“How can you ever worry when you have seen your soul – your strength, your beauty, your golden wings. Jump into the abyss and you will fly.”

I came across this tweet on Twitter today. It is a basic concept that I have embodied with heart and soul for many years now, however the way Mr. Copra phrased it on this day has struck me particularly hard because of how it is worded in a manner that paralleled a dream I had the night before last.

It was a very intense and clear dream. I was the passenger in a car driving on a beautiful, scenic and windy road. The driver was not recognizable to me in my consciousness, but I know she was a friend. In the back seat, my son was strapped into his carseat content and happy. We came around the corner to an amazing landscape of stark white snow and a wide open lake lay below the cliff in front of us, completely frozen over. Everything was icy-white with underlying tones of earth-brown. We were in awe and the driver said, “See, isn’t it beautiful?”. Just as I was about to agree, the road suddenly ended and we were catapulted off the cliff, headed straight into the icy abyss below us. I was struck with this immediate knowing that we were not going to survive. I right away had the thought that I needed to use my spiritual tools, most importantly energetically grounding myself and my son. It was instantaneous, this surrender and knowing that everything as I had known it was about to completely be gone. The sense of calm that came over me as I acknowledged this was surreal.

I began the imaging around the grounding of our physical bodies as we were simultaneously crashing into the rocks below and quickly plummeting into the icy water. When we entered the water it began to have a golden glow. Then, all of a sudden we were rapidly being sucked into this beautiful golden light and it was as if we were speeding through a luminescent, multi-tone, golden tunnel – just like a high-speed tram. It kept occurring to me how amazing this was, and it wasn’t scary at all. I was excited to see what would happen next.

Next, I am on the shore of that same lake, a shift of seasons later because all the snow is gone and everything is mud-brown, like it often is in the spring as the winter snow starts to melt. I am accompanied by one of my close friends from college, and he and I are going to start searching the shores of the lake for the car and our bodies. He pointed me in the direction towards the cliff I remembered cascading down, and he set off in the other direction in case the wreckage had been carried downstream. I remember thinking how odd it was that I was searching for my own body, and the scene of where I had died.

As I began my quest I came across these giant machines digging into the hillside, scraping the cliffs away and completely changing the structure of the valley the lake was held within. The machines were having a hard time doing their tasks, as the landscape was very set into place. They were gyrating and getting stuck as they worked, but also relentless in their tasks – creating a terrible mess as they went. I quickly got into this state of panic that I would never be able to find myself (my old body) because if these huge machines couldn’t navigate their way and were just making things less and less recognizable, how in the world would I be able to get around – let alone find any parts of myself that might completely be buried or hidden underneath the water.

Wow, can you start to see all the millions of hidden meanings within this dream?

I remember finally coming to a resolve that it was okay, and that I didn’t need to find the old parts of myself. I wasn’t losing anything by letting go, and I knew that everything was perfect right there in that moment. I realized that it was perhaps a waste of energy to continue looking for those old pieces of myself. Ones which I had, actually, quite peacefully let go of when the time had come. I went to find my friend to tell him we could stop searching. I had everything I needed right there – my spirit was in tact, I was refreshed, happy and healthy.

During the dream I was trying to consciously figure out what had happened between the two scenes.  What I came to, was that it was as if I had woken up in this place vibrationally below where I had been – above on the cliff being an enlightened state, among loved ones, where I could see the beauty in all, and below being back in the physical world, with an old friend, and a bit of chaos that was causing some resistance and fear within me.  It had the thought that it was like I was returning (as I dived off the cliff above) to help others find skills, and new ways of seeing the world, that I had already learned about. I enthusiastically, and without fear, had come to help people navigate the new landscape that was quickly being changed by things much larger than us (in this case, the metaphor is the machines). I told my friend that I had lots of tools to help people do this.  Now fully aware of my “wings” and with a new sense of duty, I had an understanding and a certainty that I could stay (energetically/vibrationally) above what was happening around us, be in charge and help everyone through the changes.

My interpretation, in a nutshell: Things are about the change for me, in a very big way. It’s time to let go of everything as I know it. I no longer need to search for, or fear, old parts of myself. I have tools to move forward, and it is my time to reach further out into the world and empower people with self-healing abilities that will help them as the energetic, moral, and structural landscape of the world shifts. As I jump into that abyss, with calm certainty, I will undoubtedly take flight. And I can easily find calm within that awareness, and allow myself to take the leap.

Stay tuned for changes to come!

When I was younger, I clearly remember some of the adults in my life taking big exhales during times of stress, and being the empathic child that I was I quickly absorbed all the “yuck” they were exhaling as if I were an extra absorbant sponge. As one might guess, it didn’t feel so good. I remember at one point making a conscious decision that I would try very hard never to make noise when I breathed so as not to affect others around me.

Fast forward 20 years and I quite frequently found myself feeling my body all locked up, headachy, stiff, unenergized, etc. It took me several years to realize part of why I felt so terrible was because my breaths had turned into shallow inhales, and only when absolutely neccessary. Eventually, I finally made the connection that the decision I had vividly made when I was a child, to take silent breaths, had turned into something so much more. I had completely pushed any consciousness out of the way I was feeding my body what it needs to support not only my cells, but also my spirits’ ability to connect into my physical being.

When I started my meditation practice and began taking classes at the Center I would frequently hear the teachers taking loud intentional breathes to incite the students to do the same. This was something I resisted, even then, sitting in meditation giving to no one other than myself. Once I began thinking about being a teacher I remember thinking “Yea, but I’m not going to take those loud breaths for everyone to hear, I just can’t do that!”

During my clairvoyant training our class was going to have a group breath session led by Juli Somers, and I was in so much resistance to it that I actually, unconsciously, manifested a 102 degree fever and had to miss class. Once I finally started to put things together I realized how much I dreaded allowing myself to release during intentional breaths, especially when there were others around, and I decided to schedule a breath session with Juli. This was an event that changed my life. These sessions, where one releases whatever they are holding at an unconcious level, via guided and intentional non-stop breathing for an hour, quickly became very addictive for me. I utilized this form of release throughout my pregnancy and am so thankful for how it helped me to move through things that I was working on during this time.

Even today, as I understand how important the breath is for the mind, body, spirit connection’s health, I still find myself holding on and resisting those glorious lung movements when things get frantic. So, daily I am trying to catch myself when I feel my chest contracting and take a pause to take a deep breath in and then loudly exhale.

Unlike when I was a child surrounded by those wise adults who knew that they needed to purposely breathe to work through their stress, but unwise in the knowledge that they were blowing it right into my path, I strive to breathe in an intentional manner. I utilize my energy awareness tools, to ensure that I am not expelling what I am releasing to those around me who might unknowingly absorb it, as I did when I was a child.

My intentional breathing has now become something that actually evokes delightful giggles from my son. Hooray for breaking old patterns! Ahhhhhh…..

Down below the surface of a quiet pond lived a little colony of water bugs. They were a happy colony, living far away from the sun. For many months they were very busy, scurrying over the soft mud on the bottom of the pond. They did notice that every once in a while one of their colony seemed to lose interest in going about with its friends. Clinging to the stem of a pond lily, it gradually moved out of sight and was seen no more.

“Look!” said one of the water bugs to another. “One of our colony is climbing up the lily stalk. Where do you suppose she is going?” Up, up, up it went slowly. Even as they watched, the water bug disappeared from sight. Its friends waited and waited but it didn’t return. “That’s funny!” said one water bug to another. “Wasn’t she happy here?” asked a second water bug. “Where do you suppose she went?” wondered a third. No one had an answer. They were greatly puzzled. Finally one of the water bugs, a leader in the colony, gathered its friends together. “I have an idea. The next one of us who climbs up the lily stalk must promise to come back and tell us where he or she went and why.” “We promise,” they said solemnly.

One spring day, not long after, the very water bug who had suggested the plan found himself climbing up the lily stalk. Up, up, up he went. Before he knew what was happening, he had broken through the surface of the water, and fallen onto the broad, green lily pad above. When he awoke, he looked about with surprise. He couldn’t believe what he saw. A startling change had come to his old body. His movement revealed four silver wings and a long tail. Even as he struggled, he felt an impulse to move his wings. The warmth of the sun soon dried the moisture from the new body. He moved his wings again and suddenly found himself up above the water. He had become a dragonfly.

Swooping and dipping in great curves, he flew through the air. He felt exhilarated in the new atmosphere. By and by, the new dragonfly lighted happily on a lily pad to rest. Then it was that he chanced to look below to the bottom of the pond. Why, he was right above his old friends, the water bugs! There they were, scurrying about, just as he had been doing some time before. Then the dragonfly remembered the promise: “The next one of us who climbs up the lily stalk will come back and tell where he or she went and why.”

Without thinking, the dragonfly darted down. Suddenly he hit the surface of the water and bounced away. Now that he was a dragonfly, he could no longer go into the water. “I can’t return!” he said in dismay. “At least I tried, but I can’t keep my promise. Even if I could go back, not one of the water bugs would know me in my new body. I guess I’ll just have to wait until they become dragonflies too. Then they’ll understand what happened to me, and where I went.”

And the dragonfly winged off happily into its wonderful new world of sun and air.

Doris Stickney (1982)

In retrospect, I can see they both occurred around times in my life where a major transition was about to occur – but I was wanting things to stay the same and completely ignoring the little signs that I was being given to nudge me in a new direction. So what did I get instead? A big-ole-whammy (of a car accident) that forced me to change; and the fact that I had two incidents where this happened on the exact same date is more than simply coincidence. Perhaps it’s even so that I could be here today, telling you about this holiday of mine.

I have become a big fan of noticing the coincidences that spring up in my life and using them as synchronistic signs to guide me. Hopefully, taking note of them before things get to the point of needing as big of a “wake-up call”, or what I like to think of as a push in a new direction, as a car-accident. The more we can recognize and act upon even the simplest of those “Wow, what are the ODDS?” incidents the more we begin to be in the natural flow of our lives.

Syncronistic signs can come in all shapes and sizes – anything from feeling particularly strapped for cash and receiving a free cup of coffee at your favorite morning shop to running into an old friend that you haven’t seen for years right in the middle of New York City. How we interpret and utilize the sign can totally vary depending on our state of awareness at that specific moment in time, and it is often times easy to completely miss them. However, the one thing that I do know it is that the Universe is designed to carry us along our path and no matter where we get hung up on a rock in the endless river of our source energy another little push or pull will be provided to help get us moving again.

Not too long ago, I was in a situation where I was going to be pushed in a direction that I wasn’t so sure was a good idea. I prayed to God for something to get me out of it, and minutes later I was presented with a pretty big “Are you kidding me?” kind of coincidence that could have been a very EASY out; however, I didn’t recognize it in that moment and I was instead agreeable to continuing on the path that I had been resisting. In retrospect, I found myself regretting that I didn’t notice the coincidence was in fact my sign from God as a way to alter the path. However, it doesn’t really matter which direction I chose at that moment because there are lessons to be learned from the course things are on now. I believe there will be more signs and forks in the road that will continue leading me on my path – in the same direction I’ve always been headed – back to aligning with myself.

I encourage you to dismiss the notion that there are any bad “accidents” cooky “coincidences” or “wrong” choices – everything happens for a reason. There is even a something behind why you are here, at this very moment, reading this article and newsletter. Something to ponder as you flow through this wonderful thing we call life.

What does this dream mean to me? Well, I took it as reinforcement that I am starting to awaken to my role as a spiritual leader, and the essence of what that will look like, in this lifetime, is just starting to manifest into my physical reality. When I catch glimpses of it through my teaching, doing psychic readings, energy work and meditations I feel amazing, my heart sings and it’s a general state of serenity. However, I’m still in that awakening phase where I’m often tempted to return to my old ways of being, and it’s oh-so-enticing to roll over and go back to sleep.

This shows up in many different ways within my life, especially in the form of self-created blocks or “excuses” to avoid exactly those things that DO feel so good as I start to come out of my cocoon. Sometimes my heart aches to know what is beyond right here in this moment; and the evil co-conspirators, the ego and my survival instincts, start to get in the way by telling me that I’ll never make it going down this path and I must switch courses by going back to what I already know. As I continue to let go of my personal demons, such as lack and persecution, while increasing my ability to connect more deeply with my spiritual knowingness, I must remind my self that there is only the now. As long as I continue to do the things that inspire me, from moment-to-moment, I am one step closer to finding my eyes more open. All will be revealed in it’s own time, and not a second sooner.

I sense that all of humankind is being given opportunities to free themselves of past-time ways of being in order to become more authentic and true to the Self. Whether it be the loss of a job that had no meaning, the letting go of relationships that don’t allow personal growth, or being confronted with other challenges rooted in the ego we are all being asked to find trust within the change. As we go through these challenging and dark times, together, we are awakening for a brighter day. All we have to remember is: make it up in the moment, that’s where the knowing can be found.

How I perceive this is that we are at at time of immense change – a cleansing – on the planet. What goes in must come out. So all of the greed and ego that we have lived in for hundreds of thousands of years is now in reverse. We are experiencing it all, on a very intense level, as we work to rid ourselves of this methodology. On a higher, spiritual level, all of us have agreed to move into a new time here on earth – one in which we are starting the work for now, but may not even see in our current incarnations because there is so much releasing and healing to do. Eventually, everything will be less focused on the material and ego, and revolve more around our true-selves: love and light.

I’m bringing this up to remind us, especially myself, that every
hardship that we are currently experiencing is an opportunity for
healing, and most importantly, growth. If we can be present with what it is that seems so “hard” and try to live through it as the observer, set on neutral-release, we will be carried on the tides of change bringing us to the shores of a whole new existence. By learning techniques to become conscious in the cleansing of our old ways we will only help to propel and enhance the energetic vibration of this unavoidable shift. Just like a magnet we will attract the energy, innately found within each and every person, that aspires to do the same. There is no better form of community service at this time than to simply take care of yourself, as spirit, on this journey.

However, there is always that pesky little thing called resistance that makes it so hard to simply move through the stories as the observer, release the core of it, and tackle the next one. Well, we are all human afterall, and that is what we have known up to this point. Resistance is going to come up even more for us presently because it is connected to all that stuff we are now reversing out – it is our ego’s way of fighting against the change.

I urge all of us to be aware of what we are going through, try to release the resistance and attachment, and open up to what will be presented next. Now is the time to embrace universal spiritual principles such as grounding, having energy awareness, utilizing intuition and regularly practicing meditation techniques to connect to, and honoring, our inner-selves. Ultimately, helping to bring physical and spiritual knowingness into alignment.

In an example of these sessions, everyday imagery is introduced as something kids can spend time visualizing to facilitate the release of thoughts and emotions that don’t feel good; help to set their energetic and emotional spaces to peace; and to serve as tools to draw upon in situations for proactive, rather than reactive, responses. Ultimately, helping them to gain coping skills, raise self-awareness, and increase personal power in recognizing and handling life’s tests. Another example is the the provision of a set-time each day where children can practice conscious breathing as a way to help them focus the mind on one simple, refreshing, act for themselves.

Meditation can empower children with lifelong skills to: quiet the mind; form practical awareness of how their energy affects others; gain understanding of how outside influences affect their energy and emotions; increase healthy behavioral choices thru reliance on inner resources; grow to maintain individuality yet thrive in groups; learn to stay in, and handle, the present moment with effortlessness; foster peace internally and externally.

Stay tuned for more articles on the progression of , and research into, children’s based meditation programs!

It wasn’t until recently, when my son was born, that this door was blown wide open for me. Throughout my pregnancy I felt connected to his beautiful spirit, but was a little bit in the dark about what it would be like to witness it within a body. Once his physicality came into my eye’s view it was amazing to me. I marvel at how I could have done this with basically no “know-how” what-so-ever. It’s probably a good thing that I didn’t have to figure out the science of how to put his little body together because I surely would have duped it up somehow. I have never been a science genius. All I know is that there is this amazing – tangible – being and he got here by my complete surrender to a higher knowing in the Universe. And, by the sheer gift of ME being in a body, I was able to ‘pay it forward’ to an old friend who I’ve likely known in many other lifetimes.

When he snoozes on my lap I love to lay my hand across his chest, where he will promptly rest his small hand on top of mine, and feel his heart beating. This constantly puts me right into a moment of wonder and awe. I can feel the tiny rhythm – actually very huge in the fact that it is pumping life through his beautiful body, which is really just a house for a spirit to have a lifetime of experiences. The heart is an incredible thing, not only in all of its physical properties and duties, but also in its relationship to the ability to feel and promote love – one of life’s most important components. I somehow took part in creating one of these magical organs for this special person that I am coming to know.

When I watch this wise old soul try to master his new little body I make the connection that we struggle with our ‘vehicles’ right from the start, and the sheer beauty of being able to see it through a mother’s adoring eyes gives me a new appreciation for all that we go through in life. Spirit within the body, and the gift of that opportunity is now quite apparent to me. I am grateful to be receiving this greater level of understanding from my new little one.

Throughout my twenties I experienced tons of body aches, pains and illnesses. I often referred to myself as an 80-year old in a 25-year old body, and friends and family were always shocked with all my crazy diagnosis’. Occasionally, the thought of kids would come up, and my partner at the time would reflect that I couldn’t make it being pregnant because my body was so weak. And I believed him. It’s amazing to me, when I look back now, how I readily bought into this picture of lack in health, and how often times my spirit wasn’t in my body in order to deal with all the pain.

When I started to take steps down my current path, beginning to meditate and release untruths through my clairvoyant training, I went through some major shifts in my body as I let go of this false definition of myself. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you, but I slowly came to a place where I was feeling healthy and energized. I had just turned 30 and had a sense of freedom from my old self. Then, just as I was starting to understand that you get exactly what you need to go further in your healing, I found out I was pregnant.

Okay, here we go. The major test had arrived. Of course, old images of weakness and many fears around my body’s abilities popped up, but I was now certain in my power to define my path and let go of things that weren’t my truth. I could do this.

Since I seem to like challenges, I found myself with an opportunity to have an even more tremendous growth experience in that I was to be a single mom. So, not only were there old body pictures to release, but also an increased level of emotions to work through in the circumstances around being on my own.

My deep commitment to intuitive based meditation had me in a place where I was able to focus my mind into an awareness of what I was feeling, observe where it was coming from and then let it go – whether it be an emotion, lack of energy, a physical pain, or a tricky ego attachment. Not only was I able to release personal pictures about my health, but also all of the typical ideas one may hold about the discomforts associated with pregnancy. When I look back, I am amazed at what I was able rise above utilizing simple meditation techniques. My healing also opened me up to receive the love and support that was all around me. I was not alone, nor would I ever be.

I can now officially say that I had an extraordinary pregnancy – full of positive energy and healing. One in which I was able to be present, with spirit fully in the body, every moment. There is no doubt in my mind that this level of self-awareness and growth can be achieved by anyone who is pregnant – or not pregnant. The power of meditation is amazing.