Long Winter's Nap

My recovery from surgery is going really well because I have been asleep. I'm not kidding, I've really been asleep. For days and nights I’ve been snoozing and napping. I feel like a bear in a den, completely quiet inside and content to live with a slow, steady heartbeat and just a few hours of daylight. 

I know this long winter’s nap is a natural way my body has to heal from the trauma of surgery. And I can’t help but wonder if it is also my spirit’s way of embracing the energy of winter. There is nothing better than to create warmth and quiet on a cold day.

The December 2011 Message says: “This is an important time to take very good care of your bodies. It is

an important time to take a deep breath and slow down. If you try

to rush around this month, you might find that you get into accidents

and make mistakes. Because you are not very grounded, you need to

be extra careful to be mindful and thoughtful about your body and the

things that you say and every action that you take.” 

I don’t always follow the advice in the Monthly Message. For better or worse, I tend to have my mind a couple of months ahead because that is the time I am actively channeling. (I just completed the Looking Ahead Message for February 2012 and am excited to share it with you soon!)
Because I don’t always remember to look at the message during the month at hand, I am grateful for the events in my life that have forced me to slow down and pay attention to what is needed this month. For me it’s sleep, quiet reflection, and healing. Healing from surgery has led me to an ongoing state of the long winter’s nap and I love it!

Twas the Night Before Christmas: 
A Visit from St. Nicholas

By Clement C. Moore
 

Pictures by Jessie Willcox Smith




How are you working with the deeper energy this month? With the holidays, it’s not always an easy time to find an extra hour. I hope if you do find one that you spend it doing the thing that most feeds your heart and nourishes your soul. It feels like we are all shifting and preparing for something big, so take this chance to be grounded and rested! 

 

Surrender

I had surgery last week. I’ll tell you a lot more about that later, but for now I have to share a channeling that just came through this morning.

I’ve been very curious, and a little nervous, about how general anesthesia would affect my ability to do channeling work. On top of that, I used narcotic painkillers for several days after surgery, which is a far cry from the caffeine-free, alcohol-free, aspirin-or-any-kind-of-drug-free life I usually live. I try to avoid stimulants and depressants when I can because I never want to wonder if something I’ve channeled was influenced by them.

My plan was to wait four or five days to make sure the drugs were out of my system physically, then for my energy to adjust to having them gone. Then I would try channeling. Instead, two days after ceasing those drugs, I woke up to a channeled message coming through me like a voice in my mind that definitely wasn’t my own.  I got out of bed, wrote it down, then formally accessed the Records to make sure it was real.  It was real, and here it is:

“You are the ones you’ve been waiting for. We talked about this several months ago, and too few of you are acting on it. You can no longer afford to live with the emotional and behavioral patterns that hold you back – that tell you there is something wrong with you or that you have to prove something.

Don’t you understand? If you are reading this, you are one of the enlightened ones. It is time to start acting like it.

Today, map out a plan for the next day, week, month, or year. Think of something you want to accomplish, big or small, and map out what it will take to get there. Then take note of the few things on that map that you can control or influence, and make a plan to do those things.

Finally, and most importantly, take note of the many things on that map that you cannot control or influence much. List those, and decide right now to surrender. Know in your heart what you hope for, and then surrender those to your higher self and the angels watching over this plan.

It is time to stop trying to prove your worth, or to attain something different from the divine path you are walking now. You are here to help lead humanity to a new age, and your leadership will not occur because you have achieved something in particular. It will occur because you develop a deep sense of peace as you go about your plans, and that peace becomes something everyone wants to follow.

You do not need to work so hard. Humanity cannot afford to have you indulge any further in self-hatred or criticism. You are the ones you have been waiting for, and the people around you are waiting to learn from you how to surrender the fight and step into peace and joy right now!”

This is one of the first times I have ever received a channeled message without formally accessing the Akashic Records, and honestly I didn't really like it. For one part, it felt a little bit like getting a lecture from the Keepers right when I wanted to be snuggling and sleeping!

But the dislike goes deeper. For years I have resisted any channeling that comes without my conscious consent. I’ll admit it – just like the channeling tells us, I prefer to feel as if I am in control of how Spirit moves through me. So I suppose this is my opportunity to surrender to what is rather than to strive to create what I think it should be.

I remain curious about how my recent surgical adventure will continue to affect my channeling. Did the spontaneous morning message come because I had just removed the narcotics from my system? Were those kinds of messages there all along and I was just too tired to block them out this time? Who knows, but you can bet I’ll keep you updated on what I find out!

New Age Grammar Lesson

I laughed at myself today as I was updating my website with the Daily Message. I think I spent about ten minutes deciding how to capitalize the word “love” in the message for November 30. It’s not that I’ve forgotten the basic rules of English grammar. It’s just that grammar gets a bit confusing in the New Age.

There are certain words – Love and Enlightenment, for instance – that have become ideographs in the New Age movement. They’ve taken on a gravity and persona all their own. We capitalize them in the same way that more conventional religious folks capitalize the word God. We strive to have the letters in the word help us hold reverence for what we’re writing. And I think this is great. Until I find myself writing something like this:

Daily Message -- November 30, 2011
The energy of Love is very strong today. Find a way to show Love for everyone around you. Spend time meditating on the people and places you Love most, and build a sense of Love in your heart that reaches beyond your body. Live in a field of Love today.

After I typed this out, I felt uncomfortable. It’s one thing to occasionally break the rules of classical grammar in order to add emphasis. It’s an entirely other thing to write the word Love with a capital L five times in only four sentences. The inner grammar critic inside my mind just started spinning and I couldn’t do it.

So I rewrote the whole thing with no capital-L Loves:

Daily Message -- November 30, 2011
The energy of love is very strong today. Find a way to show love for everyone around you. Spend time meditating on the people and places you love most, and build a sense of love in your heart that reaches beyond your body. Live in a field of love today.

That looks better to my inner critic, but it doesn’t fit at all with the emphasis on love that was coming through the Records when I channeled this message several weeks ago.

Finally, I decided to use a little grammar rule of my very own – one I’ve come up with over the course of typing out many channelings from the Akashic Records that use the word love in so very many ways. This rule dictates that I capitalize Love when it is used as a noun, and leave it small when it is used as a verb.

So here’s the variation that finally posted on my website today:

Daily Message -- November 30, 2011
The energy of Love is very strong today. Find a way to show love for everyone around you. Spend time meditating on the people and places you love most, and build a sense of Love in your heart that reaches beyond your body. Live in a field of Love today.

I feel fine with this for now, and I’m glad I’ve come up with my own little rule for New Age grammar. Sometimes I feel like I am overcapitalizing in the channelings when I post them online. Other times I wonder if I’m not doing it enough to emphasize the importance of certain concepts coming through the Records. Whenever I channel a message, it comes through as a set of ideas and concepts. It’s up to my and my brain to figure out how to put them into language.

I think all channelers and healers must face a similar conundrum. How do you put these huge, nonlinear concepts into words? When do words fail to convey, and when do words come through so powerfully that they have the ability to heal? I’d love to hear about your experiences.

Lightworker Scavenger Hunt

The Keepers have been talking a lot lately about Lightworkers.  Last month’s Live Channeling event (now a website download) was on the topic of “Leadership and Change: You Are the Ones You’ve Been Waiting For” which was all about how we are learning to lead by example, rather than leading by bossing each other around --  though the Keepers said it a bit more nicely than that!

I posted a channeling last week about Lightworkers that said:

“It is time to expand your definition of what it means to be a Lightworker.  It is time to expand your identity as a Lightworker to include everyone around you.  It is time then to start looking around and noticing that the most mundane situation can be filled with Light.  It is time to look around and start noticing that the most unassuming, quiet person in the room might be the one who is bringing the most Light.” 

Most of the channelings and most of what you’ll find online about Lightworkers tell us how be Lightworkers ourselves.  But what the Keepers have focused on lately is how much everyday life events are really expressions of Lightwork -- how we don't necessarily need to be involved in spiritual or energy work to be Lightworkers.

In that light, I’m going a Lightworker scavenger hunt and I’m inviting you to join me.  Every time I enter a new social situation, instead of asking myself how I can bring more Light, I’m going to start hunting for those magical souls who are bringing more light – each in their own way.  Then I'm going to help them, or celebrate them, or just sit back in awe and admiration as they work their mojo!

It’s easy to pick out the obvious ones -- the minister at the pulpit or the healer giving someone a hug over in the corner.   It’s not so easy to spot the stealthy ones --the kind soul who slows down while crossing the street in order to protect an elderly stranger, or the teenage boy making jokes in the hospital waiting room in order to ease the tension. 

I’ll give myself extra points for the ones I spot who have probably never even heard the word Lightworker -- the ones who show kindness in everyday moments because it’s in their nature, it’s just who they are.  Because “just who they are” is a Lightworker. 

It doesn’t matter what language you use or what social movement you are part of – if you sense the hearts of others and strive to make those around you just a little lighter, just a little more at ease – then you’re a Lightworker.

Hunting for hidden Lightworkers is fun.  It give me a sense of hope to realize that I am surrounded by them, and that whatever I’m striving to do to make the world a better place is supported by countless moments across the world in which others are doing the very same thing.

So let's make the Comments field for this blog post be a place where you can tell us about a hidden Lightworker you've spotted.  I can't wait to see what you discover in the months to come! 

What's Up With October?

Has anyone else noticed that this month feels little weird? For a long time now, I’ve been struggling to see ahead to October. Back in June when I channeled the topics for the year’s events, I couldn’t get a topic for the October Live Channeling event. The Keepers gave topics for November and December -- but for October they kept saying, “Ask us later.” The energy for this month was twisty and difficult to predict.

The October Message states clearly that this is an unusual and changeable month:

"The energy this month is difficult to predict. The reason for the difficulty is that a major turning point occurs in September of 2011. As you cross the threshold into October, much of what will happen will depend on the choices that you made in September. The energy for the year 2012 has been on its way into Planet Earth for the last couple of years, but the actual energy of the very year itself arrives in October. While your calendars mark the year beginning in September, the true energetic beginning of the year is in October of 2011..."

When I channeled all the Daily Messages for this month and I saw something I hadn’t seen when I channeled the Monthly Message back in August. As I watched the days unfold, I could see that the entire month moves like a spiral. Every day brings more change, like a curve in the road, so that eventually the energy swirls around on itself. From above, the energy this month looks like a cyclone.

Maybe that cyclone is the reason I’m feeling so strange. Every time I choose a direction, I seem to spin around on myself and get lost all over again.

(This is Hurricane Ivan from 2004, courtesy of hurricane-facts.com)

I finally did get a topic for this month, just a few days ago. And, no surprise, the topic is Change!  More specifically, it's “Change and Leadership: You Are the Ones You’ve Been Waiting For.” Be sure to visit my calendar and sign up if you want to join us. It will be fun to learn more about becoming leaders in the midst of change, especially when we are right in the middle of it!  

Wiped Out, But In a Good Way

The Live Channeling on the Year 2012 took place this week, and it was a doozy! What an amazing year we have ahead of us!

Participants asked wonderful questions, and I remember being surprised by some of the answers. The strange thing about channeling is that I see the answers so clearly when they come through, but once I’ve closed the Records it all slips out of my mind like a dream. So, just like the rest of you, I can’t wait to listen and learn what the Keepers have to say about this much-anticipated year. The recording will become available on my website beginning October 1.
 

Until then, here are a few of the highlights:

- This is the Year of the Wheel, or the Year of Choices. This is the time when we decide what direction humanity will take in the next age.

- Our ability to make choices this year makes us incredibly powerful. The consequences of our choices will happen more immediately and intensely than ever before, for better or worse. (Don’t panic: If you’re paying attention and doing your best to be honest with yourself and others, it will be mostly for the better.)

- Most people will be changing their minds and directions often during the year. Lightworkers are called to have patience and avoid getting caught up in the drama surrounding you.

- The energy of 2012 begin in 2009, so if you’ve been paying attention and doing what you can to heal and wake up, then this year will bring more empowerment and joy. If you have been avoiding anything, this year will make that thing come crashing down on you so you can finally deal with it.

- I also remember that the Keepers addressed movie and media portrayals of the Year 2012, and how those are related to real life dynamics.  Can't wait to be reminded about what they said.. thank goodness this was recorded!

- I remember seeing more clearly how the Mayan Calendar was accurate in predicting this shift, and exactly how those predictions have changed…. But I can’t remember what came through. ARG!  Again, with the recording. 


Another highlight for me was the moment when all the callers said good-bye at the end of the call. I usually have between ten and twenty callers for events. This time there were over 60 people on the line! It was so lovely to hear a cacophony of voices saying farewells and blessings. Thank you to everyone who participated in that channeling event.

And, after channeling the energy of the Akashic Records, the Year 2012, and all those lovely participants -- I was wiped out. So, true to form, I made a huge bowl of very salty popcorn and watched an episode of Glee.

There is something about song-and-dance that enables that blank stare I require after intense experiences. It’s probably not the best way to get grounded, but it sure is fun.

Of course, I could manage that only after lying in the grass outside my office and staring wide-eyed at a nearby tree for at least 30 minutes. I think my neighbors might wonder about me sometimes…..

(No, sadly this is not the view from my office. The trees in Seattle are far more coniferous and prickly, and the sky is far more gray, but I love it anyway.)

Native Family

 

I’ve just returned from a visit with my native family. They are native as in my first people – the ones who raised me and were raised with me. These are the people with whom I built my deepest fears. Fears like, “What if I am not loved? What if I am not good?” They are also the people who taught be to love and be loved. They are the ones with whom I developed my strongest attachments – some healthy, some not so healthy.



Over the years we have all made many mistakes together, and our patterns of behavior fit together like puzzle pieces. My tendency to swallow my words molded itself perfectly around my brother’s childhood bravado; my desperation to be admired and respected grew right alongside the skeptical looks my little sisters gave me when I tried new things. 

No matter what kind of family, every single one of us is molded by the shapes our loved ones took as we grew up together.

 

 

As we navigate our spiritual paths as adults, it can be tempting to imagine that we can think our way out of those childhood limitations.  It can be tempting to expect that we will take our enlightened spirituality into our family visits and somehow make those relationships work perfectly.  But those old puzzle pieces still fit together, so that when I visit, I find I am not myself. I say things I would never usually say. I feel things more strongly than I usually feel. And I struggle to keep my center more than in any other situation in my adult life.

I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. We all know that family relationships can be complicated and confusing. Yet these are the people we keep going back to, because amidst all that confusion there is a deep and profound potential for love. After all, if this is the place we learned our greatest fears, just imagine what could happen if we heal our fears in those very relationships where they started?



Luckily, I ended the trip with a clarifying visit to Grand Teton National Park. There are few places that clear my mind and set my senses soaring as much as the high mountains of the Rockies and Great Basin.

Beautiful!

It's Decision Time Again

Making decisions is one of the most fundamental activities in our lives. Decisions and their consequences are unavoidable. Even when we avoid making a decision, the choice to avoid it is a decision in its own right and carries consequences just like any other decision. There is no escape!

Having choices is part of what defines freedom and gives us a great deal of joy.  I don't know too many people who consciously give up their free will.  (I do know some who unconsciously do, but that's a story for another day.) So why do so many people struggle to make decisions?

We all have our favorite way to deal with decision overload. Mine is procrastination. And I always feel bad about it, and I always thing there must be something wrong with me. (And there probably is, but that is between me and my therapist.)

All of this felt a bit better the other day when I found this article in the New York Times.

It turns out I’m plagued by too many decisions – which I recognize is a luxury of excessive use of free will. (And I really do mean that it’s a luxury to have the opportunity to choose so much of my own circumstances) This phenomenon even has a name, Decision Fatigue. And it’s not just me, and it’s not my fault, and just considering that I could limit the unimportant decisions in order to improve the important ones is really helpful.

After reading the article, I decided to stop visiting the World Wide Web unless I have a specific task to perform there. No more browsing, no more surfing. I think this alone will eliminate dozens if not hundreds of unimportant decisions from my daily roster. And it will free up time to walk barefoot in the grass, sit in meditation, and talk to friends that I treasure dearly but never call or visit anymore!

What will you eliminate? How will you free up your mental space for those important decisions that really matter? I can’t wait to hear about it!

Finish All the Things!

Well, I keep trying to post something about the US economy, but I just can’t find words to express how complicated my feelings are on this issue. So that post can wait for another day. (If you want to think about the economy this week, go read the channeling for this topic!)

Instead, I thought I’d share the image I have hanging in my office this week. 
 

I am very good at starting things, like this blog, and not so good at finishing them. Astrologers tell me that it’s because so much of my natal chart is on fire. The Records tell me it’s because I spend so much time channeling that I don’t track time very well in my everyday life.

But sometimes I think I’m still just running away from homework. I find myself with that old feeling from school. You know the one? That feeling of homework perched weightily on my shoulders, pushing on me when I’m playing, resting, and even when I’m actually working on the homework. I feel guilty, embarrassed, and trapped. It’s heavy-duty mental baggage, and I’ve been trying to shake it since I was about twelve years old.

So I love this image because it is just silly enough, and just triumphant enough, for me to believe that I actually WILL finish all the things!

Dumbledore's Right

Whenever I try to explain why I can’t predict the future using the Akashic Records, I always struggle to explain very clearly how very complex the very idea of the future can be. Luckily, someone else has found an elegant way to express this for me:  

“The consequences of our actions are so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.”

-- Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The future always appears as a set of possibilities and probabilities. Much can be seen, but nothing can be predicted until the very moment it occurs. This is the only way it can be if we have free will. And, based on absolutely everything I have ever seen in the Akashic Records, we do indeed have free will.

Sometimes I wish someone could predict the future. It doesn’t have to be me. It could be anyone, as long as they could tell me exactly what to expect and how to plan for it. Especially these days when so much is changing and so much is at stake.

But, when I really think about it, I’m grateful the future cannot be predicted. I am glad that what is coming is continually being rewritten according to our choices and intentions. This means I still have the honor of creating an effect in the world around me, and so do you!

 

Akashic Channeler Rescued from Black Hole

This Just In – Jen Eramith was swept into a cyber black hole two weeks ago, and found emerging just this morning. The black hole was created when her website host decided to change their system completely, sucking Jen into a whirlwind of telephone call-center muzak and long, complicated tests of website functionality.

Jen’s mysterious disappearance from the blogosphere left many puzzled. Readers wondered, “Why did she start a blog when she isn’t even blogging? Doesn’t she care anymore?”

While channelings and events continued to appear on her website, Akashic Transformations, Jen herself seemed to have disappeared completely from blog-land.

That changed early this morning when Jen was spotted crawling from the black hole looking bewildered and relieved. She announced that the new website template has been fully integrated, save one last little glitch preventing her from posting the newest audio download to the library.

“That’s OK,” she stated bravely. “This gives people more time to download the special double feature we offered in July – two titles for the price of membership.”

As the new month begins, Jen hopes to stand firm on the new website template, with all systems up and running. The black hole is closing quickly, with website members and the public, alike, enjoying Jen’s channelings more easily than ever.

“Now if only I could get that call-center muzak out of my head,” Jen stated longingly.

The Records of Many Names

I often tell people that there is nothing special about the Akashic Records, or at least about the term itself.  The actual Records are very special.  But what we call them?  Well, you don't need to be too particular about that.  

There are many terms that describe the very same thing – this idea that there is more information available to us than our minds are consciously aware of. This idea is ancient and New Age, and it’s also just plain common sense.

Almost everyone has had the experience of knowing something without really knowing how he or she knows it.  And most people have a story or two about how they followed a hunch and something miraculous followed. Most people believe that intuition exists, which logically requires that we acknowledge there is something “out there” we tune into when we listen to our intuition.  And that's the Akashic Records.

And because the presence of that ethereal library has been known throughout history in all parts of the world – well, of course there are many terms used to describe it!

Here are the ones I’ve heard of so far. Do you have any to add to the list?

Akashic Records
Book of Life
Book of Knowledge
Mind of God
Akashic Library
Universal Library
Hall of Learning
Hall of Knowledge
Hall of records
The Time Lords
Your Souls book of knowledge
Akashic Field
Energetic Records
Eternal book of Life
The DNA of the Universe
Cosmic Mind
Super Conscious Mind
Universal Computer
Cosmic Consciousness
Collective Consciousness
Collective Unconsciousness
Collective Subconsciousness
Light Library
The Memory of Nature
Knowledge of Time
Book of Remembrance
Wisdom of the Ages
Zero Point Field
Records of the Soul
The Akashic Chronicle
Universal Mind

(Thanks to my friend, Meryn, for helping complete this list for me. You are a wonderful researcher!)  

None of Your Beeswax

Many people have asked me to do a channeling on the Casey Anthony trial. Last week I tried to access the Akashic Records of the case, and they didn’t open. (This does happen sometimes. I just talked about it in the Q&A with Jen session last week, and I’ll probably tell you more about it in a future blog post.)

So then I tried accessing the Akashic Records of current news. This was a little overwhelming, but it did give me a place to get some information. I asked -- What can we know about the outcome of the Casey Anthony trial?

Here’s the answer:

“This trial and its outcome cannot be accessed by you because it is none of your business.”

Seriously – that is exactly what I first saw in the Records! They went on to say:

“The trial itself is part of the personal path of those involved, and the Akashic Records for this event are protected by the very laws that govern and protect everyone’s Akashic Records from infringement. The information that is available for general viewing is in regard to the meaning of the trial in the collective consciousness.”

This led me to think about what we see in the news these days. When there isn’t much real news going on, or when we are looking for the next distraction from the real news, then these news stories pop up that are very similar to gossip. We focus in on the personal lives of people who are going through something interesting, and usually very difficult. 

Remember the Terri Shiavo case that finished in 2005? That trial and the Casey Anthony trial draw so much public attention because they tap into important aspects of our collective psyche. And that’s the part where the Akashic Records can give us a great deal of information, because what is held in the Records is always based on meaning. It’s always based on what we need to understand about a situation, because that is what helps us grow.

I didn’t have time this week to do a longer channeling on the collective meanings for the Casey Anthony trial, but I’m guessing that each one of us can find what we need to learn from it just by noticing what parts of the story touch us. What parts make our hearts break? What parts make us angry? And how do we need to grow in regard to those emotions and stories in our own lives?

Let's Talk

I usually host one Live Channeling event each month, but this week brings two extra events. Last night I hosted a channeling called “Year 2011: What’s Next?” It was fascinating (and a little overwhelming) to take a look at the energy for the year now that we are halfway through.

Tomorrow night I will be hosting an unusual event. I’ll be on the phone for an hour or so to talk about the Akashic Records. There will be no channeling -- just me as a regular person talking to you about what it's like to work as a channeler. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and I’m really excited to speak with some of you and answer your questions about my work, the Akashic Records, and any other spiritual topics you’d like to explore.

You will be able to ask me questions about the work I do with the Akashic Records, and about the Records themselves. You can also ask about how the Monthly, Weekly, and Daily messages work, or about other channelings on my website. We will have a group conversation about how the Akashic Records fit into the New Age movement and how you can work with them in your everyday life.

I’m excited for the chance to speak with you, person-to-person -- something that doesn’t really happen when I am channeling.

If you can’t make it tomorrow night, feel free to send your questions via email. If tomorrow’s phone call goes well, I will likely host another chat in the coming months, so be sure to watch for that, too!

Two Babies

This week a new baby was confirmed in the Seattle area where I live. Why is this news? This particular baby is a member of one of the local pods of orcas.

There are several pods of orcas that are yearlong residents of the waters near Seattle. I am always excited when I get a chance to see these beautiful whales off the beach near my house. I will be watching for the little one, but I acknowledge that it’s rare to catch a glimpse of orcas, let alone to spot a baby. Still, I have my hopes up. 

Here’s a picture, offered by Orca Network. This is an organization I love and support, and I highly recommend their newsletter that gives weekly updates on whales of all kinds of the coast of North America!

Also exciting? My second niece was born yesterday and, though she lives far away from me, I’m guessing I’ll catch a glimpse of her long before I spot that orca!

Blood and Guts

When I was a child, I was fascinated by the fact that our human bodies are roughly 70% water. When I first learned this, I walked around for a few days feeling like I could float. I felt like my blood was part of the ocean. I touched the water in the drinking fountain and wondered if I could flow with it down the drain. 

(This amazing photo care of DeviantArt.com)

As an adult, I am fascinated by the idea that our bodies are made mostly of open space. There is such vast distance between atomic particles that the atoms that make all the objects in our world are less physical than spatial. From the perspective of quantum physics, our bodies are really just patterns of energy with the barest bit of matter being held in place. It freaks me out a little to really try to comprehend this, but I like the sense of possibility it gives me when I do.

Then today I came across something that freaks me out even more. Take a look at this story on NPR.

Yup, that’s right. According to this story on NPR, the average person carries ten times more bacterial cells than human cells in their body. TEN TIMES MORE.

I’ve known for a long time that there are microbes occupying our bodies and helping everything work well. But I never considered that their combined number is more than my own cells. It’s one thing to know that I’m a walking, talking ball of mostly empty space with some water thrown in. It’s an entirely other thing to consider that most of the body I think I occupy is actually occupied by other life forms.

But then I thought about it for a while and realized this is just another reminder that we are so NOT alone. Even our bodies are ecosystems. It’s probably more accurate to say that my body is not “mine,” it’s “ours.” Just like the planet we live on and the communities we are a part of – they are “ours.” And thinking of it that way is the only way we’ll heal them.

Just as I did when I was a kid, I love the feeling that my body is bigger and more complex than it appears.  I love feeling like I'm part of something bigger.

Now if only I could stop getting the creepy crawlies when I think about all the other creatures living on my skin!

Notice a Theme?

Every month, I host a Live Channeling through my website. These events take place by conference call so people can call in from anywhere, and they always feature a topic that I get from the Akashic Records. I do a channeling in my own, personal Akashic Records every couple of months to find out what topics would be most beneficial for everyone, and then I plan events to bring you those topics.

Last week I posted the new Channeling Events for the remainder of 2011. Here’s what we’ve got coming up:

June 15 – “Adam and Eve: The Final Chapter in Gender Duality”

July 13 – “Light in the Darkness: How to Hold Hope When Others Falter”

August 10 – “The Search is Over: Find Emotional Fulfillment Now”

September 21 – “Year 2012: The Year of the Wheel”

November 9 – “Bliss: Find Infinity Within the Boundaries of Your Life”

December 7 – “Time and Space: Understand the Power of Third Dimensional Reality” 

Do you notice a theme? I don’t think I would see it on first glance, but luckily I get to cheat by seeing how they all fit together when I look at them in the Records. The theme is, as we are preparing for 2012, that we must work with what we have rather than try to transcend it or clear it away.

Look at the titles -- finding emotional fulfillment now, achieving bliss by managing boundaries, and using time and space instead of being limited by them – all of these ideas are based on accepting the constraints of our lives instead of resisting them. When we do that, we can work with them rather than being in constant denial or struggle. And this puts us in a powerful position to make changes.

I think this might be the key to what’s to come after 2012. If we are creating Heaven on Earth, then that means we are working with what’s here on Earth. There is no more time for denying our circumstances, or for waiting to transcend them.

Maybe the theme of 2012 should be No More Waiting. No more waiting for the second coming, no more waiting for the apocalypse – nope, it’s just us here and now. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

I’m excited to hear what will come from the Akashic Records in the next few months because I’m hoping we’ll all get more information about the joy of embracing our lives and making the very best of them!

(PS – If you’re wondering why there is not a topic for October – it's because I didn’t get a one from the Records. There was a sense that something important is happening that month that is not yet foreseeable. I think the topic will come when we get closer, which just makes me incredibly curious about what it will be. Stay tuned – I will post this on my website calendar as soon as I have it!)

Sacred Objects

I recently attended an event for which the speaker was running late. The audience had gathered by the time she arrived, and we sat awkwardly as she took an additional twenty minutes to carefully set up a beautiful altar. The altar was lovely, but I wondered if the good vibes it created were enough to make up for the tension in the room as we waited. Sometimes putting on a spiritual event is like a theater production.

Have you noticed how many props are available for spiritual activities? Crystals, candles, and incense abound. There are sacred tapestries and carved statues of deities -- feathers, claws, teeth and leather. We even use gold, frankincense and myrrh! I love the way these things remind us that objects can be infused with sacred energy. 


Yet sometimes, like when I sat through that alter set-up, I wonder if we might be overdoing it just a bit. If we're not careful, we can spend a lot of money in those beautiful New Age bookshops buying props for our spiritual practice.  It's easy to fall into thinking that one particular object will either make or break our spiritual practice.

The Akashic Records tell us that all objects hold energy, and any object can be sacred. My favorite example of this, given often in channelings, is a child’s toy or blanket. Imagine the love, tenderness, and possibility infused in that object through hours of play and snuggling.  I think some of the most powerful objects we can use in our practice are the ones that emerge from the love in our everyday lives.  A treasured toy, jewelry from a beloved grandmother, or a stone we pick up on a beautiful day -- these are deeply sacred.

This ability of objects to hold energy also extends to those things we reject. I’ve had a broken bookshelf in my bedroom for two months now, and every time I see it I feel just a little bad about it. That means I feel just a little bad every night as I go to bed and every morning when I wake up. By now I have infused that poor bookshelf with hundreds of tiny, unhappy thoughts.

Spring is a great time to examine the energy we infuse into the objects around us, and make adjustments so that our physical surroundings support harmony. Fill your space with love, and get rid of the things that make you feel bad. That’s the reason I’m off to fix that bookshelf! 

Past Lives in the Akashic Records

Past lives are a really interesting part of what we find in the Akashic Records. Past lives come up all the time in consultations for individual people. When I’m channeling for an individual person, I often find that information about their current situation can only be explained by outlining a past life. So much of our current path is connected to what our soul has been doing for ages.

When I look at past lives in the Akashic Records, they always appear according to two principles – meaningful themes and what is most relevant now.

The second organization is by meaningful themes. A theme might be a lesson, such as forgiveness or patience. It might be a skill your soul is developing over many lifetimes, such as teaching. Themes are sometimes centered on a larger endeavor your soul is dedicated to, such as the development of science or democracy. Or sometimes our souls develop a theme around something we are just interested in experiencing, such as fire, isolation, or motherhood.

The Akashic Records are always organized by what is relevant in the present moment. The truth about the Akasha is that it is timeless, so there really is nothing other than the present moment and the information that informs it. The information that informs the present moment often comes from the past, but it’s not organized by the linear timeline we’ve invented. It’s organized by what matters now.

If you’re a science geek like me, you might think of it like the structure of a protein. Proteins are long strands of molecules that are folded up into particular shapes. A protein strand can be unfolded and refolded to form an entirely new protein with completely different characteristics. That’s how the linear timeline occurs in the Akashic Records. It’s always folded according to what is meaningful for you in the present moment. The strand of information refolds itself continually based on what you need to learn, which changes moment by moment as you progress. The points where information intersects are the places where you will find the most useful meaning for your current endeavors. (I think of those points as the themes, mentioned above.) 

See how time re-sorts itself according to meaning? Neat, huh?

Sometimes people ask to know what their most recent lifetime was. When I look in the Akashic Records for this, I hardly ever see it. Instead, I see what is most relevant. It’s like I’m trying to look in a storybook for a mathematical equation. I see lots of meaning, but I don’t see the linear timeline. When I connect with the spirit beings that are the Keepers of the Akashic Records for the answer, the sense I get from them is like a shrug. They don’t organize information by time because that’s not an efficient way to deliver meaningful information. Chronology isn’t what matters – meaning is what matters. The information is organized in a way that will lead us to deeper wisdom, higher power, and greater joy.

Sounds simple enough, right?

After years of looking in the Records, I’ve become far less attached in my own life to keeping track of chronological order. I find that I can’t remember if I ate dinner before going to a movie or afterward, because it doesn’t matter. What matters is how the food affected my body, and what I learned from the movie.

Unfortunately, this also means I’m less skilled at remembering chronology when it does matter, like when I can’t remember if I turned off the stove today…. or was that yesterday? The perils of working as a channeler!

It's Crisis Time

You know how the May Message said things would get bigger this month -- both the nice things and the not-so-nice things? Well, it’s happening. I’ve received many email messages and phone calls this week from people in crisis. Most of these are people I’ve worked with before who are usually cool, calm and collected. It sounds like the latest shift is hitting hard. If you have a challenge in your life, it might have just exploded.

Many of you have booked Personal Consultations, but I know that my schedule requires you to wait for a few weeks. What can you do in the meantime?

The May Message explains how the energy is getting bigger this month, and that it requires courage to adjust to this. The Records tell us that we can’t avoid facing everything that needs to be dealt with in our lives. If you’re having a hard time with this, you are not alone. Read the entire Message for more on what’s happening and how you can work with it.

Also, I have decided to do something I’ve never done before. I’m going to do a second channeling on the Year 2011. I always do one channeling for the year, and the 2011 channeling has been available on my website since October. In it, the Akashic Records were unclear about what would come in July 2011. What I saw in that original channeling (found at the bottom of this list) was something like “cosmic static” from July forward. Now that some time has passed, we can check to see what has manifested since then, and what we can see from this vantage point for the remainder of 2011.

Want to join me for that channeling? Or download it after it’s done? Sign up for my free newsletter and I’ll be sure to let you know when both the event and the download become available.

In the meantime, if you are one of the many struggling with the big expansion this month, take a deep breath, try to slow down (even just for a few moments!), and see if there is something you need to face in your life. Expansion can be uncomfortable or exhilarating, and it all depends on how well we embrace what’s happening in our lives and work with it. 

Retreat

Remember a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was working too much?

Luckily, when it comes to doing consultations and channelings, it doesn’t matter if I’m burned out or not. Once I enter the Akashic Records, all is well and I feel great. It was the time in-between – you know, that part of my life that is my own -- where I was feeling burned out.

I finally took a week to retreat and quiet down, and my entire reality has changed. I am quieter -- more sure-footed and sure-minded. Having this inner stillness is worth every effort – something I had forgotten in my rush to work so much.
 

My retreat took place in the San Juan Islands in northwestern Washington.

I spent five days in a cabin in the woods -- sleeping, hiking, and of course doing some work, too. I like my work too much to stop completely!

I spent hours staring at the ocean.  It felt like my brain was being rewired for peacefulness. 

I also spent hours sitting on the beach watching sea stars make their slow walk over the rocks. At first it was uncomfortable to be so still.  Then I remembered how and it became the most natural thing in the world.

It was a great reminder that we all need to do this sometimes. We need to retreat from the outer world that can be so engaging and distracting. We must find a deeper voice inside ourselves that can guide our actions when we return to the outer world.

Even if you can’t find a cabin in the woods, we can all create the sense of quiet in our own homes. I’m newly inspired to make the journey upstairs to my meditation spot every day instead of just once or twice a week. Instead of checking my phone for messages or CNN for yet another headline, I head upstairs and sit quietly. Even ten minutes of meditation will vastly improve how my day goes. 

(The map is courtesy of http://www.jewelsofthesound.com/sanJuans.html  

Other photos are the best I could do with my phone camera!)

What about you? How do you find space each day for quiet? Is it the ride home from work? Walking your dog? A daily yoga or sitting practice? Learning how others manage this can help all of us find ways to make room for the sure, strong inner voice in our lives.