Adrift Among the Stars

There is nothing that you need fear in this life.
Everything is in divine order.
Surrender to that knowledge.

There is nothing that you need worry about in this life.
Everything you desire is coming to you.
Surrender to that knowledge.

Imagine you are floating in a perfectly still lake,
a lake that is reflecting the countless stars of the galaxy.
Use this image to enable yourself
to feel the love and support of the universe.
Allow yourself to drift between the stars.
Surrender to the perfect bliss of the universe.

Imagine, as you drift aimlessly through the water,
that the stars begin to hum--
an almost imperceptible reverberance.
As you continue to sink deeper into relaxation,
the stars become more excitable.
They know something.
And they wait with baited breath--
for you to remember this secret...
The secret of who you are. 
As the humming continues its gradual crescendo,
the light within you grows and grows,
until it dissolves the illusion of your body.

You begin to remember
that no fire can burn you
for you are of the fire; 
you begin to remember
that you are of the stars. 
You begin to remember
that nothing physical can harm you,
for you are of the ether;
that neither judgement nor hate can hurt you,
for you are but love.

As you remember your true identity,
the vibration of the singing stars
fills your core, and you hear them
welcome you home.

An Opposite to Martyrdom?

Insight # 1:
It is not our task to overcome the past.
To overcome the past
implies that it was an abhorrent, Godless,
dark, and loveless place.

It is true that God cannot exist
in the past you reconstruct in your mind,
but He exists throughout all time and space,
including your darkest hours.

Do not mistake this as God the bystander.
Remember, you chose this path
and the storms it has entailed.
So I'll repeat,
it is not our task to overcome the past.

What then, are we to do with it?
We transform it into propellant
and allow it to propel us
into the future God has planned for us
and that God has planned with us.

Our past coordinates can even provide us
with our future coordinates
and all the heartache and terror
can become the propellant that gets us there.

Insight # 2:
I chose to come to the Earth plane
with the plan to heal and transform my father*.
I agreed to allow him to cause
a great and terrible injury to me
so that I could be tethered to his healing journey
because that would allow me
to become the catalyst for his healing.

When someone causes grievous bodily harm to another,
it is because they are trapped in darkness
and wish to trap others in the darkness with them.
And we, the light bearers, often take on the risk
of carrying the darkness forward in our own lives.

I came onto the Earth plane
to provide him a way out of the darkness,
for as I heal myself
from the extension of his nightmare,
I free him from it.

Imagine, if you will,
a black cloth stitched to a white cloth.
The stitches represent the trauma,
physical or otherwise,
that the darkness has been casting forward.
Once stitched together,
one of two things will happen.
The white cloth will gradually become darker
until it too, turns black,
or the black cloth will gradually become paler
until it too, carries light.

This is the best part,
if we manage to put our energy
into allowing ourselves to carry light
into their darkness,
into their nightmare to dispel it,
we will have transformed  the souls
of those who have harmed us.

So again, I shall say, I came here to heal
and transform my father
as I heal and transform myself.

This does not make me a martyr because,
by definition, a martyr is one who willingly dies for a cause.
I am not here to die for the sake of my father or his healing,
I am here to lift the darkness from him as I heal myself,
and that, my friends, is the opposite of a martyr.

Do not believe that this makes us better
than the souls who have wrecked havoc against us.
For they too, are beloved children of God.
Children who have chosen this incarnation
to spur the transformation of others;
They have chosen this incarnation
to bear the full brunt of the burden
of the ego's nightmares
so that we can discover our own strength,
our own light, our own power
by deciding against martyrdom.

*Whenever I discuss my father, I mean my biological father, not my adoptive father.

To See Myself as the Sky

Dear God, teach me to see myself as the sky
which remains blue behind the storm clouds.
Dear God, teach me to see myself as the spring blossoms
which can bloom after winter snowstorms melt away.
Dear God, teach me to see myself as the moon
which is dearly treasured even in its darkest phase.

Dear God, I have found myself knocking
on the door to insanity yet again
and I ask You to please lead me away
from the hell-scape in my mind which brought me there.
Dear God, please dissolve this painful mirage
that has taken form in my mind.
Dear God, please help me disregard my ego's insidious lies.

Let me, instead, allow Your tranquil peace to settle into my soul.
Let me, instead, allow Your love for me settle into my heart.
Let me, instead, allow Your perfect guidance to settle into my mind.

Dear Mother, Father, God,
please pour Your unconditional loving compassion
into the depths of my tattered soul.
Dear Mother, Father, God,
please pour Your unconditional loving compassion
into my weary heart.
Dear Mother, Father, God,
please pour Your unconditional loving compassion
into my fraying mind.
Please pour Your unconditional loving compassion
into every crevice of my being,
so that I may share it with myself.

Dear God, teach me to see myself as the sky
which remains blue behind the storm clouds.
Dear God, teach me to see myself as the spring blossoms
which can bloom after winter snowstorms melt away.
Dear God, teach me to see myself as the moon
which is dearly treasured even in its darkest phase.

Unmasking God

As I walked along the endless trail,
and noticed all the majestic beauty around me,
I had no idea that the miracles I viewed each day
were spurring miracles within me each day.

As I watched the spring blossoms sprouting,
as I looked out upon the numerous vistas,
as I took in the sweet scents swirling upon the mountain air,
various miracles began unfurling in my mind--
and in my heart.

This transformation was slow and subtle at first
and all I noticed was
how little I was sleeping and how much I was walking.
But I began to believe
that this trail would always provide for me.
Since this adventure had called to me,
I felt that as long as I had faith in myself,
and in the trail, I'd make it to the end.

After all that I had already pushed through,
this trail, though it could knock me to the ground,
would never let me down.
It threw a lot of punches, to be sure.
But it also gave to me
the sweetest moments of serenity,
and a deep feeling of camaraderie.

As I walked, my connection to nature deepened...
I began to feel not only at one with Mother Earth,
but loved by her.
Every breathtaking sight I laid my eyes upon,
felt like a whispered 'I love you'.
Every tree I held or leaned on for support
seemed to mutter 'I'm with you'. 

By the end, I had an entirely new belief system.
One that included a higher power,
one that included the power of prayer.
When I began my journey,
I was certain of one thing,
that I could complete this odyssey,
barring severe injury and illness.
And after summiting the last mountain,
I truly felt, for the first time,
that I am not alone,
and I don't have to go it alone.

I hiked the trail to prove myself to myself,
and ended up unmasking God
and recognizing His presence within and around me. 
 

Releasing the Lies

Dear Mother, Father, God,
help me take out the trash in my mind,
and replace it with Your treasure.
Feelings of unworthiness
and uncleanliness have arisen once again,
proving that I still need Your help
removing the dormant debris.

Dear Mother, Father, God,
please help me release the lies in my head.
Despite knowing them to be fiction,
they still sit there taking up my attention.
Dear Mother, Father, God,
please help me replace the lies
with Your divine and undeniable truth.

Remind me that I am
divine, sacred, and cherished
by You, dear God.
Remind me that I am
perfect, whole, and complete,
and made in Your image.
I need Your help, dear God,
to believe these truths
whole-heartedly
and without question.

I need Your help, dear God,
to replace my old
habitual thought patterns,
with Your thoughts.
May I join my mind with Yours
each and every day, dear God;
May my heart align perfectly
with Your unconditional
loving compassion, dear God.
Thank You, Mother, Father, God
for Your assistance.
Thank You Mother, Father, God
for Your assurance.
Thank You.

Love Is The Root Of Alchemy

Love, I've found,
is at the root of all alchemy.
How do you heal from trauma?
How do you turn your burdens into blessings
and your wounds into lessons?
Love can do all this for us.
You may be asking,
if the answer is so simple,
why is healing so hard?

Healing can be hard
because when we are wounded
we cannot perceive love as readily;
When we are re-watching the past on repeat,
we cannot notice the love that surrounds us,
nor see the miracles around us.
If we grow up with various forms of abuse,
we begin to find compliments uncomfortable;
Further proof that, when love does show its face,
we do not believe it to be there.
We tend to, instead, associate abuse with love.
It takes us a while to unlearn the idea
that pain is love and
that love always bears the mask of pain.

But when we finally feel
the serenity within unconditional love,
we begin to realize our mistake.
True unconditional love bears no masks,
no layers of pain or anguish.
Beneath the surface of such love
is only more love.

So how can we make the healing journey
feel more effortless?
Start by identifying the lies;
the ones regarding your supposed
unworthiness, undeservingness, and guilt;
the lies you told yourself
and the lies others put in your head.
Actually,
these will often be one and the same.

We can also interrupt
the replayed trauma
with a memory of profound bliss.
If you cannot readily think of one,
take the time to imagine what a perfect day might be.
If you can, go so far as to write out
a series of joyous events.

Or you can try what I've only just started to do.
Whenever you return to the gritty parts of your past,
invite that version of you into your quiet, sacred space.
Meaning,
allow that flashback to be your cue to meditate.
Take a deep breath, and
send that version of you all the love you can,
tell them that they are ok now;
comfort them as you would
any scared and injured child.
Hold them, stroke their hair, hum a tune to them.
This can all take place in the space of a minute if need be,
but whenever possible, allow several.

Another key component
to more effortless healing
is to find a place of belonging.
If you can surround yourself with people
who show you unconditional loving compassion,
that support will be undeniably invaluable.
Allow them to love you,
and one day,
you will learn how to love yourself.

Love creates miracles and spurs transformation
as long as you can find a way to let it in.

How the Light Gets In

People, including myself,
are often afraid that others
will define us by our trauma,
by what we have survived.
But it has come to me
that we are not defined by what hurt us,
but by how we transform that pain
into love and compassion.

Some survivors become bitter;
others become sweeter and more tender.
For those of us who choose the latter,
we shall find that the deeper the wound,
the deeper and more profound the healing;
"we are all broken,
that's how the light gets in"
as Earnest Hemingway said.
And Kahlil Gibran assures us in The Prophet that
"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain."

And I shall add that it becomes easier
for you to find your joy
after rising out of your sea of sorrow,
for you don't take the small blessings for granted.
This has been my experience.
Seeing glimmering dew drops
clinging to blades of grass
and watching birds flit from here to there
as they serenade the golden dawn
brings joy and ecstasy effortlessly to me.
Silently sitting next to someone I love
is all I need to rest blissfully in the state of euphoria.

We are not judged by our wounding,
but by how well we rebuild ourselves.
We are not defined by our suffering,
but by our choice to transform it
so that we may bless the world
with our souls' transformation.