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  • Join us on an expansive journey of discovery to peel back the layers of daily living in order to view life's spiritual perspective that is of soul importance. -Emerge an approach to living that can forever change the way you do your life. -Gain new insights, open to the metaphysical aspects of life experiences. -Learn the precious gift of self-inquiry and become more aware of the transformative forces at play in all that you find out. We invite you to join us, read our posts, leave comments, link to us. Want to know more about who we are and what we do? Check out our website www.emergingsoul.co
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Lake Superior – The Eternal Presence of Now

Superior Silence

The waves wash rhythmically onto the rocky shore. The wind surges through the pine trees and speaks to me in soft whispers that play in my hair and tiptoe past my ears. The earthy scent of nearby blueberries and wild vegetation warmed by the afternoon sun wafts over me and I am comforted by the perpetuity of summers past and summers to come. All is still and sacred. I feel the presence of the ancients who walked this very shore and whose spirit embraces this revered land.

I grew up in the embrace of this world wonder. I carry it with me always.

Its spiritual essence and legacy are in my bones and in my soul.

Everyone who has lived in the shadow of Lake Superior knows and respects its power and majesty:  the largest fresh water body in the world; 32000 sq miles of crystal clear fresh water, its glacial beginnings,  its ancient native spirituality- Gitchigumi –…. its power lies not in its fame but in its heart…

Lately life’s reality dims this memory. The challenges mount and the call to action, leadership and choosing the right path conspire to fill every moment and demand undivided focus. They crowd out peace. They feed fear, grief and despair. I feel abandoned by the safety that I used to take for granted as a child.

I should be over that longing for security. I should know what to do and know how to do it. I should know my own heart’s messages and trust them.

Why can’t I hear, trust or know this?

The crumbling vessel of childhood belief that life was simple , happy and reciprocal dissolves in the  harsh reality of adulthood….it is as rocky and unpredictable as the shore upon which I walked as a child.

You never miss it until it is gone.

Then I realize that I am no longer that child, I am almost 60 years old and I am many lifetimes removed from my beloved Lake.

Some part of me that is a frozen time-bound life fragment is shocked by this truth. For that part, life is always about quiet serenity and flowing with what is ….

  • It is about remembering the cadence of every conversation held at the shore. Words are subdued in the presence of nature’s embrace….suspended, measured and reverent…whispering secrets in the cathedral of Gitchigumi.
  • It is about feeling the deep connection to the heart of what matters in those moments of letting go of all care and allowing yourself to be held, nurtured and lulled into reverie by the eternal rhythm of the elements.
  •  It is about combing the shore for driftwood for the evening fire ….
  •  It is about spending a day with family and friends who know this same experience and share in its expansive dimensionality

In the remembering, something is stirred within….

That time bound fragment makes its presence known again. It is invited into the now, bearing gifts and refreshing the memories – delivering the irrefutable message that memories are just energy and cannot be destroyed.

Suddenly I am filled with gratitude for my memory keeper and realize that she has kept possibility alive all these years. She has been the one who pulls me toward dreams, and vision every time life darkens and constricts. She is the peace Keeper within and without her life will not flow.

She is my ally and I have opened once again to her child-like wisdom and I am nourished. Peace returns and the Lake begins it rhythmical lapping on the shore, the smells of ripening vegetation fill my nostrils again, the flow of the wind through my being refreshes me.  I am in the stillness, at peace, at rest…..

Lake Superior …. eternal presence….

 

Why are you so afraid of silence?

Silence is the root of everything.
If you spiral into its void,
a hundred voices will thunder messages you long to hear.   ….Rumi

from Heart Math inspiration: Service

“The fragrance always remains on the hand that gives the rose. ”

– Gandhi

The YELLING UNIVERSE – Conscious Actions of the Heart

Do you understand what I am saying?

Have you ever noticed how your voice gets louder when you are trying to communicate with someone who doesn’t speak your language? It’s as if speaking louder is akin to speaking in tongues… as if getting louder somehow transcends the language barrier and forcefully deliver the desired message in a format that the other person will magically comprehend!

The level of loud is directly proportional to the level of desire to communicate and the urgency of the message.

the language of the Universe in healing

As absurd as this sounds, we have all had this experience or witnessed it.

Seeking the Language of the Universe in Healing

Recently, I had the distinct displeasure of engaging a similar behavior while trying to enact ‘instant health’ onto Terry by YELLING all the health inducing actions that were required. It wasn’t exactly yelling but it was urgent enough to feel like it and be received as such. I admit my action was the result of feeling squeezed and constricted with no choice as I watched his health deteriorate.

It seemed there was no other way to cut through the fortress of pain that had rendered any other type of communication impossible. But, I was speaking the language of health to the consciousness of someone who was lost in the language of illness.  Like trying to connect with someone whose language was not mine, I was YELLING HEALTH.

The YELLING erupted from somewhere deep in my solar plexus. It was unedited, insistent and inspired by a heartfelt desire to create an awakened state that opened a new course of action. I was pushing an outcome and unconsciously lighting a way out of the status quo. It felt like I had tapped into a Divine conduit that gushed a message of healing through me. It insinuated itself rudely because, just as we get frustrated trying to get our message across to someone who does not speak our language, the yell for well-being was trying desperately to convey the direction out of the suffering.

Conscious inspiration for healing from the Universe

The Divine Language of  the Universe

Life circumstances often conspire to interject transformation. Sometimes we hear its subtle whispers and sometimes, we are in another realm of reality unable to open to the guidance that would show us the elegant, grace-filled path of our heart and truth. It is always available to us but we operate in the language of the physical universe and the communication is offered in Universe-speak.

True to the formula, things need to get louder, and so, our accommodating Universe obliges. As our lives get more constricted and difficult, we struggle. “Sorry, I am busy struggling here, I have no idea what you are yelling at me!”  The guidance gets louder. We struggle some more and the volume increases by a factor of the urgency of the message. Finally, something breaks through and by some fated experience, the light shines into the endarkened cave of our misery. Suddenly, the communication is clear and we hear what we are being told….. the way out opens up.

In Terry’s case, his health issues have conspired to consistently create suffering and less and less capability to run/ escape or otherwise ignore the life choices in support of old habits and ways of living that need to shift. His physical struggle collided with the Universe YELLING to be heard.  On the inside of the wall of confinement, the message seeped in, forcing important questions – What really matters? What is my passion? What is my vision? How do I emerge from this impossible situation?   In quick response, the answers are flooding into consciousness.

the lighted path of the language of the Unvierse

Comprehending your Truth

When you are finally ready to listen, finally ready to move – things start to respond to your heart’s blueprint and change occurs. In the case of speaking to someone whose language is not yours, the clear indication of success is evidenced by a nod or some action that complies with your communication.

For our story, there is a sense of peace and focus and freedom to choose that seeps in with the perverbial Universal Yell.  What was fear and despair is now effort, action and spiritual realignment with your own personal mission in this physical reality.

So, if you are overwhelmed by the circumstances of your life, become aware of the infinite patience of Universal communication.  It comes in the form of urges, invitations, impulses to act. Watch your emails. Look at what pops up in your daily noticings. Meditate. Breathe into possibility.

We are here to navigate according to the map that our heart holds….it is not so much about purpose as it is about what gives us a clear connection to Divine tranquility and we can trust the Universe to point the way in the language of that Divinity. Like our attempts to speak to those whose language is not ours, the Universe  finds a way to get our message to us  even if it means exaggerated gestures, increased vocal volume and just a plain “in your face” stance. Trust that there is always a way!

The Ebb and Flow of this ‘Life Purpose’ Jazz!

It seems the last post has more to give! This gives such context to all with which we struggle….enjoy its awareness….

As I read further in Fate and Destiny by Michael Meade, another passage needs sharing – here it is as direct quote.  Feel free to leave a comment on your thoughts and insights.  Where do you stand on the concept Life Purpose? (eye rolling doubter or heartfelt believer?)

“In this world each wake up call is an opportunity to turn back to the conversation with the divine. {..} Life is the necessary illusion from which we drink as well as the circumstantial waters in which we drown again and again. That is the truth as well as the illusion of it. We are each on a mysterious errand and the great beauty of this world requires that we both forget and at times remember it.  …. {..} ….we are closer to an awakening and to a turning point whenever we reach the end of our rope and feel that we have lost everything again. Then, we either fall apart or else we find the thread of destiny that pulls everything together and opens the path before us again”

The Resilience of the Soul

In the worst imaginable circumstances of Afghanistan, these wonderful beings can still find joy – it will heal your heart to see this

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/21/marines-lip-dub-hold-it-a_n_852288.html?ref=email_share

What’s all this ‘life purpose’ jazz about anyway?

Life Purpose Lingo

Lately, it is easy for me to get all cynical about the avalanche of self-growth material that insists the road to happiness is the singular path of discovering and following your life purpose. I find myself  bristling as I read yet another ad or promise from a group or coach who has the absolute solution to happiness and all the trimmings, usually in anywhere from 3 – 10 steps. It is all about simply finding what it is you are meant to do in this life.  It is always that DO focus as if you are a meaningless hunk of protoplasm unless you have a DOING title attached to your being. The next thing, of course, once you discover your purpose, is to break the achievement of it into a series of goals.  It is vital to linearly view your progress to a perceived ‘nirvana producing’ successful completion. The well-dressed website beams smiles and exudes success  ..”ahhh nothing like living your life purpose …. don’t be like all those other lost folk who wander through their life blindly and randomly falling into this or that work or relationship…get conscious, take charge of your life and wake up to all that you can be!”

The Formula

Most of the time, what beams back is  hollow.  The one-size fits all formula for the life of your dreams is patterned on the success of the person offering their path as what works for everyone. It goes something like this:

(a) find something to do + (b) work hard and be dedicated to the vision you have created as your goal = (c) joy, fulfillment, wealth, abundance and security.

It all sounds plausible. You are impassioned to pursue the path…you take the course or read the book. You drink the kool-aid and perhaps succeed in the physical world sense but something is still missing…or… it doesn’t work at all, you are out a boatload of money and you end up feeling even worse than when  you started because you have compounded a sense of failure with yet another botched attempt at happiness.

The Lost Message about Life Purpose

Yet, like my belief about the truth that love must be everlasting else why are there songs about just such a thing, there is some truth about life purpose that seeps out around all the empty rhetoric – else why would the subject be so popular these days? What are we trying to link up with that has been lost in translation?

In his latest book, Fate and Destiny, Michael Meade  speaks about that deeper truth from which all our linear efforts source. In his inimitable way, his words shimmer the heart of what all this life purpose jazz is about.

“Each person is a body wrapped around a soul imbued with a dream trying to awaken from within.”

Meade suggests that we each carry a unique message which we are intended to deliver to the waking world. This message is imprinted in our soul and was the original urge that began our physical life. Through our  dreams, longings, moments of emotional catharsis, heart connections with places, people and things, we are shown the path of our soul’s direction and the path of our life purpose.  Our soul works out the original dream we arrived into earth life to follow through the discovery of what holds meaning, and encourages growth and movement in the physical world.

There is a persistence to the fulfillment our soul’s work. Throughout our life, we are repeatedly offered the opportunity to follow our soul’s bidding. If we look and listen, we will often see the thread of the life theme we brought with us into this earth incarnation.  It is our life’s work to discover that thread as it connects us to the divinity from which we source. The answer resides in repeating experiences, patterns of attraction, heart desires. It is never about what we choose from external urgings of the culture, human conditioning or what we do to please others.

The Spiritual Conspiracy

Our life experiences conspire to help us identify the essence of our unique sacred mission:

“Inside each soul the life-seed waits to be watered with attention and the life-dream waits to awaken fully. Regardless of outer appearances and contrary notions, each soul has its inner imagination that tries to return to full awareness through dreams, visions, through sudden insights,  and strange revelations.”  Meade.    I would add also- from peak experiences, ‘aha’ moments  and occurrences of inspired flow where our focus is so intense that we literally lose track of time.

Recently, I have discovered that throughout my life, I have had a passion for clarity – in both expression and understanding. When used as my life’s backdrop, it is easy to see the spiritual conspiracy at work in unfolding my personal life purpose.  From my school days, writing was the medium that offered a sacred space for reflection, inner counsel and the safety to develop inspiration from spark to flame so that whatever made it to paper was indeed a hologram of what resided internally.  Writing was both comfort and companion as I was growing up.  It survived tragedies, setbacks, broken hearts, fear events, successes,  joy-filled moments of accomplishment and times of enduring love. Every life experience was archived by my inner scribe in painstaking detail so that the events were truthfully nuanced and the expression was a clear and perfect representation of the reality.  The hindsight of my life so far provides a very clear track upon which my feet were set early on but it has taken until the past few years for that truth to come to fruition.

The unfolding has been accompanied by serendipity, ‘aha’ moments, and universal coincidence. It has been a lifetime of coherent, progressive events from the seemingly insignificant (my penchant for doing jigsaw puzzles and creating clarity and order out of  the chaos of hundreds of small pieces) to the enormous (loss and grief that spanned many years and drove me to write as therapy). My need for clarity has been the backdrop for the pursuit of my training to help others discover lucidity in their personal journeys.  Recently, my inner writer has begun to express publicly on this blog and in my work as a contributor to an online magazine.

Apparently, all the jazz about ‘fulfilling life purpose’ is really about looking for the hints and urges that are delivered in whispers to the core of our being throughout our life.  If you look for those themes, their golden cords will lead you straight to the authentic focus you were meant to remember.

“Some dream brought us here and only it knows the way we are supposed to walk in this world”  Michael Meade

Cirque du Soleil – A Passion for the Impossible

I joined the crowd walking down the Santa Monica Pier on the way to my very first Cirque du Soleil performance. At the suggestion of the Voice Dialogue facilitator with whom I had been working all week, I decided to take in the  evening show.  My visit to the area had revealed spectacular personal discoveries that offered new life and direction so I was expectant that my evening adventure would deliver more of the same. It seemed to be the succulent path upon which I now traveled

In a prophetic bit of serendipity, I purchased the very last ticket to the performance. My seat was just two rows back from the front and dead center stage – the best in the house.  As I settled into my place, I was both grateful for this diversion and immensely appreciative for the opportunity. It was a timely, refreshing pause.

The Show

I was about to see Dralion – a metaphoric story of East meets West expressed in music and dance. I had read about Cirque du Soleil and knew a bit about the spectacular poetic and daring feats that were the hallmark of every performance. The performers spent hours of practice to painstakingly perfect every choreographed movement of their art that the website had declared was an “ode to human effort”.  The evening held the promise of a great experience and I was prepared to be inspired.

From beginning to end, the production was a riveting, breathtaking extravaganza. I was transported into imaginary worlds through the skillfully woven tale that was unfolding before me. The profusion of brilliant color and costumes, dramatic music and unbelievable acrobatics offered a rich feast for the senses. As I observed the grace and dexterity of the performers I couldn’t help but think that their contortions were simply not humanly possible to achieve. Yet the impossible was the reality I saw before me. How could anyone do that with their bodies? This stunning spectacle was testament to the indomitable presence of passion and the fuel it provides in any life undertaking. I was flooded with a deep knowing that what I was witness to here carried the message that anything was possible – anything.

I left the performance knowing that I was forever changed by what I had just witnessed. The founder’s passionate mission to “develop an international laboratory of creativity, audacity, imagination so as to ensure limitless possibilities” (www.cirquedusoleil.com) had infused me with inspiration and “sacred fire”.   My visit to Santa Monica had indeed been a portal to a new life and this experience had been its exclamation. As witness to the impossible made possible in that performance, I was filled with the knowing that any obstacle was surmountable.

****

The Queen in response to Alice in Wonderland’s lament that there is no use in trying to believe impossible things, “I dare say, you haven’t had much practice. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast” … Lewis Carroll

A Most Inspiring Video – Enjoy

www.youtube.com

http://www.IBelieveShesAmazing.com/ Kim MacGregor organized this flash mob of 200 dancers to launch the “feel good” movement, “I Believe She’s Amazing” in honor of her friend Erika Heller who passed away May 28th, 2009 at 31 yrs. old…this is her living legacy. The amazing choreographers and dance

Just Take The Leap – Risk and Reward and the Launch of Passion Test Daily

My heart is pounding so it seems I have reached yet another opportunity in my life and I have to choose.  Like so many other similar moments, the questions fly through my consciousness in a whirling tempest of conflict. Do I stay or go? Do I say yes or no? What if I do? What if I don’t? What is best? What is right?

My relationship of the past 20+ years has come to an end. I am in my mid-forties. I can no longer stay where I spent the past half of my life and where I thought I would be forever.  The moving truck is packed with all my possessions and I am about to embark on a new path. It begins with a 1400 mile trek north to a new city and a new career.

So here I stand, staring into the abyss of fear, doubt and uncertainty. As I raise my gaze to the horizon, I see my goal beyond the gap and I can imagine with great clarity how it will be, the celebration of success, the sense of fulfillment that comes from achieving a dream, the new career that shimmers ahead. Yet I am fixated on the amorphous chasm that separates me from my vision.

Some part of me just wants to find my mattress in the truck and fall asleep in hopes that when I wake up it will all be a bad dream and everything will have returned to its former state.

Another part just wants to stand there, frozen in time, adapting to the in-between that doesn’t require anything of me other than to  stand and stare with no compulsion or propulsion. I could adapt. It wouldn’t be the greatest life but it would be predictable and safe.

And then, there is the small voice that rumbles into my awareness. Beyond the insecurities, worry and the fear of the unknown there is that voice of excitement that is pushing me into the driver’s seat of the truck. This voice is tired of me waiting and hesitating at the wrong side of the divide in my life. This voice embraces change as a necessary aspect of growth. This voice has pushed me so many times before – into the cockpit of the airplane for my first solo, out of bed to begin my first solo flight from Florida to Canada, onto the tarmac to join other war-birds for my first formation flight at a national air-show, through training in Voice Dialogue that ultimately lead me to this place where I now stand.

I simultaneously hate and love this voice of my adventurer.  I hate and love the demands its presence elicits from me. I know I have no choice but to collapse into its insistence because I know its wisdom is a clear pointer to the next destination and to the ultimate unfolding of who I am and what I am soul-inspired to do.

And then I remember – the exquisite sense of accomplishment and right action that followed every scary step I took up to this point in time.

Before I know it, I am on the road, my old life in the rearview mirror and my adventurer wildly celebrating a victory. This moment of choice became the most pivotal direction change of my life. As I listened to my heart,  I  simply stopped staring into the abyss and jumped into it. As the saying goes, ‘I took the leap and made my wings on the way down’.

Today, life is beyond anything I could have conjured up in my conscious reality. The journeys from that moment ten years ago to now have had my adventurer sitting on my shoulder in utter ecstasy.  And it continues…. the challenges are met with a dexterity that has grown since that fledgling trip into the unknown.  Somehow there is less hesitation in making choices and a lot more self-reliance evident in life today.  If it is possible to feel bigger while not actually changing size, then that is what has evolved. The child who hesitated at the truck door a lifetime ago has been replaced by the adult driver who is clearly in possession of the map and the route and the journey is made abundantly richer by sharing it with a loving fellow traveler – my husband, Terry.

I have recently begun a new adventure into writing and editing with an online magazine entitled:  Passion Test Daily .   It is an inspiring collection of writings about living your life stoked by passion and purpose. I entered into this endeavor with the usual trepidation but have found a definitive shift in my internal chatter. It is quieter and a more allowing…perhaps because I have made a commitment to finally take a leap and see where I land.

Your life: when you hold back, it holds back; when you hesitate, it stands there staring, hands in its pockets. But when you commit, it comes on like blazes …from Crossroads Dispatches


Discovery and Inspiration in Michael Brown’s “The Presence Process”

The Imperative to ‘DO‘ …..

Lately, I have found myself feeling ‘squirmy’ and ‘restless’. It is a familiar feeling that admonishes me to get doing something important, to stop squandering my efforts and to cease being lazy.   From the Voice Dialogue perspective, at the core of this unrest lies a cadre of Selves who are invested in maintaining the  imprint of our cultural work ethic that ensures survival.   Their collective chorus stampedes through my head – ” Focus! Get Moving! Create what is before you! Make a contribution! Make a difference! Quit sitting around and doing nothing! ”  Their mantras hammer at my consciousness with ever-increasing intensity aided by the Critic,  “What exactly have you been doing these past few years? ”  “Everyone else seems to be moving forward, what is wrong with you?” The dismal and shame-filled answer from the whaling, blamed child is immediate – “I have been spinning my wheels and getting nowhere fast! I try but nothing seems to stick!”

As if to underscore the urgency of this internal rhetoric, I received an email that announced the 2011 schedule for courses being sponsored by a business similar to ours. In addition, I had signed up for numerous newsletters and e-zines (at the urging of those “do something” Selves)  that shared a dizzying array of tactics for effective marketing, all of which required response ‘immediately’  lest that ship sails without me onboard. It was everywhere – the flashing neon marquis in my head kept screaming at me to get off the dime and make our business into a successful, vibrant and ‘in demand’ entity or risk obscurity and failure.

As I sat with the exhausting discomfort of this and my personal sense of ‘failure to launch’, my eyes fell on  The Presence Process  guidebook. Because I recognized this as one of those ‘integration moments’ that the book teaches, I picked it up and it opened serendipitously at this:

“We realize that we are where we are required to be, and will be there until we come to a point of completion in this particular environment. We know that if and when we leave, the doors of change will open effortlessly and automatically

Welcome ‘the spacious present’ (Eckhart Tolle)

In finding these words, all the ‘supposed to’s’ and ‘should’s’ vanished in a huge exhale.  With an inhale came a shard of light-filled possibility— could it be that all really is well? that all is as it is required to be?    Maybe the inertia has been the germination of  authentic inspiration presenting  in the timing of  Universal perfection! Suddenly, the belief about my perceived stuckness was replaced with an awareness of all the seeds that had been planted in the past few years and sensing that succulent plants were poking their heads through fertile soil.  Inexplicably, my life clearly felt that it was  giving way to much more space….’the spacious present’ (Eckhart Tolle) — ahhhhh!   it really does take your breath away as it opens a doorway into conscious possibility and effortless ‘right action’.  Quite naturally, there was  no need to  grab at another mental concept to fill that vacated space. There was simply an expectant pause of spacious peace and trust that there will be inspiration to move in the most meaningful and authentic direction without having to force, push or control anything.

The Presence Process Delivers…..

On the heels of this realization, surprising opportunities have begun to show up.  The unfolding of a renewed direction is coming into focus. As is the teaching of the Presence Process, that the resonance of presence attracts like reality.  It follows the spirit of  innocence that a New Year offers.

On this first week of a New Year when reflection creates resolve, it seems appropriate to consider how few times we have made decisions in our lives by allowing solution to emerge in the space of ‘now’- free of past or future influences .  More often than not, our actions and choices have been in response to some external requirement or some internal conditioning that harbors past and future experiences.  As I reflected on my own life, I realized that the most life-altering moments have occurred in the space of emptiness that trustingly allows the piloting of the Universal ‘me’. A most outstanding example that comes to mind was my choosing the date for attending The Monroe Institute’s Gateway Voyage residential consciousness program. It was the place and time that I met my husband, Terry and it launched a new path of spiritual pursuits that has absolutely changed my life.  It was a door that opened without effort and presented a new, rich and abundant life path.

Listen to your internal GPS

If there is even one such event in your life that you can recall – a moment of choice that felt  inspired – reflect on its source. Was it a mentally calculated decision or was it a heart centered sense of rightness of action?  How did it feel to experience the outcome?  Use that event to know that its purpose is to form the foundation of faith and trust that you are not required to act for the sake of being in action but  to show you that  genuinely inspired experiences emerge from the pauses between action -that is the present moment wisdom.  It is the most immutable freedom.  Trust that if it happens once, it can happen always.  Listen to it as your internal GPS.  Breathe it in and allow its omnipotent support  to present collaborative, genuinely inspired action. I promise you, operating from this place delivers confidence in motion. It feels distinctly different,  free …and… filled with peace and ease!

May 2011 deliver Presence to you!

“You don’t have to know what’s waiting. You’re guided by your highest right, and wherever it takes you is where you need to go “

…. Richard Bach – Messiah’s Handbook