Double Rainbows

"Today is a beautiful day. I go forward with an open heart into the expanse of universal abundance and welcome the flow of love and joy."

That was my Facebook status quote as I left my house for the day earlier this morning. I had no idea, really, what was in store then and could have never orchestrated the magic that was to follow.

It started when my mentor with whom I was doing professional trade today texted and said she NEEDED a latte and would be a few minutes late to her house where our appointment would be. "Good! I'll slow down then," I replied, laughing. I showed up at her house about 10 minutes later to find her car in the driveway. I knocked on her door. Long pause while I listened to the bees and the birds busily working away on this beautifully clear and hot day. The door opened and... before me stood a stranger whom I felt I should know but didn't recognize. Her face mirrored my feeling of disorientation. I had no idea Megan had gotten a new roommate. I've been out of the loop for a long time.

Julie invited me in. We sat down in the living room and began to get acquainted. As she talked, revealing her story to me as I asked leading questions, I realized why Megan was so late. I needed to get to know Julie. WOW!

Then Megan returned home and we chatted for another half hour, the three of us. When our "session" time officially started, it was noon - an hour passed our planned starting time. We went out onto the porch to start my session while sitting in the porch swing, gently rocking, laughing and processing. Behind us, a Robin Redbreast noisily thrashed through the ivy with a juicy fat worm dangling from her mouth. We watched her feed an equally fat bird of another breed, feeling surprised that the meal was not for her babies and Megan said, "Maybe they're mates."

All around us, the world was alive with life and creative energy. The fruit trees were heavy-laden with an eventual harvest. The flowering bushes were vibrant and the grass was lush. I shared with her that I feel so ready to step into who I am, while at the same time feeling scared to do so. The scared part of me is running the show and, especially, running my money. As I spoke, one of the lines that I said was, "The money must stop." I was floored by the indications as we explored what would happen if I owned that I felt that way... what would happen if the money did stop... what would my experience be?

My life has been a series of lessons to gain, I believe, an understanding of love and a complete compassion for humanity. Most of my lessons have been painful to an unbelievable degree. I've learned by living it and I realized in that moment as I sat there swaying with her that I'm ready to live compassionately for all of humanity - even the homeless - without actually fully experiencing that life.

I've been homeless and destitute in many ways. I'm actually, technically, homeless and destitute now - no place of my own, no belongings and no income. And in that awareness came the dawning knowledge that this state of destitute homelessness is the greatest disguise to hide behind. It is a cloak of invisibility. Homeless people are very difficult to locate because they have no address. I'm trying to hide. Enough.

I also uncovered my belief of struggle for all things financial. That I'm running my generational belief pattern that life must be hard and money must be scarce. I also revealed that I strongly feel my entire generation has worked itself into a financial hole from which it is going to be so difficult to recover and something has really got to change. I'm ready.

As we walked through the unwinding, unprogramming and reprogramming process, I felt my engines revving and my energy building. I had heat waves and energy coursing through me as I grew and expanded. The last thing I said in the process was, "I accept and love that I am now ready and willing to break the rules in outrageous and new ways," which set into motion the final unwinding of my belief that I had to be good and follow all the rules all the time and that, if I'm going to "be bad" and "break the rules" (read: follow my curiosity) then I needed to do it behind closed doors, in the dark and where no one could see me.

I released my belief that succeeding and having financial abundance was "bad". I released my beliefs that I had to hide to "be bad" and I released myself from carrying any further the load of my generational beliefs of struggle. I released myself from poverty. I released myself from homelessness. I released myself from invisibility. And I claimed my power.

And then... the HUGEST bumblebee came out of nowhere and flew straight toward me, its energy and intention hitting me squarely in the heart chakra like an arrow. It hovered for a few moments 12 inches in front of me. Just long enough for me to be absolutely certain that it was there then it buzzed off and disappeared.

Bumblees are not meant to fly. Science cannot explain why they do. Their wings are too small for the size of their body. The body is too big and not aerodynamic enough to fly. And, yet, they fly.

None of that escaped me in that moment.

From there I travelled to a friend's house for dinner and a movie. Several people whom I love dearly were also there and the room abounded with love and appreciation. We watched Invictus and in that movie, I heard a quote from Nelson Mandela that sprung me the rest of the way open into full transformation: "If I cannot change when circumstances demand it, how can I expect it of others?"

Love and joy, gratitude and abundance, flow and peace surrounded me today in such massive amounts, there was no way I could ignore it. And I created this!

The drive home brought another awareness and shift in my openness when I looked at a picture I'd recieved of my daughter and her stepmom. It was a joyful, loving picture and the last remaining vestiges of struggle with what WAS released and I soared on wings of freedom from bondage. As I got ready to turn in for the night, I spoke with my mom while feeling so full of love and gratitude. I was overflowing... I had no hope for stopping the tears. Such love! Such joy! Such fullness!

And then, there in the middle of all that joy and love and fullness, the heavens roared and flashed, the skies opened up, the rain fell and a double rainbow danced across the sky - at first crossed at the lower part, something I've never seen before. There, at the end of my magical day was that beautiful reminder that He will never forsake me.

Life IS good!

What Boys Do When They Think No One is Watching

Last night, I was in the kitchen making me some dinner. One thing I've gotta say about being not married... I really love following my impulses when it comes to creating meals - especially on the weeks my daughter is at her dad's and I have the house all to myself. Last night my dinner was a tuna fish sandwich on fresh bread and I thought I had gone to heaven!!!

Anyway... on with the story.

I was in the kitchen and, for some reason, I got prompted to look out the window above the sink. The little boy across the street was in the front yard alone. He was sitting in his beach chair, reflective sun glasses on and his baseball cap. I happened to look out just as an idea inspired him to jump out of the chair. I watched curiously and witnessed the most magical moments. I felt so happy I had followed the impulse to watch because it was something to cherish... so pure, so impulsive, so creative, so full of essence.

He took his ball cap off and and studied it for a bit. Then he put it on, turning it this way and that until, eventually, the bill was in back just like the rappers wear it. As far as I know, there was no music playing anywhere, which made the next couple minutes all the more wonderful because the music was in his heart...

Breathing, Living

I am alive.

Some days, I am still shocked by that awareness. Some days, I am amazed by what it feels like to actually BE ALIVE rather than simply existing. I remember back, just over a year ago, when I had no idea that I wasn't alive, all while thinking I was. My life today in comparison to my life then is such a stark contrast.

I feel sad. I feel happy. I feel angry. I feel scared. I feel sexual. I FEEL. All of those experiences are mine by divine right and design. I am a human being entitled to feeling. And opening myself up to that experience has created the most beautiful kind of magic indeed.

I am appreciating myself for creating this life and am aware that my posts are beginning to sound monotonously peppy and all "Love and Light". I figure, I gotta get it when the getting is good, ya know. I am going to wallow in this delicious happiness and aliveness. And I am going to share it here because, I fear, there will come a time when the giddy sensations of aliveness will give way to duldrums and misery. And, if that dark cloud descends, I will have a spot of brightness to which I can return to remind me that...

I

CREATE

MY

REALITY

Soooooo... with that in mind, I'm creating myself beautiful today. How about you?

A Tradition

A few months ago, a dear friend of mine, Karen, came to visit me. In her hands, she held money from her and her partner to pay me for services rendered. Then, with a Chesire grin, she pulled from her bra a neatly folded $5 bill. Warm from her skin and smelling of the essential oils she rubs into her glorious, velvety skin, she said, "And this is for you. To spend on something fun. Not bills." Given that she was pretty much in the same dry desert I was in when it came to most things financial, I was deeply touched. I placed it in my bra and there it has stayed.

A few months later, she handed me another $5 bill. It was a refund of my deposit on containers after I purchased some of her FAB-U-LOUS vegan ice cream. It was folded just as neatly as the other one, but she pulled it from her pocket. I laughed and said, "Hey! The last five dollars you gave me came out of your bra!"

She promptly stuffed the bill into her bra and rubbed it luxuriously against her skin for a moment before handing it to me with a grin. "There you have it, then!"

I immediately put the bill in my other bra cup, feeling balanced at last.

Those two $5 bills have been in my bra every day since she gave them to me. It's a sort of comforting feeling. The other morning, I had an idea... what if I did a sort of money spell when I put these in my bra each day???

So, I concocted my own spell

I place this money
Next to my skin
To invoke the Universal Law
Of Attraction to me Herein
To remember I'm in Financial Abundance
And live in Creative Flow
That I am clear on my Yes-es
And clear on my No-s
As I repeat it three times, I focus on the money and really feel it in its place. Since I have started doing this little ritual, every day money has shown up for me in interesting and unexpected ways. I have received gifts. I have been gifted meals. I have been paid for services I had not expected payment for. I have received tips. I have been handed cash. I have been gifted sessions with my mentors. Absolutely amazing. It has been stretching me to open up to receive and welcome in abundance in fun and easeful ways and I feel myself becoming more excited as I get ready to practice my little ritual, wondering how the magic will show up that day.

Aliveness!

I am so aware of how alive I feel. I am so grateful that I TOOK THAT LEAP! I feel so excited about the magic that is swirling around me and to know that it is ME that is creating it! I feel continually blessed and grateful to be alive and am noting how different I feel today vs how I felt three months ago, six months ago, a year ago...

I welcome you into my world and I welcome you to share with me where you feel alive.

Life is such an amazing journey...

TT - "Now What?"

Yesterday I said, "I wish it would rain all day long." Today, it is raining. The air smells clean and the atmosphere is cool and moist. I hear the droplets gently kissing the earth and washing away the schmutz that has coated the air for far too long.

For three months I have said, "Let me go." On Tuesday, it happened.

Be careful what you wish for. That is one of my favorite lines from one of my most favorite movies, "Practical Magic." Because I believe in magic, I also believe that what I put out there comes back threefold. However, I have never been able to grasp the fact that I can make a wish come true. Some of the simplest magic - manifesting.

As a child, I learned all sorts of superstitiously-based "magic," although it wasn't ever called "magic" in my world...

Star light, star bright
First star I see tonight
I wish I may,
I wish I might
Have this wish I wish tonight
~~~
Step on a crack, break your mother's back
Step on a line, break your mother's spine
~~~
If you love someone,
Set them free
If they come back to you
They're yours
If they don't, it was never meant to be
Thing is, I never believed in any of that. Even as a child, I knew there was magic; I believed in magic. But that hooey-patooey garbage, I couldn't get behind. I felt hopeless, helpless, staring at the window and pleading with that star to grant my wish, all the while knowing it was complete horse crap. I knew if I accidentally hit a crack in the sidewalk that my mother would not fall down from a broken back. And, most of all, I knew that if I set my loved one free, they would never come back. Ever. So I clung to everyone for dear life.

It was odd growing up as a magical child in a totally unmagical world. In a world where magic was viewed as the hand of Satan and that all that even uttered the word were evil. It was difficult to be able to feel, hear and see things that others could not. It was harder still to turn it all off and deny who I was.

When I gave birth to a magical daughter almost eleven years ago, all that wakened in me. Suddenly I could see and hear and feel other dimensional beings and sensations again. Suddenly I remembered all I once knew. And, even with that remembrance, I still did not believe that I could call forth the wishes of my heart and have them granted.

Until lately.

Thing is, everyone can call into their lives that which they want. We are the creators of our own lives. Everyone is a manifestor of sort. However, being a conscious, purposeful manifestor is a whole new ball game. My mother is such a master manifestor. She can literally speak things into being. When it first started happening, we would giggle and look about as though we had done something truly awful. At first it would take days for things to happen. Now, it takes only a breath's-width of time to call it into being. For a couple years now, I have envied her power of manifesting, believing myself to be devoid of such a beautiful gift.

But it is happening. I am getting my wishes. I understand that I have been getting them all along, but I have been unwilling to own the results or even see them. I am getting my wishes faster and faster and I am finding myself surprised when I stop, look around, breathe deep and gasp I got my wish!

Now what?

That question has been the most exciting pivotal point I have come across in a long time. Now what?!

Now I have all the time in the world on my hands. Now I have the time to finish the process of publishing my first book. Now I have the time to put up my art for the world to see and take into their homes. Now I have the time to pursue my genius and my passion. Now I have time to step fully into myself and finally become that woman I have been waiting to recognize. Now!

I feel limitless and free. I feel excited and overflowing with joy and love. I feel peaceful and safe. I feel in every inch of my body my latest mantra: I believe in the abundance of the Universe and my financial needs are always met.

I have harnessed my own power. I have taken back myself.

Now what?

Now, I LIVE!

“Wish Upon a Star” by Jessie Wilcox-Smith found at http://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/pd--10100766/Wish_Upon_a_Star.htm

TT - Sighing Into Space

All the world IS a stage and I am sighing into the space of joy and beauty I have manifested. I created the most perfect, beautiful day yesterday. And, this morning, I woke up feeling expansive and grateful and abundant. I love that I have kept at this thing of learning and growing. I love that, when I have fallen off the stage, I have gotten back up and have kept on dancing. I love that I am beginning to "get" it all. I love that I am alone and I am good with that. I love that I am strong and creative and magical. And, most of all... I love that I love myself. This is one gloriously amazing theatrical production I have created - full of music, colors, lights and heat. BRAVA!

Knowing Myself

The red SUV sped almost past me on the right side of the freeway in rush hour traffic. Then, almost as abruptly, slammed on their brakes and slowed considerably so that their vehicle stayed parallel to me. The driver grinned at me and the passenger leaned way forward to peer around her and grin at me, as well. Then they sped on and pulled in front of me. It was then that I understood their bizarre behavior.

See, last October, after I had made my six-week-long trek through the Nile, I came out on the other side feeling very disoriented and disillusioned and several other "dis"s. For all of my life, I have not been one of those people who chose to adorn their car with bumper stickers or window decals. Ever. It just wasn't something I was into. That is, until last October.

I was wandering aimlessly in my car one fine autumn day last October with my Auntie, Mother and Daughter. It was a gorgeous day and I made a split second decision to veer to the right and parallel park in front of a store called SpellBound that I have been eyeing, but have not found (made) the time to stop in. It seemed that that day was better than any and without causing much whiplash devastation to my passengers, I stopped.

We walked in and I found myself in one of those places that feels like my home away from home - the air laced with the smell of nag champa and various other incents. The lights bouncing off the crystals and gems. The luxurious appearance of shimmering-velvet capes and swords and wands. It was like walking into a magical haven. I love finding places like this and I can generally wile away many hours in these places.

"Oh look!" Mom said, calling me over to the rotating rack. "I dare you to get these!"

(editorial sidenote: keep in mind that, just four days prior to this moment, I had moved into my highly-religious father's domain.)

I glanced at the two bumper stickers she held in her hand. I read them both, laughed right out loud, promptly grabbed them out of her hand, took them to the counter and purchased them. I never once thought, "I don't like bumper stickers."

It seemed that, after my personality-altering bout with the Nile, purchasing those bumper stickers was the only thing that felt normal to me. Placing them on my bumper was the only thing, in six weeks, that had made sense to me. The messages on them were the only thing I could relate to, that felt right.

And that red SUV that was playing looksie with me on the freeway the other day? This was on her bumper:

I laughed all the way to work. I forgot that I had publicly outed myself, which is something I have the opportunity to remember frequently with random encounters on the road such as this. She was just another of my kind trying to say hello. Such a small world.

(ps... Juls... I can hear you "tsk tsk"ing from here. LOL I know that you loathe these bumper stickers. *sigh*)

What Was, What Is, What Will Be...

Thank you, Cele, for this interesting idea. I have been plagued with thoughts of what to write since you posted the idea a couple days ago....

As I say goodbye (and good riddance!) to 2007, I feel myself shudder and shiver. It is the end of yet another year in my life. And, even so, today, December 31, 2007, it is simply another day. Nothing miraculous or catastrophic will happen when the clocks tick over to one second beyond midnight tonight. No. The night will yawn and stretch, just like it does on September 20th or February 13th and then it will go on as before, not even noticing that a year has ended.

Marking time as we do with watches and calendars and palm pilots and blackberries, it is easy to be aware of the fact that it is passing. For years, as a teenager, I collected watches. I was obsessed with them. I had some of the most incredibly wild-looking wrist adornments - about forty collected in a three-year span - from all around the nation. I even had one that my Missionary had sent me as a token of his love and his promise to marry me when he returned home. He and I were really steeped in the LDS religion back then and he found this most incredible watch... on the face it had an imprint of the Salt Lake Temple. Instead of numbers marking the hours, it had in teeny print, the names of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. On the back, it had a Catholic Cross and Jewish and Arabic markings. It was the most intriguing combination of religions all there on my wrist. I cherished it.

And then, one day - probably near the time that my heart shattered to pieces and was swept under the crack in the front door when he delivered, via the phone while I was at work, the news that he was marrying another - I looked in my jewelry box and realized that I was marking time way too closely. I no longer was interested in time. Nor was I interested in watches. And they all went into the trash. Even the religious fiasco.

Since that time, I have floated in and out of time, caring little for being "on time" and, yet, always being so. It is something innate, this feeling of time, within me. And I am usually spot on when it comes to time, until "they" change the time and then I get all messed up for a bit.

Looking backward, it seems that my experience of 2007 can be summed up in three words: West Nile Virus. Even though it struck in the last 1/3 of the year with the symptoms starting right after Labor Day and completely knocking me flat by September 13th, I feel as though that entire ordeal is the sum total of my perception of 2007. I feel sad about that because prior to that fateful trip to the mountains - and even including that trip - wherein I was nibbled upon by some sick bug, my year had been extraordinary! I feel sad that all I can remember is feverish nightmares and disjointed, exacerbated aloneness. After walking through the Nile, I sat in a room full of people who had been my people and looked around feeling as though I was in a foreign land. I no longer fit there.

It was as though I got out of the river and was sent to wander alone in the deseret, without a tribe. It was a scary place to be and I have found that the need to be alone has lingered around me in the weirdest way. I long to be alone and to not be alone, at the same time. I am in this juxtapositional stance, precariously balanced with one foot here and one foot there. The need to be alone emphasizes the aloneness and loneliness which deepens the need to be alone. It is a spiral which I fear has no ending.

Along with the sharp-edged need for aloneness/togetherness, I have developed a tongue with acerbic power. I snap when snapping is not needed. I lash when a snap would have done the job nicely. I explode when a lash would have been enough. It is as though I no longer know who I am, where I am or where I am going. I wonder if there are missionaries for that kind of experience. Someone who can come knocking on my door, traveling not two by two but, instead, singularly. Someone who can stand there and face the fires unleashed within me and say, "I see you. I know you. You are here, as am I. And this is where we are going."

I look in the mirror and see a woman I do not know anymore. I am a woman heading quickly toward death because she is afraid to live. I am a woman who is haunted by a love that she cannot have and a man who walks in her dreams wearing watches that tick with promises broken. I am a woman that is held so closely, so suffocatingly close, by fear that she is bursting at the seams which stretch around her ponderous figure. I am a woman who, for all intents and purposes, is no longer alive but is simply... existing... waiting... hoping.

By God! I hope! And, yet, I do not. How can I hope when I long so deeply, so darkly? How can I create when there is no space to do so? How can I answer yearnings and questions for which I have created a lack in solutions? How can I go forward when I am so rooted, so stuck, so longing to go back to what once was and do it right this time?

And, what is right?

How do I know that what I did do, the way it did turn out, the way it looks now... how do I know that that isn't right? Why am I so hellbent on making it be wrong?

I sit here in the quiet of my brother's house, at his computer, writing this. Upon his computer screen there is an incredibly sensual picture which I have been staring at this entire week, whenever I have sat in this chair...

I have a story that she is a woman well-loved. I look at her and know there is a man somewhere that loves her to the ends of the earth. I imagine she has warmth and acceptance and the world at her feet. I see her dancing at masquerade balls and hosting extravagant wine parties in the home of her dreams. When I look at her, I write her a story of success and completion and fulfillment and, as I have done so, I have listened to my thoughts. I imagined I would hear expletives or loathing or comparison to my life or "danger" or that I would feel threatened. Instead, I have been surprised to hear sighs and to feel my body relaxing into the beauty of her.

She looks nothing like me. I look nothing like her. However, she is me. I am her. Somewhere inside of me is her. I am that beauty and that sensuousness. Somewhere inside me is that woman living the story I have written for this Goddess in pink.

During this holiday break, I have stayed inside my brother's house, feeling more at home here than I have felt anywhere in a long time. I have nestled in, not wanting to leave. Ever. I feel content to be alone here. I feel content to be quiet and only in the presence of my daughter. The constant nipping need to have someone does not plague me here. And I wonder about that. What is it about this space that feels magical and comforting? It is something I want to capture. It is something I want to bring forward with me, make it my own.

Make it my own... I so long to make it my own...

I am going forward. If it is merely one step forward, followed by another, I am going forward into tomorrow. And I will step forward into the new day and I will remember, soon, who I am, where I am going and why I am here. And I will take this year day by day, remembering that each step forward brings with it a new dawn. The sun unfailingly shines, breaking through any clouds. Each day it rises and hope shines anew.

And, with it, I rise. I will rise to be who I am meant to be and I will believe with all the naivete of youth that this year will be the year. It is my year. It is my year to shine and be magical.

Peace!

I was excited when I looked at the envelope and realized the return address was from one of my dearest friends who had moved to Washington this summer. I tore into the envelope, just to feel her presence near. I knew she had touched that card. She had held it in her hands. Out fell the most gorgeous card I have seen in a long time and, with it, the essence of my sweet friend. It was as if she had somehow folded up a little piece of her angel presence and stuffed it in there for me to find. And, on the front, there was one word:


Peace
I smiled because it was so like her. Simple and straight to the point. Inside, there was a picture of her and her daughter. I smiled and wanted to reach inside the photograph and pull her out to be with me here. I miss spending time listening to her beautiful voice belt out her heart in her songs. I miss hearing her silly jokes and hearing her lilting laugh. I miss watching her transform on stage and transcend earth when she sings - so totally in the moment while, at the same time, somewhere ethereal. I miss her strength and fragility and humanness.

Then I read the card:

Happy Holidays!

I love you!

Someone did this for me once.

When you can, do it for another single mother.

Kisses my dear!

For a moment, I was stumped, I didn't know to what she was referring. Someone did what for her once? And then I spied it. Hidden behind the photograph was another slip of paper. Sneaky her!

Oh. My...... God!

I couldn't help it. The tears were springing out of my eyes before I even understood what I was looking at. It was a check. A check of a substantial amount. Someone had done that for her once, although I had never known that. And she chose to pay it forward with me.

Oh my god.... even now, I cry. What a beautiful gift of love!

Dreamt

I dreamt of a time when life was sweet

And my eyes saw what others did not
I dreamt of a time when I was complete
And I knew what I knew when I thought
I dreamt of a time when I flew so high
And I knew without a doubt I was brilliant
I dreamt of a time when life moved with a sigh
And I felt and I heard and I fullfilled it
I dreamt of a time when magic prevailed
And I stood in the strength of my insight
I dreamt of a time when I never ever failed
And I woke with my heart aching inside


~akm 11/28/07