January Newsletter

Greetings Beloved Ones!

Sending Bright New Year’s Blessings to each of you. I trust this finds you settling nicely into a new solar spin. As last year’s energies were over lit with ‘spiritual exploration’, 2015 is all about the ‘abundant and new’. We are being asked to do things differently. From our overriding growth of last year - finding our footing, allowing ourselves to see and incorporate all aspects of ourselves, warts and all - we are now being asked to be this expanded being in the world. We are being asked to dismantle and release the way we do just about everything so that our newly revealed authentic selves may dictate how things are going to roll from here on out. This means allowing our hearts full reign to act as boss. That’s it.

 

For myself, for starters, it means releasing my age-old conversation that I am not a morning person, that’s it’s really hard for me to get up out of bed early. This does not mean I work through it, no. It means I say “F---  it, I’m done with that conversation. I’m releasing that thought form into the dirt as it were, just giving it back to the field of illusion from which it arose. Thank you illusion, for all you held and taught and now goodbye. I’m going to just start getting up to do my kundalini practice first thing before the school run. I’m going to let the larger yes of my commitment to kundalini and myself override the illusion of no.  So I get out of bed. And on the mornings I don’t, it’s not a big deal. I am gentle with myself. My skipping a day does not mean anything other than I skipped a day. I simply get up the next day. And as it turns out, I’m actually fine getting up early and am finding myself quite the eager morning person on my mat. Also, regular kundalini is changing absolutely everything about how I am showing up as my life. Thank you Breath, thank you Spaciousness!

 

And so, let’s start this year off with some clear sight. The new moon in Aquarius, exact tomorrow (Tuesday) at 5:14am PST, brings us the gift of new perspective, and since it is in the first degree of Aquarius, in brand new territory as it were, this potent new moon supports us in activating and initiating what’s next. We have spent an entire year facing the karma of our past; let’s release what we’ve worked through and create what’s next and true for us. Let’s allow our hearts to lead so that we are ‘drawn by the stronger pull of that which we truly love’ (Rumi). Let’s delegate our minds to simply noticing what’s present for us. Our thoughts about what’s present are not meaningful…let them float through. Notice what you need to see in order to shine light on and release old patterning. And check in with the heart again and again and again. It knows…

 

Inner Gangsta

In the 6th grade when she was 12 years old, my daughter discovered rap music and fell head-long in love, her first love really.  My skinny, long-limbed, sparkly spoiled Southern California white princess dropped into it HARD.  She went from Macklemore to Eminem to Dr. Dre to Snoop Dog (the chronic) and the like.  She went from rainbow sparkles to black on black, head-bands and bows to thick black eye-liner and Doc Martens.  We let her listen to whatever she wanted, as she was going to anyway, sanctioned by us or not.  She started out with the clean versions of everything which for some songs is really just humming; by 7th grade, she made her way into the explicit.  And so every morning, when we get into the car for our 25 minute drive to school, she's the DJ, and anything goes.

I have a mind that likes a bone; I love riddles and koans and anything that keeps my monkey mind busy so that I can get on with living from my heart.  And my mind learns lyrics really well, always has.  So when I listen to rap for at least an hour a day, the same songs over and over again, my brain learns every single word after a while.  And so we sing these lovely ballads together in the car "I don't give a fuck, I don't give a fuck, I don't, I don't, I don't give a fuck, bitch I don't give a fuck about you or anything that you do..."  The nastier the lyrics, the more fun we have singing them at the top of our lungs, like we're really extra cool.  (Sometimes we discuss the songs and use them for discourse on human nature but that's a different post.)  On the mornings where I tell my daughter I just can't face her music that day, she says "Come on mom, it's our jam, it's how we do", which works every time because how am I going to deny my girl our jam?  And you know what?  I am beginning to understand something about rap music - albeit from an affluent white woman in her 50's perspective.  It speaks to the gangster in me, that totally bad ass 'I'm a fuck you up' girl who doesn't take any shit from anyone.  Who fights back.  Who calls it as she sees it, without fear.  When I was a girl, Bruce Springsteen was about as close as I got to this.  Bruce told me to get the hell out of Jersey and I listened.  I bolted the summer after high school and never looked back.  When I listen to E Street radio now, I realize how influential Bruce Springsteen was back then; how his lyrics allowed me to find a place in me that knew that yes, I too needed to get the hell out.  I too was born to run, to break free and hide out on the back streets.  Those songs and those lyrics became my anthem, my riding music, and they gave me the courage to be that girl who ran away from everything she knew.

Rap is doing the same with my girl.  It is allowing her to explore this really tough bitch who lives inside of her and is basically like "eff you, I'm a do shit my own way."  Sometimes I know she is picking a song on purpose to sing the lyrics to me, as a message she can't otherwise say ("bitch shut yo trap").  The more I witness this, the more I see the value of her inner gangsta; it's allowing her to explore that raw power - without being incited to violence or misogyny.  And interestingly enough, she has also gone back to listening to the sound track of High School Musical, which is almost sickly sweet in its straight-laced idealism.  So rap is not necessarily informing who she is in the outside world; it is just exposing her to a side of herself she can own, integrate and use when necessary - a tough girl who is capable of handling herself, sticking up for herself and having her own back.  Like Snoop Dog, she is the shiiit, beeitch....

Anyway, as it turns out, there is a down side.  I definitely overuse 'motha fucka' and quite often find that after hours of hearing (and sometimes singing along) with a song in my head, what I'm actually singing is something along the lines of "take a bullet with some dick and get this dope off this jet."  I do find myself dreaming of the day when my daughter has her own car and her own jam.  And I can go back to my jam of yoga chants and the like. 

I ain't never gonna give up my inner gangsta tho, no.  That ho is way too bad ass to let go...

December's Gifts

Each month I hold a Feminine Energy Circle at my house. All kinds of interesting women come, we open an energetic vortex of sacred space, we share, we cry, we celebrate, and then we breathe. We breathe a rhythmic breath for a long time, and stuck energies get to move up and out of our bodies and energetic fields. And each time we are a little bit freer. Sometimes a lot freer. I cannot tell you how gratifying it is to watch women come back month after month, lighter, brighter, more themselves. It is the best work of my lifetime next to parenting and I am so thankful I get to do it! 

Each month I send out an email invitation, with a few words about the planetary energetics of that particular month. The planets are constantly moving, constantly creating geometric patterns within which we live our lives, largely unaware of the huge influence the resonance of these cosmic beings and their creative geometries have on, oh, EVERYTHING. I am a dabbler at best in sacred geometry which makes it easy for me to present it really simply, in a way that I hope is practical. In an effort to energize my blog, I am going to share these monthly musings with you, the Internet. You're welcome?


DECEMBER
Greetings Beloveds! I hope December finds you warmed by the inner fires of devotional self-love and care. I have spent the entire day in my warm house, drinking cup after cup of herbal tea, catching up on everything I ignored over Thanksgiving week. I am so grateful for the copious rain falling in Southern California even now; I can feel the earth’s lushness as she soaks it in - and all her plant and animal friends get to bask in the blessing of water!

December’s prevailing energies are decidedly un-water like and are mostly about fire. Fire is a fast-moving transformative element; things can change in the blink of an eye into something entirely different, something heretofore unknown. We are supported in this energetic by the on-going Pluto-Uranus Square which is about destabilizing and/or dismantling old structures, patterns, ways of being. The transformation the world has undergone since 2012 is largely due to this influence and we get another dose of it this month as it goes exact this weekend with the full moon. We are given yet another opportunity to release ourselves from our self-imposed prison of who we think we are. We have another opportunity to see beyond ourselves, to see how our stories and beliefs about ‘self’ and the world keep us stuck in habitual patterns like a hamster on a wheel. We run and we run and we wind up where we started. This month we get an added push to simply stop, get off the wheel and look around. We have the ability to give ourselves up, to simply release any notion of ‘knowing’ and let it all fall away.  This may be scary for our personality, to let everything go, as our personality cannot conceive of a beingness beyond itself. Our souls know that who we truly are lies outside the construct of personality, so lean into the deeper wisdom of your soul while assuring your personality it isn’t doing to die. It may get a pretty good make-over though ;-)

For me, so much of this work of letting it all go takes place in the inner planes, where thoughts don’t reach. I feel this happening as I go about my daily life; my only ‘job’ is to watch and notice where it is I move from. When I run into constriction of any kind (any feeling that doesn’t feel good) I am learning to just stop and look at it. Where is it coming from? Most of the time it is my personality reacting to a thought. When I go beyond personality and connect to the endless stillness at the heart of my heart, the constriction vanishes and I can simply be with what is. This is the gift of December for me, leaning into what is.

So this month I will focus on 'What can I let go of?'  What old crusty tired thought form is begging for release?  And who will I be without it?  (Liberated and peaceful spring to heart and that's just a start...)

 

Happy releasing!

 

 

I Have A Dream

 

      The world is spinning faster now, can you feel it?  The energy is ramping up, day by day, minute by minute even.  I don't know about you - sometimes I feel like I've cycled through three different iterations of myself before lunch.  The amount of energy and information both seen and unseen that is available to us right now is unheard of; the level and speed of change is breath-taking.  The human 'experiment' is in a critical phase.  What we do now means more than it possibly ever has.  Those who have placed their attention solely on the phenomenal aspects of this world may not weather the changes as well as those who have peeked behind the curtain.  Those who use their attention to know and navigate multiple-level reality will likely have more tools to align their bodies and fields to the constantly quickening resonance that's happening now.  Those who aren't aware of the deeper truth of themselves may lose their center more easily.  Headlines show this is already happening, particularly among young people.

     What to do?  Real and true self-inquiry is always a great place to start.  Meditation too, and yoga, particularly Kundalini Yoga as it literally is the technology of opening and moving energy and preparing the body to hold more and more resonance.  And, more immediately, we can begin to find our way into our essential nature of Joy.  Can you imagine the world if we all insisted on being in Joy all the time?  Can you conjure how we would navigate conflict resolution - if both sides steadfastly INSISTED on being in Joy?  Win/win solutions, compromise, team work, clear priorities - these would be just the start.  Imagine if you, in your Abundance, came across someone who did not have enough food, shelter, safety, love, etc.  If you, insisting on living from Joy, would happily share from your overflow?  Imagine how society would be transformed!  In Joy we are all teammates, with a common goal of always feeling good - deeply good, not the fleeting good-like buzz we get from escapism.  I'm talking about true, sustainable good, based on something real, like Communion, Friendship, Right Relationship, Love, Compassion, Stewardship, Responsibility.  This kind of good is real and sustainable because it is the essential nature of the Universe and therefore of you for you are a tiny microcosm of the entirety of the Universe/God. 

     How do we find Joy?  In every moment, with every choice, pick the thing that resonates Joy.  Pick the thing that benefits the whole world, because believe it or not, your every thought affects the entire cosmos.  Ask yourself constantly, What brings me Joy?  What makes me happy?  Allow the answer to come from your soul knowing, not from the ego.  The ego will give you the easy, fake answer nine times out of ten, because the ego is invested in who you are right now and is not much interested in who you dream of being - and in who the world is now insisting you become.  If you transform yourself into a Joyful Being, the ego won't recognize itself and so of course it fights for its perceived survival.  Assure your ego you will not (cannot) kill it, that you are just going to use it for what it's good for (objective noticing) and that you are going to let your heart lead you.  You are going to let what brings you Joy inform your decisions.  Throw yourself over that cliff, see how that feels...

     This dream of a world where we all live in Joy is not a pipe dream - it is actually attainable.  In fact it's available right now, in this very moment, by each of us simply making our minds up to first understand the nature of Joy and then to unfailingly recognize it in every moment.  Joy's nature is eternal; it is always everywhere present as it is a vibration that never not is.  It exists eternally.  We do not have to 'find' it.  We simply need to get quiet enough to tune in with it vibrationally.  We as human beings know how to do this (we're wired for it) and if you have forgotten how, ask Joy to teach you.  Ask, and then get even more quiet so that you can listen.  Joy speaks softly - and it ALWAYS answers.

 

 

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Being Here Now

So I'm reading this book that I got in 1998 during my wedding weekend.  We were staying in a suite at the Aerie Resort in Malahat, British Columbia and in it's fabulousness, the room had a lending library, as in take a book, leave a book.  I took a small spiritual book that was waaaay over my head.  I carried that book with me on our honeymoon, through Rome and Nairobi to the plains of Kenya and Tanzania, to the island of Zanzibar then back to Italy and finally home.  I opened it several times during that trip and each time was rebuffed - it was vastly out of my league.  I could barely read a paragraph.  I put the book on my shelf and forgot about it.  Fifteen years passed and one day about three months ago I was looking for a book of poetry on a high shelf and came across it. I recognized it immediately.  It screamed - loudly - READ ME NOW!  I am nothing if not obedient to internal screaming, especially if it is coming from my gut.  The book really wanted to convince me it was our time to dance, so it threw in 'code' words within the first two chapters - words I had only recently learned or researched, concepts I had recently worked with and integrated, obscure spiritual traditions I have been studying for the past year - stuff like that.  Each time a familiar reference came up, I was like "Book, I got it, we're simpatico, you don't have to convince me. I'm all in. I believe you."

I read the book through in about a month.  It's still pretty dense and would often put me to sleep when I hit overload.  I couldn't take a lot of it in although I knew it was being fully received on deeper levels of my being.  I dreamt of it's cover, it's concepts, it's truths.  And when I was done, I began studying it in earnest; every morning before meditation I would read over the parts I had highlighted.  And when I was done with that, I began reading the book again from the beginning.  This time I am getting it, every word.  And it's opening something in me, boundless and immutable.  Something I have always known and yet could not see.

Since college, a huge component of my 'becoming' has been through books, teachers and practices.  I have always found the next engagement through a totally organic process of following my nose.  It is the one place I have consistently listened and been obedient to.  I follow my intuition and subtle feeling, no matter how strange they may seem to my surface mind.  I have had a sneaking suspicion of the perfection of the journey, feeling that somehow it was supremely orchestrated through all of these strange passageways and tunnels - even the dead ends were brilliant pieces of the puzzle.  For the past nine years, beginning really when we moved to Malibu into the pyramid house, I have been simply speechless regarding the intelligence that is leading me.  It has an astoundingly intricate construction, its margins imperceptible.  This book is possibly it's most stunning manifestation to date.  I picked it up at the exact perfect moment in my trajectory - I have absolutely primed myself to receive the truth it presents.  It feels like the crowing moment on this particular area of exploration - this area being the pursuit of leading a wholly authentic life, able to fully inhabit each moment free of past conditioning or forward-looking projections.  To be wholly pure with the moment, to exist in its stillness with it - as it - so that I can experience it entirely and respond creatively.

Why our emotional bodies get so gunked up  in the first place is all about safety.  Rather than experience a moment fully, our brains try to make sense of it by finding some pattern it falls into. We define it and box it up based on what we know from a previous experience. Once the pattern is identified, we 'understand' the situation and react accordingly. The only problem is, this process keeps us from seeing or being in the actual situation. Oh my gosh, for real, we miss most of what goes on right in front of our faces. It is said that when Spanish galleon ships arrived off the coast of the New World, the indigenous peoples could not see them. They literally could not see the ships because they had never seen anything even remotely like it before. Their brains had no way to process the information. Once the Spaniards came to shore in smaller canoes, the natives could see them as they had a 'program' that defined canoe.  The more awake I become, the more I see how we ignore so much of what happens in any given moment.  We literally don't or won't see what we can't be with - what we don't have a program for.  We do this to remain safely with the confines of patterns, which are predictable. I can no longer live in the realm of predictable. All that I have been up to is allowing me to step out of this confinement.

It is my understanding that our emotional bodies carry remnants of many lifetimes within their genetic structure. We come into this life with our history trailing out behind us. Some call this karma. We can chose to live out our entire lives within the construct of this emotional body - it has it's own consciousness, it will carry us through. When we create through our emotional consciousness, we will weave the same stories energetically lifetime after lifetime. The plots and characters may change and the underlying energetic at work will remain the same. We can work and work (and work and work) to 'repay our karma' , to overcome these patterns, but unless we understand the mechanism of the emotional body, we will largely work in vain. This is why so many find it so hard to exact actual, lasting change in their lives. The first step of releasing old patterns is understanding that they exist. This takes an incredible amount of clarity, compassion and courage - so that we can see ourselves fully, see all that we've been, and allow it to be without judgment. When we judge ourselves, we are simply re-catching ourselves up in the emotional body. Nothing moves in the face of judgment; by it's very definition, it is absolute and holds us in place. When we can allow all that we have and have not been to simply be, to embrace all of ourselves with unconditional love, we can begin to see past lives. We can begin to see our patterning and simply seeing is the largest part of letting it go.

How do we hold ourselves in unconditional love? Through the understanding of Oneness, which is the spiritual truth of this and all planes - that we are all simply unique emanations of a single source. There is only one thing happening in all realities - that One Divine Intelligence called God, Yahweh, Allah, Jehovah - moved Itself from the infinite void, as light, to experience Itself in a new way. All Consciousness, all Beingness, is God, knowing Itself further with each breath, each choice, each life. All souls come for the experience of it, to further their own knowing of life and embodiment so that the mind of God is expanded. This is the expansion of the Universe, the tiny part of the puzzle explained by science. Being embodied is like going to Disneyland; some go for the easy rides, to just enjoy the scenery, the food and/or the people. Some go for the rides that scare the crap out of them, because being scared is FUN on some level. Some go to lose their wallets and their way. All experiences, all paths are equally valid. It's all God. There is no 'more' God in say Nelson Mandela and 'less' in Bernie Madoff. It's all God. God knowing Itself as struggle, suffering and ultimately overcoming that struggle to lead a nation (and the world) to a greater understanding of freedom and liberation. God knowing itself as greed and dishonesty and stealing, allowing that part of the puzzle to be illuminated. There is no light without darkness. We are light and we are shadow. We get to pick which part of us to bring to light in any given moment. Life doesn't judge one over the other. It's all God. We, in our most limited form, are the only judges. When we can look at ourselves from the knowing that every lifetime was on purpose, chosen by us, for our learning, to expand the mind of God through each experience, we can accept ourselves in our entirety. Accept and embrace the places in us that are light and shadow. The more we can see in this manner, the more is revealed to us. The more revealed, the more we can release old lifetimes and thereby old patterns. The more released, the more we can tap into any part of creation we want to, and create from that place. From pure desire, to manifest something new, something never seen before. To expand the mind of God in a wholly new way. That's why I'm here...


Over the past eight years, I have studied and practiced a wide range of seemingly unrelated modalities and wisdom traditions.  I have studied diligently with Rev. Kate Rodger and the Institute of Modern Wisdom's mystery school of the Modern Day Priestess Training.  I have been practicing a healing technology that unwinds energetic patterning in the emotional body, which helps to free us from habitual responses.  I have studied kabbalah and the wisdom of the Huna (the ancient spiritual tradition of Polynesia/Hawaii), I have studied Oneness and Theta Healing. I have been sitting in stillness listening to my own knowing. And so, thanks to the study of Huna, I understand how things get stuck in the subconscious mind and emotional body, how the 'aka' of pure potentialities gets constricted so that energy or 'mana' cannot flow through.  Through my practice of Soul Remembering, I can unwind these sticky patterns energetically.  Through my study of Theta Healing, I can further clear the emotional body through healing the biomorphic field - instantly.  Through meditation and various other practices, I have learned how to cultivate and be with stillness.  Through my knowing of Oneness, I have found absolute safety within myself. I am safe, eternally so, through my connection to Source. 

Through healing my emotional body, I can create vast amounts of space in that particular energetic field, which in it's purest form is a creative field.  From this spaciousness (and with my courage in tact) I can simply BE in the face of any experience, wholly present, pure, engaging no patterns.  Allowing the experience itself to be the only source of information of any kind.  THIS IS AN AMAZING IMPOSSIBLE TO DESCRIBE FEELING.  I feel like I am seeing the world for the first time, with new eyes in every moment. 

If you were to pick up the book I speak of and read it, it is unlikely you would receive this same teaching.  The book does not actually mention any of what I'm saying.  It is just unifying the picture for me, dropping in the singular piece that compliments what I have already integrated, like the key to the lock in the hidden door. And as I step over the threshold of this door, what do I see?  Well, perhaps an empty room I can dance around in for a while - and beyond that, more doors. An infinite number of doors.  It's all just an amusement park ride after all, and I have designed it specficly and purposefully.

 Apparently I like the challenge of locked doors and hidden keys. Someday I will realize I am the locksmith.

Breaking My Silence

I haven't been writing or even talking much lately (unless you ask my 12-year-old daughter, who says I talk "non-stop").  I have been remembering to listen - to other people, even strangers, to my own words as they come out of my mouth and hit my eardrums, to my inner voice that speaks very faintly, to my ancestors, guides and angels.  And, perhaps most importantly, to the Universe.  I have always been a talker and this year it was time for me to be a listener.  I have learned A TON from listening; for instance, coffee makes the chatter-y voices in my head talk faster and louder.  Nikki has discovered Eminem and of course it's perfect because he speaks of all the angst-y, in-your-face, 'I'ma be who I'ma be' energy that she is fully inhabiting right now.  And I like Eminem, I used to listen to him, which gave me major cred when I quietly began singing along in the car.  I thought Nikki's eyes would bug out of her head.  Anyway, he's on near constant rotation in our car these days and likewise in my head.  And on coffee he really is a rap god. 

Also, I learned that about 50% of what comes out of my mouth is utter bullsh-t.  Truly just crap.  Stuff I made up and then believed, stuff that I wish were true, 'observations' that are simply rehashed and trite.  Much of it is mind-reading - where I tell people what I think they are thinking.  Oh man.  Ouch.  That's the hardest one for me to be with.  My brilliant daughter has been telling me for years that I do this.  And I would think "Oh...children...if they only knew..."

Turns out they do know.

And what they know is that grown-ups need to shut the fuck up.  We older folks have been drinking the Kool-Aid for waaaay too many years to really know what we're talking about when it comes to the younger generations.  When my daughter was born, I marveled at how perfect she was - a pristine, whole Universe in the form of a human baby.  My deepest knowing told me that she came fully equipped with all she needed, yet I still believed I had something to teach her.  I needed to inform her about the world, about how to be in it, how to navigate life and other people - how to do, well,  EVERYTHING.  She began telling me when she was about three that she really didn't need my help in this.  Not in those words exactly.  She would say "You're not being a very good mother right now" when I was trying to convince or coerce some behavior from her.  She would say "You talk too much."  She would say "I just need some silence right now to think about this."  I began telling my husband when she was about eight (in whispered tones), "I think she might be the teacher. I think maybe we should be listening to her."  And because I was battling the fear that I knew NOTHING about children based on my own childhood, I ping-ponged back and forth between my own knowing to let her be and what the 37 parenting books on my shelf said about consequences and building respect and showing who's boss. She never responded to discipline or consequences or any show of 'power' over her. She has always known of her own power.  Any attempt on my part to tell her she wasn't powerful fell on deaf ears, because she knew it wasn't true.

How did I try to tell her she wasn't powerful?  By trying to coerce her to be a good girl, to play along, to do what I said, to follow the rules.  She wasn't having any rules.  She navigates the world moment by moment, according to what's true for her.  She's not much concerned about what's true for anyone else.  And you know what?  She's right on for her age.  On many levels, children don't truly learn about 'other' until after the age of 14.  Until then, it's all about them.  And why not?  Why not let her childhood be about discovery - self-directed discovery, so that she can lead her own self into unchartered territory.  Isn't that why she came?  To reveal something new, something never seen before?   To be the one and only divine emanation moving through the unique collection of DNA called Nikki Gelb in this lifetime?  Why try to make her like everyone else?  Why try to get her to follow society's rules?  Who made up these rules?  So much of what society believes and teaches is total crap to me.  Just look at television.  And I'm supposed to teach my girl to follow some code of conduct or rule of ethics because...?  Because it makes folks comfortable when everyone conforms.  It makes us feel safe and secure when we all agree to buy each other's bullsh-t.  Well, I'm not buying it anymore, not even from myself.

Our educational system in this country is set up to make good employees.  It is set up to create a society that is good at responding to 'authority' and following rules.  What is 'Authority'?  According to Webster's Dictionary it is:

1) "The power to give orders or make decisions: the power or right to direct or control someone or something."  Ok, what gives someone the power to direct or control someone?  Do I have the power to direct or control my daughter because I am bigger, stronger, older and wiser than her?  What if I'm not wiser?  She has proven to me countless times that I am not wiser.  She came into this life much more awake than I did.  I have been fighting through years of illusion and misinformation to get clarity on what is true for me.  My parents REALLY believed in the whole authority thing so my voice was squashed - mightily - from very early on.  And with my voice, so were my own feelings and knowing of myself.  She refuses to be squashed.  She knows her own voice.  I'm cool with that.

2) "The confident quality of someone who knows a lot about something or who is respected or obeyed by other people."  Someone who knows a lot about something - ok, I get that, albeit with knowing that any time a human takes in information, it is washed through their extensive filtering system so ultimately can only be 'truth' for them.  I may look to you to be an expert because you have spent time investigating something I have not looked into, however if I were to spend as much time looking at it as you did, I may reach an entirely different conclusion than your 'expert' opinion.  I may not know more about my girl and what's best for her than she does.  She is likely a better expert on herself.  And one who is OBEYED by other people?  Yuk.  I can only obey those whose leadership I resonate with.  I trust myself first and foremost.  Should I ask something different of my daughter?   Should I 'teach' her to obey because it makes others uncomfortable when she doesn't?  I'm not talking about criminal behavior here.  I'm not talking about anarchy.  Obviously there are 'rules' we all follow so that the world doesn't fall apart.  I'm talking about others telling her how to act, how to be, how to think.  How to control herself so that she speaks in a way that doesn't offend.  You know what?  Her power doesn't offend me.  She fully stands in her power and as a youngster, she's still figuring it out.  She's still in the laboratory of childhood, testing out where the line of 'too far' is so that she can find out how far she can go.  She mostly does this with me and her dad now.  Out in the world she's apparently fabulous - all I ever get from other adults who spend time with her is how wonderful she is.  A friend who's home she recently slept at texted the next day "Your daughter is delightful!"  Her teachers adore her, report cards rave about her.  So with me she is contrary, rude even, constantly pushing back.  Good.  With me she gets to explore her own power in a safe way.  I can take it, even though sometimes I suffer for it.  Sometimes it hurts my heart.  Good thing I have a strong heart and the clarity to remember the truth of her - and myself.

3) "A quality that makes something seem true or real."  Seem true or real?!  I'm not even going to touch this, except to say that for me, this fairly well sums up most mainstream 'authority' in the western world...

4) "Persons in command or a convincing force."  Under this definition, my daughter is the authority.

So here we are in this world of parenting where most people seem to follow the age-old model that looks something like this: begin with problem solving, move into explanation or advice, then onto rewards, deals or punishments, throw in some rules, responsibilities, expectations, duties and obligations. When these don't produce the desired result, move to labels and diagnosis's, criticism, contempt and/or withdrawal and finally into the inevitable blaming and/or shaming.  I tried every single one of these throughout the years.  Every one.  And all it got me was nothing.  Perhaps some temporary behavioral change that was short-lived and inauthentic.  The truth is Nikki is a very smart, very present being who has been keenly observing the world since she got here.  She knows what society expects of her.  She knows that eventually she will need to take responsibility for herself so that she can navigate her world as a healthy adult.  She knows the right thing to do - and this knowing is real and true because it comes from inside of her.  I didn't plant it in her based on what I know.  My job as a parent isn't to create a mini me or even to create a child I 'approve' of.  My job as a parent is to create a safe space for her to grow, to provide many myriad experiences for her to challenge herself, bump into herself, recognize herself, love and accept herself.  BE HERSELF.  Her own innate wisdom will take care of everything else.  The old patriarchal paradigm world will do its best to convince her that she is not wise unless she believes and behaves like everyone else.  I will continue to do my best to help her remember what she came with and who she is, beyond anyone's definition save her own.  Any 'good' behavior she may pick up at home can come only through my modeling of it.  Not telling her about it.  Not demanding it of her.  By being it, so that she may know it AS me.

If you see my child yelling at me in public or being rude or bossy or all of the above, try not to let it bug you.  Maybe if your child witnesses it, you can use it to discuss what doesn't work for you.  Know that it's ultimately ok with me, even if I may have a pained look on my face.  With every unkind word or tone, my daughter gets to know herself better.  She gets to experience who she chooses to be in any given moment.  Right now, quite often, she is a hormonal, moody, yelling to be heard girl.  That's cool.  Tomorrow she will have moved on to another layer of herself.  I'm down with all of it.  I trust her.

Ultimately, do I wish my daughter treated me with respect?  Of course I do - that sounds lovely.  And slightly preposterous at this age.  She isn't capable of even understanding what respect is for several more years.  Any show of 'respectful' behavior from my wild-spirited child would simply mean that I have successfully punched her into some mold of my choosing.  I would take 'consideration' at this point - we're working on that.  We're working on helping her to identify her feelings and needs and how to get them met so that everyone wins.  We're working on showing her that we have feelings and needs that also must be addressed.  We're working on being ourselves, authentic, unapologetic, free.  It feels good, it feels right, it feels like the truth.

Every child is different and needs diverse things from their parents.  Every family dynamic is unique unto itself.  I honor your truth, your knowing and how you are raising your children.  I am grateful when you honor mine.

Happy Hour

  A few months ago I made myself a perfect martini on a Tuesday night and posted a photo of it on Facebook.  It flew mostly under the radar except for my drinky friend Colleen who lives in Seattle, who commented she was relieved that my priestess thing did not exclude Happy Hour.  I replied that priestesses like to be happy.  This small exchange has been rolling around in my brain ever since, mainly because it was kind of shocking to me to think that friends might surmise that a spiritual path was not compatible with an occasional martini.  Those who know me well know that me and martinis go way back and red wine is my friend for life, as in til death do us part.  I simply can't imagine denying myself the pleasure of sharing a really killer bottle of red with great friends and great food.  So I've been sitting with this idea of how friends and acquaintances may be perceiving my 'priestess' path.  I know that word is charged, although just how charged is only now beginning to take a discernible form.

One weekend in Montecito, where the Modern Day Priestess trainings are held, we were sharing the beautiful grounds of Casa De Maria with a Catholic church group from Southern California.  There were many priests and nuns accompanied by a small group of fairly buttoned up lay women.  This group was clearly uncomfortable with us - we, as priestesses in training, in yoga clothes and groovy shoes, flowy scarves and stone necklaces, medicine pouches and feathers.  And love - a ton of it, worn whole-heartedly on our sleeves.  One day at lunch as my friend Aliyah and I were busing our dishes, a woman from the group engaged her in conversation while I chatted with the cutie-pie who was taking my dishes through the kitchen window.  Aliyah shared with me when we left that the woman had asked her "So what do Modern Day Priestesses do, sacrifice cats?"  Hahaha and she wasn't kidding.  In that moment, I was intensely mad and then intensely glad that I did not hear her question.  Aliyah had the grace to navigate that moment with calm assurance.  My response would likely have been much more charged, with an invitation for this woman to shut it  gather information and perhaps even think before speaking.  And then I would have reminded her of her responsibility as a "religious" person to seek and spread the truth rather than propagate preposterous, fear-based fantasies.

After this encounter, it became very obvious how uncomfortable we made this group and I must admit the smaller part of me took every opportunity to be as close to them as possible, to catch their eyes and flash them giant smiles, to really press their buttons  give them numerous opportunities to see the error of their first impressions.  One night as we moved through the dinner line, one poor priest  marooned himself between me and another priestess as we moved through the line filling our plates.  His discomfort was palpable and of course I wanted to help him grow so I kept leaning around him to speak to the priestess on the other side.  After a few moments, he became so uncomfortable he began singing hymns.  In the dinner line.  Seriously.

What really bummed me out about that weekend was that here was a religious group that came up against something really uncomfortable for them and rather than approaching us in an effort to speak to the chasm between us, they widened it.  We priestesses are incredibly approachable individually and collectively; how beautiful it would have been to have found each other in our common ground, in our shared love of the sacred.  We could have spoken to the truth that despite outward appearance and affectation, we are all the same, with the same hearts, the same needs.  We are simply taking different paths to the same place.  Instead of feeling the love that we are, they felt fear.  It makes me sad that these "people of God' are so cut off from their own hearts that they don't recognize love when they see it.

What I took away from that weekend was that my path is to be authentic, no matter what.  Even if it makes others uncomfortable.  My authenticity is in service to them even more so in those moments of discomfort, when they get to bump up against their own selves and maybe even examine what's eliciting their response.  And if they recoil (or attack) in fear, with no self-examination whatsoever, that's their business, not mine.  I get to keep being authentic.  And the good news is, authentic to me means living fully in my human experience.  Drinking, cursing, even making bad choices sometimes.  Sometimes being a less-than-stellar mother and telling my almost teen-aged daughter to shut it  keep her opinions to herself and maybe even go to bed.  Right now.

This notion of living a monastic life in service to the divine has never sat right with me.  Growing up Catholic, I could always feel the underlying anger of the priests and nuns and did not understand it until I was older and realized the implications of taking a vow of celibacy.  For all but a very small percentage of humans, celibacy is against our biological and innate nature; this is clearly being played out in the horrifying drama of abuse amongst Catholic priests.  In Judaism, no such vow is required.  In fact, Rabbi's are encouraged to be married so that they can better attend to the lives and needs of their married congregants.  Rabbis are also - along with all adult Jews - essentially required to drink wine on Friday night to usher in Shabbat. Drinking wine is a mitzvah (good deed) in Judaism.  Wine is considered holy in Jewish tradition and is used to sanctify most special moments and celebrations.  At the Purim holiday, which just passed, we are encouraged to drink so much wine that we can no longer distinguish the good guys from the bad guys.  What a beautiful teaching - to acknowledge that through the course of a lifetime, we will all inhabit both sides of that equation.  And once a year, with the help of the sacred fruit of the vine, we get to actually see that.  The Purim story is rife with references to excessive drinking and throughout the Torah we are instructed to "drink and celebrate".  This is one of the many reasons Judaism works for me - it acknowledges again and again that life is rich and full and fantastic and awful - and ultimately, unspeakably beautiful.  This is how I want to live - embracing the whole bloody, beautiful mess.

So what does being a Priestess really mean?  It means that I am more myself, martinis and flaws and all.  I acknowledge and honor the energies of the planets and the totality of their influence.  I honor the energies of the Earth and all that encompasses.  I actively engage with many realms and dimensions and integrate them here in the 3D.  If you take a walk with me, I might climb up on a big rock so I can lean against the stone and feel it.  So I can give it permission to teach me what it knows.  I listen to the wind and the trees and the birds and even the sound of cars.  There is wisdom in all of it. I watch the stars and the moon and live according to earth's rhythms.  I pay attention.  I watch and I listen.  And I love.  Every single particle of it, every human, all life, I love. (This includes martinis).