. The National Cancer Institute has reported success in treating melanoma patients by genetically altering their white blood cells to enhance the ability of the immune system to kill cancer. In early cancer research, success means any cure since researchers tend to get medical failures to experiment on, so perhaps the 13 out of 15 subjects who were not cured had their immune systems destroyed by radiation and chemotherapy. The power to heal via a strong and vibrant immune system is innate.

I believe that clear intention and pure desire can turn that unexpressed DNA on, so perhaps the two melanoma patients who were cured believed so valiantly in the therapy that their hopes and prayers enabled their disabled genetics to remember how to fight off cancer.
As a healer, I have learned that I do not heal anyone, but educate them to heal themselves. I provide biochemical and psycho-spiritual counsel. I hold the intention, the energy of health and well-being mirrored in my body, in my DNA. Once a young woman I had been seeing since her teens insisted on an office exam just six months after her annual pap smear. There was no medical reason for her to come, so I questioned her. She very eloquently answered, “I just need to sit in your presence, feel your vibration, and I am set for about half year.”

I have a dear older patient, who makes me promise after every visit, every phone call to stay well. “We need your vibrancy to remember how to be whole.”

After working all my life to be an example of health through exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle choices, I know that my true talent is in perceiving every event in my life as a lesson. Plus a positive attitude can be seriously protective.

Once in Seattle, I attended a detoxification seminar. After the morning presentations about all the toxins in our everyday environment, we were released for lunch. This group of holistic nurses, physicians, naturopaths and chiropractors hesitated to choose anything from the menu of what seemed to be a reasonably healthy restaurant. With my usual gusto, I ordered tuna on fire and the rest of them looked at me like I was nuts. One woman asked if I had paid attention to the statistics on heavy metal contamination of fatty fish.

“Why, yes. I took scrupulous notes, but I do not believe in my vulnerability to toxicity. At this very moment, your fear is sucking the mercury right out of my tuna.” True, although I have eaten contaminated seafood all my life, I have not tested positive for heavy metal toxicity. Was it favorable genetics, perhaps…or my attitude?

Whenever I see a seriously contagious patient, I say to myself, “This is not your bug!” and rarely catch their illness. When I do become ill, it is usually a psycho-spiritual dilemma in which I have been paying little attention and finally my body is reminding me to take care of it.

My accident was truly a gift. I had never been seriously injured before in spite of vigorous and dangerous activities—mountain biking, skiing, scuba diving, road bike racing—never given a personal chance to learn how healing works.

What I learned was this: that gratitude is the key to the power of intention. With all the positive encouragement, my body rapidly responded. It makes me wonder how much faster I might have healed if I didn’t spend the first day fussing over my predicament. Fear definitely hampers healing. Surely I have seen this to be true.

Years ago, I had diagnosed a 32-year-old patient with metastatic breast cancer. Granted, I was well trained in western medicine and was dabbling in natural therapies, but cancer? She was not just a patient, but a co-worker, a friend, my age and very much concerned about her husband’s fifteen-year-old niece, who was fretting over her young healthy breasts, fearful of developing her aunt’s cancer. I taught the girl how to examine herself, explained that she shared none of her aunt’s risk factors, they weren’t even related, but shortly after we buried her aunt, the girl developed a tumor. In the exact same spot.

Mind over matter? I was taught then and there the power of thought when fueled by fear. And I have seen over and over again, patients worrying themselves into disease…yet I have also seen the power of hope, love and gratitude to cure what was deemed incurable.

Bernie Segal, the author of Love, Laughter, and Medicine, was one of the first allopathic doctors to explore the curative power of love. He stated case after case of illnesses derived by suggestion—like the man who was just about to be discharged from the hospital but told instead by an intern that he had only days to live and died—as well as the cures—like the man whose family decided not to tell him that his cancer was fatal and lived well beyond his physician’s dire prognosis.

In my experience, most of my breast cancer patients tend to take care of everyone but themselves. Unless they receive that lesson, they do not survive the disease. I have some amazing women in my practice who have healed themselves by understanding that their cancer was their souls’ cry for help, not attending to the souls’ needs for so long that their body had to get their attention. Some use traditional allopathic treatments, others use only natural therapies, most who seek my care combine the two. I do not dictate to them what they must do to heal, what therapeutics to choose, but counsel them to make peace with their bodies, find the gift in their disease and begin healing with the faith that they have the innate ability to cure themselves.

Many of my patients come to me “hormonally-challenged”. I coined this term years ago to describe not just the aging process or stress-related deficiencies, but also the resistance to our own bio-chemical messengers. You might have heard of insulin resistance leading to obesity and diabetes, but you can have cellular receptor site resistance to any of your own hormones produced by your gonads, adrenals, thyroid, even your pituitary gland.

If I diagnose an insulin resistant patient early and put him on a low glycemic diet and supplements to enhance cellular receptivity, but do not help him explore the fact that he may unconsciously feel unworthy of the sweetness in life, he will require more and more therapeutic assistance and the most strictly abstinent diet just to keep his blood sugars under control. If he receives the gift of his insulin resistance and begins healing his sense of unworthiness, his cells open to receive the glucose necessary to run his metabolism. He becomes metabolically more active, loses that midline fat as well as the risk factors that would have led to diabetes and heart disease, but more so, he takes delight in life.

The spring before my accident, I attended a Science and Consciousness conference in Albuquerque and realized how I had healed myself. Gregg Braden spoke on his newest book, The Isaiah Effect, which explained that prayer and healing worked through clear intention fueled by loving gratitude. So with my experience and armed with the equation for manifestation, I began teaching my patients. Sometimes the Isaiah effect worked, but not always, especially in dealing with relationship issues.

I am not the only soul in the universe, but am part of a great whole, so when my intentions would not become manifest as rapidly as I desired, my husband would remind me that it’s not in Deborah-timing, but Divine-timing.

The next year while researching my first novel, LoveDance®, I discovered Neil Douglas Klotz. His work explained that the terms translated as good and evil from the Aramaic, tava and bisha, actually meant—ripe and unripe. So Divine-timing meant Ripe timing.

We have been taught that the formula for manifestation was clear intent plus pure emotion is what creates our reality. But the formula is not algebraic, it’s trigonometric. Not duality but trinity. There is a third part—ripe timing.

X + Y + Z = Manifestation
Whereas:
X = Intention
Y = Emotion
Z = Timing
Your Intention + Your Emotion + Divine Timing = Your Reality

So now I counsel my patients to continue to hold clear intentions of healing their bodies, their minds, their relationships; fuel their intentions not with fear but with loving gratitude; and in ripe-timing, they will manifest. And the rewards will be sweet indeed.

Every day, I thank my body for her strength, her health, her vitality. Like taking my nutraceutical supplement—Genesis Gold®—and staying active, I see gratitude as a proactive means to support my wellbeing. I am trying very hard to practice what I preach, so neither my body nor my inner voice must scream to get my attentions. And thankfully now that guiding voice has become a gentle whisper.

54. TO HEAL SELF – Part One

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

A heavily laden fog dripped down my mare’s legs as she pranced excitedly beneath me one damp Friday morning in late September. Holding the slick reins in check, I hesitated at the crest of the trail. As the steep wet asphalt lay disturbingly before us, a premonition caught my breath. I saw my mare fall trapping me underneath her. Well aware that thought creates reality, I tried to clear my mind and rode on.

Not fifty yards later, my mare spooked and in an effort to stop her from bolting, I turned her up the sharp grade. She slipped and, as if rehearsed, I vaulted off her back. Thankfully not pinned under a thousand pounds of terrified horse, I managed to save my skull from what would have been a concussive blow, landing instead…on my mouth. Scrambling to my feet, I ran after her, touching my bloodied lip to extract my front teeth.

Thanks to a kind gardener/caballero, I caught my runaway horse and made it home first tending to her wounds, my teeth in my pocket. Typical of most healers, I am reluctant to ask for help, but my husband perceived my unspoken distress and jumped out of bed having worked the graveyard shift to drive me to the emergency dentist.

The dentist shook his head when I handed him the cup of milk in which my broken teeth floated. “I cannot replace these…”
Patting his arm, I encouraged him, “I know you can do it. Please, you must believe in your ability.”

While I prayed, focusing on the living essence of my teeth with healing intentions, he performed the procedure, then made me promise to go to the emergency room for x-rays. Although I did everything the dentist recommended as well as all the holistic remedies I would have prescribed for someone with similar injuries, I bemoaned my ill fortune.

My face was a mess—my nose, lips and chin skinned, swollen and bruised—like I had been beaten. I called my sister, who cried, “Oh, Deb, your beautiful teeth!” No braces, no cavities, straight and strong, my vanity lied in the perfection of my teeth. How could this have happened? I taught my patients that everything happens for a reason, but I couldn’t see why. I even called my spiritual mentor, who provided only practical advice. I was on my own.

I believe each of the seven chakras of the body deliver purposeful messages, so what was this fifth chakra, which represents speaking one’s truth, saying? I fell asleep wondering and awoke Saturday at dawn to meditate in nature.

Surrounded by my animals, even my very sore but sorry mare, I sat at the edge of a huge ugly gaping hole. We had just moved into the country and having lived through one unbearably hot summer began construction on a swimming pool. Our land was scarred and so was I. My mare nuzzled my back, while the dogs whined piteously with me.

Suddenly, I heard a voice. Not that small quiet voice that compassionately guides but one so obnoxious that the animals gave me a wide berth.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve been given a gift…practice what you preach and heal yourself.

I actually smiled, cracking my scabbed lips, but I didn’t care. This accident was a gift! Hugging my horse, I thanked her. Have you ever seen a horse smile? Remember Mr. Ed showing his big teeth, well, that’s what she did, smiled at my recognition of her part on my soul’s path.

Then I hurried in the house and took a good look in the mirror. Instead of seeing a broken reflection, I saw the healing. I became my own best cheerleader. I told my body what a great job it was doing every time I washed my wounds. I blessed every herbal supplement for helping my system recover. Every ounce I drank in gratitude (dentist’s orders—no solid foods) praying that each nutrient find its way to repair the damage.

And by Monday, I was whole and healed, not a single scar. A couple of days later, I went back to the emergency room to pick up some x-rays and the nurses didn’t recognize me. Oh, yes, and to the dentist’s great surprise, my teeth took root.

Healing is an innate power within each and every one of us. It is encoded, I believe, in the unexpressed DNA, ready to be turned on by the power of our intentions.

To be continued on Friday, Sep 8th.

53. SHIFTS IN CONSCIOUSNESS

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

These are the eight shifts of consciousness humans make to enlightenment. I heard them listed as such in a recorded channeling… (that’s the first shift…is it real?)…yet always knew this order for I have been living it. Yet it’s nice to see it outlined. The order is not absolute…the process is more like fading or dying…a slow shift of color…bleeding into one another as the phases of the shifts blend…the first two are in order…the rest seem to me to get stronger, more prevalent, more absolute in your life over time… I think this is a nice way to organize My Story. I wonder if it will fit neatly into eight sections…probably not, for as soon as I try to organize my existence, I begin to flow into chaos…always creating… Well, here they are…The 8 Shifts of Consciousness:

1. Curiosity—You ask what’s real? This is the beginning. You’re awakening! Yeah!

I think I skipped this stage since it’s always seemed real to me. I really didn’t realize that what was real for me didn’t seem real to others until I was a teenager. Then I began to play the human game and that included disconnecting myself through my eating disorder. Then I fell in love. And love reconnected me to my truth. It was all real to me.

2. Belief—You know it’s real and you want to know more. You search for answers. You seek gurus. You read books. You go to seminars. You still have a human approach of limited 3D perception and conditioned judgment. And you wonder if anyone else feels the same. When you receive proof, you want others to share in your enlightenment. You may be a little evangelistic.

This was my guru stage. My family thought I was joining cults…so different had I become. I began to find their energy difficult to be with…yet my new friends came and went in my life, attracted to my light as I was attracted to theirs, but you don’t shine very bright in a room full of light, so you seek dark places to illuminate. Through karma and drama, they slipped out of my life and I learned to be the light in any situation.

3. Light & Dark—You make sense of light and dark, understanding over time that both exist in you. And in each one of us. And eventually you get to experience how darkness is just the absence of light and you begin to understand that fear is the absence of love. Then you begin to love yourself. Fill yourself with light and your fear, your darkness becomes illuminated.

I really got this finally…after dreaming I was Mary Magdalen. Then I made sense of fear and darkness. Really before I could not see the darkness in others, only the light. I knew my darkness and judged it harshly. Shining my light brightly outside of self, so that my shadow loomed bigger and bigger behind me. Shatan, get behind me!

4. Karma—You get off the karmic wheel! Yeah! You eliminate karmic imprints and no longer live under predestined energy. Now your future is yours to create.

I worked on this a long time…well before I knew what karma meant. I was born feeling a sense of predestination…of having a mission to complete, but also very much aware that I was creating my reality…a strange paradox and difficult to do before 1987. In 1987, I made a great shift…I learned much later that was the time of the Harmonic Convergence…it seems as I am always on time for all the major shifts in consciousness, feeling the energy and dancing with the flow without a need to know. My need to make sense of all this came later…when I met the gurus and they had names for what I had always felt. It’s as if I never really went to sleep but stayed conscious all my life, knowing that my time would come. And it has. The karmic imprint retreat was the last of entanglements. These stages overlap. It took a long time, nearly to ascension to clear the last karmic imprint.

5. Illumination—You send light to the rest of the planet. This takes practice not to send your bias and judgment along with your light. You focus the light of peace into a war raged zone…yet it is not your light, but divine light…and those warring parties may need to wake up and become a bit more conscious before they can live in peace. So you send light…divine light from your heart-soul to theirs and they will receive the illumination necessary to make their own shifts. Here is where you begin to change matter, to affect the elements, to consciously create your reality.

Being a healer helped me learn this concept of not biasing my light. In the beginning, of course I felt frustrated when my patients would not follow my enlightened recommendations for their health and wellbeing, but I learned that I was not healing them but that they were coming for illumination, to receive my healing light of potential and then they would use that light or not…it was their choice. I always felt uncomfortable praying for others, sending group energy to others imbibed with our wishes for them. How did we know what’s best for them at the soul level? So I send light and love. I’ve been signing all my correspondence with this intimacy for many years. I send you light and love…you may do with it what you will…it is not for me to put conditions on my love or my light…

6. Synchronicity—You begin to recognize synchronicity. You realize that these amazing events that lead to your shift in consciousness are not coincidence but synchronistic. You begin to live in an interdimensional way…not that you are not already interdimensional…there are aspects of you in all the dimensions…past, present, and future…but you know it now and realize that you are one of many human chess pieces on the grand board of life on earth and that you are controlling the game…your god-self, your higher self, in synchronicity with their god-selves, their higher selves.

I’ve always loved synchronicity. It’s hard to remember a time when I didn’t recognize the synchronicity in my life. I knew everything that happened was not against me but for me…I have always received the gifts of life, transmuting what seems like poisons to others into illumination for myself and my loved ones. Receiving the synchronistic events like presents…I am grateful for each and every one. The sooner I learned to express my gratitude and receive the fullness of the gift of synchronicity, the faster I moved along my path of enlightenment.

7. Self-Healing—You can heal yourself! Whether you understand the “technology” of upregulating your DNA or not, you know that you can heal yourself through intention…and you do.

Again, I used my will to affect my life, including healing myself…yet didn’t understand what I was doing until I had an accident on my horse in 2002. About the same time I let go of all my gurus…meaning I no longer looked to them to heal me (healers either do not allow anyone else to help them, or they are always looking outside of self for healing). I was gifted by an opportunity to heal myself. I knew at a mental, intellectual, scientific level how to up-regulate my DNA…yet had not the “gnosis”—the experience of healing myself at the genetic level. And with all my knowledge, my healing came down to being my body’s best cheerleader and I healed myself miraculously and quickly.

Now it seems that there is not a “one-time” healing for all time, but you will get opportunities to practice and refine your skills. You don’t need a major dis-ease like cancer to do this…I have been warding off contagious dis-ease with a little mantra. I place my hands in a V at my root chakra and say “This is not my bug!” It always works. Just that little conscious instruction to my immune system. As for aging, I have placed all my intentions into my Genesis Gold® and believe it is giving me everything I need to manifest health and wellbeing for my second 50 years on earth…or perhaps longer, I’ll decide then ☺ Because I have intended healing at the genetic level into my creation, Genesis Gold® helps others who also believe in the possibility that they can turn on healing genes. They don’t need to know how for it to work. My mother asked if I had casted a magic shield around her…for she saw so many women her age and they’re old! I told her that she had allowed Genesis Gold® to affect not just her physicality but her attitude. In truth, she’s always had this power… I am spending a lot of time on this subject because it is what I try to help my patients tap into—their divine ability to heal themselves.

So why do those who profess enlightenment continue to challenge themselves with poor health? This is a good question and one that continued to plague me with my judgment of others for such a long time. I know now that we each experience our divinity in our own unique ways, that my way is not their way and vice versa. There is no ONE way! And that includes self-healing. This is a hard lesson…most healers are great at healing others but not themselves. And the enlightened ones I met with such physical challenges made me wonder how enlightened they really were…but now I see that self-healing is a late stage on the path…self-healing leads to ascension…for then you are an embodiment of full genetic potential, all 12 layers!
8. Ascension—You finally arrived! Congratulations. But wait. You haven’t gone anywhere. You’re still right here on earth. How can that be? Doesn’t Ascension mean you ascend to heaven? Well, heaven is here on earth. If you are ascended, you know that there is only here…and interdimensional aspects of this moment you might play in anytime you wish. The past and future and here and there are yours! You are not the same person you used to be.

I always knew I would not be the same after 50 and I am not. My friend saw the difference in me. I feel different. I feel as if my life is renewed. There is a great peace dancing in the flow of life. Seems strange at first…very different than my old way of being. Not that I’ve cast off all my humanity…No way! I still have passionate emotion. And I know fear…and darkness…and I see it in others, finally…yet I am living consciously, choosing love over fear, being the light that I am and knowing that all who come to me are attracted to the light and that is my true mission to reflect their own divine light back to them. And what’s being asked of me at the divine level of consciousness is that I be a Master. I seem to be affecting others just by showing up…it’s been going on for a long time…yet now I go with the flow and am gracious with my humanity when I am struggling a bit in the river of consciousness. I knew a Master once. He exuded light and love to all. They ended up worshipping Him. Yet I knew another side of Him…a very human side…the one who struggled with what he believed to be his mission…yet that is another story…

No one’s perfect, not even Him…which is really great for the rest of us…that this body is the vehicle for our enlightenment and that our lives and especially our relationships are the path of our enlightenment. And that is why I am telling My Story.

52. GRATITUDE HEALS

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

I’ve been going through my journals looking for clues to how I got to where I am. I have journals dating back to 1975. I’ve kept everything I have ever written in my mother’s old cedar chest. Her hope chest carries my past.

In October 2007, I was just about to launch LoveDance® into the world and was in a place of profound appreciation …

I am in deep gratitude for the blessings in my life, for:

• Steve—for his passion, protection, partnership
• Jarys—for teaching me compassion and courage
• Kyra—for embodying love and delight
• Mom—for buoying my spirit
• Dad—for seeding my existence
• Sisters—for opening to possibility
• Friends—for supporting my dreams
• Patients—for believing in me
• Colleagues—for challenging my mind
• Enemies—for challenging my heart
• Home—for sheltering my soul
• Community—for encompassing my passion
• Nation—for the freedom to expand
• Planet—for sustenance to be
• Divine Mother—for my glorious form
• Divine Father—for my expansive soul
• Divine Son—for my creative mind
• Divine Daughter—for my passionate heart

I still feel the same, thank the Divine. It’s good to count your blessings. It’s better than keeping count of your woes. Much more healing. Besides. Gratitude opens up your heart to love. A good place to start.

* * *

At the grandmother’s council, I learned about an ancient Hawaiian forgiveness prayer. Whenever there is a disagreement among the people, the elders hold the offending parties in a circle of energy until each can truthfully say to the other:

I’m sorry
Please forgive me
Thank you
I love you

What a great example of how gratitude morphs into love. I believe the prayer means:

I’m sorry—I recognize my part in orchestrating such drama to learn my soul lessons.

Please forgive me—I ask forgiveness of all those in the wake of my human drama and I forgive myself.

Thank you—I am in deep gratitude for your humanity.

I love you—In loving your divine self, I am able to love my divine self.

Next time you are feeling angry and frustrated with someone else, do this meditation. Sit quietly with your hands resting in your lap. Take a deep breath and with the exhalation release everything that doesn’t serve you. Repeat the breath two more times breathing deeper and deeper until it feels as if you are breathing all the way to your fingertips where they meet at your root. Now imagine the other person as a bubble of energy. I like to imagine their life color, but you can picture their face if you wish. Then say each line of the Hawaiian forgiveness prayer out loud really trying to feel the energy of each line:

I’m sorry
Please forgive me
Thank you
I love you

Repeat as many times necessary to feel love and gratitude for the other person and for yourself.

51. SEVEN LAYERS OF SOUL LESSONS

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

Our chakras provide a guide to our life lessons. Layers discovered as we dive deeper into our selves. I wrote this piece a few years ago and left it for my eldest to review. Being an old soul and one endowed with deep compassion, their insights are invaluable. They left a copy in the bathroom where my brother-in-law discovered it. I was surprised by what my husband’s brother, not a well read or educated man, had to say.

“Deb, I read those soul layers you wrote about. It’s true! I’m definitely dealing with my yellow layer! But at least there’s hope!”

I gave him a hug and thanked him for his insight. Truth is truth. If you’re open to receive the gift of each encounter, then you recognize what is true for you.

♥ Red Layer: represents first chakra. It’s all about survival. We struggle to make our way through tough life lessons. Most of humanity barely survives life’s lessons. Not yet searching for meaning, those of us who do make it celebrate our survival from dis-ease, loss, trauma, etc. It’s as if we fought a war and won. We honor survivors. If they can do it, then so can we.

♥ Orange Layer: represents second chakra. It’s all about gathering the sweetness of the lesson and trying to move on. We look for meaning in the lesson—what we learned. We love the “enlightened sayings” of those who appreciate the sweetness of life. It makes us feel good to share our hard-earned wisdom, to read about or watch others’ stories that seem to end happily. It gives us hope. Receiving the blessing of the lesson is where forgiveness begins.

♥ Yellow Layer: represents third chakra. It’s all about balancing will and emotion. Although this is a deeper layer, it feels less than. You thought you learned your lesson and here it is like a bad rerun rearing its ugly head. You know you should feel better about the lesson, but fear creeps in as it repeats itself again and you try to will it away, move on, not stoop to just surviving as you did in the beginning. You try to count your blessings but the sweetness has become bitter. Time to release your fear. This is the place most of us get stuck. This is what wears us out, makes our adrenals crash, our health fail, we wish to die.

♥ Green Layer: represents the fourth chakra. It’s all about compassion…for self! Here we learn to love ourselves. There is an energy of gratitude for our humanness. This is the deepest level of forgiveness when we can be grateful for the players in the drama of our lives. Those who seem most enlightened exist here. They express compassion to others for they have learned self-compassion. The beloved teachers and gurus have shown us how to be human and live in the heart. But more lessons are to come…

♥ Blue Layer: represents the fifth chakra. It’s all about truth. Your truth. Fully digesting the lesson and expressing the divine truth of the lesson in your life’s work. You have grown tremendously from the first time you faced this lesson. When it repeats itself, you are able to graciously receive it and name its truth. Being embodied on earth gifts us with soul baring opportunities to know our selves intimately. This is when the teachers are quoted and become immortalized.

♥ Indigo Layer: represents the sixth chakra. It’s all about insight. You now have deep insight into the lesson as you relive it a sixth time. Quickly you survive, receive the sweetness, release the fear, feel compassion for yourself, express the truth of the lesson and become the gnosis…. the experiential divine. You need not speak your truth to BE your truth. You exist in harmony with all life, following spirit deeply into this lesson without struggle. Yet one more time you will revisit the lesson in this life or another or perhaps beyond the human existence…one more time…

♥ Violet Layer: represents the seventh chakra. It’s all about multidimensional connection. This is where Heaven meets Earth in you. You now have the Divine perspective. You understand the purpose of your humanity. You appreciate your emotions as vehicles to higher, deeper manifestations of Love. You are truly enlightened in regards to this lesson. Finally you are free…

Time for another sacred lesson ☺

50. CHAKRAS AND MEDITATION

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

My oldest friend is at it again. Who knew that our reconnection would be such a source of inspiration for me? The universe perhaps? Our souls? Well, she asked to borrow any books I had on chakras and meditation. She couldn’t find anything online. I said sure. I’ll look through my library and see what I’ve got. So I went through my spiritual library. I’ve kept every book that has touched my soul but alas, I found nothing. How did I learn about chakras and such if not from books?

That got me thinking. When I first heard about chakras, I think it was about the time I met my first mentor, I felt I already “knew” these points of power. They were in perfect alignment with the endocrine system—the glands that produce hormones. The words used to describe the energy of the chakras — which by the way means wheels of energy in Sanskrit — were exactly how I would describe the hormonal effects from each gland. I see the same colors from root to crown when I assess a patient. The only difference I have with the traditional Eastern interpretation of these energy centers, lies in the second chakra.

So in my interpretation of how East meets West in the endocrine system, the first chakra corresponds with the gonads. Known as the root chakra, the first chakra is red, the color of passionate creation, the fire of creation. The ovaries of a woman and the testes of a man produce the hormones necessary to “create” new life and rebirth themselves. When people enter the midlife crisis, it is truly a time of recreating their new life. Helping them with bio-identical hormone replacement therapy has been my biological therapies, while I help them understand that in order to get that clear deep red passion back in their lives, they must conceive a new passion. Usually this leads to a new life via art, hobbies, change in occupation, finally finding their soul purpose. Those patients with issues of the first chakra—prostate cancer, ovarian cysts, uterine fibroids—I find to be stuck in their creativity. While we may conceive an idea in our brains, it is through this red root chakra that we birth our creations. I “see” the first chakra as taking root into the earth where we birth our creative powers of manifestation.

The second chakra corresponds to the pancreas. Known as the belly or umbilical chakra, the second chakra is bright orange, very sweet, the fuel to the fire of creation. Like insulin escorting glucose into your cells to create energy, the second chakra is your source of creative energy, fueling or nurturing your creations. I call this the sweetness of life. I see very few people with bright orange second chakras. Most of what is diagnosed as insulin resistance is at the spiritual level a resistance to the sweetness of life. Once a patient opens to receive the sweetness of life, her blood sugar stabilizes, she no longer needs to store body fat around her middle like a buoy, her insulin resistance reverses. Not that I do not recommend supplementation to biochemically treat insulin resistance but without the energetic connection, the healing is incomplete.

The third chakra corresponds to the adrenal glands. The adrenals sit atop of your kidneys and are the energetic source of power. They produce the stress hormones of fight or flight. This chakra located at the level of your solar plexus is bright yellow—a place of energetic balance of will and emotion. I find that fear related disease sits here. Don’t you feel fear in the pit of your stomach? Well, that is your third chakra. This is the chakra most of the first world power hungry population is working on. This is the chakra where my bulimia resided…the pit of fear. Although I rarely meet a truly yellow aura, I’ve come to love this golden energy however briefly encountered. It feels like delight. Warm, bright sunshiny, long summer days filled with joy. That is a healthy third chakra.

The fourth chakra corresponds with the thymus. Known as the heart chakra, the fourth chakra is all about learning to love self and others. It is green with a rosy center. The heart chakra is expansive. I’ve had experiences of my heart chakra feeling as large as the ocean…deep and green with all the colors merged within it…where I am connected to all that is…through my heart. The thymus is a tiny gland that programs your white blood cells to know the difference between self and other to protect you. This is where we form healthy boundaries. Heart centered compassion begins with self-love. I’ve heard that Buddhist monks must learn compassion for self before committing themselves to compassionate service to others. This is a hard lesson for we’ve been acculturated to accept martyrdom and self-sacrifice as the means to salvation. Yet if you do not care for yourself, how can you care for others? It’s like the safety instructions given on the airplane. Put your own oxygen mask on first then help those dependent upon you. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

The fifth chakra corresponds with the thyroid. Known as the throat chakra, the fifth chakra is blue, clear and bright as a summer sky. The thyroid controls metabolism, how fast we burn energy. The fifth chakra orchestrates how we express ourselves, how we use energy. Do we speak our truth? If not, dis-ease sets in, usually as thyroid disorders, chronic sore throats, laryngitis. All her life, my mother was not able to wear necklaces…she felt as if she was choking to put anything around her throat. A classic fifth chakra issue. Through my own spiritual journey, I have worked through my chakras and just before my 50th birthday felt like I needed topaz to fully open my fifth chakra. My mother found a beautiful silver choker embedded with blue topaz in the form of a butterfly. Perfect gift for my transformation. Perfect timing to finally speak my truth by telling my story.

The sixth chakra corresponds with the pituitary gland. Known as the third eye, the sixth chakra is indigo (notice how the colors of the chakras are in rainbow alignment). The seat of insight, inner knowing, consciousness, the sixth chakra houses the pituitary which regulates the lower endocrine system. Although most refer to the pituitary as the master gland, I like to think of it as a middle manager, since it responds to hypothalamic hormones. The true Queen of the kingdom, the
hypothalamus controls the entire neuro-immune-endocrine system. But that’s another topic fully illustrated in my best-selling book- Hormones in Harmony®.

The seventh chakra corresponds with the pineal gland. Known as the crown chakra, the seventh is violet. I always imagine bowing my head in prayer and receiving divine enlightenment through my crown—white light refracting into the rainbow. When the sun goes down, the pineal gland produces the sleep hormone melatonin and our subconscious communicates with us through dreams. The crown chakra tends to be very open in what I call ethereal people while their lower chakras especially their roots are closed. They appear to me as bubbleheads with their aura concentrated around their head.
It seems to me that each of us has a dominant color to our life force. A violet life force often directs a person towards serving humanity through the healing arts, although I imagine this life force would make a good sage, priestess, wise man. I’ve been told by energy healers that I have a violet aura. I do see violet whenever I meditate and violet is a power color for me.

An indigo life force is unusual in adults. You might have heard of the Indigo Children. It is believed that these children of the new age are born with clear insight, deep inner knowing, and many gifts including clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience. There’s a lot of speculation of when these children began to arrive, but the majority seemed to be born around the Harmonic Convergence from the early 80’s to the mid 90’s. An indigo life force would seem to guide one into world changing professions and fields. My son is indigo, not an easy aura to have as he grew up, yet is coming into resonance the closer we get to the shift.

A blue life force serves an orator, teacher, politician very well. A green life force seems to direct people into the service fields, agriculture, and environmental sciences. These seem to be salt of the earth, grounded balanced people. My husband has a green life force. Most people I have met with yellow auras seem to be very fearful, tend to have lots of anxiety. I believe that a healthy yellow life force would guide one into many fields of service as you would be empowered by love rather than fear reactive.

Orange auras are rare indeed. I think an orange life force would make amazing parents, especially mothers, but anyone who nurtures new young life would find great ease if they possessed an orange life force. People with red life forces build our world—artists, contractors, technologists, scientists, producers. Red empowers their creative forces and they live life passionately, although may not be easy to live with being fueled by a great survival instinct.

Whatever your dominant life force, all your chakras need to be in balance to stay healthy. I love to do a chakra meditation in which I am climbing a mountain of color. I lie or sit with my hands in a V, fingertips down between my legs to focus my energy in my root and begin my journey into self. I begin at the base of the mountain where the path is red. All the flowers and trees and rocks and even the path itself are shades of red. Often I am met by a red escort, sometimes male, sometimes female, always very sensual, passionate, hot energy. As I ascend the mountain, I can feel my energy rising from my root chakra into my belly. And the path shifts to reddish orange until it is bright and juicy as a naval orange.

Surrounded by orange foliage accompanied by an orange guide whose energy is very sweet, tender, I rise up my mountain of energy. The colors shift into mango, sunset orange-yellow. When I enter a bright yellow part of the path with golden sunflowers and wheat colored grasses, I feel a lightness in my solar plexus, like all my worries have been drained from me. A golden escort brings me higher up the mountain until I meet the green man. Here my escort is always male, perhaps because I see him as the divine masculine part of myself. I feel filled with love, an expansiveness in my chest that extends into my arms through my entire body and out beyond my aura. If I stay here long enough I feel a connection with all that is like I am an ocean of potential. The green path is very natural, earthy, very familiar and I can stay here forever, but the green man always encourages me to go on to the blue part of the journey. The colors shift from green to turquoise to sky blue. All the flowers, the trees, the grasses are a strange but peaceful shade of blue. Here any constriction in my throat relaxes and often I feel like singing. Although the song is wordless, it feels like the sound of my chakras—OH, AHH, OO, EE—a blessed relief. Here I may meet a blue escort, but more likely it is the wind blowing me through this part of my journey. The blue deepens, darkens until it is indigo in color and I feel perched within my own head, as if I am looking in behind my eyes. The mountain path is narrow and shorter now, intensely indigo blue. Like the deepest dye of blue jeans, it stains my perception, everything looks indigo. I am nearly there and stay on this part of the path very briefly.

At the top of the mountain I ascend white marble steps into a crystalline temple. Any garments I may be wearing fall away as I enter a clear pool of water. All my energy fields are cleansed as the water bathes away my fears, doubts, worries, disbelief. I step out of the pool and into a violet flame. Any negativity I have carried into the temple of my being is transformed by this flame into a gemstone. Sometimes the gem is yellow topaz if my work has been centered in clearing fear from my third chakra. Sometimes it is sapphire blue if my focus has been on speaking my truth. The transformation of my negative energy into a gem is a transmutation of poisons into gifts. I leave the gem as a gift to my temple. My crown chakra at this point feels very wide open, yet I am quite grounded. My lower chakras well lit, experienced and cherished keep me in my form, in the temple of my body. Once I set down my gift, I get to enjoy the view. The temple sits upon the mountain of my life and from here I can see where I’ve been and where I’m going, in fact all of my potentials lie before me, paths untaken, paths yet to explore. It is quite wondrous. Sometimes I am in need of guidance and if so I am met by a guide, an angel, more often than not an embodiment of my Higher Self. We sit in conference or stroll the temple gardens and I receive insight.

Sometimes I am taken to an inner room where my ancestral memory resides. Some refer to this as the Akashic records. I don’t spend much energy there, receiving the connections from the past, from my DNA, from my soul agreements and bridging them to my present existence. Sometimes I am in need of healing so I am taken to a healing room where I lie or rather levitate while I am being ministered to by what feels like angels. When I am through with my meditation, I slide or slip or dance back down the path to the point where my fingertips meet at my root.

49. COMING HOME

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

I did not leave to find myself. Although Steve may say otherwise. The Mary experience was something else. Truly I was in between the worlds. Often he would ask me where I was when we took a walk and I would fall silent. I was in Galilee during those times. He felt me slip, how could he not?

So yes, for the eight months I composed my novel, I was barely here. In body, if not in spirit. I vowed not to do it again like that. Perhaps that’s why book two took so long to write. But I think it’s more likely that I cannot write what I do not know and I am just now coming into realization of my power as a creator of my reality…that there’s nowhere to go to find the truth, but within.

Many women and men leave everything they know to seek enlightenment. It just seems too darn hard to find peace and truth in the midst of the chaos of your life. Yet I did it. Many of us have stayed and found enlightenment right at home, within our communities, serving our neighbors, raising our families, walking the dogs. There’s nowhere to go. Heaven’s right there on earth ☺

March 5, 2003
The One came and it was joyous. Beginning with laughter and ending in laughter. Lightness as a child. I felt free and happy and maintain that joyousness even now. I shared it with another right away so I could say the meditation to ground it into my being. After nearly two hours the most significant piece surfaced back into my memory. God’s strategic plan for life is within the DNA.

I began my meditation with questions of truth and untruth. What are my misconceptions? The One came in a bubble of glee, laughing at my seriousness for it is not my nature. You are the funny one, the one that laughs freely, you are my joy. This meditation is not your way. It is for those serious sages that seek to commune with me. The One was all joy, all bliss.

Do you come to those serious ones who meditate with this same delight? Of course. I come to all who ask, as I am them and they are me.

I come to them in the form they can appreciate, stifling my laughter as not to offend. With you, I can laugh freely for you are lightness and joy. But you came to me when I began this serious meditation? Because I had to laugh at you. I am always with you. You recognize me through the glasses of your choosing. You, my dear, are choosing laughter and delight. Within your delight, your joy, your wonder, I exist. I am the joy, the light, the laughter, the bliss. And I am you.

The One came and I said are you the mother or the brother? It claimed to be all of them and everything and nothing. It is me and the world, the universe. It explained that life is like a spiral of events, all of history spirals upon itself. The One collapses the spiral into the dimension where it chooses to exist and there is no time nor space. All is at once. Life is a spiral of events unfolding existing without time and space. As you awaken into your sovereignty you will see that it is nothing to collapse the spiral and enjoy the view at your leisure.

Why then does all the human frailty come up? Why was I so bulimic just the night before, while editing my website pieces with apparent clarity. You must be more gentle with yourself. It’s silly really and lucky that you have a good sense of humor. All the issues of ego and self-delusion are like scum at the bottom of the pond which get swirled up to the surface of the heart chakra to be blown away by the winds of change. All the birthing anxiety you feel before the process is the human effort to maintain balance in the roiling waters.

I asked about my vision of reflection in the bowl of water that is my heart chakra. Must I be still in order to allow others to see themselves? Yes and no. Won’t the waters become stagnant if not flowing? The waters are living, flowing in and out of the heart chakra. According to the level of awakening of the being is the depth of clarity. What appears to be still is moving and alive, an organic, interactive process.

I asked about sovereignty, the levels of awakening. You are imagining awakening as a hierarchy with steps or levels like a ladder. That is the third dimensional view, part of the old paradigm. The fourth dimensional view is one of deepening. The deeper you become, the closer to the One. The depths exist within the bowl you call the heart chakra. I just wanted to dive in! It was like some of my dolphin dreams when I dive in deeply and can breathe, swimming with absolute freedom.

The grand finale unveiled the truth that I have always known. I was delighted.

Thinking about my corporate advisor’s bugging me about a strategic plan, I asked, “Did You have a strategic plan?”

The One laughed, “Of course, it’s in the DNA. The DNA is the strategic plan for all life.” I guess you have to ground it into reality for it to manifest. Even the One continues to change through the evolutionary process.

Of course it is the DNA. I have always known it. I have expressed it in my countless works, lectures, interactions, dreams. Yet this is much more simple. We all need a strategic plan to base our life upon to refer to in times of trouble, so that the flow is directed, understood. The strategic plan is encoded in our DNA. All creatures have DNA, all are part of life. We have never been abandoned on this earth plane. We were given a perpetual strategic plan for existence, for enlightenment. It has been within all the while.

48. ASCENSION

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

During a guided meditation in my women’s circle, I saw an image of my Higher Self. Emerging from the heart of the earth, I sat astride a powerful horse, my golden body in sweet repose, a heavy dampness on my back…furled wings! Feeling compelled to create Her into form, I took my joy to my Q&A journal where I converse with my Higher Self. I’m the Q, she’s the A…

Q. Your form amazed me!
A. I am your Higher Self. Well connected to the Mother with the ability to fly through the dimensions.

Q. I would love to paint you, but I have not the skill
A. Ahh. You will see that your ability to manifest is not limited to what you know but all you “remember’. Time is a spiral. There is an artist in you.

I prefer to work with my hands so I thought “maybe a sculpture”. So I called Grandmother Kathy. She’s a retired art teacher. I asked if she had clay I could come and play with. “Of course!” she said and every Monday morning for 13 weeks I went to her house.

Grandmother Kathy midwifed me as I birthed my vision. The process was amazing. I never before created anything with such ease. I would work a little and then just put it aside. Patience was also birthed from my play with clay.

My Higher-Self assured me that my hands would “remember” how to form clay. And they did…

This sculpture that I created, I call Her Ascension, is my Higher Self formed from clay. Not only feminine, but in sacred union with the masculine. That is who I am now. She is who I’ve become in my 50 years on earth. Finally balanced.

When She was ready to be taken out of the kiln I drove to Kathy’s house filled with trepidation…and remembered for the first time…the feeling of driving to UCLA to pick up Jarys from the NICU. My whole life was going to change when I brought HER home, just like it did when I brought Jarys home. Not that I hadn’t transitioned in the time it took to create HER or the time it took to gestate, birth and wait for my premature baby to be strong enough to come home. Then I was cast back to 1984… my life forever changed by Jarys’ birth…

I nearly died giving birth. I had a rare form of toxemia called HEELP syndrome in which my sky rocketing blood pressure caused seizures while my liver and kidneys started to fail. And our premature 2 ½ pound baby was born intersex. While pregnant, I dreamt of a blond baby boy, so it was no surprise when our baby’s chromosome test revealed the male XY pattern. Yet the pediatric endocrinologist advised we raise our child as a girl. Neither of our mothers understood. The doctor explained that our child would not have secondary sex characteristics. “What’s that?” Our mothers asked. So I explained. “Body and facial hair.”

They laughed. “We’re Greek and Italian. The women in our family have to shave! That’s no reason to castrate the baby!” The endocrinologist had no experience with families who did not follow her medical advice. We were told, “It’s easier to make a hole than a pole.” I was shocked, not by the bluntness, but by the total lack of consideration for the effect of “his” hormones on the developing brain. If we raised “him” as a girl what psychological trauma would “she” undergo at puberty or later in young adulthood. The experts didn’t know. So at 22 and 23 years old, Steve and I had to make a very difficult choice. We decided to follow my intuition, go against medical advice, and raise our baby as a boy.

Jarys became my impetus to learn everything about hormones. I felt intuitively that his DNA was not set in stone but could change. He could make cell receptors for male hormone. He could be anything he wanted to be. So I became a hormone expert which led to developing an Intuitive Integrative Medical model, which led to researching the hypothalamus and genetic upregulation, which led to the dreams of a formula to optimize genetic potential, which led to the manufacture of Genesis Gold® – which has changed my life.

Since bringing Ascension home, my life has changed again. My relationship has deepened even more with my beloved husband. My relationship with my mother became more refined. I have truly released my firstborn and they are blossoming. My daughter grows in leaps and bounds and no longer am I entangled with her. My relationship with my sisters is blooming – no drama at the last family gathering. And being with my father was joyous – Thank God! I am in deep gratitude to my Higher Self for helping me birth my truth.

47. MY ALTAR, MYSELF

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

Directly across from the door to our home is my altar. A lavender macramé cloth covers the small winged table. Objects sacred to me adorn the four corners with candles in the cardinal directions.

The altar changes from time to time according to my needs. Often my children ask to be put on the altar. And I make elaborate altars for them, holding the energy as they face challenges like when my eldest interviewed for their first real teaching job (and thankfully got it!), and my daughter tested for nursing school (and she got in too!) When Steve’s Gran first fell ill, he asked me to dedicate an altar for her. And after she passed, the altar reflected our love and devotion to her.

Today, items sacred to our upcoming retreat lie on the altar…The red cord I made to help us connect to our ancestors and each other. The crow’s feather bound in triple goddess colors that helped us choose the theme of our retreat. A golden frame filled with photos of men I treasure — my husband, my father, my grandfather — my beloved divine masculine.

And in the front — my Box of Me.

I made this one up… but what healing has come from creating a Box of Me. It started just after my father’s surgery, my sisters had moved him into a senior apartment complex and found a box of old photos. In it was a photo I do not recall, but looking at the black and white image of me at thirteen months old dressed in an Easter dress holding a little purse and gazing out with old soul eyes, I remembered. Showing my parents how to parent me and feeling their emotions. I took that photo and pasted it on the Box of Me. Somehow I would heal the child within. And through the Box of Me, placing me on my altar.

Inside the Box of Me, the mementos change yet each represents my dreams, my hopes, my intentions. I’ve guided many patients and some women friends in the creation of a Box of Me. How therapeutic it has been to honor ourselves, to put into this special box all that we hope for and say to the universe YES! Yes, I am. And more so to fall in love with ourselves. Because that’s where love starts. If we don’t love and honor and cherish ourselves, how can we love and honor and cherish each other?

It’s hard for most women to make a Box of Me…harder yet to place anything sacred within their Box of Me. It is start, a fresh start to healing the child within. I ask them to choose a photo of themselves that is before the time they remember the trauma of childhood. The innocent time before becoming domesticated into humanity. A time when they remember being happy. Few go back to adolescence, most go back early childhood, some all the way back to infancy.

In the center lies the golden runner embroidered by Steve’s Yia Yia…a wedding gift given to me by his father who came from Greece to witness our union 28 years ago. Upon the runner sits Ascension.