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When your reality gets out of control

“To be empowered—to be free, to be unlimited, to be creative, to be genius, to be divine—that is who you really are.”—Joe Dispenza So I’m back from Mexico after a month of mountain hikes, glorious mighty companions (that’s what we Course students call each other) and lots of fresh air, fresh food and fresh ideas. In my absence, my garden beds have been starring in their own reality show,…

Loving this incarnation more every day.

“Sadly, there are more wild horses in holding pens than in the wild.” — Willie Nelson One of the many perks of my job is getting beautiful thoughts from beautiful people. As ya’ll know, I get lots of emails with lots of great stories. The other day (maybe yesterday, I forget), this post came in from my friend, Dunn Neugebauer. I like it so much that I decided to share it here. I know you’ll…

A different pair of shades

“Love will immediately enter into any mind that truly wants it.”—A Course in Miracles If you want to fish, you need a pole or a net or maybe a spear. But if you really want to up your angling game, nothing beats a pair of polarized sunglasses. By eliminating glare from the water, you gain a whole new superpower. Polarized filters change the axis of light transmission, so the vertical…

It’s a-shining in me…now

“The ego is the party pooper that prevents us from dancing into the middle of the ballroom floor.”—Francis Lucille Buenas dias, mis amigos! Spending a month in Mexico’s Sierra Madres is the perfect antidote to hot Kansas summers. Long mountain hikes, $1 green juices and, of course, the Namaste community makes for an easy dive into today’s Course in Miracles lesson:  The peace of God is shining…

“You will be bound until all the world is seen by you as blessed.”—A Course in Miracles Happy Monday, my friends!  I’m down in Mexico, loving the weather, the mountains and all the beautiful souls who live here in Ajijic. Every morning at 9 a.m., I head to Jimmy Twyman’s Namaste community for the morning message and to get a bunch of hugs. Today, Jimmy challenged each of us to do something…

Resting untroubled in the goodness of the Universe

“The world will not be saved by old minds with new programs. If it’s saved, it will be saved by new minds with no programs at all.” — Daniel Quinn I’m an awful lot like the cartoon character, Inspector Gadget. Remember the bumbling inspector who, yes, always saved the day, but had no clue it was actually his niece, Penny, and his dog, Brain, who did all the work? Gadget got the credit even…

Still swimming in the waves

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us, as well.”–Voltaire Happy Thursday, my brilliant beauties. A series called False Positive (I haven’t watched it, don’t even know what it’s about) recently debuted on Hulu. But the title got me thinking how often we invest in the opposite: false negatives. All things we judge as “negative” are false. For that…

Boundary or Itty-Bitty Box?

“Love is a built-in strength that’s far more effective than all the usual means of self-defense.”—D. Patrick Miller It’s de rigueur these days to set boundaries. It’s okay for so and so to do this, but if he dares step over this self-imposed line in my sand, it’s curtains for him. Here’s why I prefer to eliminate boundaries. Every person, no matter how they present on the outside, has dreams…

Tear it down and start again

“Culture is a plot against the expansion of consciousness.” ~ Terence McKenna This is a page from an upcoming book featuring my gorgeous Taz. It’s called No Matter What, I Love You. It’s written by my friend, Laura Duksta and most of the proceeds go to support a children’s home in South Africa. Early cultural programming trains us to “Be careful,” “Stay safe,” “Wait until conditions are just…

We need your weird and wonderful

“Shiver awake now at the doing of your dreams.”–Bob Savino In my book, Art & Soul, Reloaded, I share 52 anecdotes about well-known, successful artists who, like all of us, sometimes doubt themselves. I called that section “You’re in Good Company” because it’s vital to know that artists who have “made it” are just as human, just as scared. Steven Spielberg, even after winning countless Oscars,…

Tiny tweaks can reroute the flight pattern of your life

“If you trust life, it will surprise you and always give you good things.”— David Steindl-Rast  Thank God I’m a writer, not a YouTuber, because the pronunciation of the word I want to write about today is way above my pay grade. The word is arbejdsglaede. It’s a Scandinavian word that means work love and, as far as I can tell, there’s nothing like it in the English language. In fact, I’ve…

“The moon is high and here I am.”—Bruce Springsteen So I just listened to the five videos from Eckhart Tolle about “Conscious Manifestation.” I noted several interesting ideas. Taz’s friend Molly took this lovely photo of moi. Like me, he wrote down his intention to write the book that became “Power of Now.” Granted, he wrote his on a piece of paper and I wrote mine on a beach with a stick,…

Kill the past and come back to life

“For things to reveal themselves to us, we need to be ready to abandon our views about them.”—Thich Nhat Hanh You’ve probably heard about the cicadas, how large swaths of the U.S. (maybe other countries, too??) are about to be invaded by 1.5 million of them per acre. The thing that so intrigues me is how these wingless nymphs have existed for 17 frickin’ years, feeding on the sap of tree roots,…

Receiving the frequency loud and clear

“Remind yourself that you are not the mind and that it’s problems are not yours.”—Sri Nisargadatta Mahara You gotta love the Dude’s persistence. Even with our chatty minds constantly looking for problems and judging everything it sees, It still manages to make contact. I’ve spent a couple weeks purposefully aware of The Dude as I’m out in a forest, far from most distractions. It never ceases to…

Fill the world with gladness

“Writing down one thing you are grateful for each day is the cheapest possible therapy ever.”–Kevin Kelly With all the world’s seeming issues, it can be hard to decide what to take on first. Should I contribute to the food bank? Should I march for peace? It seems to me that the above headline, about filling the world with gladness is about as good a place to start as any. Can you imagine if…

No effort, no thought, no will

“Why are we not always and forever, in every moment, overwhelmed by the miracle of the world?—Jeff Vandermeer On my metaphorical vision board, I have four intentions, all of which came straight from the pages of A Course in Miracles. I’ve shared them before, but since my squirrely mind can always use a refresher, I’ll list them again: *Peace of mind *Surety of purpose *Clear, unmistakable…

The wisdom of woo-woo

“I am what I pay attention to. I literally surrender my life force to it.”—Becca Brewer In the corner of my living room sits a small black rock given to me by a bare-chested medicine man from the Cook Islands. “Pa,” as he is known, plucked it out of a jungle river in the South Pacific Island, handed it to me and said, “If you put this in the north corner of your living room, you’ll become a…