love

35. DO YOU PRACTICE WICCA?

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

Part Five
BOXING SPIRITUALITY

My friend is at it again. She called with yet another probing question. “Do you practice Wicca?”

Hmm. I wasn’t sure what to say. “I wouldn’t call my ‘practice’ Wiccan. I hate to put my spirituality into a box.”

She clarified, “Well, I passed your book onto my daughter and she wondered about the symbol on the cover. It is a pentagram, isn’t’ it?”

Technically, yes. The star in the rose is five pointed. It came to me in a vision. I learned later that the pentagram was used by Wiccans. But to me it is sacred geometry. Mathematical proportions and symbols are very attractive to me. The energy of form speaks to my soul.

Back to Wicca. Years ago my husband was part of a police investigation. Some blood found in a park, ashes from fires set in geometric patterns. Before pursuing criminal charges, he felt strongly that what they were investigating was the residual of a pagan ritual. So he did his own investigation. And sure enough, he was right. And then stood up to protect the suspects’ right to freedom of religion under the Constitution.

Now it helped that he was friends with a young Wiccan. Not that he knew much about pagan practices. So she lent him a book—a Wiccan primer. And after studying it, he announced, “We might be pagan, Deb.”

Really? We had been spending our Sabbath in nature for years. Teaching our children reverence for the earth, the trees, the rocks, the animals. We quietly celebrated the changing of the seasons…sending out holiday greetings to our friends of many different faiths…on the winter solstice. My spring equinox birthday naturally lent to celebration and the fall equinox corresponded with our son’s birth. On the summer solstice, we welcomed the hot long days of summer.

Nature was our church. Our temple grounds—the earth under our feet. The canopy of trees our cathedrals. We were nature based in our spirituality. We buried our pets with special reverence. We held communion with the ocean, dipped our feet in her healing waters, and thanked the powers that be for our bountiful life.

Yet we followed no particular religious dogma…not Wicca. Perhaps more Native American. Although we respect the great masters like the Buddha and Jesus Christ, we have no rules. Must spirituality be boxed in to be defined?

34. FEAR TRANSFORMED INTO JOY

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

So now fresh from my reconnection with my higher self, I set my intentions to see the face of my fears. The time was ripe. And the universe presented the fruits of my labors.

In late August 2008, I got an urgent call. My mother-in-law was being taken by ambulance from Santa Maria to Santa Barbara. And she wanted me. Before she allowed the doctors to do anything, she wanted me there. I am her medical agent, the one responsible for following her end of life wishes, yet she was fully cognizant, just scared.

So I drove the 45 miles to the hospital knowing this was it. I would be facing one of my fears. As a nurse practitioner, I had been called upon by the family many times over the years for medical advice. It was assumed by my elders that I would be the one to take care of them. And frankly, after decades of providing care for others I did not want to end my life as a caretaker. Plus being a caretaker is hard physically, mentally and emotionally. I have counseled many suffering from depression, insomnia, anxiety, and utter exhaustion from long spans of care-taking.

I knew that it was time to take in Steve’s grandmother while his mother recuperated. And then we would take her. And I knew my husband would agree to whatever I decided and would do everything he could to help. And I also knew it would be me doing all the work.

So I stepped into the ER and stepped into my fear. The family gratefully released all to me. My mother-in-law only signed the emergency surgery release after I counseled with her. It was clear that Steve’s grandmother was not happy being handed over to his aunt and uncle. So once his mother was taken to the operating room, we offered to take Gran. There was little resistance.

Gran came home with us. She was delight, but not safe with her rickety cane on our hard wood floors. So we got her a four wheel drive walker and at 89 years old Gran became mobile again. My mother-in-law had been living with her for the past six years and slowly Gran lost her ability to be productive…or so we thought. To me she was more than willing, so I put her to work. Gran was delighted to help and we found her much more capable than her daughters had reported.

She helped fold clothes while watching Ellen every afternoon and in the evening helped me with dinner. When Steve finally brought his mother home from the hospital, she was surprised to see Gran cutting veggies. “She can’t use a knife! She’s on Coumadin!”

I smiled. “She’s been very careful and if she cuts herself, luckily I can stitch her up.”

Shortly after she arrived, Gran said, “Since my stroke, I can’t smell very well. So you’ll have to tell me if I need a bath.” A day or two later, I sniffed her and announced it was time. She balked a bit nervous to have me help her in and out of the bath. But I had the perfect set up. Our guest bath had a tiny soaking tub with a seat inside an enclosed shower. So I warmed up the bath, and helped her in. Then she sat down, “Uh, oh!”

“What?”

“You aren’t going to be able to get me up.” The seat was too low and her arthritic knees were higher than her hips.

“It’s ok, Gran. I’m a nurse. I know how to lift you.”

She shook her head, “You’re too little.”

“I’m strong, Gran, and Steve’s here if we need help…”

“Oh, no. I don’t want Stevie to help.” Great!

Ten minutes later, all parts of Gran were sparkling clean and I was soaked. After a failed attempt to lift her from the edge of the tub. I stripped off my sodden nightgown and climbed in with her. She laughed telling me that’s how her other daughter did it. I placed one knee between hers, squatted down, “one, two, three” and lifted Gran to her feet. She held me tight as I helped her over the edge of the tub and she didn’t let me go.

“It’s so nice to hold you like this,” she whispered. It was nice. “But there’s only three breasts between us!” She had had a mastectomy thirteen years before. I almost dropped her laughing!

That was Gran always finding delight in everything. I know it’s not easy accepting help especially if your role in life is to be of service. I hope I am a gracious patient and not a burden on my loved ones. But the stress of illness and the demeaning role of incapacitation can make the best of us turn sour. Yet Gran was a delight.

My mother-in-law was another story. I have yet to meet a medical professional who is a good let alone gracious patient and my mother-in-law is a retired nurse. She also had become one of those resentful caretakers that I didn’t want to emulate. So although my care-taking load more than doubled when Steve brought her home from the hospital, I was determined not to lose myself and took time every day for me.

Shortly after they arrived I got a call from Steve’s cousin. She had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. When it rains it does pour. So I spent time counseling her, helping her to see the spiritual message of the dis-ease. I find that breast cancer patients are very good at taking care of others, but quite poor at self-care. Their body speaks to them through the dis-ease. “Time to nurse me please.” I think she got it. And so did I.

I was so busy during this time, that I did not record it. There is nearly a month missing in my journals yet it is burnt into my memory. And it happened again the very next year. And the second time, I took care of them both for months instead of weeks. Yet in spite of the incredible stress, I am left with such pleasant memories.

Every afternoon, after Ellen, Gran asked if I was free to have coffee with her. I was still seeing patients three days a week in my office which is on our property. My mother ran my practice and was in charge of keeping an eye on Gran while I was in with a patient. Gran would push her walker out onto the patio overlooking the herb garden and chat with the patients as they admired the flowers. And when the last one left, I would sit and have a cup of coffee with her.

And I learned how to sit and enjoy being. Gran loved the garden, the flowers, the hummingbirds that would visit us, the butterflies, even the jays that shooed the songbirds from the feeders and especially the antics of the squirrels as they scolded the cat and the crows. Gran took delight in being alive. And I took delight in being with her.

My fear of care-taking transformed into joyous service. I had written about joyous service in LoveDance® but for the first time, I got to experience it. The family thought I was a saint. My husband cannot thank me enough. Yet it was I who am ever grateful for the opportunity to serve in love and joy.

32. STRUGGLING TO LET GO

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

At the same time, I reconnected to my Higher Self, I had completed a struggle to get my book rights back from the publisher. Although I was so grateful to have my book published, I expected much more than they delivered. Like printing enough copies so Amazon would not run out before the holidays. My contract included the “opportunity” to purchase a short run of a thousand books at wholesale to sell directly at my presentations. And after I purchased my books, their support ended. Another soul lesson unfolded…

Q: My sorrow at dismissing my publishing partner to go out on my own magnifies everyone I’ve left behind.
A: Do not lie paralyzed by grief. Rise up from the mire of your doubt.

Q: What do I doubt?
A: Yourself. Your greatness. Your abilities as a co-creator. Your divinity.

Q: No, I know I am Divine…
A: You have little “gnosis”. Because you push away your Divinity, keep it at bay—for you fear being rejected.

Q: It feels as if I’m already being rejected
A: Divinity shines through you! I AM Here. Just Ask and You shall Receive…

Q: So what is my next step?
A: This fear has to be released fully. What you have been vomiting up, what creates anxiety, what separates you from that which you love. It must be fully released.

Let go of all that does not serve you, that doesn’t bring you joy.

Q: I wish to release my fear but how?
A: In quiet moments, be still and open your chakras—Red to Violet—a prism of white light will encompass you. Into this portal let your fear pass.

Q: I feel hesitant
A: You have held on for so long

Q: Will it be fully gone?
A: Yes, but molecular memory will take longer to forgive

Q: Forgive, not forget?
A: Gratitude for your humanity, forgive yourself for choosing fear over love.

So I asked to see my fear. And every one of my fears manifested. I faced, I embraced, and had the time of my life. I had gnosis through Joyous Service. And abundance began to pour in…while the rest of the nation lived in recession, I lived in transformation. The abundance came as enough money to fill our needs, as opportunities to grow, as family to know better, all interwoven.

I manifest as I type. What I write becomes…

31. LIFE HAPPENS

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

By the summer of 2008, I got reconnected to my old way of communicating with spirit. Something I called conversations with God as a kid transformed that summer into Q&A. I got a brand-new journal and dedicated it to conversations with my higher self and began on July 11th 2008 my divine Q&A…

Q: What do I release?
A: Your fear

I didn’t like that answer, so I asked the question differently…

Q: What do I sacrifice in my life to make room for abundance?
A: Your Fear

Hmm. My Higher Self was being evasive…

Q: What am I afraid of?
A: Not being good enough to complete your mission
Not being your truth
Not returning home
Being alone—separated
Leaving behind what you love…

Q: I must release all this??
A: Just the fear. The rest will fall into place. Have faith—easy for you. Do not be discouraged by others nor by life. All obstacles are tests that strengthen your character. Ask for help—you are surrounded by those willing to be of assistance if you but ask. Don’t push them away with your fear.

Wow! She really knew me!

Q: So much I know, but am not yet. When will I be?
A: You are complete—yihidra

Still no practical answers. Seems like spirit communicates in riddles. Same with my old gurus, not much was given in clear steps, but rather comfort in general. I tried again…

Q: Ok, so what human step must I take right now?
A: Be Joy. Love All. When the time is ripe you shall receive the full rich harvest.

Q: So the time is not yet right?
A: Ripe.

Q: Ripe?
A: The fall is the time to harvest.

Q: Hmm. What now?
A: Enjoy the time you have with your loved ones.

Q: But I love too much…
A: Not possible. You do take on too much. Others are not your responsibility. Free will is theirs. You are here to enlighten with the model of your life, your being. They may not wake up. They may not follow. They may choose darkness. Let them go…

And from then on, I was reconnected with my higher self.

Many more questions were answered. Yet the most unique aspect of this journal is my conversations with my Higher Self were the reflections upon looking at insights given in the past and living the present circumstance. For the Divine, there is no Time. Only the human me defines herself by the past, the present and the future, yet all exist in the Now.

My higher-self identified herself as …I am You. Divinely connected. Remembering all that was, all that is, all that will be. I am Timeless. You are me in earthbound form. I am you in heavenly connection.

29. LIFTING THE VEIL OF FEAR

Excerpt from “My Lovedance”

When Mary Magdalen’s story came to me, it was overwhelming. I felt a little psychotic with the multidimensional experiences yet enchanted by the fluid reception of divine guidance. Just three months earlier, my former mentor and I were having lunch and as usual, before we could just sit back and chat, guidance came in for me—through her. “You need to reconnect, Deb!”

My mentor knew it was time to cut the cord. So she moved. Just like that and I was alone. Or so I thought.

So I set my intentions to have my own connection. And two weeks later dreamt I was Mary Magdalen. Receiving HerStory in such an amazing fashion seemed an answer to my prayers. I sought validation for my interdimensional experiences by confiding in women old enough to be my mother. Women who had claimed their sixth sense, some even making a living by working with the energies. While they supported my creative process, I could not see that I was searching for the Divine Mother through them rather than find the connection in my own heart. With my horas nature, I bared my soul and shared everything with them.

From the moment I dreamt I was Mary Magdalen dancing down the streets of Nazareth, I was in constant contact with the other side…and it wasn’t just voices, it was a full body experience. It was so profound that some of my more sensitive patients reacted to the change in me. One clairvoyant asked, “Who’s your entourage?” Mostly it was Yeshua, angelic beings, and sometimes my ancestors…much later I understood that I separated the divine aspects of me from my human self. I know now they are all me.

Sept 17th, 2003 Overwhelmed, giddy from the experience of writing the first chapter, I felt like I was not revealing a memory but living in the moment. I could smell the odors, see the colors and textures, feel the wind, the linen, the touch of his hand. I am being transformed and once again as I sit here to type, the front door blows in, the wind chimes sing, the birds chitter rapidly. A presence is here again which guides me.

Sept 18th, 2003 What a revelation—on my son’s nineteenth birthday no less! I awoke to liquid purple teardrops slipping through my consciousness. The purple is what I see when I meditate and lately has been calling me to be still. This time I associated the purple with Yeshua and we talked like lovers, old friends, companions. I am clearer now on the multidimensional nature of reality. Yeshua described how he can be here with me as Deborah incarnate on this earth, and alive and well in my past life memory. It is all NOW. There is no time. The entity of Jesus Christ was not the man—Yeshua. “You must present us as the human beings we were, I was a man first.” I asked why he doesn’t come in like this to comfort me, like with my suffering over finances. He said I could be so silly, that the security situation was being taken care of, as Steve pointed out, always grounding me. I got the immediate vision that my husband was Teoma. Steve had taken many lifetimes to be with me in this way, always before protecting the bloodline. Then Yeshua spoke fondly of my daughter, “Kyra is so beautiful, I miss her.”

Sept 19th, 2003 So much comes in with Yeshua more deeply entwined in my life. Sometimes we are merged, most of the time we hold very human conversations, and more often his energetic presence is bordering on the physical. I feel rushed, excited, frustrated. The rest of the historical details coming in pieces, I strove for clarity in a text book all the while getting more confused as the dates seemed wrong. I could hear Yeshua advising me to put it down and just write. It’s so interesting that when I relax, the verse just flows in present tense, all my senses are attuned to the writing as I taste, smell, feel the experience. As I become more distracted and nervous about the content, I distance myself unconsciously by writing in the past tense.

I have always been open to that which is unseen, unheard, unfelt by others. Although traditionally trained as a family nurse practitioner and in spite of post graduate courses in molecular biology, quantum physics, neuro-immune-endocrinology, functional genetics and integrative medicine, I trust my intuition to guide me. It is my innate ability to perceive the root cause of dis-ease that patients seek.

Bridging the gap between the physical and the spiritual, the energy and the matter, I made profound insights into health and wellbeing. My colleagues and patients enthusiastically encouraged me to write a healing book. In the summer of 2003, I struggled to compose a self-help manual, but nothing. So I prayed to be shown a way…and it came in a dream.

My dream babies, Halloween 1988

I believe in dreams. I dreamt of my children before conceiving them. I dreamt of the house we live in now. Even my nutritional formula, Genesis Gold®, came to me via dreams. The first one in Aramaic! Was I being prepared to receive a forgotten story?

One of the most profound lessons came very early. Just six days after the dream of Mary…

Sept 22nd, 2003 Just before dusk on the vernal equinox I was literally shown– experienced in body– how fear interferes with the connection. What went from a 24/7 experience in the emotion of gratitude, love, joy, delight, desire was absolutely cutoff by sheer panic while riding my high strung mare. Although hesitant I trusted Yeshua’s guidance but when Shane became spooked at something in the field, I perceived what felt like a divine set up. Yeshua kept coming in and out, advising me to massage acupuncture points on her ears, to walk slowly, to breathe consciously, but terrified, Shane bolted.

Unable to control her, I literally screamed for Yeshua, but it was as if we were cut off, barely making contact, like a radio station going in and out. Shane’s half ton of equine terror greatly magnified my fear. Even after I dismounted, she nearly trampled me. Shaking with anger, feeling abandoned, betrayed, the fear of separation from all I know was at the heart of my despair. Finally I began singing to calm us both—a lullaby I sang to the kids—“Do you know where you’re going? Do you know where you’ve been…” and through the song I answered the proverbial questions (why am I here, what is my purpose?)

I was shown that in my childhood I had constant connection. I remember speaking to G-D, but as I got older, I felt unsupported by the world and vanquished my emerging womanhood through anorexia. Somehow I believed that once I came into my feminine power, my mission would begin. How many years did I take the masculine stance in a world where only fierce competitors survived, imparting my intelligence, my strength, my courage, my leadership, but sacrificing the fullness of the sacred feminine. My fear cut off the divine connection then and now.

Slowly settling, neck arched, head tucked into me as if I could protect her, Shane no longer trembled and snorted. Just before Yeshua finally slipped fully back into my consciousness I realized that the low vibration of fear had prevented me from connecting to his higher vibration. Only fear veils us from the Divine.

Which was profound since the next day, I had to go to court for the very first time. And I was scared.

Thank goodness in twenty years of delivering health care, I have never been to court, but the day after this amazing reconnection, I was subpoenaed as an expert witness. Appearing in court brought up so much anxiety that I wished it away. And the case had been postponed for over a year, yet the time had come to face my fear. In order to become an expert witness, you must first undergo voir dire—a process in which lawyers determine your competence as an expert witness—but it’s more like being crucified.

Fully connected to the vibration of love, the protective energies so powerful around me that in spite of the defense lawyer’s tortuous questioning to make me appear incompetent, the judge looked at me and said, “God help me, but I am going to qualify you.”

Afterwards, the prosecuting attorney, also an author, asked how my book was coming along. When I excitedly told him how effortlessly the words flowed from my visions onto the computer, he exclaimed, “Sounds like you found the holy grail!”

Yes, I did.

For eight moon cycles I recorded Mary Magdalen’s life—in the first person, present tense—as if I had lived it. All the while, reading each precious piece to the mothers in my life. Of course they loved it; their “daughter” was creating something wonderful. Some were fearful for me as they peered into the future expecting this controversial book to upend my existence. Others lived vicariously through Mary, amazed as I wrote dramatic experiences of womanhood, some of which I have not lived, yet they confirmed the truth of the telling. Many of my presale readers asked if this story reflected my life and were surprised when I denied specific events for it seemed so real. Perhaps I tapped into a vein of consciousness that allowed me to flow into another’s life, experience her very breath, and return to this reality to record every sensation.

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27. IMPATIENCE

Last minute doesn’t work for me. I am most like the goddess when all my bowls are spinning gracefully in the air. For me, last minute feels as if I’m a clown juggling too many balls knowing they’ll soon come tumbling down upon me.

I pack a week ahead. Just be sure I have everything and everything fits. I like to plan ahead for events, ready when the day comes. One of my dearest friends is a Last Minute Lizzie. Every Easter, she would invite us over and twenty more family and friends to celebrate. We would arrive early to help, and find that they were in the midst of a remodeling project (she liked to take advantage of the gathering to get her husband to fix up the house) and she would still need to shop! So off I would go with her while Steve stayed to help him and frantically we would get it together…rarely before the guests arrived…

My sisters like to fly by the seat of their pants too, waiting to shop when we arrive a day or two before the holiday. That can drive me crazy! I need to plan and be ready. After our parents divorced, my home became the gathering place for my three sisters, their spouses and all their children. It was stressful since there was so much to do before they arrived. I wanted to be able to spend time with them, but was usually so wound up by the preparations and wanting everything to be perfect that their visits became more and more of a burden.

No matter how well I was doing at controlling my eating disorder, the stress of the holidays would bring Bulimic Deb out of her cage. I yearned for quiet holidays. The more stressed I got, the more I would find myself counseling patients with the same Superwoman Syndrome. I would tell them—just say No!—yet could not take my own advice. Finally, after ten years of this holiday madness, I told one of my sisters I couldn’t do it anymore. It was their turn to play Mom.

Yet it wasn’t where we met that made me so anxious. It was being in their energy. I could tolerate my friend’s frenetic energy, but not my sisters. We were too close and would fall into the roles we always played from the drama of our childhood. The more I found peace in my own life, the more frenetic their energy felt. I couldn’t seem to stay centered when I was in their midst.

Every gathering there would be blow up. I was always looking for their souls and they were hiding behind our roles.

Nov 28th, 2004 Finally a breakthrough with my sisters! Always I have dreaded our family gatherings. Early in my adult life, I fretted over the work related to the holidays, then feelings of unworthiness as I worried about the outcome. Was everything good enough? Was I? Lately dealing with deep seated emotion that threatens to boil over, I have not shared my life with my sisters fearing that we could not find common grounds to safely communicate. Still there are gaps but we are closer after this weekend’s tumultuous confrontation, all four of us crying in the bathroom. We needed a red tent and had to create our own chamam experience. Our passion brought on spooky weather. Bitter rain, harsh winds targeted the house. Our husbands took the kids to the mall where the weather was nicer. My sisters claimed that I did not share all with them and I replied that I feared to reveal to them the true fullness of my emotion—my power can be overwhelming. They pushed, then got blown away, then came back for more. My sisters are hardier than I thought. I do feel loved by them but do not believe I appreciate them fully. My sisters are aspects of the divine. They say I feel superior, but I see their unhappiness, their fear, their unwillingness, it seems, to progress. Yet I realize that just because I have leapt so far away from what was our mutual starting point does not mean that they have not also moved. Steve has kept pace, and in their own way, so have they.

As a point being I am supported by their effort, faith, and love. Without them would I be where I am in this moment? I am buoyed up by their being, my own being reflected in the stillness of theirs, in the wake of their progress, exponential reflections of our conscious evolution. Why must we name our faults and weaknesses to equalize the interaction? Yet I do it when I counsel with patients, admitting my humanness, and we grow together.

Over the years I’ve learned to flow more easily when things don’t always fall into place. Now I graciously step into my friend’s house and just lend a hand. And she too has learned to get it together earlier and enjoy her guests.

For my 50th birthday, my sisters treated me to a weekend away. I prefer being in nature so we took a boat trip out to Anacapa Island. No drama just pleasant memories of picnicking on the bluff in the midst of nesting seagulls. My sisters still want to know where I am coming from…I have changed so much. On a beach walk, one expressed concern that she thought I felt our family was dysfunctional. I smiled…three of us had eating disorders, all of us grew up with disordered body images, our mother still struggled with self-esteem and our father lived like a hermit… “I guess every family is somewhat dysfunctional,” I replied.

Then the conversation became confrontational and for the first time in six months, I felt that need to purge. I placed my hand on my stomach and watched as my sister expanded into warrior pose, then I was cast back into our childhood dining room feeling the fear bubbling up as she argued vehemently with our father—always fighting another’s battle—and ending up in trouble herself. And I came back to the present and spoke my truth.

“Thank you for embodying the warrior in our family. But I am not the enemy. I am your sister and I love you.” And since then, there has been peace.

It took me 50 years to flow even with my family. How strange it feels to not care about the outcome, but to be fully in the moment with them. I can get used to this. ☺

Excerpt from My LoveDance. Available on Amazon

26. RIVER OF CONSCIOUSNESS

My dreams provide clues to my soul growth. How far I’ve come and what needs to be worked on. I interpret my dreams soulfully—what is my first impression, what feeling do I have about the dream, who were the players in my dream and how do they mirror me? Sometimes I wake up knowing my dream holds great significance—that I’ve dreamt for human consciousness. I had one of those dreams the summer of 2010…

I enter a house, the one with all the doors, all the rooms, the one I can never find my way out. I’ve been in the house many times. Always my extended family is there and there is always much chaos. But this time I am not frustrated but move through the house with ease. Just watching, seeing their light, smiling at the comedy, holding the energy.

I find my way to the back deck. For the first time, I am outside the house! Below is a creek and I yearn to get in it. So I climb down from the wooden deck and skip down the grassy hillside to the edge of the babbling creek. Then I just lay down in midair and float on the water. It’s glorious! The creek sings to me, gently carrying me through the forest.

I am enchanted. The view is amazing. Bright topaz sky, brilliant green leaves, rich brown earth kissing the clear water. The energy is palpable. Soon the creek becomes a river wide and rushing. There are people in and out of the water. Most are hanging onto the banks. Some are constructing rafts. They seem so anxious. Children play joyously in the shallows. I float on.

Through the rushing river, past rocks, and over waterfalls. Never do I encounter any obstacles. Although many others get banged up in the rapids. The river spills into a swamp and I lie taking in the serenity of still waters.

Then past a bog, the current picks up faster and faster until over a waterfall, I spill into the…ocean! I am submerged, surrounded by sea life in the jewel green waters. When I float to the surface, I find chaos—people all around, shipwrecks, airplanes bombing, screaming, crying, and—teens surfing with dolphins, children romping in the surf, sandcastles rising.

I emerge from the ocean, like Aphrodite, dressed in goddess white, the sun drying my garments as my feet cross the sand. And there I meet my Higher Self. The golden one with amethyst wings. Her arms open welcoming me home. “Again!” I cry delighted, “I want to do it again!” And she escorts me back to float in the river of consciousness.

Life is a river. Didn’t Garth Brooks sing that tune? Funny while I am not a fan of any particular music, I am attracted to soulful lyrics and Mr. Brooks, among a few other artists, sings to my heart. He sings of a vessel that tries to stay between the shores of the river. I believe, this body is our vessel. And the river is consciousness. It wasn’t until after I wrote LoveDance that I understood how we float through life. Some struggle to stay afloat, some build rafts to forge the tide, some just enjoy the water. Now after much soul growth, I gratefully find myself

Flowing with the river of consciousness, open to the energies, accepting the sweet ripe fruits as they hang lusciously over the waters of life.

Excerpt from My LoveDance. Available on Amazon

21. HELIUM BALLOON

While this is my story, it’s also ours. We’ve been together since we were kids. Steve’s a main character in my story. If it wasn’t for him, I may not have reconnected to my truth so early in my life. His love became the foundation of my awakening. He grounds me into this reality so that my dreams might manifest.

When our daughter was only five, she described us as a helium balloon.

“You’re the balloon, Mommy.”

“Then what’s Daddy, Kyra?”

“He’s the string!” She rolled her eyes. “Without him, you would fly off to outer space.”

After tucking her in with a kiss and a story, I related our conversation to her father.

He laughed. “She’s right. I am the string to your balloon. You need me to keep you on earth. And I need you to get me off the ground.”

It’s sometimes eerie how well we fit together.

When my youngest sister was pregnant with her last child, one of my twin sisters and I gave her baby shower. It was a couple’s shower so Steve came along. Exhausted from working a night shift and getting so little sleep before the afternoon shower, he had a headache and went inside to lie down.

I had a great game for the dozen couples to play. It involved diapering a “baby” the old-fashioned way with cloth diapers and pins. The trick was that each couple had to do it together using only one hand. Needless to say, there was a lot of laughter, poorly diapered dolls, and when my pregnant sister and her husband took their turn, a lot of blood and cursing. No one could do it under two minutes.
My other sister had an idea. “Let’s see you and Steve do it.” I protested. The game was for the guests. “Please,” she begged. “I’ll get Steve!” And she hurried into the house.

We had never played this silly shower game before but Steve could not resist my sister’s pleas. So we linked arms. He was the right hand and I was the left. And silently in perfect unison as if we were one body, we diapered the “baby”. My sister held it up, “I knew it! Less than 30 seconds and perfectly diapered. And look, no blood!”

It was so natural to be in perfect harmony with my beloved even for a silly shower game. Like I said, my story is his too

Excerpt from My LoveDance. Available on Amazon

19. IS THE MUSIC STILL PLAYING?

My LoveDance® feels complete…but oh, not yet. It is time to go deeper…time to open the past. I must admit that when I did open my mother’s cedar chest, the ghosts of Deborah past knocked me back on my butt. My left sciatic ached for days…birthing pains…time to go back to the beginning. To face the old me. I do not like the way I wrote then…hiding my truth behind too many words…but I shall include some of it…just to see how far I’ve come on my journey.

20. HOT TUB ADVICE

I’m in the Jacuzzi with Steve enjoying our morning coffee. In the oak sprawled above us, squirrels chatter at crows taking refuge from a pair of bossy jays. This land of ours is teaming with life. Only an acre yet separated into garden rooms so that it feels like three. My mare watches us as the goat rubs against the new gate. The dog pokes his head over the edge of the tub. Steve gives him an affectionate pat. “You know you should start at the end.”

“What?” Overhead, a golden hawk cries—messenger of the divine. I listen closely to my beloved.

“Well, I like books that start at the end then go back to how they got there.”

“I think that’s what is being asked of me…how did I get here?”

He smiles, “I meant for LoveDance®.”

I give him a kiss, “Yes, but this is My LoveDance®.”

He sighs, “You’re going to tell it all, aren’t you?”

Yes. Yes I am.

Excerpt from My LoveDance. Available on Amazon

15. DEATH AND THE WHITE LIGHT

Eddie. He came to me in the fall of 2002, diagnosed with lung cancer. His lawyer, a patient of mine, suggested he consult with me. I was the clinical endocrine advisor in a research project using natural progesterone to treat cancer at the Sansum Medical Clinic so she thought I could help him.

Cancer is not my specialty. I specialize in neuro-immune-endocrinology which I believe is at the core of most dis-ease. So I spent two hours going over his history, looking for signs of age-related decline that could be at the root of his illness, trying to understand why this brilliant man’s body was failing him at 52, and explaining the biochemistry of cancer as related to the complicated system of hormonal miscommunication with DNA.

Exuding enthusiasm, Eddie asked, “So you have something to balance my ligands?” He was brilliant, one of the only patients who understood the scientific lingo of my theories. He was even open to the psycho-spiritual roots of dis-ease, including the irony of being afflicted with cancer after inventing thermal implants to treat brain tumors.

In fact, I did have something—a formula to balance the hypothalamic orchestration of the neuro-immune-endocrine system—but, in theory only. After completing pilot studies the year before, my personal funds ran out and I struggled to find a manufacturer to mix even a small batch. Eddie took my hand and offered to help.

“No,” I protested, “you came here for me to help you.”

“Perhaps I came to help you. My cancer was a fortuitous portal for our meeting.”

Thus began our journey to manufacture my formula so he might partake of it. He truly believed he would be cured by my invention. In the meantime, I researched natural treatment regimens, since he was opposed to conventional therapies, and spent much time counseling him and sharing many spiritual portals. He treated me as a beloved daughter, introducing me to colleagues who would forge the path to the birth of my nutraceutical product. Becoming attached, I searched for cures for his cancer.

The day I brought the first bottle of Genesis Gold® to him, he smiled, beckoned me closer and whispered, “I knew you could do it.”

It was his last lucid moment. At the request of his family I had been coming to his lovely villa in the hills of Santa Barbara to help him die. As a nurse practitioner, I treated the walking well. Some patients had passed over the years, usually of old age, occasionally untimely, but not since being a neophyte nurse had I witnessed death.

After graduating nursing school in 1983, I worked on a surgical floor at UCLA Medical Center. We saw the sickest of patients—heart transplants, complete surgical resections of the bowels, lung resections. My first encounter with death was a young woman, my age, dying of pancreatic cancer. When I arrived on the night shift and saw her Do Not Resuscitate order, I knew her family and physicians had given up.
Not me! I was not going to let her drown in her own secretions and stayed by her bedside suctioning her tracheostomy. Her intern refused to give me a permanent suction order so that I would take care of my other three patients, so I handed him the suction catheter and called the chief resident. My colleagues were appalled. No one called the chief in the middle of the night, especially not a nurse.

Amazingly, he wasn’t upset, but asked if I saw the DNR order. “Doctor, I’m not resuscitating her. I just don’t want her to be alone. I…” Seeing the intern escape down the hall, I tried to hang up on the chief.

“Oh, no, you don’t. We’re going to discuss why you can’t let her die.” I resisted, but he kept me on the phone until it was too late.

The charge nurse helped me prepare the young woman’s body for the morgue. And with tears, I was forced to let my patient go.

Twenty years later, I was not so resistant. Eddie’s family left me alone with him. I sat at his bedside and meditated on how I could help him pass. I had already counseled with each of his family members. When I thought of his recalcitrant son who had finally agreed to see his father after our phone conversation that morning, I felt a wave of gratitude. And it wasn’t mine, it was from Eddie. I opened my eyes.

His diminished energy, faded to non-existent in his limbs, now concentrated in his heart chakra, shimmered, and I gasped to see a funnel of light connect to him. He appeared to lift from his form—pure white light not the fiery red of his life force—and enter the conical shaped energy. Other light forms greeted him, ancestors and guides, passing him along to the end. And at the infinite end of this brilliant white light was pure Love. He was enveloped, embraced like long lost lovers, the encounter so intimate; I was torn between turning away in deference to such a private moment and watching in awe.

Suddenly, Eddie’s essence turned away from the Light and I was swept up into his perspective. It appeared as if the room where his body lay with me at his bedside, existed in a fishbowl. The reality was the Light, the physical existence, an illusion. So peaceful, so blissful, the Light was very familiar to me.

I remembered calling in the White Light to protect my little sisters while I was away at kindergarten and invoking the same White Light to surround my own children whenever I dropped them off for school. If I would forget, my daughter would remind me, “Mommy, do the White Light,” and I would swaddle her and her brother in the protection of the Light that had always comforted me. In that eternal moment, I recalled how the same White Light seemed to bathe my patients and me during a healing and was the one I used to calm injured animals before I treated them.

I had never been afraid of dying, although letting others go was difficult. My fear lay in being alone, separated from those I love by death. As a healer, I had taken a very long time to release my savior complex, to understand that I was not responsible for my patients’ illnesses, nor could I take credit for their cures. I was a midwife to their healing, holding the space in which they recovered or not—it was their choice.

That night after his son came to his bedside to say goodbye, Eddie died.

Two months later, I received my greatest opening and began writing my life’s work. Never a moment of writer’s block, it all just flowed in. The synchronicity of events, from the creative process, to publishing, to going out in the world to market has been amazing. Still, I am learning to ask for help and whenever I feel resistant, I hear Eddie, “Perhaps I am here to help you,” and open to receive another’s assistance.

Witnessing the rehearsal of his death was Eddie’s final gift to me. Death is a passing through the veil of illusion and into the truth. There is nothing to fear.

Excerpt from My LoveDance. Available on Amazon