Just Pretending

Once upon a time an old soul, after much deliberation, decided to return to a physical vessel on Planet Earth. The old soul chose to come into a female vessel. Her name would be Gloria. So it came to pass and there was much joy at her birth. She was a beautiful well loved newborn child.

Days, weeks, months became years and she grew into a young girl. Gloria had the feeling that something wasn’t right in her world, she often had the feeling that life wasn’t supposed to be like this. On the inside she felt perfect and cared for but more and more on the outside things weren’t supposed to be like this. This was in fact painful, with some days more pain filled than others.

As a baby Gloria had heard and loved when her Mother crooned to her about how beautiful and perfect and loved she was. It came as quite a shock the first time Gloria was told she was a bad girl and that she should be a good girl. How could she be good when she was already perfect? Being told everyday that she was a bad girl didn’t convince Gloria that she was a bad girl. In the quiet, alone outside under a favorite tree, Gloria always knew and felt she was perfect and loved.

One day Gloria was caught red handed being her perfect and loved self when she was being punished for being her bad self. Thunder and lighting and screaming and yelling broke out. That was when she knew it would be helpful if she at least pretended some of the time that she was a bad girl and ashamed of herself. Gloria still knew on the inside that she was perfect and loved and she held that knowing close. On the outside, as much as she could, in order to keep herself safe, she pretended to be ashamed of herself, she pretended to be a bad girl.

More years fly by and with those years the knowing on the inside of being perfect and loved faded and withered until Gloria finally knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was less than perfect and undeserving of something as wondrous as love. She completely forgot she was just pretending.

More years, much painful separation from feeling the truth, sometimes more painful for knowing with the mind but still not able to feel with the heart the truth of being perfect and loved…and grief over something unknowable and unnamed that is lost. And yet and yet...

Through the years since the indoctrination in separation began, there were light filled moments. These moments glimmered like a firefly, making Gloria ask if she really saw what she saw. She knew she couldn't get any crazier than she already was so she decided to answer the call. Gloria yearned to play with that inner light. And play she did until every waking moment was taken with her yearning to play with what she now knew was her own light.

And as the light grew shadows emerged seeming to mask the light. Joy and grief, grief and joy, joy and grief. The light grew, the shadows came clearer and bone chilling deep down and dirty clearer. Joy grief joy grief joy grief! And yes, anger at having been betrayed from the inside out.

The day Gloria woke up to the fact she was pretending she remembered a cartoon quip she'd seen the day before...it went something like this:

A five year old child is being given an exercise in using your imagination by an elder. The child is told to pretend to be in a room full of ferocious lions who are going to bite you and then asked what she's going to do. The child answered, I'd stop pretending.


Mother Divine I know that You were here helping uncover this pretense. I know too Mother that You are helping me remember from this moment, forward and back through the timelines and dimensions that I am and have always been perfect and loved. My hands, feet, heart and soul yearn to serve to this message of Divine Love from the Mother. So be it.

November 28th 2010 by Anne Cressy


When I started writing this piece I used my name. About halfway through I saw that almost any name could be inserted. This is dedicated to Gloria Rivers.

Sounding Out the Love

Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Module Two of the Kundalini Trance Dance facilitator training was a magnificent experience and I'd like to share some joy.

Let me start with the fact that this work is helping bring about what I consider to be an extraordinary transformation in my life. For now, the best way I have to put this statement into other descriptive words is to say that I have gone from knowing with my mind and heart the truth that I am/we are light beings, to being able to feel into that subtle light body to activate, cleanse and nourish it.

My journey home takes me through the Little River ferry terminal to catch a boat to Powell River. It is always the first place that I have time to catch my breath after leaving the Haven and my thoughts turn to the daily breathing exercises that are recommended we use to keep us vibrationally sweet. Like other trips home I knew that these would be opportune moments for the practice. It was blowing a gale outside so there was no going to the beach this time. I put Goddess Alchemy Project on low, closed my eyes and starting grounding down to connect.

As I opened and began breathing Shakti Ma up I could feel my perineum sipping the electro-magnetic energy, could feel the light thrilling up feet and legs to pool in my pelvis empowering the cleansing sounds of light being pulled through the four layers of my auric body. Again I found something special about doing this practice alone for the first time in a week. With the accompanying sounds of rain lashing and winds shaking the little vehicle, I took the deepest most aware dive into light body, like the last time, only more. I could feel every ray of light that encapsulates this physical body, could distinctly feel the subtle movement of light streaming through central pranic tube, ida and pingala pathways and through each chakra and tube torus. Combined with the sense of connection to Shakti below and Shiva above, it was breathtaking, an ecstatic state in seconds, much less time than it takes to read or write this. I hung out at heart in the light, feeling akin to a child at play in a summer rain, splashing light and sounding out the love.

For years I've sensed that humanity needed spiritual food. Now I know that we literally need to feed our spirit bodies with light. It feels exquisite and perfect this Divine plan that gave us physical bodies designed to "plug into" our energetic environment, like a plug into a power outlet. Perhaps a billboard campaign selling humanity to itself by describing how these wondrous vessels come factory equipped with a bank of batteries and complete circuitry to run not only Solar power but Earth energy through our systems as well.

I need to share about another joyous aspect of these Awakenings and training periods that also really came home this time. Through each of your eyes I experienced myself held, respected, accepted and undeniably unconditionally loved. The feeling of sisterhood and sense of belonging that was seeded and nurtured has grown into a full blown garden in which I refresh myself regularly. A lifetime, many lifetimes of yearning for I knew not what is now known. I am blessed beyond my wildest dreams. You have all held space for me to flower as the purring slobbering love muffin I really am and I thank you and love you from one end of my sweaty self to the other.

Sounding Out the Love Part 2

The wonder of this work really shows up when I’m in a sweat, whether literal or metaphor. Instead of falling back into old coping mechanisms when I am triggered by a circumstance or person I now have the tools to step out of the story and finally put an end to the behaviors that before kept me looping and stuck in the stories.

I received counsel during the interview with Leyolah and Luna Astraea at the end of this training that I knew immediately was a gift of Divine proportions. It was really simple as most truths tend to be. I was counseled that it was past time to mature away from the old need/loop to be liked. I laughed. I was delighted at how easy it was to hear this perfect and true counsel. We three laughed and agreed that this counsel applies to most of us some of the time.
First thing the morning after the interview an examination of the need to be liked was triggered and I had fodder to either process or loop in. Thanks to the fact that I was fresh and clear from the weeks work I knew immediately which childhood story had come up. Now instead of wallowing in the story what happened can be described as a surrendering to it. Instead of becoming the story I witnessed it. Rather than feeling put upon and out of sorts because I had been triggered I sensed joy at the journey of discovery that was opening up for me. I asked a question. “What’s with this need to be liked and where was it born?”

I witnessed that my choices in childhood around what I liked and disliked had been compromised at best, denied completely at worst. I witnessed my opinion not mattering and the resulting loss of trust in self. I witnessed taking up the spear of judgment and criticism that was used against me. It was when I witnessed myself hating that I felt I had uncovered the heart of the answer to the question. Intuitively I sensed that loving self or another completely and unconditionally isn’t possible when there is a hidden kernel of un-owned hatred anywhere in our being. A part of me was out of integrity with who I am as love and until I owned the lack of integrity neediness would show up as a symptom.
Standing into, by witnessing the hate that I had generated wouldn’t have been possible until now. Sharing this process without the back story hasn’t been possible until now.

I have enjoyed this dance with the shadows and light. I am delighted to find that the light and dark are merging, not into hazy grey but an illuminated silver.

Our watershed has changed ever so slightly over this last winter. At first it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary when Court suggested that he wanted to build a trail around a nearby lake. We’ve often sat on a stump looking out on the lake only able to explore the lake in our mind’s eyes, wanting to go further. This first picture shows our destination across the lake.

Court shared his intention to build the trail with Neale Gustafson, who though it was a great idea (like me he probably didn’t realize it would really happen). It is Water Board land held in public trust and Neal is the Boards chairman. Trail building began in earnest February 2009 with an exploratory trip to begin flagging out a possible route for the trail to take. A few days later with clippers and chainsaw he rendered a section of passable trail. The afternoon he came home and announced there was a trail to a log bridge crossing the stream at the head of the lake I decided I had to go see.

Walking deeper into our watershed was like walking back in time. The evidence of logging from a long ago time that left massive old growth nestled in a canyon sheltered from the winds of these last winters. Here, maybe a mile from our home is another world, a slower more majestic one than the everyday one I inhabit. The sights and smells of an old growth forest mesmerize me. The log that forms the bridge over the creek is blow down. The creek is cheery as creeks are with sweet clean water cold enough to sate the thirst a hike works up.

Over the creek the trail building was more difficult from laying the route out to hacking through dense stands of salal. An attempt was made to come in from the dam side of the lake to find the trail and shorten the work of carrying the chainsaw up the trail. The canoe was also considered as means of getting the chainsaw to the head of the lake. In the end it was slow but steady man power that accomplished what I now realize is a lot.

After a week away from home I returned to hear the announcement that the trail has reached it’s destination at the dam. I have had time to realize how valuable this trail is to me. I learned more of the history of the local landscape, who logged what, when, and how they logged.

Today was an overcast but not raining great day to hike Court’s new trail. The land it traverses is rough and tumble, up and down and Court has somehow wrestled a good trail out of the topography he had to work with. It is exciting to think that we may have a way to access a fresh water swimming hole during the summer months. The trail needs walking to help establish some of the footings on the side hills it traverses and to keep some of the undergrowth back in other spots. I could learn to carry clippers like Court does to help with the undergrowth. He carried clippers today, I carried the camera.

Congratulations Court on a magnificent job and thank you for the blessings you bring into my life.

The Keys to Our Kingdoms : A Doorway

Blessing of Peace, Love and Laughter are winging your way this sacred day!

PRAYER SHAWL WEAVING for Sunday, Nov. 9, 2008

Peace, Om Shanti, Salam, Shalom

Welcome to #34 in our Prayer Shawl Weaving series. It is nigh on a full moon and we are exactly half way through this turn of the seasonal wheel called Autumn.

In honour of the Fall we are traversing, let us again start in the West to welcome and introduce ourselves…I am Anne from B.C. and I will be our facilitator this evening. Let us weave our ancestors into our circle by also naming our parents and grandparents. I invite Tina and Richard my parents, I invite Antoinette and Rene and Josephina and Ryzard to this sacred circle with us this evening. (Each of the callers introduces themselves and their circle of ancestors)

This year our Service to the Divine Feminine as Vessels of Peace gifted us Grandmother Spider as guardian of our journey. This week She asks us to weave, with light or thread or prayers, whatever works for you, a connection next with each other in this circle…. then moving on to include other Vessels of Peace who can not join us in form, and further still to those beings who resonate with Peace wherever they may be or who they are, in the world. Breathe deeply and feel, see, hear us linking up…to weave together.

I was born on North American soil, a first generation Dutch/Polish becoming Canadian immigrant. Until I was twenty five years old I was unaware of the native presence of the First People that had walked the land of this North American continent before us. Within moments of stepping off the plane in Vancouver in 1978 visions of the people who had walked these trails before me flitted at the periphery of my consciousness. I knew I had been here as an aboriginal person by the sense of return, home coming and welcome that filled me. (This before I had any framework for or belief in reincarnation.) One of the consequences of reconnecting with the First People’s perspective was anger and rage at what had happened to them/us, most of which, though certainly not all, was directed at my/our ancestors.

Now I’ve learned I am responsible for it all, there is no one to blame. Though you and I are generations removed from the wave of people who over ran this continent we can now make the choice to assume responsibility for the actions of my/our ancestors. In that choice is the wisdom and healing of learning and adopting where possible the ways of praying and gathering in the Name of God or Great Spirit that were sacred to the First People of this continent.

Breathe deeply in and out releasing any tension or resistance. Envision your toes growing, weaving roots that delve deep into the Earth... Let those roots find the sap of life, the Divine Feminine milk/energy of the Mother, and bring that sap or light back up into the trunk of your being to your open heart….and fill your heart with the milk of Mother Love and kindness…. Now traveling from your heart up your body/ tree trunk, out your roots or branches to the sky to connect with Father Sky…and then bring down that Divine Masculine energy to your heart….and marry those energies together…enlarging yet balancing your heart. Revel in your expanded and centered heart for a moment…

We entered this sacred circle of service through the Eastern doorway of Springtime to plant the seeds of our intention to weave a prayer shawl of connection with Gaia, each other, ourselves, all of life. As we fulfill and are filled in by our intention to serve life we move through, or better yet, become various embodiments of Divine Feminine energy, sometimes barely nameable, other embodiments known by a thousand names. In the West, deep in the heart of the introspective Autumn season one of the forms of Divine Feminine energy that has been invoked since time began is Shaman Woman.

Before we listen to Her (Shaman Woman’s) message, the bowl will sound…after we have listened to this message from outside yourself, the bowl will sound to signal our entrance into the silence…where we will go to listen to the voice of our inner Shaman Women…

SHAMAN WOMAN

Shaman Woman older than old, wisewoman whose deerskin cloak touches the ground. Her feet are brown, wide with her strides across the earth. Walking, she leaves tracks of puma and bear, skeleton tracks in the dust between the worlds. The Aurora Borealis, her shawl on cold winter nights, glimmers like fireflies, green, lavender, indigo.

Shaman Woman, long silver hair, stars wreath her head, a map of the universe in the wrinkles around her eyes. She sees beyond the veil of skin, down to our soul gifts, beholds the river of our destiny, the unfolding ribbon of our fate fluttering in the wind. Her laughter lifts spirits, bears peace to closed hearts. Shaman Woman, drumming since the beginning of time, she carries the heartbeat of life. Her drumming keep the galaxies turning, the plants growing, animals birthing and babies swimming down the birth canals. She is Guardian of the Gates of Life and Death. She sings into our births, holds us in her veil of moth wings at our deaths.

Shaman Woman has been called many things over the vastness of time: Lady-Unique-Inclination-of-the- Night, the Moirae, Grandmother. She holds the Medicine Bundle of Life. From it the stars tumble out, the moon waxes and wanes, the sun rises: the elixirs and healing formulas, mending medicines flow in a neverending stream. As we sleep, her drum beats softly like the heartbeat of the mother, steady, sweet.

The threads of life all begin and end in her Bundle, streamers of red, silver, gold. They flutter down to earth, join us at our birth, guiding the journeys that lie before us.
by Beth Beurkens 2006

(Sound the bowl) Gently, slowly coming back to our bodies…we offer thanks to our parents and grandparents, to our ancestors. We thank Grandmother Spider for her always timely nudges and guidance. We offer thanks to Shaman Woman for the mirror image She holds up for us to see ourselves within and send thanks to the creator of the poem Shaman Woman.

Peace, Om Shanti, Salam, Shalom

As the Seasons Have Turned

I've fallen out of the habit of sharing the journey in writing. There is only one way to remedy that, start writing and see where it leads me.


It's been a full summer, between company and maintaining the gardens. While I haven't gotten out on the water this year I have sat almost daily at the end of the pier in the harbour communing with water, landscape and the myriad of lifeforms you'll find by the sea.

A decision I made this time last year has reaped more change than I could have foreseen then. I wanted food from the gardening work I do so I planted what I hoped would be year's worth of garlic in one of the flowerbeds. Sticking to the decision to grow food in flower beds required some flexibility in planting patterns...no more straight lines for this gardener. Last Fall and this Spring I moved perenial flowering stocks into pots or gave them away to make way for peas, beans, brocolli, potatoes, chard, beets, carrots, leeks, onion, lettuces, peppers, cucumbers, zuchini and tomatoes.

It had been almost twenty years since I had maintained a big vegetable patch. I had forgotten the satisfaction and what fun the work is. I had forgotten what a blessing the whole experience of growing and eating food you've grown is.

In the beginning of July a new to me Barbara Kingsolver book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle -A Year is the Life of Food literally jumped off the bookshelf into my hands at the bookstore. Before I was half way through the book I knew I would be making a commitment to make at least 25% of what we eat come from within 100 miles of where we live this year...next year 50%. With that commitment my food shopping shifted from the grocery store to the farmers market and local producers, which turns out to be another community adventure/blessing I had forgotten.

As the need to preserve more food for the year grew, so did a decision to invest in a food dehydrator. When my sons were in school (in the 80's) I dehydrated fruit and fruit leathers for snacks for their lunches. The 2008 model is a wonderful machine...turning out beautifully colored,(with no preservatives)highly nutritious strawberries, blueberries, apples to name a luscious few. I'm loving the peach fruit leather the most...and the spaghetti sauce leather...which is kind of like pemmican but instead of being berry based it's tomato based. I better stop talking food or we'll all be going for snacks soon.

One source of energy and joy that has been an integral part of this year is the weekly Kundalini Trance dance with facilitator Davina Bailey that happens in the living room or the front garden when possible. We are a small group, usually no more than five women, sometimes two. The dance is a glorious way of affirming life on so many levels. Trance Dance has returned me to my dreams of myself as a dancer from my child and young adulthood and in so returning I feel and see myself youthing rather than aging.

Another weekly source of feminine companionship in prayer and meditation are the Vessels of Peace Prayer Shawl teleconference meditations on Sunday night. With much guidance from Grandmother Spider a sense of connection, of peaceful intention and love that this container of women create for each other and the world at large can not be fathomed through words, only through experience. My need to feel of service to a world in such need is being met working in community with other Vessels of Peace. We share the facilitation of the meditations, each of us answering a personal call to facilitate whose subject matter inevitably works for the whole. Magic!

And the foundation of this wonderful blessed life...Court and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary on Sept. 15th with a feast from our gardens. Yummy!

It feels good to count blessings...they increase with every count.
May your blessings be countless too!

A Story of Reconnection

Our corner of humanity is in the midst of an unfolding happy story of reconnection that needs sharing.

Almost two months ago we received a letter; more exactly Court received a letter from an address we weren’t familiar with. This letter stood out too. It was in a fancy envelope, obviously a handwritten personal letter. I had to open that letter addressed to my husband. After reading the letter for the third time I headed out to find Court and read it to him.

It started: Dear Mr. C. J. Cressy, and proceeded to explain that the writer of the letter, Judy, was looking for her birth mother, a woman named Carol. As I read the details of the letter to Court his face reflected shock and then confirmation that his sister Carol, and the woman that Judy was looking for were one and the same person.

Well holy doodle, you could have pushed either of us over with a feather. Although Court was at a loss to understand how Carol could have had a child that he didn’t know about, we agreed that I should phone Carol immediately with the news. Within moments Carol was on the phone. I asked if she was sitting down, and then read her the letter. When I heard Carol begin sobbing at the first paragraph I knew a little of what a midwife feels at a birthing. This was a re-birthing and congratulations were definitely the order of the day.

That evening as Court and I sat and reflected on the events and conversations of the day, we both noticed that we felt like a new baby (already happily married with two teenage sons) had come into the family. It was the same wonderful cozy yet expansive feeling we felt when my son Jarod and his wife Jeannette recently had their son Oliver. Carol was ecstatic to hear from Judy. Court is delighted to welcome a new niece in the family. Family and friends on both sides have been queuing up with the intention of getting together eventually for one huge group hug.

Judy has taken to using her birth name by way of accustoming herself to this new world that has opened up…so now it’s Judy-Lynn. Carol and Judy-Lynn made first eyeball to eyeball contact a week ago. A wonderful nerve wracking, spine tingling few hours of tears, hugs and laughter, joy, hope and promise…

I stand as witness to the joy that is coming to so many from Judy-Lynn having the courage to reach out…I stand as witness to Carols courage when she put her name on the list of women willing to be found by the child given up for adoption…I stand as witness to Judy-Lynn’s friend Joanne and the perseverance it took her to wade through the tons of legal paperwork for her friend. I stand as witness to aspects of Divine Feminine energy working through each of us. I stand as witness to the beauty and joy that comes to open loving hearts and spirits with willing minds. I stand as witness to the power and wonder of reconnection.

A Labor of Love : Grand Lord Yew

I was called unexpectedly on Thursday evening with an invitation to go visit my youngest son on the Labor of Love Farm. He was looking for advice on a favorite subject…gardening. He has returned to the farm after years of working around the province…making big money…with little to no goal. It’s my theory that the farm has called him back, and to hear him tell his story, having found a young woman to share the “labor of love”.

Rory’s father owns the property, though he finally put it on the market when he moved away two years ago to pursue dreams of mining and trapping in the North. Over a twenty year period Steve turned the property from a rough chunk of rocky rainforest into an acreage covered with now well established fruit and nut trees and lush green meadows. When Rory and Kat (his girlfriend) returned for a visit and saw the disrepair the orchards, which also happened to be in full spring bloom, were in, it was the call of a broken heart they could repair with some tender loving care.

I’ve lived, worked and visited the property over all these years and know its history. There is a yew tree among a tangle of trees that has sat on a 2000’ bluff overlooking Agamemnon Strait. I realized on the drive down I was almost as excited to see the tree as I was to see Rory and Kat. That evening after a good visit over dinner I grabbed the camera to do a picture tour of the property, heading first toward the Yew tree on the edge of the property.



This picture shows you the height and width of this massive 800 year old tree. Its location has been registered by the “science” types and all yew trees are protected by law. It is surrounded by taller maple trees that protect it from the worst blows from the ocean, but also compete with it for head room. Over the years of visiting I have never taken a picture of this tree. With the first click of the shutter I knew/felt there was a presence, one I couldn’t identify visually, but felt strongly. On impulse, I zoomed the camera in on the area of the tree I felt was speaking loudest and took one picture.

When I download the camera last night after returning home it was the pictures of the Yew tree I was thinking about. As you can see…the Grand Lord Yew allowed me to capture a clear image of him….as I felt he would.



I owe a note of gratitude to Joan Solomon and her book of photographs of Spirits in the Garden for firming up my conviction about the faces, figures and symbols in rocks, trees, clouds and such I have witnessed over the years. It was Joan’s book that finally pushed me to admit to and share Lady Willow from our garden, and now Grand Lord Yew. It is an honor and privilege beyond compare to be able to serve life in this way.

“The natural world is a spiritual house. We walk there through forests of physical things that are also spiritual things: they watch us with affectionate looks." Charles Baudelaire.

A New Moon Baby

In the early morning of Monday, May 5th, 2008 we were blessed with the arrival of Oliver Ian Maleska into our world, son of Jarod and Jeannette, brother to four year old Paige. Jeannette is home with the baby, doing well. He came in weighing 9 lbs. 13 ounces looking more like a three month old baby than a babe new born.

MAY SHAKTI'S POWER FLOW THROUGH THIS CHILD LIKE A RIVER AND CARRY HIM TO JOY'S PEACEFUL SHORES. SO BE IT!

Today's Blessing from the Garden

There is always something to distract you from work in the garden. The first picture is of Court holding a red winged black bird that he saw fly full force into a window. It’s a gut wrenching sound, one that we hear a couple of times a year, especially during mating season. Court picked him up off the ground where he had fallen head first and held him to warm him. Within a few minutes the bird was holding his head up, and holding on to Court’s hand with a vengeance.

We decided to place him gently back in a tree, the second photo. As I moved around the tree to take the picture his head swiveled to follow the motion, but it didn’t startle him as it should. Ten minutes later when I again approached the tree he flew off to land in the grand daddy fir tree above the chicken coop. It seems that the large sunflower eating beak of the black bird offers him some protection from those types of accidents. Smaller beaked birds like the juncos and towhees have died from flying into the window with less force than this fellow.

Despite the discombombulating feeling of hearing a bird hit the window,it is wonderful when our efforts at helping bear fruit. The chance to help and hold a wild bird and, in this case, capture a beautiful picture is a garden blessing indeed.
PS...I finished digging the potato patch.

Frisky and Fast

This little squirrel and his companion spent most of the winter feeding from the grand daddy Douglas fir tree I can see from my window when I'm working at the computer. There were days when we had to be careful of the cones being vaulted out of the tree to be picked up later off the ground. Squirrels can be hard to catch a picture of they are usually moving so fast. Every time there was a scrap of sunshine on the rafters of the chicken coop under the big fir, this little guy would stop work to sit and feast, which is how I got this picture.

A Junco's Spring Come Hither Song

I was privy to a private performance, or so it seemed to me, of a male junco singing his Spring come hither song. My back was to the bird when the song began and immediately my attention was caught by the variety and delicacy of the song. I had no clue as to who sang just this way and turned to scan the leafless wisteria arbor from where the sounds were coming. He seemed so small for such long and fancy song that my eye continued for a moment to look further for another source before settling back on the definitely male junco.

By now moments had passed and he showed no sign of letting up giving my eyes time to see his tiny bird breast heaving in time to his song. On and on he sang an exquisite little ditty unlike any I’ve heard a junco give before. My ears were captive, my eyes riveted. My feelings surged with acknowledgement of my place as witness to a sacred event, and then it was over, he was done. The day resumed it’s heartbeat where it had left off, now sweeter, stronger, brighter than it had been those moments before.

Praise be the junco come hither song, my heart beats a harmony with your song.

Let This Be You

www.heavenletters.org

Let This Be You, April 8, 2008

God said:

Today is your debut. This is the day of your coming-out party. You are coming out of the past and beginning a new venture. This is the springtime of your life. No matter what, no matter your age and circumstances, you are taking a new step, and you know now that you are walking right into My heart. You come right in, and you tell Me a story. You tell Me how your day is going.

Of course, I have accompanied you all along. You are not telling Me anything new. Nevertheless, I am happy to listen to you reveal your story to Me. Your story is entitled "My Life and Times." You are the one telling it, and you scripted a lot of it too.

Every day you write your own story. You may or may not have an outline. Even if you do, you may or may not be able to follow it.

You have an intention every day. I do not mean the intentions to accomplish this task or that, but rather your deeper intentions, a more subtle level of intention, like your intention to do well by the world, like your intention to be happy, to give happiness, like your intention to give up selfishness, like your intention to grow, like your intention to love and to love from now on. Let Us call your story then "My Intention to Love." Carry that intention. It is like a high beam of light that you shine on your life.

Let your intention be more than to merely get through the day without too much debris.

Let's entitle your story "How I Create a Beautiful Day in My Life." What a great title for the beginning of a day. Let everyone steal that title from you. Let it be mass-produced. Let's put it on your calendar.

What will be the story of your life today? You can only write it as you go along. You know that. There are twists and turns to your story. They cannot all be predicted nor prevented nor made to your specification. All you know is that you have a day before you, and that, regardless of everything else, it is up to you to create it. Beloveds, whose day is it if not yours? Perhaps you slip and fall down on ice. You might protest that you did not create the fall, you did not incur it, for who would incur it, you say. And yet you fell - who is there to argue with about it? Your fall is already past. Now what do you do? This is what I am talking about. What do you do now? Your fall does not have to be your downfall.

Here is where you definitely have choices. You can get up. You can be of good cheer. Even if you cannot physically lift yourself, you can get up. You can be what you want to be. You can, spiritually speaking, get up, brush yourself off, and embrace a new balance in your life.

Even if your ankle twisted or broke, you, beloveds, have choices. You may not have a choice about sitting around with your foot up for a while, but how you greet this experience is entirely up to you. Even if you are in pain, how you choose to deal with the pain, that is up to you. If not you, who then?

You may not be able to release yourself from pain, yet you can release yourself from its hold on you. Pain, physical or emotional, does not have to ruin your day. Did someone say it had to? Get up from it, and go on.

Someone is going to trip and fall today. Someone will continue to love Me and love the world and love himself and love those around him just the same. Someone will rise above occurrences. Let this be you, beloved. Let this be you who rises above any spills. This is how you bless the Universe.

Now, come, tell Me how your day is going.

Mending the Tattered Web of my Heart the World

When Grandmother Spider volunteered herself as guide and guardian to the Vessels of Peace circle of service for 2008, She began showing up a few days later. I stood in a bookstore reading the title of the book in my hands over and over, barely comprehending what I was reading, feeling I had to bring the book home. It read: “We’Moon ’08, Gaia Rhythms for Womyn, MENDING THE WEB”. This poem is one of many gems from this book dedicated to women whose work mends the web of life.

Mending the Tattered Web of My Heart the World


I am mending
the tattered web of my heart, the world,
with plush emerald yarn
of compassion and generosity.
I darn holes torn by blame and judgment
with soft sturdy strands
of kindness and understanding.

May I repair jagged rips
torn by despair and grief
with braided grasses of gratitude
and deep purple reeds of acceptance
of things as they are.

And where anger and fear
burned gaping holes,
may I reweave
with golden threads of forgiveness,
gleaming copper cords of courage,
and strong silver strands of trust
in the mysterious and holy unfolding
of what is greater than I can know.

To strengthen this web of my heart, the world,
I send out these healing threads,
to anyone who needs them,
anyone at all
in this whole world.

Jane Mara 2006

A Boney Medicine Story: A Vessel of Peace Journey

Have you ever wondered how to bring up and process the life issues that you sense are stopping you from being all that you really are? Me too! It took years to notice, but there has always been a tried and true method for bringing up “stuff”. It is as simple as stepping off into the unknown, be it on a physical journey or through a commitment to a task never done before. In the past I would wonder about the sometimes uncontrollable fears that would come up when I willingly stepped into an unknown. Today I’ve learned to bless that fear as a sign of processing work on my inner horizon.

When fear started showing up around facilitating a women’s circle I took it personally forgetting to bless the fear. Before long I felt overwhelmed with unease, self criticism and a raft of other life reducing old coping mechanisms. A feeling of being flakey that has haunted my days off and on since I can remember, and her sister, a sense of not enoughness were back with a vengeance. It wasn’t until a feeling of anger, focused toward another entered the picture that I remembered to bless my fear and look deeper inside. This is what I found:

It is about love. It is about loving me. I need to love me, it’s not about anybody else. It’s about the walls I’ve built, I can feel/see/hear/smell them. The walls began as childhood coping mechanisms; they’re now in my way. Remove the brick called Grandma doesn’t love me, I can see better now. Remove the brick called Mother doesn’t love me, remove the sister brick admit they loved me, feel that love. A few days go by while I grieve and glory in the feelings of love I’ve long denied. For the first time in this life I declare to the universe that I do need women in my life. I need women in my life. I need women. I need honest women, who care for people. I need devout women who care for their spiritual path and also want to share their dedication. I need joy and laughter, light hearted clean fun. I am willing to offer my best to a friendship with a woman and so I need the best in return. I need talented, courageous women in my life that I may be challenged to be all that I can be. I need these women as they need me. We are truly supportive of ourselves first, and each other on the next breathe.

The next day I hear of another women’s circle, a Red Cedar circle that is coming together to meet weekly. I know many of these women; we’ve never seen each other in this Light. We share our teachings, our love. We love each other. I cry at the sound of a young woman singing her heart out about the walls that stop love from reaching it’s destination. My heart is full to the brim before I remember the message I sent the universe about needing women.

The next evening again, I feel an urge to listen to the last recorded Doulas meditation. It is the call where we acted as both birthers and the birthed. I take notes and study the format, closing my eyes to join the silent meditation. Love rolls over me in long waves like the tears rolling down my cheeks. Grandmother, Mother, Sister love fill my being until I explode.



And then They were there… They’ve been calling me, reaching for me, supporting me all the days of my life. Since I was unconscious of their presence and love I wasn’t able to walk completely in my own shoes. I was a ghost of myself. I’ve had it backwards, our ancestors are not the ghosts. Without them, without respect and acknowledgement of my matriarchal lineage I am a ghost of myself. This Doulas series opened me, helped me make the space, gestate and process that this re-birthing could occur.



Tears wash my face releasing years of feeling flakey and not enough. Inside me now I can feel my power and esteem backed by generations of women, mothers, grandmothers, aunties and sisters. These women dreamed of me, dreamed for me, made me possible. I have been a caricature of myself without acknowledging, honouring and thanking the courageous matrilineal heritage that is mine. These are my foremothers and I am blessed to be able to invite them to take up permanent residence in my heart.


I have long sensed an emotional immaturity lurking and ready to spring at the most inconvenient times. I have felt pride about that which is not mine to feel prideful, and have not felt pride around that which I might. I’ve felt this imbalance in my spirit body, with my left side, the feminine side energetically feeling pulled out of shape. I realize now that it was a hollowness that was pulling my energetic body out of shape. That shapelessness creates the feelings of not enough and flakiness. We are bags of flesh without the bones of our ancestors to hinge our musculature upon.

I found the bones of my matriarchal lineage and invited them home. As I write this I remember a conversation I had with Spirit Bear months ago. She had gifted me a bear bone, placing it in my back, telling me it would dissolve when I no longer needed it. I didn’t know I needed it then, now I know/feel I don’t need it any longer. Thank you, thank you great Spirit Bear.

Next I’m walking Peace, Om Shanti, Salaam, Shalom and a vision of the boney exoskeleton of Spider Woman has me laughing with her. Since she appeared months ago offering herself as guide and guardian to the creation of a new circle of service, she has led me to reclamation of this feminine power, the bones of my female ancestors. This boney miracle is one of her gifts/teachings. Thank you thank you Spider Woman

Seagull Under Construction

It's been close to a year since the sunporch on the front of our home that serves as my stained glass studio has functioned as a studio. So it was a pleasure to be commissioned to design and create a 2' x 4' window, using the seagull and a price range as our parameters. Court is the talent in design and pattern making behind this piece. Together we picked colours from glass that was in stock...to keep the price lower.

Ordinarilly I would wait to play show and tell with a piece until it is finished. This picture shows the piece at the copper foil stage...when it starts to look like jewellry to me. I'll post more pictures of this part of the construction process.

These words from The Power Deck by Lynn Andrews come alive for me today:
Essence...We come into this earthwalk like a giant piece of smashed mirror, every one of us reflecting the light of our god. The experience of life is a process of piecing together these scrambled fragments into one great mandala, reflecting the one source of all being. Like the center of a cyclone, we sit at the one point of stillness, the pandemonium of life circulating madly around us. Choose equilibrium, not frenzy. Live life from your center. The essence of you and the essence of the primal moving force of the universe are one.

A Winter Solstice Journey

Almost two months ago I was prompted to pull out the sewing machine to sew up a piece of cloth that had been kicking around the house for at least a year. No sooner did I have the sewing machine set up than I knew that the work I was doing around releasing a deep seated belief in sabotage involved the sewing machine.

It had been thirty years since I’d sewn. My husband of five years has mended my clothes when he couldn’t stand looking at the button missing or loose seam. My Mother was a seamstress and my Uncle a tailor. I took sewing in Home Ec in High School. At seventeen I worked as a seamstress to an upholsterer, learning the upholstery trade. (At eighteen I quit when I realized that the naps the upholsterer took every afternoon on one of the couches we were working on were a foil for his opportunity to masturbate while watching me working at the sewing machine.)

Everything about sewing is a doorway to childhood that I have never looked through as an adult, much less walked through.

An antique pink satin nightgown that was an antique when I it wore at eighteen, a black silk skirt I’d put away twenty something years ago intending to make something came to hand when I went rummaging.
Immediately I knew this was the material to make Medicine bags for my sacred items with. Taking apart the old clothing proved to be a valuable teaching in patience, design and fabrication…the pink nightgown in particular was a work of art.

As I sewed on my own Medicine Bags it came to me that I needed to sew my pregnant daughter in law one for the cards I gave her last year. Then I saw I could make one for my four year old grand daughter to introduce her to the idea of women carrying sacred feminine energy/medicine. Then I knew I needed to make Medicine Bags for three women friends by way of introducing them to the concept of making room for, nurturing, celebrating, and announcing relationship with Divine Feminine energy. And so between the sewing machine and my meditations and dreams the guidance came in over a two/three week period that this would be a Womens Winter Solstice Ceremony.

I had committed myself to an act of beauty that required me to gather a group of women to sit in a sacred circle during my vision quest fourteen years ago. Now I see that those intentions have come together with the means through building a meditative practice this year. As I’ve moved between physical preparations, meditative preparations, journaling and dreaming about the process this last month I have been awed and humbled by the gift. I hand delivered invitations to Ceremony to each woman, and each accepted the invitation.




This is the fifth year since I completely let go of celebrating Christmas in the way of this culture. (There was ten years of walking away from Christmas celebrations leading up to this last five years in which I hadn’t yet made peace with Christmas) I didn't realize when I began that new way of walking that it was leading me to now when I would be able to access knowledge about how to celebrate the winter solstice in new/old Earth centered ways.

The day after we completed this beautiful Ceremony I was deflated. Instead of walking around on bubbles of joy as I might well have been, I was somber and detached from the accomplishment. The first thought that came to mind on awakening was about the woman who had sat across from me in the circle. I knew without doubt that she had let power wash over her without taking it in. As the day progressed my gloom deepened as I sensed this was yet another self worth, rather lack of, story. Meditation brought no answer, no comfort.

It wasn’t until the next morning I realized what a perfect mirror I had been offered from across the circle. I could see clearly that I too was abdicating and shirking the very power I had generated. My concern for what this would mean to the other women started tearing down the wall that was standing between me and my joy. The first brick I touched said, “Who do you think you are?”

The brick was stuck to my fingers. For all I moved to let it go, the metaphor stuck. That’s when it hit me like a brick wall…my body holds a belief in unworthiness. As soon as I start feeling my stuff, strutting my stuff, owning my power my body remembers what happens when I “act natural”. My body mind will only allow so much joy before shutting down the whole show with fear.

The wall of “who do you think you are” has roots in my body that had been triggered big time. The results of the beatings that I received in childhood have yet to be released from my physical body. I have released them emotionally, mentally, even spiritually. I am now in the process of releasing them from my body. Is it any wonder I have had a difficult time grounding myself, coming back into my body after ceremony?

Release means remembering.

I can still feel the longing I felt as a child to be comforted and held, rocked and crooned to after the beatings, verbal, emotional and physical. I was devastated when Dad comforted Mom after she beat me, and didn’t/couldn’t comfort me. That was a moment when I formed another life denying belief and made the decision to run away from home for once and for all. There was never place nor time to lick my wounds and so my grief grew, taking up residence in my body. I got older and understood it wasn’t supposed to be like it was for us, my siblings and I. It could be, should be so different and what in God’s name did that look like anyway?

I walked some of this out through the soles of my feet today, remembering the countless distressed foot steps I took as a child. I remembered lying to my grade 4 teacher when she asked me about the new bruises I carried when I came back from lunch. I remember that the pain in the neck that has been plaguing me for years is based in the hundreds, is it really thousands of back hands, slaps and punches to the head and neck area that I took. I remembered being eleven years old running from a beating, without shoes and coat out the front door into the deeps of an Ontario winter. I remember hiding so I wouldn’t be seen and further humiliated. I remember when the shivering stopped and I started to fall asleep. I remember waking to my bed shaking from the spasms of my Fathers soundless sobs as he sat at the end of the bed. I witnessed his grief but no one witnessed mine. I remembered why I have always felt there could never be enough for me, should never be enough for me.

I honour the strength and courage and love my body has shown in carrying this burden. I declared myself, all parts of me, ready and able to release and be with any further grief that comes up. I will look for counsel in meditation.


I am fidgety and restless as I prepare to travel within. It required a careful walk through my body, relaxing from tip of toe to top of crown and every inch between. When at last I saw my inner fire a sense of desperation was with me too. I looked and felt around for a set of Divine Arms to fall into. There were none. The desperation is in my voice as I call out to my body mind to join me at the fire and speak. At first I couldn’t tell what was being said…it was as if my body mind was muzzled or muffled. I spoke of my mission to share the burdens that body mind had been carrying. I heard myself whining as body mind shuffled unwillingly into view. As I was able to distinguish detail I broke into sobs over the shameful state of my body mind. She was twisted and contorted out of human shape, covered in human excrement. She didn’t want me to know she smelled so bad.

I moved to hug and hold body mind. I began removing the feces. We cried together. I asked how else I could help and saw myself massaging body mind with my hands and a feather alternately. I apologized to body mind and sobbed harder when she immediately forgave me telling me she loved me. As soon as that love washed over me I felt myself held and rocked as I held body mind. I heard those Divine Arms answer my unasked question with the words…we couldn’t come to you until you gave us to yourself. We’ve been here always. My sobbing deepened, this time with a sense of joy. I massaged body mind smoothing her limbs into comfortable, natural positions. I was massaged, releasing many bodily aches that were the sights of wounds from beatings. My physical hand found Lady Love, my crystal healing wand and She danced circles and spirals over my chakras, passing from hand to hand, moving fast then slow, aligning and cleansing the four directions of my being. With my profound gratitude comes a profound fatigue signaling the end of this journey.

I’ve intended to write a Solstice piece for months. As the time approached the muse vanished, until now. How appropriate that I bring this old year to an end by clearing debris that I may walk into the New Year unencumbered by walls built in the past.





Gaia is the Living Cadence that carries the vibration of peace...





May you hear Gaia's song on the winds of change and let your heart sing with her.


(from The 11 Intentions Pathways to Peace by Lynda Terry)

An Expanding World

One day in August of 2005 I started googling some of my favourite authors and found online communities, (like support groups but different) that had gathered around these authors. Today I participate in two forums, one called the Sacred Forum organized around author Lynn Andrews Medicine Woman series (all women) http://www.lynnandrews.com/forum.html and the Reconnections Yahoo Forum organized around the channeled work of Daniel Jacobs. http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/reconnections/

After spending months of excellent reading on the Reconnections website I noticed that DJ did personal readings. It was during that reading DJ suggested that I (we all) develop an online presence by way of exercising the new wings that we’re sprouting these days. I was thinking about this last night and felt I needed to send a shout out to DJ saying thanks for the good counsel. As well I want to share a recent transmission that came through the Reconnections and can be found, with tons of other helpful information, on that website. http://www.reconnections.net/index2.htm


"An Expanding World"

"As Heart Energy expands, the vibratory pitch of your planet will rise. If your physical vibration reaches a certain level, and your body remains intact, pre-designed software programs will install themselves, and begin working within your consciousness. These programs are sourced from a balanced mixture of "mind and emotion," though it may not seem so. For many of you, the expression of emotion seems quite foreign. In fact, it's downright scary! The opening up of these energy centers will make some of you feel as though you're going crazy. In truth, you are simply being reborn--pecking your way out of the ancient, primordial "egg." You're not cracking up, you're breaking out!

The outworking of this process will look different for each person. Its effects,however, will be quite similar. Some or all of the symptoms of Global Acceleration Syndrome may be in effect. You'll go to doctors, and they won't know what to tell you (unless they are opening up in their consciousness as well). If you can get relief by visiting doctors or other health care practitioners, do so. Everything about this unfoldment is timed. Let your intuition tell you which counsel to follow, which treatments to allow. Avoid applying labels to your condition, even though doctors tend to do this. Seek help for as long as you feel you need it, and then let it go. We are speaking about NEW BIRTH here, not diagnoses and treatments. All disease processes are Gateways to Transformation. When a newborn babe is ready to come forth from the womb, all restraints to that process are thrown by the wayside. All you can do is let it happen!

http://www.reconnections.net/three_commitments.htm

The Three Commitments will be of great help to you during this time. Follow them as far as your heart takes you. Stay Free, Stay in the Moment, and Follow Your Energy. You are now, or soon will be connecting multidimensionally. Each moment is a world unto itself. Though it seems to belong to some pre-set sequence of
past-present-future, those images and memories are only there to embellish and stimulate that moment in a particular direction. They give color and texture to your NOW, like frames give character to the pictures that are hung within them.

Each sequence of events that is started in the Now Moment will be completed, somewhere within the Multiverse. You don't have to fret that efforts will be wasted, or friendships will be lost. It all goes on, and expands into every destined end. Just keep your eye on the next step, and let the Multiverse handle all the details. There is a place in the Multiverse where you will be able to review every possible/probable sequence, in detail, and find out how all the story plots work out. It's all there for you, when the timing is right.
Trust that, and learn to let go."

Turtle Medicine

I read Lynn Andrews' Writing Spirit last winter. Ordinarily I speed read, and then return and reread a book. This book slowed me to a page or two a day, otherwise I couldn’t hear what she was saying.

To begin with I was intimidated by the idea of identifying my writing ally or animal totem. I have walked with a myriad of earth’s creatures, winged ones, four leggeds and water beings. How to find the one specific to writing? As well, I love to write and the idea of finding a guiding writing totem now had an emotional attachment, had become important. This I know is the best way to get in my own way. Instead of muddying the waters wondering, I let the want to know go. Occasionally my thoughts circled the question, nothing came and I made no effort to penetrate.

I stumbled across my answer. I waited before speaking that I might sit with the feeling of Cosmic Turtle as my writing ally. I was and am in awe of this totem. There is no possibility of hiding my light from myself when I look in this mirror.

I haven’t returned to Lynn’s book Writing Spirit for guidance or validation. Yet. I feel the truth. The signs have been there. Now I fathom the irresistible urge I followed years ago to carve a swimming turtle from soapstone. I never carved before or again.

Turtle characteristics include: (from the www.geocities.com/~animalspirits/ website)
Symbol of the earth
Connection with the center
Navigation skills
Patience
Self Boundaries
Associated with the feminine
Power to heal female diseases
Respecting the boundary of others
Developing new ideas
Psychically protecting oneself
Self reliance
Tenacity
Non violent defense

I honour and welcome these aspects. I am humbled by the magnificence of this ally.

I am honoured to share this sacred space with you. My spirits rejoices at having a community with whom to share, a community that dares.