Going Deep at Dawn

Hello fellow Earthlings,

It's 2020. Doesn't that sound like science fiction? Given that I came to the Earth in this present body in 1969 in Earth years, the year Neil Armstrong walked on the moon (THE MOON!), 2020 sounds even more OUT THERE.  And what can I say? Have we gotten more Sci Fi? Have we destroyed this planet yet?

Not yet, friends, not yet. I could never have imagined that I'd be typing my thoughts into a computer for others to read. And these strange things called Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. We live our lives with our head in devices. Devices. gadgets that are meant to make our lives easier. I will admit, my iPhone has become part of my right hand. I'm not going to toss it in the ocean. It would take millions of year for it to decompose.

I woke up at dawn. My boyfriend was snoring away on his futon he brought out here. We were on different cycles last night. He came in late from Seattle after working a full day and all he wanted to do was grab a beer and lock himself away with Netflix. I had very different plans for the New Year. I wanted to go into it with eyes wide open. No alcohol or glass clinking for me last night. You could say it was a pretty silent night and it was very intentional.

I did a vision board for the New Year. I do one every new year, but this year my vision seemed particularly important. I'm getting a HUGE sign to let go of things that do not serve me any longer. Maybe it's because I'm now 50, I don't know? A girlfriend who turned 50 five years ago or so said, "It was like I was walking through a doorway and could only bring a few things, the rest I'd have to let go of." That's how I feel.

So what am I bringing into the New Year that serves me? Love for myself and my direction and goals, love for the earth, love for my partner, family and friends, good health, abundance, travel, a house of my own, book writing and book completion, creation of my own website with online classes, retreats and readings. First and foremost is being here NOW in Sequim, Washington and finishing my book. Well, and blogging...

At dawn I pulled on my jeans from the day before, a puffy long, powder blue jacket, scarf, hat, gloves and red rain boots and headed out into the darkness. It was as if the sound of the waves out on Dungeness Spit was drawing me to it like a magnet. Before leaving, I asked my boyfriend, "Do you want to come with me down to The Spit?" He mumbled something that was clearly an indication that he wanted to sleep more, so off I went.

I drove down Woodcock Road and turned right on Dungeness Spit Drive heading past red barns and cattle and green fields with the Olympic Mountains as a backdrop. The sun was starting show signs of itself and I was in a hurry to get to the sea. I was the first car in the parking lot. I have an annual pass to The Spit. It's the longest spit of sand in the U.S. and if you walk the entire thing down to the light house and back, it would be a total of 10 miles. I have yet to do that, but I will.

I decided to take the primitive trail through the woods down to the sea. I could hear the waves crashing on the shore in the distance and I had one thing in mind. I wanted to be down by the waves. I wanted them to pound through me and shake me wide open. I wanted the undertow to take with it all of the unwanted in me and the world. Take my anger, take my fights with my boyfriend about finances, take toxic people's comments, take all the disbeliefs, take hatred, take avoidance, take addictions, take pollution and human consumption, take all the ill of the world out into the swells and break them down, smooth them out and return to the shore the light, the kindness and the highest good.

A bit idealistic, isn't it Kathy? I thought out loud. My thoughts were forming their own swells in my mind as I walked at rapid speed over the damp, moist earth through a thicket of pine trees. I walked so fast I nearly trampled over a doe and her fawn. They stared at me through those big eyes. They were as still as stones and I became still too. My stillness made them comfortable and they stayed cleaning each other and munching on vegetation in the woods. They were so close I could touch them.

I carried on and eventually the primative trail spit me out at the ocean. Not a soul was in sight and the waves were so huge they devoured the entire walking area of the beach. I thought about turning around, but they called me to them. They called me out on The Spit where I had to walk very close to the roped off area that separated the beach from the bird sanctuary. Ocean spray covered my jacket and moved like lava up over logs and over my red boots. Salt from the water was in my hair and eyes and mouth. I wanted, in a weird way, to be consumed my those waves. Maybe I secretly wanted them to TAKE ME out into their swells and churn me through their underbellies smoothing me out like a stone with perfect rings around it that a fellow hiker might pick up and skip out into the quiet sea making new wishes for the new year.

A rainbow appeared in a cloud across from The Spit, illuminating the land on the other side. Snow mountains sat like majestic watchers of the land off to my left. The sun rose on the bird sanctuary side of The Spit slowly illuminating it from the lighthouse to where I stood. Majestic. All of it.

No, we weren't in danger of destroying the Earth. We were in danger of destroying ourselves and all the earth wants us to do is listen. I heard the squawking of an eagle overhead and looked straight up to catch a glimpse of it as it disappeared through the trees. I was alone on this thin stretch of sand with waves thundering against the earth.

In those moments, I felt cleansed and alive. I knew I would move forward no matter what. There was nothing stopping these waves. They were unforgiving and relentless in their will. They moved with force and purpose. And standing there, I knew I would do the same.

Venus on Fire and a Pilgrimage to Italy

Dear fellow Earthlings,

I'm making a pilgrimage to see The Birth of Venus this summer

Four years! It's been almost four years since I set out on a very different path. And not particularly by choice. Well, at least that's how it felt at the time. It's amazing what the inside will do to wake a person up. Sometimes being asleep seems so peaceful, easy and SAFE. But we are meant to GROW and spread our wings in this life. Not sit under a rock and wait until it's all over. Life has a way of getting our attention. It starts with little signs. Something not quite right. Then bigger things, like dreams with messages in them, or things breaking or losing things.

And finally, if that's not enough, things do just simply FALL APART.

And most of the time our reaction is like this:

Oh, no, no, no, no, no! This isn't happening!

OR

Why is this happening to me?

Think of it as an amazing blessing. Something has shook up your world to allow something more amazing to enter. This is the truth I have found. But if you would have told me that four years ago, I would have told you to f@%$ off! Because people always have words of wisdom when YOUR world is falling apart.

But coming out the other end of that long tunnel, I can tell you that this is what I've experienced. Every single catastrophe has been an amazing opportunity in my life that I'm infinitely grateful for. Had I not experienced this chaos, I would not know the life I know now.

Shortly after my marriage fell apart, I decided to join Miss Indigo Blue's Academy of Burlesque in Seattle. I signed up for a month-long class. In that class, I created a new identity. I became Venus on Fire. I spent that month using all the raw material I felt on the inside to become Venus on Fire on the outside. I got my inspiration from Sandro Botecelli's painting The Birth of Venus. In this painting, Venus is full of purity and naivete inside a white shell for all to admire. She is an image of femininity and beauty. But that's not it. To me there is so much more.

So I began my act at Oddfellows Hall on Capital Hill, Seattle inside a shell, just like the painting. But The Birth of Venus became a death on stage. It was the end of something innocent and what I believed to be true and the beginning of something powerful and beyond my control. The lights went out and everything turned to RED. There was an explosion. I came out of the darkness hidden behind huge red isis wings that revealed a new life.  I was fiery, sexy, powerful and wise. I was what Shocking Blue sang about. I was the "goddess on a mountain top, burning like a silver flame, the summit of beauty and love, and Venus was her name!"

I am Venus on Fire!

I was a phoenix rising from the ashes.

I represented all women who felt unpowerful or small or unsexy or under-appreciated.

That one act changed me. An image of me on stage was even painted by, not Sandro Botecelli, but a painter I admire. He captured my inner strength and beauty on canvas. The first picture is the actual photo from my performance and below that is the painting.

Recently I was in the hospital. I had to go to ER several times. A cramping pain in my stomach. A burning. I carry all my worry and anxiety in my abdomen. Maybe I carry the weight of the world there. For years, I've had digestive issues. In ER, after being probed and prodded and sent for various tests, including two CT scans, I was told I had diverticulitis with a micro perforation in my colon and that it can be fatal.

I thought, Great, not only did my marriage fall apart, but now I'm going to die.

In ER they wanted to do surgery. I sat right up in my hospital bed and said, "NO! I will not do that." It wasn't a plea. It was a command coming from deep within me. It was a waking up to life. Once I said it, everything in me shifted yet again. My inside said, "OK, you can choose to live, but if you do, there's a huge responsibility."

The responsibility wasn't about doing anything, it was about BE-ING. Being a spirit in a human body. Being HERE on the planet. Embodying who I am completely.

It was a shift from ticking off goals and becoming something, to being right where I am in this moment. And the next moment. And the next moment. One at a time.

It's hard for me to do that. I was used to just forging ahead with my agenda. I wasn't accustom to stepping back and letting go and seeing what happens. I wasn't used to letting the river chart it's own course and letting it carry me. I could still set intentions, but the realization that there were larger forces at play, that what I wanted didn't just include me, was huge. I am part of an intricate web of life that affects the entire whole. I am a co-creator of what happens to me. When I let go, there's so much more there. So much richness is there, even in the pain, chaos, unsettledness, and unknowing.

In April, I set an intention to make a pilgrimage to Italy to see Sandro Botecelli's The Birth of Venus painting in Florence. I set that intention and let it go. Now, 50 days before my 50th birthday, I will be there with like-minded seekers. They are healers, artists, writers, dancers and lovers of life. How fortunate to make this pilgrimage together with these beautiful people.

I will be in Italy and Europe for almost 6 weeks. I will work on my next book, Venus on Fire, there. I expect to finish editing the book and sending it off to be published in my 50th year on this EARTH.

I know I'm being guided. We all are. When life feels unbearable. When it feels like you can't take ONE MORE THING, lean into it. Slow down. Watch a bird on a tree sing, really smell a rose or sit on a bench and feel the wind. Life whispers to us all the time. It is only trying to get our attention. It just wants us to acknowledge it.

I have three more spots on my trip to Italy. I'd love it if you'd join me and the other seekers. Please see the link here https://us3.admin.mailchimp.com/campaigns/show?id=3487893. Sometimes we stumble upon things for a reason. It may not make any sense, but there's a point. Keep walking. Moment to moment to moment.

Grazie for reading...there will be much more!

Maui Musings Day 45: A Message for our Planet

Good evening fellow Earthlings,

I have been living out here below Haleakala, fire chakra of the planet, for 45 days. Yes, I can't believe it, but it has been THAT long! The messages that have come through the land are so very powerful. I can't even begin to put them into words, but I will do my best. If you are here reading this now, know that there is a reason. You are here to raise the vibration of the planet. You are here to live your life at the highest possible frequency of LOVE. So many people talk about it, but there is a reason why. It is true.

I get that you may be saying, "Don't give me any of that new-age bullshit. The world is going to hell in a hand basket and there's nothing we can do about it. People are dying and our government is messed up, so go screw yourself."

Okay, okay well, you can stop reading if you want and just live there, in that state. It's up to you. I've been there. I have lived in that state of "hell on earth" where negativity was my best friend.  It was exhausting. It was like I was fighting to keep the negativity alive. It was like swimming up stream. I've lived in intense anger and pain. I've felt deep sorrow and outrage with what is happening in the world. Trust me, when someone you love is suddenly gone, you don't feel like kissing people and opening your heart. You feel OUTRAGE. This is a completely normal response. You'd be nuts if you DIDN'T feel this. When my husband walked out on me, I felt like I'd been shot in the chest. I felt unbearable anger which was really just a mask for deep, deep pain.

Right now you may feel that the world is in a state of chaos. We have shootings, we are at odds politically and spiritually with one another, there are wars, relationships are falling apart, there is darkness, death, disease, ill will. The instant access to Facebook and mass media and all the news can make us feel depressed, hopeless, useless, worried, fearful or lost.

This is all happening for a reason.

The ways in which we have existed up until now no longer serve us or the planet. 

In our human minds, it may seem impossible to wrap our heads around the solution, but the solution is right here. It has always been RIGHT HERE!

"Right where?" I hear you saying,  "I'm sitting here and I see/feel NOTHING good."

Are you breathing? Do you have food? Do you have shelter? Do you have a pet, a friend, family or a significant other? Do you have a toilet and a shower? Well, that's a start. That's all good.

Did you know that what you do RIGHT NOW, even if it seems insignificant, has tremendous power. You are an energetic being. The energy you give and receive creates your reality. What reality are you living in right now? Is it the life you want for yourself and all beings? 

If your world is covered in a state of despair, anger or hate, know that love is always there below the surface. Having the intention of tapping into that love is enough. You don't have to feel it. Just have the intention that you want to tap into it.

I could not feel any love at all when my husband left. I felt extreme pain. The pain was so intense that I had trouble breathing. Yes, you can die from a broken heart. What saved me? It was my intention to heal. THAT is it. I was completely committed to healing. I believed love was possible. I made a promise to love myself deeply. I made a promise to myself to feel everything I was feeling. I believed in love and I believed, beneath all the surface chaos, love was there.

Sometimes we have to go through states of deep negativity and despair in order to see that love. I feel like this is a shedding of the old. We are are healing in order to shift into the new. Are you open to healing and letting go of old patterns? Are you open to feeling love?

I'm living out here in the land of ALOHA. The Hawaiians and the people here believe in the power of love. It is how they live. They live aloha and even BREATHE aloha. I have learned so much from this. 

Being out here in the middle of the ocean on islands that are farthest from any land mass in a place that bases everything on this ALOHA energy is pretty transformative. 

The land SPEAKS here. The people are part of the land. 

Actually, the earth speaks everywhere, but it REALLY speaks here. 

When I walk the grounds here everyday, I automatically place my hand over my heart. I keep feeling my heart open. The love is so strong that it makes me touch this area. Whatever I am doing, the land keeps calling me to listen and love. Whenever fear crops up, I'm called again and again to lay that fear down and let love in.

Yesterday, after I dropped my boyfriend off at the airport for his flight back to Seattle, I felt a pull to get in the ocean. I drove to a beach near the airport and immediately found myself swimming with turtles. Their energy was so ancient, yet gentle. And when I put my head under the ocean, I could hear the call of humpback whales. 

I couldn't understand this language, but my heart understood it. My heart understands. So I have decided not to lead with my head anymore. I am being guided by my heart. This is the part that is opening. This is the new world we are entering.

I see a world that is lead by the passion of our hearts, not the will of our minds. I keep hearing that everything is as it is meant to be. There is nothing to do but follow our hearts deeply. If we deny our hearts and forget to listen to them, we will suffer greatly. If we get too caught up in what is going on OUTSIDE of our own beings, if we leave our heart space and get caught up in trying to solve everything "out there," we will be lost.

The heart is our compass. It knows the way and has ALWAYS known the way. Let go and listen. This is what I keep getting. LET GO. If every single one of us is tuned in and following what the heart wants, imagine the world we'd have! 

Don't fall into despair, keep opening up your heart. Open it all the way. Cry, laugh, scream, feel. Let it out! And when you think it's as opened as it can go, open it a little more! Love yourself very deeply in this process. It's a very deep opening. All of us are in it whether we choose to be or not. All of us are moving towards this love.

John Lennon, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Mother Theresa and so many others lived from this love and followed deeply what their hearts called for them to do. Were they too idealistic? I believe they are no different from you or me. No different. The only difference is that they put full faith in their hearts. They were called to do something that might have seemed illogical to the rest of the world, and they did it. THAT IS THE ONLY DIFFERENCE.

So what is the message for our planet and for our lives on earth? Here's the message I get from listening for 45 days:

"Go into your heart, listen to what it calls you to do. Let go of all the other voices that mix you up or move you away from being in this space. Let go of what others might say or how you might look. If it is coming from a place of the heart, it will always be right. When you operate from your heart space, you connect with all other heart spaces. This force of love is so strong that it changes the appearance of water molecules and it will certainly shift our planet. This earth, which has sustained us all of our lives, is speaking to us every moment. It speaks the language of love. Move through the pain and unpleasantness. Sit with it. Be with it. Underneath it all is an enormous wellspring of love."

 From where I sit now, I see this clearly. I hear that it will be okay. You will be okay. We are on the path, all of us. Keep going. I promise you, love is there.

Maui Musings Day 8: Tuning into the Sacred Land

Hello fellow Earthlings,

I write you from inside a geodesic dome below Haleakala, fire chakra of the planet. I'm on Maui on my girlfriend's property. I'm here to tune in, be mindful, take care of the animals and plants, take care of myself, and immerse myself in ALOHA. Right now, outside, I hear the sound of crickets and cows mooing in the distance. I'm far from the tourists. There are no neighbors or other people I can see from where I am and soon I will be completely alone here. What am I doing here, you ask? I do not really know, but I keep getting called back to these islands again and again and again. The land here calls for me to slow down and tune in. Every morning I wake to a symphony of birds. I usually make myself a cup of tea and lemon water from lemons that grow on the property. They are sweet and almost have a taste like oranges. Then, I usually sit in bed a little while longer, looking out the dome windows onto the property. I like to walk the labyrinth at the top of the property everyday. It's an act of mindfulness for me. I walk and feel each step touch the earth. When I face Haleakala, I hold my hands to my chest and bow in respect to this sacred volcano. At the bench, in the center of the labyrinth, I pick up the pink quartz crystal the size of my hand and feel it's smooth and cool surface. I hold it in my lap and just feel the energy. I then move the crystal to my heart and hold it there and sometimes I move it to my head. I often feel like kissing and blessing this crystal before I lay it back down. I then continue on the labyrinth path, winding my way out.

It's hard "to do" here because I mostly feel like "being" and just tuning in. I let my body move naturally in the way it wants to. I see what calls to me. I am open. I am here to receive. My girlfriend and I usually go into town in the morning. Sometimes we go to the beach or a yoga class or we get a bite to eat. I have so enjoyed her company and I have enjoyed eating meals with her, her husband and pups. They will leave soon and I will be here to tend to the place alone, except for the dogs, chickens, and the occasional worker who comes onto the property for a short time to do some maintenance or cleaning.

I have been called here. I have been called to take time off to write, get healthy, and to really hear what my heart wants. I know it's about tuning in without distractions. There's a part of me that is afraid of that and there is a bigger part that knows I need it.

The weather changes all the time, especially here at the foot of Haleakala. Sometimes it feels like a dark massive rain cloud might just suck me up and in the next moment, I'm basking in the sun.

When I first arrived here, I got really sick. I had a migraine, my face felt numb, I had pain in my tooth and I felt like vomiting. It took everything in my power not to vomit. I was consumed by pain. I had just arrived and I felt I might have to go to the emergency room. My girlfriend gave me a ice pack for my head and left me in my dome to rest for the night. In the morning, I awoke feeling like a new person. I call that my "initiation." After all, I was coming from the city and from the airplane. People were coughing and sneezing on the plane. The cramped space was full of trapped air that we were all breathing. My body went through a massive reaction when I arrived at this pristine place where avocados, lemons, oranges and bananas hang in abundance from trees.

In order to match the energy here, I had to detox and release all that I came with. And I'm still detoxing and releasing. I'm still healing here.

I'm healing the last two something years. I'm becoming a new person and I'm letting go of ALOT.

When you think nothing is happening and nothing is changing or shifting, look again. Look at what is happening in the world. It may seem chaotic, but it has to happen. Instead of getting anxious or nervous or scared, just sit for a moment. Tune in and be with that energy for awhile, even the chaotic or painful energy. Let it wash over you. Give it back to the earth to be recycled or reconfigured.

Something wants to grow here. Something wants to shift. I'm feeling that. The earth is a great teacher and perhaps our greatest teacher right now. I want to be quiet and take it all in. I feel blessed for that opportunity.