Love is the Answer

"Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love." ~Don Miguel Ruiz





This painting by Robert Donaghey is called "Winged Heart". I find it to be a beautiful illustration of the way to create positive, loving movement in the world. A positive, loving heart has magical wings made of mystical radiance. And as it touches lightly the hearts of others, blossoming miracles are its bounty.

Today this painting made me think about the power of words. While it is true that our primary methods of communication are non-verbal, words are the next step in the process of turning imagination (where all manifestations originate) into reality (on Earth as it is in Heaven). That fortunate bit of lag time between thought and manifestation gives us time to readjust any misaligned, out-of-control thoughts before they create havoc in our outer circumstances. But once those thoughts are put into the written or spoken word, they have entered your physical reality, and they become much more difficult to correct.

This being so, it follows that there is great worth in setting your intent on becoming "Impeccable With Your Word". I find that if I try to do this with my mind, the effects are limited. So instead, I set my intent on opening my heart, and speaking from there. An open heart is automatically in touch with the hearts of others. When you can feel in your heart the feelings of others, you know the truth of your oneness, and using "the power of your word in the direction of truth and love" becomes effortless.

Well, it's not quite effortless for me yet, but I thoroughly enjoy being an eternal work-in-progress. I love my life, and I love that it will never get old because there will always be another great height to aspire to.

For today, I am pleased that I have this opportunity right now to be "impeccable with my word" in telling you what my heart is saying right now: "Psst...Love is the answer. Pass it on!"

Surrender

Eckhart Tolle's
Present Moment Reminder: "It is not by resisting or running away from,
but by that deep act of surrender that the divine is realized. And that
amazingly does not take time. Surrender can only be now."

I am often asked how I've managed to maintain my fitness and flexibility after having 6 children. It's a strange question if you think about it. And the answer is in the question itself. In other words, my answer is that I don't question it. I don't say to myself what other people seem to be saying: You have six kids. Why aren't you stiff and out of shape?

I usually skip the more detailed explanation, which involves pointing out that they have some preconceived ideas in their belief system that are somewhat limited. Generally, I keep it simple. I tell them it's all about keeping a good attitude. Everyone can relate to that on some level, because if you pay attention to life for even one clear moment, you'll see that it's true.

One woman in a fitness class that I was taking decided to be more insistent in her questions about my level of flexibility. I said something about how flexibility of mind can translate into flexibility of body. And she gave me an eye-rolling look of disbelief that said: I know this is California, but spare me the hippie philosophy. What she said out loud was: No really, how do you do it?

And this was my answer: Most people think that stretching is about forcing your way through the tight spots, from the outside in. But it's not. It's about allowing your body to release the tension that you are holding within it. The point of release comes from deep within you, and works its way through to the outer layers of your body.

Pushing against resistance creates more resistance. Allowing its release creates freedom of movement.

I think she was sorry she asked.

I was reminded of this when I read the above Eckhart Tolle quote, because you create more freedom of movement in your life the same way you do it with your body. Both involve a "deep act of surrender". If there is something in your life that has been stubbornly resistant to change, the answer can never involve more resistance. Instead, allow it to be, and you will find yourself moving through that block as if it were never really there at all.

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE !!!!

Life is on your side. That's a really good thing to know. It's a really good thing to remember. It's absolutely amazing to hold as a dominant thought in your mind. To accept that absolutely everything Life brings is a gift for your benefit and highest good, is to accept Paradise as a state of mind.

I mean, this is for me - all of it, Everything, this whole world, and everything and everyone in it, and all the worlds beyond it! All of it is here for my pleasure, and I have the free will to do with it as I please. Wow. I'm awed.

And I'm humbled. To know the great power that I possess is to know great responsibility. Every thought I think is contributing to the creation of not only my reality, but to the experience of all others within their own realities, because we are all interconnected. We are in fact, all ONE.

Just a hint of such awesome responsibility can be enough to short-circuit the mind and throw it into a sleep-state of denial, separation, and powerlessness. I like to look at the many ways this manifests as being nothing more than symptoms of a minor and temporary dis-ease of the mind.
And everyday it gets easier for me to remember that there is only one cure: LOVE.

LIFE is a GIFT of PARADISE for your PLEASURE. Yeah, really. It is.

So there's nothing left to do but to LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE !!!!

NOW is the Time of Awakening

NOW is the time of Awakening.

I used to think that there was always someplace else I needed to get to. Nothing was ever quite good enough for me. I was always needing something more, more, and then more again.

And then I woke up. And I didn't even know I was sleeping. Ha! Go figure.

My life is perfect exactly the way it is. And on top of that, it keeps getting better everyday. That's a far cry from what I was taught to believe in the old sleeping reality. Back then, I believed myself to be no better than 2nd rate in any given area.

So I stopped rating myself. And I stopped thinking that the opinions of others should matter to me at all. And then my mind started to really quiet down. There were no longer dozens of different voices offering their expert opinion on what I should be doing with my life. Oh sure, they still float through. But it's the quietest voice that I hear most clearly now. That still, small voice that can only be heard deep within me, although its Source can found all around me, Everywhere.

There's no place I need to get to these days. There are places I would like to go. There are places that the still, small voice whispers to me that I will go. But it's NOW that holds my attention. Because it's NOW that's perfect. It's NOW when the Source of Everything can be found Everywhere.

NOW is the time of Awakening.

Play

"Life is nothing to be very serious about. Life is a ball in your hands to play with."
~Ravi Shankar







I really love life. I love everything about it. It's the only game in town, so if you don't love it, you better learn to love it. Or not. That's the beauty of it in a nutshell: You can do whatever you want. You can even choose to hate life if that's what you think you want. I've tried that way of playing, and in the end I decided that it really wasn't very much fun for me. Of course, I learned a lot from the experience. Mostly what I learned was that I really like fun, and since fun goes hand-in-hand with love, hating life was pretty much out of the question.

For a long time I tried hard to figure out what would make my life more fun. And then I figured out that "trying hard to have fun" didn't make any sense, and was never going to work. So I dropped the "trying hard" part, and kept the "have fun" part, and just began enjoying my life. That's it. No more: Oh, but this isn't fun because I lost this, and I don't agree with that, and those people are stupid, and there's some very ugly things going on in the world, and there's some very ugly things going on in my own mind, and so on. Yeah, okay so there's always something to complain about if that's what you choose. And there's always something to be grateful for. It's all about choice.

I am choosing to take things lightly. I'm choosing to play at life with joyful abandon. I'm loving every moment that I have to explore life in this body. It's so much fun! Some parts are less comfortable than others, but that's okay. It's all just part of the game. And I'd rather be playing than complaining.

Get Ready

Some people think a miracle is only a miracle if it happens instantaneously, but miracles can grow slowly and patience and faith can compel things to happen that otherwise never would have come to pass. ~Boyd K. Packer



It's easy to tell if you're ready for a miracle. Just open your eyes and look around you. Do you see miracles? If you do, then you're ready. Because the truth is, Life is a miracle. If you're not seeing it, then your eyes aren't fully open, and you're not ready.

And that's perfectly fine. There have been times in my life where the eyes of my heart have been so clouded by grief and despair, that I was unable to see anything but my own sadness reflected back at me. At those times, I instinctively did my best to grab onto whatever scrap of blind faith that I could find. They were few and far between, but in retrospect I can see that those were the moments that saved me.

Now I can see that my thoughts are the seeds that I plant in the garden of my reality. And that is one heck of a miracle! It's my garden, and I can plant whatever I want. It's actually more accurate to say: That is one HEAVENLY MIRACLE! Because how else could this possibly be true? If this isn't Heaven on Earth, then how can I just think and create?!

I know that there are many people, myself included, that appear to be separated from loved ones by death. And if they are in the deepest throes of mourning, their thoughts on this subject will tend to run along the lines of: Well, that's a bunch of bull. I am thinking that I want to be with this person I love and it's not happening.

The truth is, that person is actually getting exactly what they are thinking. Their dominant thoughts are: I'm sad because this person is not with me and will never, ever be with me again. But if for the briefest of moments you can have even one pure thought of the love that will always connect you, you will begin to see evidence of the fact that you are not separate at all. It will come to you in the tiniest of whispers at first. And as your thoughts turn more toward the truth of everlasting love, your reality will turn more toward the kinds of big and instantaneous events that are more easily recognizable as miraculous.

If you can just trust life a little, and have faith that everything happens for your highest good, you will develop the patience to wait for your seeds to grow into the kinds of plants that produce beautiful and delectable fruits. These Heavenly fruits will nourish your life and give you new seeds to plant for even more miraculous joy.

Open your eyes and look around. Even if you see nothing but garbage, know that that is a miracle too. It's your thoughts that placed that trash where it is. It's your thoughts that will remove it. And now you're ready.

Add a caption

Some people think a miracle is only a miracle if it happens instantaneously, but miracles can grow slowly and patience and faith can compel things to happen that otherwise never would have come to pass. ~Boyd K. Packer

Here is Good

People are where they are because that is exactly where they really want to be - whether they will admit that or not. ~Earl Nightingale

The surface details of my life haven't changed very much in the 7 years that I have lived in my current home. Even so, I'm a lot happier than I was 7 years ago. And my capacity for bliss grows larger everyday.

Three of my children were scheduled to work today, 3 different shifts, beginning at 11AM. When I was younger I would have been resistant to this, and would have interpreted these circumstances to be a great injustice. If I were feeling especially dramatic, I might even have gone so far as to insist this was irrefutable evidence of the unfairness of life itself. Poor me, boo-hoo, blah-blah...

That all gets old after a while. Today my perspective on life has changed. I see life as being fair and balanced. Not only that, but I no longer see life as something that's coming AT me. It's coming FROM me, created by my own thoughts, feelings, and actions with every passing moment.

So our Christmas celebration began at 6AM this Christmas. We opened presents, then went out for breakfast. After a lovely meal, we went to a local Lake Tahoe beach, and slid around on the ice, under a perfect blue sky, snow-covered mountains and trees all around, my husband, our 6 beautiful children, ages 11-20, all of us together in a stunning, life-affirming, magical, winter wonderland. Ahhhhhhh...Life is good.

When it was time to drive Ryan to work, Mother Nature gave us a special treat- the sighting of a huge bear, up in a tree. It had to be 600 pounds minimum. And we never would have seen it if we hadn't been driving Ryan to work.

I'm here because I want to be here. The circumstances of my life are the results of the choices I have made, and all of it happens for my highest good. The more I allow life to be what it is, the better it gets. I see things more clearly, and the love and light that was once invisible to me reveals itself in bold Technicolor, even when nothing on the surface has changed at all.

It's good to be where you are, wherever that is. Everything happens for a reason. And everything that happens is for your benefit. So wherever you are, it's gotta be good.

The Best Meditation

Sleep is the best meditation.
~Dalai Lama









I agree wholeheartedly with His Holiness. I love sleep! And when sleep is preceded by making love with my mate of 24 years, and then the 2 of us drifting off to dreamland together, our bodies naked and entwined, our energies still gently pulsing and gliding together as One...

Well, you get the picture. All over the world people of all kinds are making love and falling asleep together. I wonder how many of them are consciously aware of how truly blessed they are. Making love, falling asleep, dreaming, waking up to a fresh new day...These are some of the most simple blessings of Life. The simple things are always the easiest to overlook. The simple things are also the most profound. The greatest mysteries of the Universe are the most deeply hidden. And they are hidden in plain sight.

Even when my husband is out of town, and I am getting into bed on my own, I absolutely relish the feeling of releasing all the tension from my body, leaving all earthly matters behind, and feeling nothing but the comfort and warmth of my bed, and the gratitude in my heart.

And I thoroughly enjoy the freedom of my dreamworld. I know that whatever is happening in my life that is confusing to me will eventually find resolution in my dream reality. The angels sing to us in our dreams, and their perfect harmony can heal anything and everything that ails us, if only we have the courage to listen.

When morning comes, I like to stay in bed for a while until I am fully awake. When I do this, I feel that I am drifting between the dream and waking worlds, and allowing the 2 to become One. In other words... Heaven on Earth. This really is Heaven on Earth. Sometimes I forget that. But the best meditation always refreshes my memory.

Love is Real

Half of the confusion in the world comes from not knowing how little we need... I live more simply now, and with more peace. ~Richard Byrd










The more complicated you make things, the further you're getting from the truth. Life is pretty simple when you get right down to it. It's all about Love. Deep down, everybody knows this. Yet somehow, we still try to make life about something that we see as "more". More than Love? Not possible.

A few years ago I told a young man in his 20's that the purpose of life was to enjoy it. He couldn't accept that life was about something so simple. He insisted that if it was the truth then everyone would do whatever selfish thing they wanted, without caring who they hurt in the process, and the entire world would fall apart.

I told him that hurting people doesn't make you happy. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", could be completed with, "because they (or someone else) most certainly will." And that's a good thing. It's the perfect way for Life to teach us what will make us happy: LOVE.

As I get older, time seems to be speeding up. But the events within time seem to be slowing down. I notice things that completely escaped my attention in my younger days. Most importantly, I notice that absolutely everything I do comes back to me, and with greater swiftness as my wisdom grows. And that's a good thing. It means I am learning how to love more quickly than I used to. The more love I send out into the world, the more love I receive, and the more joyful my life becomes. It's simple.

It really is true that all you need is love. Absolutely everything comes from love. We are love. That's what's real. That's what works. Keep it simple, pay attention, and you'll see it too.

Love is AWESOME!

Feel the freedom that comes when you are at peace with yourself. Feel the blessings that come when you open your heart to everyone and everything. Feel the ease of being playful, the excitement of being alive, the joy of embracing your life. When you give yourself away to love, you get the whole world back in return. When you give yourself away to love, every day becomes a wondrous celebration.
~Philip Berk







A fresh new blanket of snow is covering my evergreen tree-filled, alpine world this morning. The sun is shining down from a lovely blue sky on a glowing Christmas wonderland. It is so beautiful that it doesn't seem real. It seems instead to have been born from the imagination of a child, and his fantasies of Christmas in paradise.

I was born and raised in Chicago, so my body was trained to adapt to harsh weather from the time I left my mother's womb in December of 1967. I can adapt each winter, but I find that my body's true nature is to seek out the hot and humid climate of my Filipino ancestors. My body is being challenged to accept and allow the circumstances of its current existence, even though it is not entirely comfortable.

I do know that every physical occurrence has its corresponding spiritual truth. I am pondering this as my eyes feast on magical beauty, while my body feels cold and dry. I can see the magical beauty of the love I share with my husband, and our 6 astounding children. And I can feel the cold and dry places of my heart that have been wounded and healed, but where the scars have not completely faded.

The blood of my ancestors runs through my body, and it longs to return to its true home. The spirit of God moves through my heart, and it longs to return to its true home, Heaven on Earth.

This is how you get to Heaven on Earth: Accept and allow who you are right Now. When you are at peace with yourself, the shackles of doubt and fear break their hold upon you. Love, the only true power in the Universe, takes control of your life. Challenges are met with the confidence of knowing that life is here for you to enjoy, and you can trust Love to lead the way through one adventure and on to the next. The world becomes your playground. And like a playground, there can be unfairness and fighting, crying and cruelty. But overall, it is a very fun and pleasant place to be, where the Children of God can have a really good time together, laughing and playing, using their bodies, and learning how to share and get along.

Love is AWESOME!

Clear Sight

“Instead of focusing on the external characteristics of others, you focus on their inner feelings, particularly as it is reflected in their behavior and expressions. You gauge the thoughts in another's mind and the feelings in their hearts by carefully watching what they say and do. When you have this kind of vision, you become concerned primarily with the deeper feelings and motivations of the other person.”
~Sri Sathya Sai Baba





I am experiencing a bit of PMS today. Seeing from the heart is rarely difficult for me anymore. But caring enough about what I see to always respond appropriately can still be challenging. Like many women, these challenging times can be matched to the cycles of my physical body. I've been living with my husband since I was 18, and 24 years of cohabitation have shown me that men have their own cycles as well. And I've come to the conclusion that the most important person to be seeing with the heart is one's own self.

It is infinitely important to have the ability to see deeply into the hearts and minds of others. But it more important to see the beauty and love that YOU possess. Knowing your own magnificence is exactly what allows you share that love and beauty with others.

There was a time when I would react with horrible guilt over my inability to consistently be the compassionate, wise, and loving person I knew I was capable of being. This self-hatred further diminished my capacity for love, and turned into a self-perpetuating, downward cycle, that blinded my heart almost completely.

Thank God those days are over!!!

Today I know that my PMS-ing self doesn't look so great on the surface. Today I know that I can close my eyes and look beneath the surface. Today I know that what I will find in those depths doesn't look so bad after all. Forgiving myself, and beginning anew, comes with much greater ease. This is the kind of self-love that increases my compassion for others, and sets me firmly upon a self-perpetuating, upward cycle, that opens my heart more fully each day.

So, today I say: “Instead of focusing on your external characteristics, focus on your inner feelings, particularly as it is reflected in your behavior and expressions. You gauge the thoughts in your mind and the feelings in your heart by carefully watching what you say and do. When you have this kind of vision, you become concerned primarily with your deeper feelings and motivations.”

You deserve it.

~Dorothy Mendoza Row

Visions of Christmas

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.~James Thurber

Well, the economy looks bleak, and my family of 8 is really feeling it. Turn on the news, and the world looks like a dark and scary place, with monsters of all kind lurking around every corner, just waiting for you to let down your guard for one fatal moment...I don't watch the news. I know enough to maintain a general awareness of Earthly affairs. I've learned to ignore the rest.

And so for me, this is the best, most hopeful, happiest, exploding and expanding with love and joy kind of Christmas Season I have ever experienced. I have learned to choose what I will focus my vision upon. And I have learned that my focus is best tuned into all that is good and pleasing.

Am I living in the Land of Denial? I don't think so. I can't ignore the state of my own family's budget. I know many people who have lost their jobs. I have seen the news enough to know that there is war, murder, rape, kidnapping, starvation, corruption...I grew up on the South Side of Chicago, for Heaven's sake!

Maybe this is just a part of what seeing with God's Eye is all about. It's the part that comes straight from the heart. Sure, I can look around me and see all sorts of despair. I can look inside of me and conjure up demons from my past. I can terrify myself with projected visions of horror for my future. Or, I can open up my heart and see with Eyes of Love. When I do this, I see a world that is radiating love. It is quite literally everywhere, in and around every person, place, thing, and idea, imagined or unimagined. We are all swimming in it, one with it, laughing and playing in it. WE ARE LOVE.

How does that fit in with all the horrors of the world? Well, it's been my observation that there is only one thing that can kill a demon, literally and metaphorically. Everyone knows the answer, whether they admit it or not. Love is the only thing that can kill a demon. And no, that does not mean that we stop defending our country, promoting good causes, or keeping our children away from predators. It simply means that we see the Love. We acknowledge the Love. We trust and have faith in the Love. That's all it takes.

At that point, Love consumes your life, infiltrating your mind, your emotions, your body, and your spirit. And soon you begin to see that love reflected all around you as a magnificent, never-ending, happy, and joyful work-in-progress. Demons are disintegrating with every loving breath you take. It all begins with you. The Love within you spreads to everyone you encounter, and continues on to everyone they encounter, and so on. And it all comes back to you, infinitely recyclable.

No one hurts another person who is not themselves already hurting. Love as much as you can, as often as you can. Make every day Christmas. And remember this: Love won't save the world, because it doesn't need saving. It is already a perfect reflection of humanity. You can't change what you see in this mirror without changing yourself, and it starts with changing your vision.

SEE LOVE.

God's Eyes

Clarity is knowing that:

1. All is well.
2. God is good.
3. This is the Kingdom of God.
4. This is Heaven on Earth.

Be still, and know...

~Dorothy Mendoza Row





In the months before my brother's sudden death at 18, he shared with me a vision he experienced. He was with a group of friends at a casino restaurant in Reno, Nevada, when the movements of a girl working behind a counter caught his eye. All of a sudden, and without any warning that he could discern, he had a 360 degree view of everything the girl was doing, both from her perspective, as well as from separate vantage points. He couldn't really explain it in words, but I had an idea of what he meant.

I was 29 years old, and still in the very early years of The Mystical Experience, but I had read somewhere about God's view of the world being everywhere at once. I told him I thought it was a vision of how God sees, or a small part of it at least. He didn't really have any context of his own to insert the experience into. Not that he minded. He was always just going with the flow of things.

Jeff's death completely obliterated my view of the world. I remembered his vision, and somehow, through the fog of deep, paralyzing grief, I managed to set my intent toward seeing through God's Eyes. My total inability to process the current facts of my life clued me in to an important truth. I really needed a new vantage point. God's Eyes became my goal.

That was 1997. Have I learned to see with God's Eyes in the intervening 12 years? Well, that could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different types of people.

So my answer is: Well, I don't know. Maybe. It depends on what you mean by that. I just know that I see things more clearly all the time. And the more clearly I see things, the better they look.