Naked Prayers

Fear - A Powerful Teacher

I like to create a shift in perspective. Fear, when shifted, can be a real gift. I have had the fortunate experience of a visitation from fear, appearing to me as a powerful teacher.

I have vivid dreams in which I often experience profound learning. I had several dreams of a snake that came out of nowhere to strike at me, always showing full fangs. It certainly brought on feelings of fear, as I pondered why I could possibly be having these nightmares.

I decided that, if the snake appeared to me again, I would ask it what it was trying to tell me. I know enough about the power of symbols to know that our consciousness, & I believe Divine Consciousness, accesses them to communicate with us regarding the things that are outside of our awareness. Understanding how to consciously interact with our subconscious (or the unconscious) in this way is known as lucid dreaming or conscious dreaming & can be extremely valuable as a tool for understanding our lives - in this case, moving through fear.

The snake did come again. And I was ready for the encounter. I was sleeping peacefully, when suddenly a cobra appeared before me, striking right at my face. It was frightening, but because I had set my intention, I was able to access my conscious mind within the dream & ask the snake, "What is it you're trying to tell me?" An amazing & enlightening thing happened. The snake said back to me, "Ah, now we can take a look at your fear." It moved to stand next to me. A scene then unfolded, before us both, of me in a situation that I had been contemplating for a while. As with many new creative endeavors, it had seemed larger than I could handle when forming in my mind, untested. I had pictured all of the reasons why things might not work well, why I might not be fully prepared, or why I might not be accepted in the role.

Looking upon it in my dream, however, the scene seemed perfectly safe - an enjoyable experience, with wonderful people, that would take my life in a new direction. I said to the snake, "Wow, I don't know what I was so afraid of." Snake said, "See, your fear is really nothing - nothing at all." The conversation went much deeper & I will reveal more in my next post.

The point I want to make here is that most of our fear is unfounded & is a creation of our own minds working counterintuitively - a distrust or disbelief in the existence of our own higher spiritual nature or of ultimate creative guidance - Divine Spirit or God.

This experience had a profound effect on me & on my understanding of fear, as well as symbols. The snake is, of course, a universally feared creature. It is also a powerful symbol, associated with ideas as diverse as evil & healing, depending on the tradition using it.

It was a very natural symbol for Consciousness to use to reveal my personal fear to me. Genius! Consciousness coming in the form of fear to teach me about fear.

Consciousness always uses symbols we can recognize & identify (or at least trace). This powerful symbol moved me from fear (as the representation of evil in the Western Christian tradition) into peace (as the symbol of healing & knowledge in Eastern traditions & more esoteric Western mystical traditions) in a matter of seconds. I was left smiling, even in my sleep.

It is worth noting FDR's famous first inaugural address, in which he said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." It reveals an amazing parallel to our current times, showing us that we have still not moved far enough beyond fear, have still not learned to fully trust that there is a higher form of guidance that is reliable and true, operating in our lives at all times.

Divine Spirit speaks to me personally, as it did in this dream. Divine Spirit speaks to us collectively - read FDR's address. This Divine Guiding Power is personal & at the same time, impersonal. Spiritual leaders have been pointing us in the direction of our highest potential for thousands of years, probably since the beginning of mankind, yet we still have to be reminded constantly that there is a source & a force that is more capable of managing the universe than we are as individuals! We don't yet believe it because we're still fearful. To fully embrace the existence of our Source & let go of fear completely, collectively...can you imagine the freedom?

Freedom from fear is within our grasp. We are the only ones holding us back.

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Intuition - She's Your Muse

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift & the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant & has forgotten the gift." - Albert Einstein

Intuition = the direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension.

One of the most revered scientific minds in human history put premium stock in the power of intuition. He, along with other brilliant scientists, such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Galileo, & Sir Isaac Newton, knew that the highest forms of intellect & creation come, not through our rational, thinking minds, but through our ability to set rationality aside & allow a more powerful energetic source of information to flow through us.

Why, then, are we still experiencing a society driven by the rational mind as supreme?

One could argue that there is not much rationality among the religious ranks. That camp has brewed a curious mixture, however. A God who cannot be explained rationally can be "worshipped" within the religious mind, while at the same time, clairvoyance, let's say, may be considered weird.

Then there are the mainstream "rational" thinkers - non-religious types who consider themselves realists. I have yet to find a self-defined realist who considers Einstein, Da Vinci, Galileo, or Newton to be quacks. Yet, when discussing the fact that all of these scientists (traditionally labeled "rational thinkers") referred to their intuition as their most valuable asset & the source of their highest inspiration, these "realists" can be quick to dismiss the notion. They sometimes even dismiss the scientists' own credit of their great discoveries to intuition, arguing that these guys put in countless hours of hard work to realize the payoff.

No argument here that study, research & experimentation brings a payoff. What these great scientists knew, however, is that payday comes in the moments when we let go of all we think we know & allow a space - a pause in our thinking - for a higher level of consciousness to inform us. These are the "Ah-Ha" moments of our lives. This is what leads to the best use of the rational mind - to be able to capture these intuitive "downloads", interpret them & use them for the highest good.

Divine Consciousness always leads to the highest good for all. It is not concerned about the personal ego. Call it what you want; don't get hung up on the words - God, the Cosmos, the Universe, Higher Self, the Force...whatever - this larger-than-me energy is available to all of us at all times. We can only access it, however, when we make ourselves available. Busy, busy, busy minds, constantly thinking, does not = available!

Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, coined the term synchronicity to describe the phenomenon of seemingly coincidental events occurring simultaneously & in a meaningful way. The Police recorded Synchronicity, a great song that describes it perfectly. Read Sting's lyrics.

We have all experienced synchronicity at one time or another. When I began writing my novel, Heaven, I wondered if I needed to take a course. I had no experience writing a novel. What if there were certain things that had to be done a certain way? I had my ideas, but how would I go about piecing them all together? I wondered how Stephen King did it, which is funny since I had never read one of his books. Even as I wondered how I would accomplish this new endeavor, I felt a great deal of resistance every time I thought about formal instruction. Thinking on this did not result in an answer, for reasons that I hope are obvious. So, I went grocery shopping. Walking along, reading labels, loading my basket, I thought, "I wish I could just find a book that would guide me through the process, simply." At that moment, I turned to look behind me, for no apparent reason, & noticed some books on the end cap of an aisle. My eye went straight to a book called On Writing. "Huh? Really?" I had to check it out. As I got closer, I saw it was by Stephen King.

This would not be the last of the Stephen King synchronicities to take place during the writing of Heaven. He became a companion & guide to me in spirit. More on that later.

Another of my spiritual companions is Julia Cameron, creativity mentor. She says, in The Artist's Way, that we don't create by "thinking it up", but in "getting it down". Da Vinci took time to play every day. He knew that he could not access genius without mental rest. He created the space for intuition to enter. Dr. Wayne Dyer calls this space "the gap".

The people mentioned here are surely geniuses. One of the reasons is that they all understood & understand how to access the Universal Source. They know the more they trust their intuition, the more they experience the awareness of synchronicity. How exciting! We all have access to the same genius. So why, oh why, do humans continue to ignore the Source of genius, in favor of our own extremely limited, rational thinking? It gets us in a lot of trouble - or, at the very least, it can cause some serious side-tracking.

Enough thinking. I trust Intuition, so I'm off to play in the lake...She whispered & said She's waiting for me there!

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God+Sex = Making Love!

So, I'm gonna talk about Sex in this blog...& God. GodSex, as I put it. Meaning what?

Society has largely separated God into one camp & Sex into another. An incredibly unnatural state. God minus Sex = no power, no movement, no creativity...nothing new under the Sun. Sex minus God = dark tunnels leading nowhere...maybe just in endless circles...low-end rumble that never reaches a symphonic climax of ecstasy.

Religion has been extremely effective at excising Sex from the equation of Holiness (Wholeness). Though the phenomenon can be found in many (or most) religions, I'll refer mainly to Western religion in this context.

There is this religious idea that the ultimate attainment of "goodness" or "rightness" is in bowing down to a Supreme Being & that sex is on the other end of that goodness spectrum - i.e. sex is good when it's being used for the right reasons - namely procreation, but also within a hetero-marriage (whether the marriage constitutes a loving relationship or not).

Then, there's the image(s) of sex in the media - difficult to describe the dichotomy. Sex is a tool for ratings. The same network will run shows that titillate to the legal limit, followed by news that panders to the finger-wagging, offended-by-humanity viewer from the aforementioned camp. That way, they have all the bases covered.

Sexual confusion seems inevitable - for both genders. Women are confused about what is "sexy". They say they don't appreciate the objectification created by porn or even "men's magazines". Then, they make every attempt to keep looking 30-something at 50-something (& so on), some even to the point of multiple surgeries & binging/starving in attempts to sculpt themselves as a version of their favorite Hollywood starlet. Some of these same women are also part of the finger-wagging religious camp. Men are certainly confused about what they can & cannot do - they're seduced by the same women &/or media outlets that then turn around & slap them for thinking like men!

Too many people are spiritually unfulfilled because they are also sexually unfulfilled & vice-versa. Sexuality & spirituality are not mutually exclusive! Together, they make us whole. We are created to experience pleasure - if it weren't true, we wouldn't experience it in any circumstance. Sex, in its purest sense, is pleasure. We are spiritual beings - not beings who should have to work at being spiritual, but simply spirits in the act of being human. Embodied spirits. The body & the spirit need only be separated at the time of physical death.

So, to separate our spirituality from our sexuality = death. C'mon! No death allowed while alive! Really! 1) Have Sex with the full gusto of your Spirit. Be fully present - think of nothing else while engaging your body (with another or with your own self). Enjoy it to the fullest. When you do, you release vibrations of love into the Universe that can be felt by all, whether they're conscious of it or not.  2) Recognize that spirituality is sexy. Why? Because you are spirit! When you love your own self, you become authentic. When you become authentic, you free yourself to love others. There is nothing sexier than your true spirit - you being you.

Why do I care about this so much? If you continue reading this blog, you'll find out. I believe that the quashing of our collective sexuality has caused a great deal of unhappiness & has unbalanced us spiritually. Religion is not the answer to spiritual balance, as it is horribly uncomfortable with sexuality. I believe we need to honor our sexual nature in order to make our way back to balance & wholeness (holiness). I believe we need more joy in the world. Good Sex (God+Sex) releases joy-making hormones in the brain, enabling us to approach every other aspect of our lives with an open, awakened perspective. Opening ourselves to this part of our Divine nature leads to LOVE MAKING. What greater endeavor could we possibly engage in than to make more LOVE in the world?

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Maiden Voyage

Like a virgin, I open to my first blog experience with excitement & a little fear. Excitement, because I have so much I want to share! Fear, because I've heard the warnings - there are always so many warnings to heed (or not) when entering new territory! As with everything else I've ever done in my life, the excitement always wins over the fear, eventually.

So, I'm going to start by asking your forgiveness for the things I may not do well or right. I don't know the rules just yet. It is said that ignorance of the rules is no excuse, but in my tradition of pushing through fear, I have faith that I will learn what I need to learn & the rest will prove irrelevant.

I have read some good books to help me learn. They've been enjoyable, even if not my usual reading fare. Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble/Shel Israel, World Wide Rave by David Meerman Scott, & Tribes by Seth Godin are among my tutors. With all due respect to expert advice, I'm going to go ahead & get started before knowing all the rules. I know I might screw up & tick off some blogging experts, but I'm taking that risk. Reason being - by the time I read everything, learn the rules, create the plan, etc., etc., there will be new tools & the ones I'm striving to learn will be obsolete. Technology is moving at warp speed & I'm not a technology expert. I simply want to take advantage of what little I know of it so I can share my real gifts with you!

Ugh - that's a weight lifted to start by saying that I don't know what I don't know! Here's what I do know. Fear cripples us. And we all experience it in one way or another. It is my desire to continually push through the experience of fear into the unknown, where I inevitably find joy. Maybe not immediately, but joy is always there.

I accomplish this through creativity & I am passionate about inspiring others to do the same. Music, dance, art, words, education - anything that creates movement. Here, in the creative realm, the Divine Feminine opens herself - she invites us to experience her beauty, her passion & compassion. When you engage, you penetrate her & she is joyous in her completion.

Yeah, I'm gonna talk about Sex here. Not just sex in the sense that you're used to hearing/talking about it. Well, that too, but more specifically - the Spirit of Sex - the Essence of what is at the core of our very being. I'm gonna talk about God here. Not the religious God - okay, that too, when called for. More specifically, the God that is...everything. Everything that encompasses that concept! GodSex - that's the stuff that many people like to keep separate...or maybe, just don't have the framework or an outlet to bring them together. Here is that outlet. Plug in!