Ask Parvati 36: Compromise, Acceptance and Getting the Love You Want - Part 5: Getting The Love You Need

GETTING THE LOVE YOU NEED

(Continued from Getting The Love You Want)

 

 

Relationships are a path for personal growth. In my opinion, they can be a fast track way for spiritual growth. Perhaps some of you have had the experience of feeling great when you are on your own, but when you get into a relationship, all of a sudden you find out all sorts of areas for personal growth as your shadow gets provoked. None of that seemed to exist when you were on your own. So where did it come from? The ego assumes it must be your partner, so you conclude you're with the wrong partner. Truth is, these vasanas (or negative tendencies) were within you all along and have been simply triggered by the relationship.

 

Of course, it is healthy to be in a relationship where you find the support and safety you need to explore and ultimately release these vasanas. This is why a healthy relationship is more like a co-creative workshop for spiritual growth than a walk in the park. They amplify our shadow and our potential. They bring out hidden tendencies and show us who we truly are. When we are willing to accept the fuel for growth and let our ego guard down, the workshop begins to feel more like a walk in the park, as we become more spiritually fit.

 

I have had my fair share of a range of relationship experiences, some painfully scary and others tender and divine. In hindsight, I can see in that all the while, I was being taught exactly what I needed to learn in exactly the way I needed to learn it. Sometimes when we resist lessons, life heats up the teachings and we find ourselves in painful situations. The intensity of the lesson may be a measure of our resistance to learning and the hardness of our ego. If we meet a relationship with humility, these tough lessons soften and our learning and evolution increases.

 

I have found when I am willing to let go of the grip of my ego and live in service to the creative flow, this moment as it is right now, I touch a level of love and joy that is not conditional upon circumstance. This is something I can choose. I can tap into that flow at any time.

 

Our partners may push our buttons, but the buttons are ours. Our old patterns exist within ourselves. They are not found inside the other person.

 

I believe it is humbling and healthy to know that we will be triggered at some point or another until we reach enlightenment. The triggers persist because they are part of our attachments to “mine”, the part of the human psyche that divides and individuates. Similarly our partner has the same tendencies. When we understand this, we can soften to what may seem intense, unfair, or "against me" in the moment and open to a bigger picture. We can laugh more at our tendency to grasp and push. We can let go and flow with greater joy.

 

No one person, no matter how perfect, could fill up a hole in our psyche. In some sense, it is not even really fair to ask that of anyone. No one person could make our distorted perceptions right. Maybe by their not giving us what we feel we want in the moment, we go inside and find it from our capacity for self-love and from our relationship with the Divine. Maybe by not being given the exact right response that we feel we want in this moment to make life seem perfectly shiny, maybe we are being given the greatest gift we could get. In that moment, we see our attachments to how we want life to be, rather than how life is. In that moment, our “me-ness” cracks a little, and a fissure of light slips in. We can see, in perfect reflection, our wanting, how our ego wants things to be a certain way to feel temporarily loved.

 

In truth, we are always loved. Our perception of such gets eclipsed, and we forget. That is ok. When we don’t get what we want, we have a chance to see what we really need. We have an opportunity to turn our awareness to the reality that we are already whole, loved, connected and interconnected to an intelligent whole that is far greater than our limited ego or will. We just temporarily got caught up, in the smallness of “me” and forgot the expanse of “I Am”. Our partner too is part of that intelligent whole. And whether our partner knows it or not, he/she just gave us a gift back home, to the One undivided state of continual bliss. Not bad for a relationship, huh?

 

Today is the last day to submit your question to be answered for next week's blog. Please send yours to ask@parvatidevi.com.

I will post a new blog topic in answer to one of your questions throughout next week starting this Sunday.

Thanks for reading!

Be well till then,

Parvati

Natamba

NATAMBA
Ok. I cannot help but offer a little shameless promotion about my up and coming show. I am just too happy not to share! This is the show synopsis:
"When the reptiles invade Avalon, Natamba, disturbed from deep meditation, leaves for planet Earth. Like a ray of liquid gold light, Natamba arrives on Earth to find it riddled with interference. While on Earth, Natamba explores the meaning of Yoga: to be one with all things. By embodying I AM consciousness and by seeing Yoga everywhere, even in the nightclub, Natamba transforms the desolate world back to a lush landscape. Natamba brings to life a message of hope, interconnection, love and celebration for all we have."

Fun, huh? It is kinda sci-fi meets spirituality, Cirque du Soleil meets Madonna. For those of you who don't know, Natamba is the character I become in my shows. She is a ray of gold light that recently downloaded to Earth from a planet she calls Avalon. She embodies Yoga, that is, our true human potential as a ray of gold light. Natamba is one with light and brings to life all that she encounters.

Natamba, the word, came about as I was living in India. I was by chance repeatedly called Natamba by two men from Brazil who were living in Japan. I have no idea why they called me Natamba. The name stuck. It became a sort of alter ego that entered into my creative journal writing and imagination. Natamba was born.

Interestingly, "nat" in Sanskrit is often seen in reference to "Nataraj" referring to dance. "Amba" means Mother or Goddess. So the name means Goddess of Dance. I often hear the name embedded within the chants of the 1000 Names of the Divine Mother. One of those mantras is "Om kumara gananathambayai namah" (Salutations to Devi who is the mother of Subrahmania and Ganesh. Parvati is that Devi.)

I AM CONSCIOUSNESS
The "Natamba" show (and all my work) supports the awakening of I AM consciousness in myself and in all beings. I have used the phrase I AM consciousness often in my blog, but what is I AM really?

I AM is the expansive experience of interconnection to all, through all, of all in each moment… pure consciousness arising. First though, must come the practice of rooting our life in the positive possibilities of being, a state in which we unequivocally know that our true nature is Love. In the positive possibilities we know and experience that we are loved in each moment, connected beyond the grasp of the limited mind to and within a vast, mysterious whole, of which we are an integral part. In this, there is a release of the impossibilities tendency to grasp, repulse, constrict and try to control the moment. In the positive possibilities we meet this moment, without resistance, and witness what is. In that space of what is, I AM arises, and so flows the expression of pure consciousness. The positive possibilities are the fertile soil for I AM consciousness to grow.

ART AS A VEHICLE FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH
My life focus is the realization of the One. Art is a vehicle through which I express and explore this journey. My performances, including my current show Natamba, are Grace for me. They provide me with opportunities to activate, live and share the spaciousness and release I practice in sitting meditation. They provide me with a playground in which to practice non-attachment, to witness what is, to expand and share the joy of being alive.

People have asked over the years about the title of my song Yoga In the Nightclub, thinking it was about doing yoga poses in a club setting. It is not. Yoga is so much more than a series of bendy exercises for physical health. These are only an aspect of Hatha Yoga, the Yoga that awakens pure consciousness through exercises that purify the body/mind. There are many branches of Yoga, from Hatha yoga, to Karma yoga, which focuses on self-realization through selfless service, seeing the love-light energy within all things, especially those in need. Yoga is a vast life science that explores and reveals to us our true selves, beyond the grasp of our limited ego and personal will.

My shows and music celebrate the non-duality of life, that we are indeed expressions of the divine. Through song, lights, sound and theatrical elements, we are brought through a journey of transformation, beginning in the desolate, interference ridden landscape of isolation and despair, to the lush expansion of Avalonian consciousness flowering on Earth. We begin to see the possibility that yoga is everywhere: each moment, be it in a nightclub or in a meditation hall. Each moment provides us with seeds to awaken to who we truly are.

AVALON
This is a word I use quite a bit in context of the show. I understand that it can be confused with other folklore words of the same name that may conjure up images of Sir Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
For me, this word references a place that existed in co-creation with Nature. Avalonians would be a group of beings who remember our inherent state of oneness with creation. Perhaps, some time long, long ago, Avalonians were in communication with humans. Perhaps there was a time Avalon was invaded, hundreds of thousands of years ago, and the gap between Nature and humans grew.
There are people on the planet now I would call Avalonians, those who remember the potency of this subtle and immense interconnection with Nature. With the influx of industrialization and the subsequent increase of greed, there is no doubt that Nature is suffering and so are the Avalonians and our connection with Nature. In denser energies, we lose the ability to experience the power of subtlety.
Natamba is from Avalon and embodies this Nature co-creative intelligence. She reminds us that we are part of it all, not separate.

So I invite your creative imagination to spark. Perhaps, contemplate the way in which you are Avalonian, like Natamba, connected to Nature, one with all. When we remember Avalon, we find heaven here on Earth.

Happy sparkling,
Parvati

PS: The next issue of Parvati Magazine will go live tonight or tomorrow!

Ask Parvati 32: Gratitude, The Action Of Grace - Part 4: Thanking Adversity

PART 4: THANKING ADVERSITY

(Continued from Thanking Illness)

We would all love our lives to flow. Experiencing green lights along our path feels smooth and effortless and can give us a sense of being on path. Yet we all have bumps along the way at some point. We often tend to see adversity through a black and white lens: seeing obstacles and challenges as a sign of failure, or seeing them as some mysterious blessing we yet have to uncover. We can may hope to learn from our mistakes but feel unsure how. We can also believe that there are no mistakes, that all is good, in denial of our responsibility in our happenings. But what if practicing gratitude for what is, shows us something beyond these polarities?

It is my belief that we are constantly supported by a much greater whole while our consciousness goes through a process of refinement. As I explored in my last blog entries on creating our reality, what we experience is a reflection of our thoughts. So if we do not like our life, we need to change our beliefs and refine our state of consciousness.

Many people can take a downer approach and berate their life and inwardly fight what is, in some frustrated effort to change. That kind of judgemental and tense attitude will create suffering. Others may take what I would call a bit more of a denial approach and say that all that happens is ok. What if what happens is a reflection of our thoughts, and is also grace? What if what we experience mirrors back to us our tendencies - and because of that mirror we have the grace to
see it? So, what is, is both a reflection of our distortions, our erroneous perceptions, and a reflection of the love that there is for us throughout the universe. If we see what is through the lens of gratitude, we can see that we are both learning and fully supported.

When we have this grateful attitude in each moment, we can meet what is as both an opportunity to see ourselves more clearly and full of all the loving guidance we need to help us grow. Both are true. It is not balanced to say that life is a cold mirror that reflects back to us a harsh reality in which we can punitively judge our skills. Nor is it balanced to see life as a gooey, all-accepting playing field. There
is personal responsibility and guidance. There is free will and grace. Grace is always holding our capacity for free will. We must open ourselves to see it. Even when our free will moves us in a direction that causes us pain, we have an opportunity, due to grace, to see that which is as lovingly guiding us to wholeness.

My guru Amma shares a story about a man who is running along a field at full speed. He steps on a thorn and curses it, wondering why God has punished him this way. What the man does not see is the cliff he was heading towards, where he would have come to an untimely death. The thorn he curses saved his life.

When we begin to feel grateful for all that is, we meet life in its fullest expression. We see that everything is part of a greater, loving whole, supporting us both to learn and to grow as we return back to the One state of pure undivided consciousness. We are both guided and personally responsible. We are rooted in our sense of self, vital to mobilize and interact with life, and expansive to meet what is as a reflection of who we are so we may embody our fullest potential.

When we meet adversity with humility and receptivity, we can find gratitude even there. Though our feeling of gratitude, we find an internal freedom that brings us all the wealth, joy and wonder we had been seeking all along.

May your life be full of such abundance, joy and blessings.

May you feel grateful for the life you have and share your unique gifts with the world.

Blessings,
Parvati



PS: Reminder that tomorrow is the last day for question submissions.
Please send yours to ask@parvatidevi.com.

Ask Parvati 30: Creating Your Reality, Part 5: Purification Back To The One

Dear friends,

A year ago today I visited a high school in Iqaluit before flying home to Toronto to conclude my life-changing North Pole journey.

 

North Pole Journey, Day Seven

The school bell rings and triggers a Pavlovian response in me. A feeling of excitement and freedom surges through my body. The halls fill with noisy, boisterous, vibrantly alive students who emerge from small rooms. Soon the auditorium is flooded with dynamic bodies full of the very hormones I felt pulsating through the halls when I first walked in. I peek out of my dressing room door and see a room agitated and full of energy...

 

CREATING YOUR REALITY, PART 5: PURIFICATION BACK TO THE ONE

(Continued from Welcome to Life School)

We must learn to purify our thoughts, lessen our attachment to our ego in order to evolve. Seeing life as a mirror provides a wonderful humbling opportunity to do just that. When we understand that what we experience is a result of our thoughts and perceptions, we can grow and make changes, so that our life becomes more fulfilling and joyful.

As our minds purify, eventually we become one with the Reality that we are love. Then, love is all we see. Once we have purified our minds, released our identification with our ego, the notion of life as a mirror dissolves. We see that we are literally one with all that is.

I say it over and over again: we are part of a much greater, intelligent whole. I think this is so important because most of us forget it. We get caught up in the micro-importance of what is happening right now, we lose the big picture of perfect interconnection. We get lost in defending our ego either by trying to prove our feeling worth by ‘got to get it right’, or by slathering on the “I am so great” or “I am so lowly” goop that we forget to keep our focus on Reality (and not on “reality”).

When we remember that we are part of a magnificent whole guiding us, we start to lessen our identification with the perceived importance of “me” and start of flow with pure consciousness. We let go of our defensive attachment to “reality” and start serving and merging with “Reality”.

When we have come to this place of ultimate non-attachment, a place I can speak of only from glimpses in exceptional moments, we realize that we are one with everything. We see that the notion of separation was an illusion all along. We fully understand that we are not creating anything at all. All already is! If anything, we have been resisting the perfection of creation. We have been learning to get out of the way the whole time and love. At that point, we reach yoga, a state of union, a place of absolute clarity where the mirror is no longer a separate reflection of our disconnected thoughts, but a perfect merging and a return to the One.

May each one of us remember our true nature and swiftly merge with “Reality” by humbly opening to and serving the “reality” that right before us.

In service,

Parvati

PS: Don’t forget that this is the last day to submit questions for this week’s Ask Parvati blog. If you have a question, please send it to ask@parvatidevi.com. Have a super weekend!

 

Ask Parvati 28: Enlightenment and Emotions - Part 6: Guidance from the Enlightened

PART 6: GUIDANCE FROM THE ENLIGHTENED

(Continued from The Rise And Fall Of Emotions)

“He who sees all beings in his own Self

and his own Self in all beings,

by virtue of that realization, feels no hatred.

He who has known that all beings

have become one with his own Self,

and he who has seen the oneness of existence,

what sorrow and what delusion can overwhelm him?”

- Isavasya Upanishad

We have explored this week the relationship between enlightenment and emotions. Enlightenment is a topic that is beyond most of us, as most of us are not enlightened. The masters show us the way through the perils of the mind and our tendency for attachment.

When we look at dealing with emotions along the path, we must remember that to feel better than or more evolved than another person, immediately lets us know that we are in our ego. The masters tell us that in an enlightened state, we would see all as divinity. There is no greater than or lesser than feeling in the divine.

We are human beings, sentient beings, returning to love. Emotions will come. Emotions will go. Until we are enlightened, we learn to witness them in ourselves and in others, without attachment. This is our practice until we are established in an open, flowing field of wisdom-compassion. We learn to respond to our emotions rather than react to them.

A friend of mine found out I was writing on this topic this week and sent me the most perfect quote from Amma, that I feel answers this week’s question perfectly. In the words of a true master, who resides in the One, Amma says:

“Enlightenment is not a rock-like state where one loses all inner feelings. It is a state of mind, a spiritual attainment into which you can withdraw yourself and remain absorbed whenever you want. After you tap into the infinite source of energy, your capacity to feel and express everything gains a special, unearthly beauty and depth. If an enlightened person wishes, he or she can express emotions in whatever intensity he or she desires.

Sri Rama cried when the demon king, Ravana, kidnapped his holy consort, Sita. In fact, lamenting like a mortal human being, he asked every creature in the forest, "Have you seen my Sita, where did she go, leaving me alone?" Krishna's eyes were filled with tears when He saw his dear friend Sudama after a very long time. Similar incidents are there in Christ's and Buddha's lives as well. These Mahatmas were as expansive as limitless space and therefore could reflect any emotion they wanted. They were reflective, not reactive.

Like a mirror, Mahatmas respond to situations with perfect spontaneity. Eating when you are hungry is a response. Whereas, eating whenever you see food is a reaction. It is also a disease. Responding to a particular situation, remaining unaffected by it and then moving to the next moment is what a Mahatma does.

Feeling and expressing emotions and honestly sharing them without reservation only adds to an enlightened being's spiritual splendor and glory. It is wrong to see that as a weakness. It should rather be considered as an expression of their compassion and love in a much more human way. Otherwise, how could ordinary humans understand their concern and love?”

May you witness the flow of your emotions and learn to rest in the field of true compassion for self and all beings. May you serve love by witnessing the ebb and flow of your thoughts and emotions. May you learn to love and serve the greatest good in all as you express presence by being in non-resistance to what is. May you move swiftly along your evolutionary path to enlightenment.

Parvati

PS: My next post will be this Sunday.

 

Ask Parvati 28: Enlightenment and Emotions - Part 2: Enlightenment Now

PART 2: ENLIGHTENMENT NOW

(Continued from What Is Enlightenment?)

“Self-realization is the knowing - in body, mind and soul - that we are one with the omnipresence of God; that we do not have to pray that it come to us, that we are not merely near it at all times, but that God's omnipresence is our omnipresence; that we are just as much a part of Him now as we ever will be. All we have to do is improve our knowing.” - Paramahamsa Yogananda

It is my understanding from my meditation practice, and from guidance from great teachers, that our state of unity with the One already exists, but we, for the most part, cannot see it because we are so busy, so caught up with our mind. This is why great masters tell us, it already is, that we can rest into the perfection of the now.

We on the other hand are used to identifying with our mind, to feeling that our ego is in control. We do not allow ourselves to trust and to let go. It is a bit like we are so focused on a tiny speck of cloud, thinking that it is the entire world, we miss the vastness of the sky and the infinite expanse of the universe. Amma describes this attachment to our ego so beautifully:

“Nobody likes to let go of the ego - it is so precious to everyone. However, once you have attained the state of egolessness, the world won't disappear, as you may think it will. The world will continue, but a chance takes place within you. Something is uncovered. You start seeing everything with the wonder and innocence of a child.”

We know that we are evolving, and that through evolution, we change. So we know that change is part of the process of moving towards enlightenment. However, the greats tell us that enlightenment does not actually involve change in the way most of us would think it to mean.

Most of us see change as to mean “be other than you are”, a sort of moving away from and moving towards something else. Yet the enlightened masters tell us that what we seek does not exist “out there”, but only in the infinite expanse of the now. We are told that what we seek is already here. We are told that what we are is already perfection. Great teachers like Eckhart Tolle say, “You find God the moment you realize that you don't need to seek God.”

Those kinds of thoughts can quickly become mentally confusing. Like the famous Zen koan by the Japanese teacher Hakuin Ekaky, “Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?” designed to throw a wrench in the mind’s sense of control, statement from the enlightened can leave us feeling confused, our minds reeling. For example, how can we become enlightened and also not change?

Most of us who are seeking to better ourselves or who consider enlightenment as a goal know that we have bad habits that must be overcome in order for us to evolve. In Sanskrit, teachers refer to these as our “vasanas”, our negative tendencies. We know we get ourselves into painful situations and we would like to stop doing so. So how can we already be in a state of perfection?

It seems that most of us get caught up in “wanting” to be other than we are, and therein lies the rub. We “want” to be free. We “want” to be happy. We “want” enlightenment. We “want” to have fewer emotional reactions or more emotional connection, so we live with anticipations and expectations, in dissonance with the fullness of the present moment. How many of us know how to let go and be with what actually is, now?

Eckhart Tolle says, “Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.”

The benevolent group of channeled guides from the Causal Realm known warmly as The Team beautifully repeat in most of their teachings that we are to practice non-resistance to what is. In previous blog entries, I have explored this idea in many different ways. If we are to move into an enlightened state and flow with emotions with wisdom compassion, we must practice non-resistance to what is.

We tend to live in a push/pull dynamic, resisting what is because we deem it “bad”, or we grab onto it because we deem it “good”. This is what the mind does. It divides. It categorizes. It tries to control, so that we feel important. But we are told that enlightenment is beyond the mind, so we know that somehow, the mind, our thoughts and our ego interfere with the experience of enlightenment.

We speak of the mind easily, as though we understand what it is. But what is the mind? How does it interfere with our evolutionary journey towards the One? And how do we get beyond it?

(Continued tomorrow with What Is The Mind?)

Ask Parvati 28: Enlightenment and Emotions - Part 1: What Is Enlightenment?

ENLIGHTENMENT AND EMOTIONS

Dear Parvati,

When a person is enlightened do they still respond to human emotions the same way that, lets say, the average person would?

PART 1: WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT?

Thank you for this question. It is an important question in that there are many misconceptions about enlightenment, mostly because most of us are not yet fully enlightened. If we are lucky, we may have glimpses. But enlightenment is something most of us actually know very little about from personal experience.

They say that only the enlightened can recognize an enlightened being. So not yet being fully realized myself, I can only imagine what the end “goal” would be and how a fully realized being would respond to emotions. I have a sense based on what I have experienced and through learning from great masters.

Due to this, I feel it appropriate to talk about emotions and enlightenment in this blog referring to the body of experience that I can offer and in drawing upon to wisdom of the great masters that guide our way.

Unlike book learning, wisdom that comes from experience resonates in complete understanding through our entire being. There have been periods in my life of blissful flow and oneness, but not in a permanent way. I also experience states of division, separation and suffering. My journey is not yet complete. So we rely on the guidance of the great masters such as the Buddha and Christ to provide us with the tools and roadmaps to direct our journey to enlightenment.

So what is enlightenment? I understand enlightenment to be part of every human being’s destiny. We each are called to this state, to reach the “goal” (as some traditions call it) at some point through our many incarnations. In truth, we are one with pure consciousness. The process of our soul’s evolution involves a purification of our distorted perceptions so that we may realize our true, divine nature. This process is of personal benefit, and also of benefit to all beings, as we are all connected.

In the Hindu tradition, there is an understanding of four primary goals of human existence: dharma (righteousness), artha (wealth), kama (desire) and moksha (liberation). It is said that of these, the highest dharma is moksha, the experience of full realization.

There are various stages of enlightenment. In the early stages, we begin to awaken and realize that there is more to life than wanting and our perceptions. We start to question the nature of the mind and the grip of the ego. Then there are various stages of purification of the mind as the ego dissolves and we feel more interconnection. As we evolve, the ego holds less power and we slowly merge back to the One. Finally, we reside in a permanent state of oneness with pure, divine consciousness and feel a unity with all that is. In this final stage, we are no longer identified with the body or the mind. We have transcended even death itself.

The fully realized being, my guru, Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, lovingly known as Amma or Mother, speaks eloquently of the dissolution of the ego:

“Within the bud of the ego, it is dark and narrow. When the bud gives way and the flower emerges, everything becomes beautiful and pervaded by the most glorious light. You come out of the dark into radiant light, from imprisonment to freedom, from ignorance to true knowledge. This world of diversity is transformed into perfect oneness. It happens within you, not externally.”

It is my understanding that when we return to the One, the final stage of enlightenment, we see all that is as a reflection of pure consciousness. All that is, is divine. In this state, we don’t have emotional reactions but still have the capacity for emotion, while abiding in the equanimous state of pure compassion.

This is a very sophisticated state of being, one very few know, one that is true mastery. Such a state involves the absolute dissolution of the ego, of any notion of duality or separation and the complete merging into the flow of pure consciousness. When we are in the One, it is my understanding that we are in a permanent state of unity with the world, with the universe and with all of creation.

Amma speaks of this state of being with first hand experience:

“As the realization that everything is pervaded with Divine Consciousness dawns within you, you also see that every human being, everything in creation, is already Divine. The only difference is that you know that you and they are one with Divinity, but they do not. It is only a question of uncovering the truth.”

In the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred Hindu text, Krishna tells Arjuna that an enlightened being sees all things equally and loves all things equally. This passage expresses some of this notion:

“By seeing the Ultimate Consciousness equally everywhere, impartially situated, one does not degrade the embodied self, by the self; therefore reaching the supreme goal.” (Bhagavad Gita, 13:29)

So then how do we embody such a sophisticated state of equanimity and balance? The masters tell us, the answers lie right here, in the eternal now.

(Continued tomorrow with Enlightenment Now)

The Ancient Voice of the Mother

The Ancient Voice of the Mother


I feel an immense force carrying me. She speaks to me in the quiet spaces between my breaths in an ancient voice I have known forever. I surrendered to Her, years ago, and lifetimes before. The tides are strong, stronger still, unstoppable, eternal. She is everywhere and always. Each day, in my sitting meditation practice, I empty myself more deeply to Her. Then I practice throughout the day, seeing all as Her Grace, pure consciousness arising.



As I work through the many layers, seen, unseen and unforeseen for this trip to the North Pole, I practice direct speed of body and open, quiet mind. Through emptiness, there is purification, a total surrender to that which already is and always has been…a vast, expansive perfection. I am not the doer. She is the guide, the life-force and the form through which all occurs. She is the healing we are to facilitate and the body for it. A voice beyond me, of us all, of the Mother, of I AM calls so that we may remember who we are, so that we may return home to the One.