The Secret to a Bliss-Filled Holiday

[excerpt from Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, copyright © 2012]

“Every child comes with a message that God is not yet discouraged.”

 ~Rabindranath Tagore

Advent, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, and Christmas. Holidays. Holy-days. They mark the time, heralding that a sacred season is upon us again.

But does not every turn of the earth as it spins around old Sol signify the unshakable faithfulness of the Beloved? Is not every moment imbued with the holy?

Indeed. Yet, daily chores and routines can so easily lull us into a spiritual hibernation. We forget who we are and why we are here and we sleep through our so-called waking hours. Thus in collective wisdom, special days and seasons have been set aside to help us wake back up to Reality.

Every season is sacred.

Every day is holy.

Every moment is extraordinary.

Remembering this throughout the year takes a great deal of practice and a lot of mindfulness. I calculated the possibilities. If every moment that we stay in the “now” lasts about a second, there are 86,400 “nows” in every day, and more than 31 million “nows” in every year! I confess it’s no wonder to me now, why I so often fall off the “stay in the present moment” bandwagon.

But during this tumultuous time of deep change in the world and the accompanying surface uncertainties, it is even more important to strive to live in this continual state of awareness. Doing so may require even more effort on our parts, but living in the ever-present moment reaps its own hearty rewards. Have you ever experienced a high from gazing intently at the vibrant, red hues of a poinsettia flower? Or the incredible bliss from saturating yourself in the flavor of the orange juice you are drinking?

This is just a taste of the paradise available every moment of every day. All it takes is focus. Concentrate on an experience with all of your attention and with one or more or all of your senses. When you totally focus on an event, or a person, place, or thing, you become one with it in the moment. This is sacred Oneness—the root of all joy—and the key to staying awake to Reality. I set the intention during the winter holdiays that every time I see a twinkling of light, whether by candle fire, electric fire power, or star fire, I will reawaken to the now and to who I am. Mindfulness is one of the best roads to take on the way home to bliss, whether on a “holy-day” or an “ordinary day.”

But there is yet another stanza in the carol I am singing this year.

Every season is holy.

Every day is divine.

Every moment is magical…and…

During the Christian holiday season, the expectation and birth of the Christ child are celebrated. In one scriptural story, Anna, a prophetess, and Simeon, a man guided by Spirit, see the infant Jesus in the temple when Mary and Joseph have brought him there for the first time. Anna begins praising God and Simeon declares, “Here he is, the one we have been waiting for…a light…this child is destined…”

One person has asked, “What if Anna and Simeon were led by Spirit to praise God and announce these words with every new child’s first appearance at the temple?”

Hmm. Interesting question.

When I was very pregnant with my daughter and my son was nearing three years old, we traveled back to our homeland of Seattle for the 1995 holidays—not on a donkey, thank God, but via the airways from New Jersey. (Now that I think about it, I’m not sure how much better that flight was than a donkey ride. For five long hours, my husband, my toddler, and my pregnant self, were stuck on a plane in the throes of a spectacularly virulent stomach virus we had all contracted just before getting on board. Ugly doesn’t begin to describe it. The only holy moment I can recall during that inflight flu fête was when I realized I no longer feared, as I usually did, plummeting to earth in a fiery plume. In fact, I confess, I desired it.)

Anyway, on Christmas Eve that year we attended a play in Seattle that depicted the traditional nativity story with a modern twist. The angels, the shepherds, the wise men, and even Herod appeared in their scenes to each sing a popular Disney song or show tune with the words adapted for the scene. For example, when the wise men appeared, they started singing, “Oh, We Just Can’t Wait to See the King,” sung to one of the tunes from The Lion King movie. Likewise when Herod appeared, he began singing, “I Did It My Way.” It was quite clever and humorous and my son, an avid soaker-upper of all things Disney, was entranced.

A few weeks later, back in New Jersey, my daughter was born and within a couple of days we were sent home from the hospital happy and well. One afternoon soon afterward, my son snuggled close to me while I was resting on our living room sofa. He looked up at me with a furrowed brow of concerned contemplation and asked me quizzically, “Mommy, when are the wise men going to come to our house?”

In his enlightened sensibility, informed by the Christmas Eve play, the wise men were supposed to arrive after every new baby’s birth. What if that did happen in our world? What if wise women and men announced the birth of every child as divine promise and arrived soon afterward, bestowing each new soul born with gifts and symbols of the spiritual presence inherent within? What if this were a holiday ritual for all children to help them remember who they are? Would our world heal?

For is not every child sacred? Is not every baby a divine spark made manifest? Does not every birth herald the promise of renewed Holy presence and purpose among us? Is not every infant another face of God?

Every season is sacred.

Every night is divine.

Every moment is miraculous.

Every child is holy.

Look into an infant’s eyes this season and see the light of the Beloved shining through them. Be a wise 

woman or man and offer spiritual gifts and words of blessing to little children and grown-ups, too, who 

have yet to meet the Divine Child within. And let the twinkling of lights in the night reawaken you to 

the now and remind you who you are.

Blissful Holidays to one and all!

Questions for Reflection: How will you celebrate the sacredness of a holy season in a new way this year? How can you celebrate the Child Within throughout the year?

Dreaming our Future

Since my mystical awakening about ten years ago, my dreaming had its own—perhaps corresponding—awakening, so to speak, and vivid, lucid, energy, healing, precognitive, and intuitive dreams are the norm for me now—much more so than the more common dreams dealing with buried fears from the subconscious and details from daily life that used to populate my nighttime wanderings, pre-mysticism. I never know what my adventures at night will be when I go to sleep. (Maybe my intuition will develop enough that I can foretell my foretelling. Ha!) For example, on the election eve a couple of nights ago, my dreams were essentially the faces of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama alternating back and forth at a rapid pace all night long, along with the perception of angst and stress I believe was our country’s energy over the decision. By about 5 a.m., a face had settled and stayed in my 3^rd eye vision: Obama. When I woke up early in the morning, I wrote about it—many hours before the results—just so I could document that, perhaps, my nighttime intuition had foretold the outcome.

A few weeks ago, I had a very lucid dream about “the earth of a distant future.” [To read the rest of this post, click here...]

New Book News

Pre-orders are now available for Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom: A Life Played with Feet in Both Worlds through Monica's website at 20% off before 11/11/12! For details and to download Monica's new free e-book Healing Cancer Consciousness visit Monica's website!

To see my recent posts on how to clear your energy and how to clear another person's energy from yourself, visit my website blog: http://www.monicamcdowell.com/blog.html

Enjoy!

The Fool Within

The wisdom of the Divine is foolishness to us,

and our wisdom is foolishness to the Divine…

(a little paraphrase from the Good Book)

It is April Fool’s Day as I write—one of my favorites. It is the day to celebrate that what we often think is the highest and best is not at all what the Divine has in mind. The Divine as Trickster fools us, even when we think we have put aside all of our ego and only want what the Divine wants, watch out! The Beloved likes to pull pranks! These Divine pranks are not, of course, intended to harm, but to point out to us where we have over-estimated our importance, put too much stock in our own plans or ideas, or are convinced that our ways are the best ways (for everyone!) 

The ability to laugh at our own seriousness seems to me the best medicine to heal what ails us. The hyena, the blue jay, the coyote are all animal medicines that embody this laughing fool that winks at us, even where we are the most vulnerable, to see if we still get the joke—that ultimately all is well, ultimately all is Divine, ultimately nothing matters, ultimately nothing can harm us. So what’s with all the kvetching? the handwringing? the angst?

To be sure, the curve balls life can throw at us can seem pretty harsh, the suffering- severe. But if we can step back a bit to the cheap seats in our mind and embrace the bigger picture, these curve balls can then be seen as our greatest teachers. From this stance, curve balls are no longer things to fear, but our best paths to more love, joy, peace, freedom, abundance, compassion—to heaven—right here, right now.

It is always amazing to me that nothing that I planned as an educational path or career path has come to pass. Not one goal, except that I did graduate from college. But the college that I went to (and then the graduate school), what I majored in, what I did as jobs after, have always been totally different than what I intended. I have been steered into so many unexpected twists and turns—but ultimately better, beyond anything I could dream or imagine from my limited self (to paraphrase the Good Book again)—that I have learned to trust the Fool. I have learned to surrender. And surrender. And surrender again. Which simply means letting go and going with the Flow.

This is why I go just a wee bit away (okay a whole lotta away) from the law of attraction, and visualization boards, and the entire manifest your dreams meme in our spiritual culture. These things are all good, and have their place, and make good points, but they are still too limited. You cannot imagine what the Divine has in store for you. Period. We might get glimpses of it; we might catch an inkling of it, but still our minds will diminish even the interpretation of what it could be that the Divine wants to bring about through us, and by holding onto and even demanding the lesser, we can push away and miss the greater.

So allow the Fool who is within and without, to trip you up a bit so you can be freed from your limitedness and open to the better Whatever. Allow yourself to deeply rest and deeply play, as Martha Beck exhorts, because the new world order will come in no other way. Allow yourself to dream, to imagine, to visualize, but then totally let go of all of it, and enjoy the moment that is. For who knows what the Divine Jester will do?

“What you can plan is too small for you to live. What you can live wholeheartedly will make enough plans.” David Whyte

Fire and Rain

“I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain…”

James Taylor, song lyrics¹

Question: What do Groundhog’s Day, Candlemas, beeswax candles, and St. Brigid all have in common?

Answer: They’re all celebrated today, on February 2nd!

In many cultures and spiritual traditions February 2nd is an important day. It marks the halfway point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, thus the significance of the groundhog seeing its shadow (or not) in order to decipher the remaining winter weather patterns until spring. Interestingly, many of the celebrations of the day have to do with the element of fire (and its balancing element water). Candlemas is a Christian feast day marking the ritual purification of Mary after giving birth to Jesus. Her ritual purification would have been done, according to Jewish law, by immersing herself in spring water. Christians have traditionally marked this day by blessing and burning beeswax candles. The Pagan holiday in Ireland on this day is known as St. Brigid’s day, a day of celebrating her sacred flame by burning candles and by immersing oneself in healing wells and springs. Farmers in eastern Europe on this day spread ashes from their fires on fields to fertilize them and leap over bonfires to purify themselves. In ancient times in Greece and Rome, the period was set aside for the infernal gods for fertility and purification. And relatedly, since this is also February, the month of Valentine’s Day, the season of Eros, it is a time modern Americans celebrate passion, red, and love—all fiery energies. (The early Christian Valentines were celebrated as persecuted martyrs—fire energy, too!)

This year, 2012, we’ve got it especially hot! According to NASA we’ve just had a severe solar storm that knocked out some satellite reception and thus GPS didn’t always work and plane routes had to be rerouted. The storm resulted in a radiation storm hitting the earth this week and even triggered a rare geomagnetic storm around the earth. NASA photos have showed the aurora borealis in beautiful, vibrant forms over the planet’s poles. In addition, Mars, the planet of fire, is in retrograde right now, meaning there is a lot more of its energy around. If passion, anger, anxiety, emotional or physical pain, love relationships, or other situations in your life have been intense this week, now you know a strong reason why!

Question: Are you on fire?

Of course, we can look at this from a detrimental point of view as to “burning up.” We can also look at it positively, as Victor Frankl, Jewish psychiatrist and Nazi concentration camp survivor said, “What is to give light must endure burning.” Or, as an energy that propels us to pursue our dreams with passion, as in “I’m on fire! No one can stop me now!”

In my family this week, we celebrated my dad’s retirement from 49 years as a volunteer firefighter and 20 years as fire chief! In my own body, my nerves have been especially fiery, which has happened before during intense solar storms. The extra heat in my body has been releasing some toxins from my kidneys, a purification for sure. Energy work on myself didn’t help alleviate the heat much, so I’ve been balancing the fire by going to bed with a big ice pack on my back where my nerves were especially hot.

Fire and rain. Fire and water. Fire and ice.

It is good to have fire, to have passion. The trick is balancing it, holding it, working with it, without burning yourself, burning yourself out, or burning others with your zeal or temper flares. Passion is a lower chakra phenomenon, meaning strong feeling or suffering. Compassion is a heart phenomenon and means, “to feel or suffer with.” In other words, compassion means to understand another’s feelings or suffering and want to help. We can move our strong lower chakra fiery feelings and energy into our hearts, which are then balanced by being aware of and caring for the feelings of others. We can also make sure and clarify what our passion is for in the first place.

Question: What is your passion for?

Is it to meet basic hunger drives: food and sex? Is it to meet basic emotional needs for safety? Is it primarily centered on your own needs? Are you devouring others through lust or anger or control or are you devouring food, sex, or drugs to try to feed the fire? How is that working for you? Is there a way you can channel that fiery fuel into forward motion to pursue a dream of yours? If your dream is to help others or the planet are you balancing that with enough self-care so you don’t burn out? Are you so ardent for a cause that you attack your opponents without seeing they are just as passionate and feeling as you and learning from them as mirrors?

Question: What is this passion fire teaching you right now?

Looking squarely in the eye at all your lessons with passion helps to purify your motives. Ironically enough, this type of purification is humorously depicted in the movie, Groundhog’s Day! Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell are the main stars in the film, and in the plot, Bill Murray’s character relives Groundhog’s Day over and over again (a trial by fire!) until he learns to purify his love for others. You can also help purify your passion by setting the intention to use and balance fire energy appropriately and for the highest and best of all. Then ritualize this. You could burn a beeswax candle (fire) in the bathroom while you take a bath or shower (water); take a deep breath or do some breathwork (fire) and before and after drink a lot of (water); or maybe make a small fire outside, leap over it if you want, and then extinguish it with water. An extreme ritual would be to make a big bonfire on a beach and do an arctic bear plunge in icy waters. Perhaps you can come up with a unique fire and water ritual for yourself today.

Fire is a powerful element in our lives to help move us forward as individuals and society, even burning things up like phoenix fire, if necessary, to enable us to rebuild and be rebirthed in ways we previously could not or would not. Fire is powerful and beneficial, but like my firefighting dad always taught me, you have to be careful with it and you have to respect it. My highest and best intention is to “Be on fire for Love!” and to hold this passion within the cooling energy of universal Awareness.


*James Taylor wrote these lyrics in part after undergoing shock treatments (fire) for depression as a teenager. These treatments would end with cold showers (water/rain). It was also written partly to express suffering during times of great loss or struggles with success.

Finding Clarity in the New Year or "Resolving your 'Yes? No? Maybe So?'"

The other day I drove by a young man standing on the middle berm of a busy highway right beside a stop-lighted intersection. He was holding up a handmade cardboard sign common to roadside panhandlers that read, “Need gas money!” with the appropriate prop sitting on the ground beside him: a red, plastic gas can. All the while he was sipping on a venti Starbucks frappuccino which as you probably know costs as much as a gallon and a half of gasoline at current prices. Even if he had been given that drink by some generous soul driving by, he was still unknowingly sending a mixed message to all other passersby: “I need gas. Not.”

We humans are brilliant mixed message senders. You might insist “I am fine,” when it’s obvious to everyone in the room by your gloomy countenance that everything is not fine. At all. You might be told “I love you” but it strangely feels much more like an attack as it’s said to you with eyes that are glaringly angry.

In my own belief system (subject to change at any time without prior notice), I see the universe functioning as a giant mirror. It reflects back to you who you are in all your beauty and complexity. So when you are lacking clarity in your life and the universe doesn’t seem to be helping, it is often because you are sending mixed messages to the universe and the universe is simply reflecting back to you your own inner conflict. For example, you say, “yes” with your heart to the dream of your soul, but your mind ticks off one negative thought after another as to why you shouldn’t/couldn’t/daren’t move toward the dream. And when you feel one way, but think thoughts in the opposite way, the universe is unable to respond in a clear fashion: does it respond to your feelings or your thoughts? Thus, you set up the universal mirror to act like one big pushmi-pullyu of Dr. Doolittle fame: a two-headed beast going in two different directions at once which gets you nowhere except maybe frustrated and exhausted.

When you are clear, you are in alignment—heart, mind, body and soul—and you will experience the Flow in totality, to support your every need in fulfilling your life’s purpose (not the same as your ego wants). This doesn’t mean you won’t encounter obstacles. You will. It is part of the hero’s journey to learn how to transform obstacles into stepping stones, as well as learn how to read obstacles as signposts redirecting you to fulfill your purpose in a better way than you could imagine by yourself. Without clarity, though, you don’t even encounter obstacles—you just experience inertia, the blahs, and lack of creativity and insight. You feel stuck in the mud and your inner lake stays muddy as the universe reflects back our own unclarity in a spiraling feedback loop.

So how do you find enough clarity to make a commitment (and then surrender the results to the highest and best)? Here are 10 steps to inner clarity!

1) Get quiet. Notice your inner chaos and confusion. Observe it for awhile.

2) Examine your thoughts. Ask “why” a lot. “Why do I think that way?” Keep asking “why” until you discover some understanding which will generally lead you to…

3) Feelings of fear. It is a simplification but a generally accurate one that we are either moving from a place of love or from a place of fear. If we’re stuck and not finding clarity, it’s usually stemming from some unacknowledged fear. So name the fears you find in this process.

4) Go deeper. Go below your thoughts and feelings to an inner place of peace and calm. You can visualize this as going below the stormy white-capped sea to a place of undisturbed water below the surface of the storm. Say some mantras here like “I am safe. I am calm.” If feelings or thoughts arise that bring up anxiety just notice them, thank them, let them go and return to the deep, peaceful calm.

5) When you are calm and still ask your self, “What do I really want?” See what comes. It could be anything!

6) Then ask, “Why do I want this?” until you get to the feeling you believe this new thing will bring you more of, whether that’s love, joy, peace, satisfaction, security, etc. Give yourself that feeling now. Imagine that you have exactly what you want and it has given you the feeling that you want more of. Continue to feel this feeling.

7) Realize that since you can give yourself this feeling, you already have and can give yourself at any time what you truly desire! Now that you are feeling this love, joy, peace, or whatever it is, now what do you want to do in your life since you are feeling good? What clarity comes to you now?

8) What one step of commitment can you make—as tiny as you need it to be to not bring up paralyzing angst—to go in the direction of your clarity?

9) Take that step and then let go and see what guidance the universe gives you. The universe might redirect you or adjust your direction along the way. If nothing comes back to you or if confirmation comes back to you, keep taking steps in the direction of your clarity.

10) Repeat process above as necessary!

May all good things Flow to you as you seek ever greater clarity in your life!