Karmic Imprints

23. PRECIOUS

I’ve always felt precious. My mother called me her precious daughter until the day she died. My father treats me as if I am a precious gift. My grandparents beheld me with preciousness in their gaze. My aunt and uncle speak of their brief time with me as precious. And I have always felt life is precious. That my relationship with Steve is precious. That my children are precious gifts to me.

So how can preciousness and unworthiness live in one being? Because we live in a dualistic world. We are both self and other. We are both light and dark. We are both divine and human. We are in duality. In duality, we develop our sense of self, our egos. Our ego serves to differentiate us from others. Only when we drop the veil of ego can we be one with all that is. Yet being human, we need differentiation to appreciate connection.

My parents perceived my divine light. And I knew myself as precious until I developed my ego. Then under the veil of ego, I felt separation from all that is and began to feel unworthy. I could no longer perceive my own divine light.

While cleaning a stained-glass lamp, it came to me. The inner light was dull due to the dust of time. Yet polishing the outside of the glass did little to increase the brightness of the light. I had to polish the inside of the glass. Only then did the light shine with its true brilliance.

Same with us. We work so hard polishing our outer selves. Perfecting our appearances, our bodies, our faces, our clothes, the cars we drive, the houses we live in, the people we hang out with, the money in the bank, the roles we play…lots of time polishing our outsides… Never quite good enough always striving for more. Thinner, younger, prettier, stronger, richer, more successful.

Yet until we dive deep within to rediscover our preciousness do we spend time polishing our inner selves. Removing the dust accumulated over the years…the childhood traumas we reflexively relive, the generational thinking we carry as karmic imprints, the old paradigm beliefs we are afraid to give up…until we polish our inner selves does our divine light shine brightly enough for us to see it reflected in the world. In the faces of our family and friends, in our works, in our connection with the earth, in all of our lives.

Excerpt from My LoveDance. Available on Amazon

18. THE 11:11 PORTALS

Since the beginning of 2011, the 11th of each month has felt…well, different. After the Japanese earthquake, I was sure I wasn’t the only one feeling the 11th. So I googled it and found the 11th of each month described as vibrational portals leading to 11-11-11. On 4-11-11, I felt compelled to hold ceremony so I called up Grandmother Kathy and took her to the beach.

In sacred ceremony, we gifted the ocean with the intention of healing the earth. I felt this intense energy coming from the sun…no actually through the sun and recognized the galactic center blessing us. On the wet low tide sands, I danced the sacred union of Father Sun and Mother Earth…what an amazing experience!
Lately, I keep seeing multiples of 11 every time I look at the clock (11, 22, 33, 44). I looked up the significance of these master numbers and calculated my numerology number by birth date and it is 22…but still this doesn’t settle my soul…something more is up.

On Monday, I awoke with a vague melancholy. Then I realized the date…7-11-11…and felt compelled to hold ceremony again…but what? Trusting all would be well I opened my journal in hopes of inspiration and…. it came to me…

…These portals are DNA activations! In alignment with the chakra’s…the first three were not as noticeable to me (I can only guess that these layers are well activated by Genesis Gold®), the fourth felt like a celebration of the heart chakra…Love… the fifth and sixth were subtle, yet this seventh was in alignment with work I’ve been doing regarding the Pineal gland. And I have always known the crown chakra to be a connection to the heavens, the multi-dimensional universe. Perhaps why we bow our head in prayer, exposing our crowns to the mouth of God.

So on 7-11-11 at 11:11 dressed in violets, I lay under my oak tree to meditate.

And for the first time since I was a child, I felt the presence of Father God. He spoke to me. Explaining that it took this long for me to bond well with the Divine Mother, to discover my truth and transform from human doing to human being…to live as the embodiment of the Divine Daughter and encompass Divine Mother energy into my life with deep honoring of the Divine Grandmother.

He showed me how easily I partnered with the Divine Masculine in Steve and received it in other men. How bravely I tried to heal my relationship with my father …yet still I searched for guidance from the Divine Father.

In answer to my heart prayers of healing the father wound, He came.

And showed me, me as light! A juicy brilliant orange-red began the light show and I felt filled from root to belly…hormonally rejuvenated. Then lime green darkening to peridot as the light rose from solar plexus to heart. The greens deepened to a glorious teal, fluid and dancing with lovely lilac in the center…my heart filled. Then my throat alighted in clear blue, brilliant as the sky and here where I hold trepidation, finally healed by the blue light of truth. Then my head filled with violet, not purple of my youth, but a deep violet that circled around to red and became fuchsia. My new auric color! He showed me that I’ve come full circle and begin again at 50.

The communication was long and deep. For I saw my own DNA dancing. Not the double helix formation but a spiraling spherical star of DNA, many layers deep, no, not layers, He said, not stacked but intertwined, and I looked deeper and saw brilliant strands dancing figure eights of infinity, meeting in the center of the star sphere, some switching partners, some dancing in triplets…Seven lit up brilliantly…four more dancing in the shadows, and the last yet to be enlightened.

All the while Father God spoke to me. He explained how he watched over me all this time through the eyes of crow. My deep connection to this magical black bird that so many fear…it was serving My Father. The one I turned away from so long ago.

No judgment, no sorrow during this glorious reunion with My Father. Only light and love. Exactly what I ask for every time I feel fear. That my fear be lifted and I be filled with light and love. And now I know it has been Him…answering my prayers.

Oh, I am still very much one with My Mother. She flows through me….and I felt Her great Joy as I received Him. She held me in her arms as She presented me, Her Divine Daughter, to My Father. I am so blessed.

I arose at 11:55, 44 minutes in divine communication. I am profoundly affected…the light was so healing…I know now what Yeshua meant by My Father and I are One.

Excerpt from My LoveDance. Available on Amazon

16. SEEDS OF INTENTION

At the fall meeting of the Ojai Grandmother’s Council, we were reminded of the seeds of intention that we planted in the spring. Some could not remember their intentions, some remembered but did not tend them. I was acutely aware of mine. My birthday is on the Spring Equinox and every year I plant seeds of intention with the hopes of a great harvest come fall. That year my intention was to be open to receive abundance.

Oh, I have much. My life is very rich. A beautiful home, fertile land, healthy, happy children, an amazing relationship with my beloved husband, a fulfilling healthcare practice, yet I feel that there is more…that I am to go out into the world and share my wisdom…and to do that…I need resources…money and people to help…and although my business pays the bills, there is debt incurred to build the practice, to manufacture Genesis Gold®…and my book—LoveDance®—waiting for release.

Since planting my seeds of intention, I’d been acutely aware of the abundance in my life, living in gratitude as the universe has seen fit to challenge me…with death, and loss, and sacrifice. As if I had to empty my Soul Purse over and over to make room for the abundance to come.

That night… I have sequence of five dreams…

All the time I’m dreaming, I’m lucid. I fall in and out of sleep after a tremendous hot flash at 12:30—three hours after I fell asleep—and spend time rolling around considering what I should do about my hormonal challenge…then set my intention to know what it’s all about at the soul level and fall asleep…

…The first dream opens with a gathering of women in a great big house. I’m trying to settle in and my roommate shows up. One of my young patients and she’s distraught, hands me her pants. She needs another pair just like them. I tell her pants are expensive in…Italy…wow, that’s where we are!… and she hands me $50. I look at the pants…olive green suede polyester nothing wrong with them except a blood stain at the crotch. She is mortified that she started her period…this is the patient I saw last week who missed her period…I explain she can wash them out, but she will never wear them again—stained with women’s blood…I am saddened by her shame, I want to make it better for her…and then I see that she is me as a girl not at peace with my femininity and all women afraid they are unclean as the world has treated them. And I feel a deep sense of gratitude for finally embracing my feminine power…

…and the dream shifts. I’m with the same gathering, but so crowded, too many women… A fake sense of feminine power emanates from them—over inflated, dangerous—a roomful of women wearing pants under skirts. I need to get away. But it’s so crowded. Finally, I remember I can fly! I start to push off away from the crowded staircase…and another woman, one from my women’s circle…says “Hold her!” I am chased by two women, struggling to gain altitude through the crowded place, they grasp my trailing legs, but cannot catch me. I feel light but too low…the energy is one of a dog teasing its owners into a game of chase– I head for the light, but they close the opening before I can fly there…I’m trapped in a great big tent! …Lucid, I try to wake up…and realize until I get the message of the dream sequence, I’m not going anywhere…I fly up through ropes, tight ropes. Below me, all the women I’ve gotten involved with in this life and beyond—from girls scouts, to sorority sisters, to the nurse practitioners I led, and the women’s circle, the grandmothers, and interspersed are the women gurus who wove in and out of my life these past 13 years…all who wanted me to join them, to lead them… …my lucid self so happy to be flying again (I haven’t flown in my dreams since the women’s retreat just before the Autumn Equinox where we worked on our karmic imprints)…How funny that my subconscious traps me in a circus tent with crazy women. I laugh…

….and slip into another dream. A great gathering of all my dead patients. Everyone’s there…Eddie in the background—smoking! —Lacy, Michael, many whose names I’ve forgotten but not their faces—whole and healthy—and their energy. All doing whatever they please…peace emanates from them. The last patient I buried is there too. A sense of guilt carried from my waking world trickles into my dreamtime. Barbara is the spokeswoman and she’s explaining where Anna is on her spirit path so soon after her death. “There is no need for regret. You danced your best dance with each of us. We are where we need to be at this time in human consciousness.” Gran’s there too. And she is walking very strangely…like she’s in a space suit, sort of praying mantis like. I wonder if her walker would help, and Gran apologizes…it’s broken, how difficult it is to move on earth, so much easier over there. I have a catalog in my hands and pick out a handicap toilet for her…pink and orange!…which seems silly since I know Gran isn’t staying…and feel bad that we didn’t make these accommodations for her while she was alive. I show her the toilet. “I never had such a bright toilet!” she says, “but I don’t think I’ll need one. I’m not staying, dear. This is the first time you let me in.” True, she has visited Steve many times. I inquire about the others. She says “I have very nice visits with Steve, but the rest are harder.” I hope she isn’t spending too much time and effort trying to contact those who are not ready to receive her. She laughs and says, no she is very busy over there, but not to worry. Time is not an issue for her anymore and effort, well it is easier to be in the presence of love than fear… In my observer, lucid dreamer state, I want to spend more time with the dead, knowing it’s precious…it’s the first time I’ve dreamt of Gran and she feels so real…our conversations though bizarre yet so genuine. The only one I miss in the dreams is Hope…she’s not with the grateful dead…but I’m not sad. I know my beloved Great Dane, my Hope, is where she belongs…

…then I’m on a huge field, tossing a yellow grass-stained nerf football to a black dog and a blond boy. Every pass, they switch off, I’m not a good thrower and neither of them catch well. We pass through many other people’s games/lives, communicate with them and move on. All are men and boys…fathers and sons. Playing amongst a group of black men and boys, one of which compliments my butt as I bend over the tub to find the dog tied up like a broken doll almost fetal like. I keep finding its limp body left behind with the ball underwater. At first I dismiss the comment as I did in my youth with an excuse and then I replay the scene and graciously thank the man and he swells and merges with the other black men, their sons receiving their vibration as the sacred feminine received them…back to the fetal dog and used up ball left underwater…I realize the boy has moved on… this boy-dog issue I know is mine…my inner boy child leaving me and the spirit dog connecting him to the otherworld left behind…this is part of the healing the divine masculine within me…

…then I’m back in the house—my recurring house dream. Usually in the “house” dream, I am so frustrated…my sisters keep me from getting what I need to get done, I’m always cooking or cleaning and everything is a disaster…this time I am just watching while being in the midst of them…like I’m watching a home movie while being in it … this time, instead of wandering the never-ending rooms, and halls, I stay in the kitchen-family room where all the family is gathered. It’s our rental, yet I have no sense of ownership… The family has rented it before and now have a disaster with the microwave. I am surprised I am not making a fuss that they are trying to microwave a whole chicken… Steve even looks to me for a response, but it is like I am just observing, it’s all very funny and we’re playing our silly parts again and again with the same outcome, I even tease about some goofy fake fur pants I plan to get my brother-in-law, and my fashionable sister looks at me horrified… Later I am to meet Steve for a trip, he’s coming back to the house to pick me up, but my sister needs my car to go to work…and she’s dressed in these too big jeans, strange polka dot hose and heels, a vest she made up out of our dead PopPop’s pajama top and a nice leather jacket on top of it all. I send her out with my blessing, but need to get my purse out of the car because it has everything I need to go away with Steve. I’m surprised at the floppy little purse that seems so empty (my violet soul purse with a golden clasp)…I never carry purses in my dream…always have what I need somewhere on me… And then I am my daughter meeting her beloved to go to Hawaii. ..and I realize all is superfluous because I must get ready for a wedding…

Then I wake up!

The energy of the dreams was curiosity…taking a trip down the rabbit hole of my subconscious…and at times I try to get out but I know it’s all a dream and stay to learn more. There’s no fear, just bemusement. I know I am growing while in the dark dream state…I intended this before falling asleep …I know these dreams represent what I have cleared from my soul purse…my fears of being a woman, my tendencies to get captured by others and taken advantage of, the shame of failing in my healing practice, letting go of the boy to allow room for the divine masculine, being with my family all the interior mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, daughters, sons and not being smothered by my relationships with them but seeing the humor in life and being gracious with my humanity…then going on the next stage of my soul journey, preparing to experience the sacred marriage of divine feminine and divine masculine within me in the heart of the earth…starting all over again like newlyweds… The last sequence with the empty purse (I never dream of purses!) with Hope not part of the dead but so deeply embedded in my soul, not something to be cleared out of my soul “purse”… something to keep always.

This crazy dream sequence was in fact…the past six months of soul work from the time I planted the seed of intention to be open to receive abundance…through all the work of clearing out all that doesn’t serve me, and making room for a great harvest, a filling up of soul…a completeness of self…whole, finally to be whole.

Excerpt from My LoveDance. Available on Amazon

WE’VE LOST HOPE

Literally. Hope died. A golden Great Dane with the heart of a lion. Placing her muzzle on your chest, she would stare into your eyes. I see you. Like in the movie Avatar, she really “saw” who you are. Strange, I know…but Hope was an old soul. And she knew other old souls. Our most sensitive guests could feel her knowing. “This dog’s amazing!” Yes, she was.

Steve had Great Danes growing up. Our first, Grace, was a big black beauty. The perfect Nana for our kids. Very protective, she watched over them until 2002 when she died at the age of 11. Old for a Great Dane, but we needed her. She was in great shape, a little arthritis in her hips, not able to go on super long walks at the end, but no real illness. She died of a heart attack while I was away with Kyra at a gymnastics meet. Steve tried to resuscitate her, to no avail.

Six weeks later, I got a call. A woman I worked with years before in the kids’ elementary school asked if I still had our Great Dane. I shared the sad news. And she asked, “Would you like a pup?” It was too soon. We were still grieving. Besides we had our two Border Collies to keep us busy. The younger was in mourning …Ida would only sleep on Grace’s bed, eat out of Grace’s bowl. We weren’t ready. But something told me to go.

In a litter of four female pups, the largest fawn toddled over and sat between us. Steve picked her up and she submitted, but when her sisters came over to investigate, she got in their way. These are my people!

So we brought Hope home and she became the alpha of our pack of dogs. Never of us. Always respectful of her human family, but her role was not one of nanny like Grace. The kids were teenagers. Hope became our confidante. She knew who to trust and who to be wary of. You felt safe with her. The first time Kyra went camping with her boyfriend, she took Hope. Never had she camped before without her father and she was not so sure her boyfriend could keep her safe. So Hope went with them. Carried her own pack, kept a stranger from intruding upon their campsite in the middle of the night, then slept between them…it was cold!

Protective of all under her care, no other dog dared chase her cat! Pippin adored her…in spite of her great size…weighed more than me and taller than Steve on her hind legs…she was so very gentle with him. Pippin loved to roll on Hope’s bed and soak up her doggy odor. Hope walked carefully, laid down in the smallest of spaces, insisting she could fit in our lives, not matter how small the car, the room, the bed.

She played like a Border Collie…full of energy….chasing the other two…not too much ball sense, but she loved to carry things. Especially your arm. Hope would take your arm and lead you out to the back. Come see my horses! Come see the great hole I dug, nearly caught that ground squirrel! Come, come, be with me!

We moved deeper into Ojai when she was still a pup. A big pup, no doubt, but she became an integral part of our new lives. You see, when we moved, we got a property to fulfill three things…room for amazing gardens, a barn for the horses, and a place for my practice. When we moved to Ojai, everyone came home. Hope quickly became a therapy dog. My pediatric patients loved to be with her and of course she was gentle and patient even as a pup. Depressed adults found great comfort in the huge dog. She hated the rain, and we didn’t have a doghouse, so she spent the last couple years in the office…when it rained, if it was too cold, too hot…She loved her yard, soaking up the sun on the Saltillo patio, rolling under the oak tree, chasing squirrels in the back, but she’d rather be with me. So when I was through seeing patients, no matter if it was 5 o’clock or if I finished early at 3pm, Hope would start to “talk”. You know how Scooby-Doo talks, well that’s Great Dane. Hope would vocalize….loudly…no barking, not even whining, more like, Oh, please, please, come out and play. Let’s take a walk. The horses are hungry! Come on, you’ve been with them all day! It’s my time now!

The “nurse” of our little ranchette, Hope kept you company when you were ill and if any of the animals fell ill, she was right there…trying to rouse a downed horse, licking his face, curling up next to him when there was nothing more to do.

I have had lots of dogs from Irish Setters to German Shepherds, Danes, Border Collies, and a few mutts. All have been special, most were just dogs, Hope was more human. She felt greatly. An emotional dog, she mirrored your feelings and had very strong ones of her own. She was so beautiful, nearly perfect confirmation, we considered breeding her. Mostly because she suffered false pregnancies. Every six months, about two months after her heat, she would start nesting, adopt a stuffed toy and start lactating. Within a few weeks, she acted as if her “pup” had died and she would bury it, then dig it up, curl up with it and cry. Until we got her spayed at the age of five, poor Hope would suffer post partum depression four months out of the year.

Our last Great Dane suffered false pregnancies too and upon the advice of our vet, we bred her, then spayed her. Grace never was depressed again. Not Hope. She was acutely attuned to our every emotion. She mourned the deaths of our Border Collies. When Ida died in 2007, Hope visited her grave every morning for a month. Pippin accompanied her. She would lie by the rock that covered Ida’s grave with the cat sitting on top of the rock and the two of them would…meditate. I joined them many mornings, Ida was my dog…in fact I mourned her death so intensely, that I never did write about her. Writing helps, but…

Ida’s mother, Sara played around us…living very much in the moment as dogs are apt to do. When it was time to put Sara down after a long bout of illness, Sara greeted the vet, but Hope knew what was up and tried to block him from getting close to Sara. We talked to Hope and she lay down with us on Sara’s blanket and helped us hold the energy. Then Hope mourned Sara…sat by her rock covering her grave every morning. She was so depressed and so alone, we decided to adopt another dog. Got Charlie last year, in fact exactly a year from the day Hope died. It took a couple of days for her to get used to him, but after that I never saw a dog play so joyously with another. She never cuddled with the girl dogs, but let him sit on her bed, practically on her head!

Romped with him in the field on the everlasting squirrel hunt nearly every morning. We were just there on Sunday, the day before she died. She was dragging a bit. I thought she was sore from climbing over rocks at the beach the day before. Didn’t realize her heart was tired. She was off her food, wouldn’t drink much, so yesterday I was syringing weak broth into her mouth. Her heart was racing, but she waited for Steve to get home, before collapsing. Of course, it was Labor Day and our vet was not available…so Steve carried her to the Suburban to drive into Ventura to the emergency animal hospital. I sat in back with her. Not a mile down the road, she lay back in my arms and died. I tried to resuscitate her. Steve pulled over and breathed for her while I did chest compressions. But she was gone.

Steve’s right. When someone dies suddenly, their life force bursts out of them. There is no fading of energy like I described with Gran and Anita…no…Hope just burst out of herself and into the universe. No fear. Just gone.

We buried her next to the girls. Who knew our little graveyard would get so full so soon.

My grief is profound, but my gratitude is greater.

Last night after wiping my tears for the umpteenth time, I prayed that I would be open to receive the gift of this encounter. And I felt Hope. “Why did you leave us so soon. Grace lived so much longer.” You needed her and she died when she was no longer needed. You needed me to go now. And I could see a portal opening. Just like the one that opened when our old horse Kitty died. I held onto her fiercely. So much so that the vet had to tell me to stop feeding her the magic formula and let her go. Just after Kitty died, the first bottle of Genesis Gold was placed in my hands. Then two months later, I began writing LoveDance. Her death preceded a great birth for me. And I have always believed that death begets birth. Now just five weeks after losing Gran and Anita, I lost Hope. I thought the third one would be our old gelding. I even made arrangements for his passing with dignified animal disposal…can’t bury a horse in the front yard…yet I know, that only one I loved greatly would be…the one to complete the triad.

Hope and Grace…Their energies infused me…“What’s next Charity?” I could feel Hope smile. No, Joy.

So this morning, I took a break from writing my sorrow and took Charlie for a run. We stopped by Hope’s grave and invited her along. Have you ever seen a Great Dane run? It’s a sight to behold. Her spirit soared across the fields with little Charlie. I could almost see her stop and put her great big head into a squirrel hole. Then stand over it, her soft full jowls helping her great nose capture the scent. Head cocked, so that her big velvety ears stood out like the Flying Nun. Hope was so beautiful…and she taught me so much.

For me, the gift of Hope was:

To be gentle, especially with myself.
To be patient with others,
But to ask for what I need when I need it, with passion if necessary.
That sometimes the best way to nurse a patient is to kiss their face and just sit with them.
To run with abandon, but stop and enjoy the scent of life.
To savor every bite, especially treats.
To tolerate what’s unpleasant if it’s good for me. (Don’t worry, Hope, there’s no baths in heaven)
To accept the gift of life…grandly with fervor, and then let go and embrace death.

I guess we haven’t really lost Hope…we have her golden energy in our hearts. Thank you, Hope.

Remembering the Divine Masculine

One thing I learned in writing LoveDance is that life at least for me is about Joyous Service. My husband and I are both in helping professions—he as a police officer and me as a family nurse practitioner. The stories we share at the dinner table of our respective work day are often quite similar. As a healer, I spend a lot of time educating my patients, counseling them, guiding them with heartfelt advice. As a police officer, Steve protects and serves…truly he is more of a peace officer. There is not enough room in this blog to record all the incidences of him helping others through their issues.

Last year, we stopped in Santa Barbara for brunch on the way up to our favorite romantic getaway in Cambria. While we were dining, a gentleman greeted Steve with such profound respect and gratitude. I asked about him and Steve said that some 20 years ago, he arrested him. Before the man was imprisoned, Steve advised him to use the experience to help him grow. “And he did!” Steve said proudly, “He paid back society and became a responsible outstanding citizen raising a fine family in our town.” You see, we both take care of those in need.

Last evening after an impromptu date—dinner on the pier and a stroll through a summer street fair, I was making Steve’s lunch. My daughter teases that even though she and her brother are gone, I’m still packing lunches. A dear friend of mine just reminded me how I showed her years ago how to cut the kids sandwiches into shapes. I used to put little notes in their lunches—words of encouragement, of love, of hope.

Well, as I was making Steve’s lunch, I felt my grandmother’s presence. Nana used to do so much for Poppop, most of which he could have done for himself, yet she needed to do it. Serving him fulfilled her. And he was always extremely grateful. My mother served my father in the same fashion…yet something was missing. It was more of an expectation of how wives and husbands act. They divorced after 24 years of marriage. My grandparents were married over 40 years; unfortunately they died young. Poppop was only 62. Nana followed him to the grave twenty months later. She stayed around just long enough to hold her first great-grandchild, my son—Jarys. I have a photo of her cradling him in her arms. She was dying of lung cancer, in a wheelchair with a cannula of oxygen hanging from her nostrils. He’s only three pounds—born ten weeks premature—under the eerie glow of the neonatal intensive care unit, gazing at her intently. She died shortly after that one and only visit. I miss both my Nana and Pop.

But last night, Nana was with me as I prepared Steve’s lunch. Holding the energy of love as I sliced the left over steak, washed and tore the baby lettuce, arranged the roma tomato. As I made vinaigrette, I felt her guiding me…a pinch of Italian herbs, a little salt, a bit of pepper sprinkled into the olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

When I was done, I found Steve doing his back exercises in the bedroom. “Why do we take such care of one another?” I asked.

“Because we love each other so much.” He smiled and gave me a kiss.

True, but I think it’s more. You see, he takes care of me so well. He cooks for me…and he’s an amazing chef…he took care of the kids with the finesse of any mother…he spends time with me…and enjoys it! After 27 years of marriage we are still very much in love. We are best friends, each other’s truest confidantes.

Yet we have lives outside of us….I do my things…I have a circle of dear women I meet with regularly, a very spiritual supportive group. I love horses and can be found riding far and wide on my mare all over Ojai. I meet with my three sisters once or twice a year for a girls’ weekend and regularly spend girls’ time with my daughter. I work with my mother (she’s my office manager) but we “play” well together too.

And he does his “guy” things. A yearly backpacking trip with old friends. Lunch and golfing with new ones. Biking from Santa Barbara to Ventura with a colleague. Just the men.

It’s as if we created virtual chamams. In LoveDance, Mary meets with the women during her monthly periods in the baths. A special time just for them, taking care of one another.

I believe caring for one another out of love not expectation, taking joy in the service of our beloved is key to our long and happy marriage.

Last summer, I had an amazing dream that reminded me of an aspect of the Divine Masculine that has been forgotten, yet I see it so clearly in my husband.

The Golden Bear

In my dream I was entering the Home Depot through the lumber department to get to the garden center. I was going to buy jasmine. The center of the Home Depot was a raised platform and as I ascended the steps to the platform, a great golden bear came through the door. It was huge, larger than life, a golden orange color, translucent, brilliantly colored like a child’s crayon, surreal. I was the only one to see it. It snuffled around the entry and I crouched down on the steps. It snuffled its way over to me. And snuffled my hair, my face, my neck. Then tapped a great claw over my right eye, then over my third eye, again and again. Then it hunkered down over me like a mother bear over a cub. Yet I knew this bear was male. I felt loved and protected like when Steve throws a leg over me, pulls me into his body—trapped by love. Trapped under the bear, I was secure, feeling the soft fur of its belly, the weight of its body, the warmth, the mass…protected in a golden cave of bear energy. Then the bear transformed into a…man. I could feel his naked body, the roughness of his hair, the shift in weight, mass, warmth from bear to man. We stood and faced each other. I was WOMAN and He was MAN…all men, naked, dark skinned and hair like a Mediterranean man. We took each others hands and then he disappeared. A woman friend of mine said… “That is the forgotten aspect of the Divine Masculine.” And I woke up.

When I lie in Steve’s arms, his leg pressing over mine—the weight, heat and furriness comfortable, secure, I am very grateful to have found my home in his heart.

I pray the GOLDEN BEAR ENERGY OF THE DIVINE MASCULINE becomes well known by all.

While I hope my writing is enlightening, in essence this blog is my healing journey. I have kept a journal since my youth. The pages have always welcomed me, comforted me in times of sorrow, and gave me space to place my reflections. In writing, I learn more about me, about my life, about my world. And usually it is what I cared most to record in my precious journal that I use to comfort others.

A weblog is so different. You lay yourself wide open and quite bare online…yet it is who I am…like the heroine of my book—Mary Magdalen—I unveil my heart and soul easily. I hope my musings serve you, my readers…for I do it in joy.

Love and Light,

Deborah

The Father Wound—missing the Divine Masculine

I didn’t really know how profoundly I am affected by the separation from the Divine Father until this past Father’s Day. My children had come home to celebrate. Jarys flew in from San Francisco. A newly credentialed teacher, my 25 year old son took the time from searching for a teaching job to spend with his father. It was a joyous weekend. On Sunday morning, Kyra asked Steve if he missed his father.

“No, baby, I never really had a father.”

Our daughter began to cry, “I’m so sad for you. I can’t imagine not having you as my Dad.”

We all teared up. For how sad is it that so many of us do not have amazing fathers? I see so much of this pain in my practice. Middle aged men still suffering the wounds of not having a father who supported them. Young men who struggle with fathers who do not believe in them and worse, young men without fathers in their lives trying to make their own way unguided. Women young and old still suffering from the lack of paternal approval or worse being violated by the one who should be protecting them. My husband, a police officer for the past 27 years, says that, in his opinion, the increase in crime, especially gang related crime, is in direct relationship to missing fathers. And the young women in abusive relationships, even teen pregnancies, are a reflection of poor fathering.

As the father wound began to fester, I began to have a profound pain in my neck. No amount of heat, ice, stretching, massage, natural anti-inflammatory therapy or conventional non-steroidal meds helped. My chiropractor asked what I was so stressed about. He thought it was Steve’s recent back injury. True, it is not easy living with a wounded warrior. Taking away his uniform and putting him on light duty brought up questions of self worth and struggles with aging. And yes, I have had a lot on my plate related to incredibly challenging patients. And true, I had spent last fall and this past winter dealing with aging parents on both sides. Yet this felt like something deeper.

The last time a chiropractor asked me this same question, I was suffering from sciatica. I knew then it was related to birthing my son into the world. It began the moment I finished helping him fill out college applications and did not let up until I took him to the University of San Francisco for a tour of the campus five months later. Once I felt the energy of the place…that USF was where he was meant to be…my sciatica disappeared.

So in prayerful meditation I asked, What was I being so stiffed neck about?

And that day a person from our past surfaced bringing up such waves of sorrow that I had to explore the source. Steve and I discussed my profound reaction that evening. And again I heard Kyra’s voice praising Steve’s paternal skills. Steve’s father, an abusive alcoholic, abandoned the family when he was only six. He had no father figures in his life, yet he has become the most awesome Dad. How was this possible?

“It’s because of you.” Steve answered my query. “My partnership with you allowed me to learn from my father’s mistakes and glean the good from fathers all around me.”

I began to cry…partly in joy for the Divine Father my husband has become and partly in sorrow for not having such a father myself. And the pain in my neck intensified. In my fervor to create an abundant present, I had not been looking back at the past. I know we should live in the moment. It is our mantra for 2010—Be in the Moment. And I’ve tried, truly I have, yet people from my past keep surfacing—some in need, some to remind me of something I’ve forgotten, some to unveil the face of my fear. In spite of my awakening, I cannot manifest joyously until I clean house. This house, the temple of my body which houses my soul. My mind has been busy convincing me to move along my path to enlightenment, but it is my body that reminds me to do my deepest work.

So the reason, this person from our past whose presence brought up so much emotion surfaced at this time is because Steve had been doing the same thing…cleaning house. It’s a little eerie how we ride tandem on our journey. He had decided to clean out his proverbial closets. If he hadn’t worn it in at least two years, out it went. The same with people in his life. If he hadn’t heard from them in spite of his efforts to connect in the past two years, he gave them one more chance, then either connect or move on.

The pain in my neck throbbed as Steve shared his “house-cleaning”. Time to look back. Gingerly I turned back and saw the roots of my feminine woes…(it’s the left side of my neck that’s been in spasm…the left side of the body represents the feminine, the right—the masculine) and I remembered the Red Cord.

So I’ve been researching fetal imprinting. What happens at the cellular level to the prenate…the infant in the womb. Well, she feels everything her mother feels. So if Mom felt unsupported, unloved, abandoned by Dad…the baby grows up with this cellular imprinting. Hmmm! So back to the womb, I went. And lo and behold…I discovered my “Not Good Enough” imprint. My mother’s perception of my father…his treatment of her and her reaction…well, that imprinted me as a fetus in her womb. And my childhood spent trying to get Daddy to notice me by being the “best” student, “best” athlete, “best” daughter…well, that helped cement the fetal imprinting such that even today, nearly 50 years later (that’s how long ago I was in my mother’s womb) as accomplished as I am, as wonderful the relationships I have with my beloved husband and children are, as amazing my connection to my patients, my community, the earth herself is…still I feel “Not Good Enough.”

My parents have played their part beautifully. Even down to Dad suffering from spinal cord impingement so severe that I had to use all my connections to get him treated by a neurosurgeon….Now THAT was a pain in the neck…his neck and mine…Reminding me that no matter how grown up you become, not matter how much education, expertise and influence you hold, fathers (at least mine) do not believe that you know so much. It took a prominent male surgeon to make Dad listen. I did not want to become involved, yet my sisters begged me to help…so I did. Dad had his surgery but he’s back to his old hard-headed ways and I must let him go. And now I’m back to no paternal guidance…no wise old man in my life.

So I took my aching neck and my heavy heart out to the Medicine Wheel. Steve and I built a sacred circle in the back of our property. In the northern power point, where wisdom flows. It just so happens to be where the horses are…but the Native Americans believe horse represents power and my horses do treat the circle of huge rocks as a sacred space. So there, sitting upon the eastern stone, I communed with the Divine Mother. And through the Earth I felt her. She showed me how beautiful our relationship was, how deep and enduring, but she also revealed how rarely I looked up to the heavens. How long had it been since I communed with the Divine Father. Looking up hurt my neck something fierce. Gazing at the gray summer sky…June gloom here on the Pacific coast was in full force…I felt an embrace…of light.

It’s been a long time since I connected to the Divine Father. Not since my formal religious days have I referred to the Divine as Father. Somehow I felt judged by the patriarchal in my life…the authorities, the medical community, the church leaders…so the patriarchal energy of the Divine was not so welcoming. In the past 13 years, I have come to know the Feminine face of the Divine. And since LoveDance, I have come to fully embody the Sacred Feminine so now the Divine Masculine now reveals his handsome face to me on a daily basis.

Of course, I see Him in Steve. But also in others. Just last week, I saw Him in the trash man. We forgot to put out our barrels thinking that July 5^th had been a holiday when I heard the trash truck lumbering down our street. So I ran out in my heels dragging the recycling barrel. The dear trash man, not only came back for my recycling but got out of his truck to help me take our three other barrels to the street. I thanked him profusely. And in his smile, I saw the Divine Masculine. He’s around…we, women, just have to look for him. And he shows up when we embrace our Divine Feminine selves…He’s in the gentleman who opens the door for us, the bagboy who helps us carry our groceries to the car, the male driver who lets us park in the closer spot with a kind wave. Our job is to recognize Him with joyous gratitude.

I shared this story with my women’s circle last week. It was a tough sharing time for many of the women that night. The masculine in their lives was so distorted…the shadow side of men. I believe, those of us who are awake, especially us women, we must nurture the Divine Masculine. Like precious seeds of potential planted in the garden of life, our loving gratitude, our joy, our being our Divine Feminine truth is the water and the light necessary to grow a fine crop of men fully embodying the Divine Masculine. Then there will be no more fatherless children…for the Divine Father will come forth in those men. And perhaps someday the father wound will become an ancestral memory.

THE DIVINE DAUGHTER’S BACK!

I envisioned this blog to be one of Remembrance. Remembering the Divine Daughter—Mary Magdalen, the original Divine Daughter and the heroine of my book—LoveDance: Awakening the Divine Daughter—Yet now two years after the last post…I find myself needing to unveil…again…

LoveDance: Awakening the Divine Daughter helped me heal the Mother Wound…the original separation from the Divine Mother…as my heroine Mary Magdalen awakened to her truth as the Divine Daughter…so did I…and in doing so received the fullness of the Divine Mother. I reconnected to Her…embodied in the Earth…enlivened in the hearts of so many women here in Ojai…mothers and grandmothers who receive me…as if I am the Divine Daughter…and I feel it. I see the Divine Daughter energy in so many others…women young and old and even a few precious men… Time to feel the fullness of our emotions and allow the Divine Daughter to dance us into wholeness.

Here’s what I wrote in the book, “My understanding of human consciousness is an evolution of the Mother-Father-Son-Daughter aspects of the Divine. Originally, I believe, humans worshipped the earth as the Divine Mother, her body was ours. Then we looked into the cosmos and envisioned the Divine Father as spirit. In the last two millennia, avatars teaching in parables initiated a revolution of the mind, and ever since the Divine Son has been the center of religious worship. Now the time is ripe for the Divine Daughter to manifest in human consciousness. She is emotion weaving the mind, body, and soul into Sacred Unity with All That Is.”

The Divine Daughter is alive and well…Awakened now through LoveDance. On the Earth at this time—dancing her dance—her dance of love—LoveDance.

LoveDance became my philosophy of life. I created a whole website around it. LoveDance is my expression of Self. Love is at the center of the triad of Relationships, Soul Purpose, and Health. I include Health because as a Holistic Nurse Practitioner, Health of Body, Mind, and Soul is paramount in the Process of Enlightenment. It is not enough for me to talk…but to walk my talk…or rather…to dance my truth!

So now in the midst of this summer of profound transformation, nearly three years after LoveDance was launched, I find myself facing another wound…the Father Wound—separation from the Divine Father. Yes, I have begun Book II…LoveDance is a trilogy…and I began the second book shortly after the first was launched…and I got 1/3 through the writing…just as my heroine Mary Magdalen confronts her father wound…I could write no more!

Why? Because until I face it, live it, breathe it, am I able to write it. What I wrote in book one became manifest for me. I did not realize the depth of the mother wound I embodied, imprinted since prenatal time, brought into this lifetime as deep karmic imprints. I had done a regression on myself many years before. Way before LoveDance…In fact two years before I dreamt I was Mary Magdalen walking down the streets of Nazareth I brought myself back to the womb…Disentangled myself from maternal karmic imprints… from the Red Cord…

I shared this story with the Grandmothers Council of Ojai on Mother’s Day. I was an hour late for the gathering, having driven back from a mother-daughter-grandmother weekend in San Diego. It was lovely to spend time with my daughter who was born on Mother’s day 22 years ago. My mother enjoyed herself too, but on the way home her issues with her mother surfaced… there was not much to say…so I just listened…and then dropped her off at her house some 70 miles from Ojai and headed home. I needed to be with the grandmothers. But they too were reliving their mother wounds! So I told them this story:

THE RED CORD

Years ago, before my daughter entered puberty, I vowed to get a hold of my eating disorder. If you are a fan of this blog, you know all about it, if not…here goes…

I was anorexic before Karen Carpenter died and the psychiatrists had named it. I was hypnotized, medicated, and psychoanalyzed. To no avail. Anorexia transformed into bulimia. Not the typical eating disorder because I did not fit their psycho-patterns. No, I had not been molested, no incest, only a father’s great expectations passed onto me of being perfect. Yes, I was the straight A student…and did great things with my life, but there was more.

Recently eating disorder research has led from blaming the father to blaming the mother.

Still, I had an excellent relationship with my mother. Had learned from her mistakes. And felt loved, adored by her and my father. My grandparents too, especially my grandmother. No, it wasn’t a parenting problem rooted in childhood. It was something deeper.

I had begun research on the hypothalamus which led to my dream of Genesis Gold and had been taking the Sacred Seven amino acids for a year when I felt it was time to get to the root of my problem.

Bulimia was a coping mechanism for me. And while I could stuff my anxieties down with food then purge them into the toilet and flush them away, many, many times, my fear was not my own. How many times had I felt driven to binge just to purge a fear that was greater than me. So what was this fear, I asked.

I will tell you…it’s not the father, it is the mother…but it’s not about blame. It’s not what you think.

In a dream, I regressed myself.

Into the womb, I went. Looking down between my fetal thighs, I was surprised to see NO penis! No blade! How could I accomplish my mission in this form? I felt a pulsation deep in my belly, putrid fearful, coming not from me, but through the umbilical cord—the Red Cord.

It was my mother’s fear. I felt her. Her world as she perceived it….the struggle with her parents, her new husband, her fear…her fear of her mother, then…

I was in my grandmother’s womb feeling her fear through the red cord. And then in her mother’s womb feeling her mother’s fear and her mother’s and back and back in time. Like a video montage, yet I could feel the fear…yellow and acidic as bile….the pain, tears, terror…of losing children, abortions, stillborn babies. Of being raped, used as chattel, traded like beasts. Of husbands, and fathers and lovers beating us, blaming us. Of too many babies, of hunger and pain, of sending our sons off to war and our daughters into the same traps we found ourselves. Of burning at the stake, of drowning, of torture for being our truth. Of giving away our power.

Through my mother’s womb, through hers, and unto the beginning of time. Back to Eve. All of women’s woes…that was my fear. The fear I had been purging forever.

Time to release it. I awakened with a clear intention and pure desire to release my mothers’ fear, all of my mothers.

Synchronistically that day, I had an appointment with an energy healer. She was working with another powerful male healer. He stood at my feet, she at my head. I didn’t tell them of my vision, but lay there fully intending to release. And I did. Like a volcanic eruption of black tar, the energy exploded from my belly into the atmosphere. I felt lighter and freer than ever. I opened my eyes and laughed. I sat up. The two healers were plastered against the walls of the healing room. “What was THAT?”

“That was fear!” And it’s not mine!

Then I headed to the beach, and lay on the sand, my feet in the water, the sun on my naked skin and was held by the Great Mother. My Divine Mother loves me…I am everything she ever desired in a daughter. I no longer need to purge the fear of my sex.

So here we are back from the summer of 2001 to now—2010. A summer of great transformation lies before us. Today is truly the first day that it feels like summer here in Ojai. Finally hot…it’s been so mild…perhaps now we can burn the illusion away and unveil the truth. My neck aches from all this typing, but purging on paper (or rather, online) is a sweet means to a sweeter end. Yet my aching neck reminds me that it’s time to heal the Father Wound.