I have a stalker

Actually, two.

Hafez and Rumi have been popping up almost everywhere I turn. If you have to have a stalker, a Sufi mystic poet and a Persian poet aren’t the worst. And they’re both dead, so even better.

“God and I have become like two giant fat people living in a tiny boat. We keep bumping into each other and laughing.”

When was the last time you bumped into God (Spirit, Source… insert your preferred word) and LAUGHED?

When was the last time you even thought about God laughing? Wanting to laugh? Wanting to laugh with you?

I keep a journal of “coincidences”. I have at least two entries every day. Sometimes they make sense. Sometimes they seem like an exclamation point, like pulling the same tarot card from two different decks in one day.

And others you know the synchronicity is just Spirit poking you in the ribs trying to get you to laugh.

We don’t give Spirit enough credit for being hilarious.

We take such a serious tone with spirituality. Everything has to be lofty and profound. Meditation, affirmations, prayer, chanting, rituals… Where’s the fun?

Rumi wrote, “When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”

He also said, “Respond to every call that excites your spirit.”

What excites you? What makes you happy? Dancing? Singing? Being with friends? Pets?

More from Hafez:

“One regret, dear world,
That I am determined not to have
When I am lying on my deathbed
Is that I did not kiss you enough.”

How are you kissing the world? For that matter, are you even kissing? Or has that joy gone out of your life?

Rumi again, “Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.” Ecstasy is both overwhelming joy and an experience of mystic self-transcendence.

When we engage all our senses in our lives, when we open ourselves up to receive happiness, and yes, dammit, fun, the Universe delivers.

A universal insult is “You have no sense of humor.” Everyone thinks they not only have a sense of humor, but that they have a great one. Same with Spirit.

Maybe some days Spirit is encouraging you to pull its finger. Bump into God and laugh together.

The Yearning

What commitment did you make before you arrived? What soul contracts were signed? Have you ever asked what your life purpose is?

What is causing your soul to yearn? Do you feel a physical longing? Is there an intellectual or emotional hunger gnawing at you?

I invite you to do this meditation.

Lie comfortably yet somewhere you can remain alert and present. Close your eyes and take three deep breaths, allowing yourself to soften with each. Think about the most beautiful outdoor spot you’ve been in. Go there in your mind and drink it in from all angles.

Once you feel connected to the place you’ve chosen, lie down there. Sink into it. Become what you are lying on—moss, grass, sand, stone, whatever it may be. You are a part of it. There is no separation. You are one.

What do you need? If you are soil, what do you need? Do you feel longing for anything? If so, what are you yearning for?

Now, allow the water in you to evaporate and rise into the sky. Become one with the sky. As the sky, what do you need? Anything? If so, what?

Next, allow the vapor to turn to rain. Allow the vapor part of you to fall upon the part of you that is still one with the earth. Feel the nourishment you are giving yourself. Experience the oneness born of giving to yourself and sustaining yourself.

As you nourish and sustain yourself, call back all the parts of yourself that are elsewhere. The part that is with your family. The part that is with your spouse or lover. The part that you give to your work, your home, your community. Call back the part that is with your friends. The part that is with strangers you’ve spoken to. See all these pieces rushing back to your center. Gather them in fully. Welcome them home.

You are one with the earth. You are one with the heavens. You are whole. You are a seed planted in the ground, nourished by the rain and the sun. Plant yourself here and commit to this lifetime, to this incarnation.

Feel into your soul. Is there anything you need in this moment? Listen to your spirit. Is it calling for anything? Is there a thirst? A desire?

If so, identify it and commit to fulfilling it. What is your next step?

If not, then sink into this feeling of completeness knowing that when the time comes for your next right step, it will be revealed to you.

When you’re ready, find your breath again. Come back into the present and to the room. Open your eyes when your ready and plant your feet on the floor for a moment to reorient and ground yourself.

Adapted from a meditation by Jumana Sophia

The Society of Business Witchery

Buckle up. This is a wild ride.

I’m in a group called the Society of Business Witchery. It’s a class for people who have metaphysical businesses and there’s a corresponding Facebook group, led by Sara Walka of the Sisters Enchanted.

You don’t have to identify as a witch to participate but believing in your magical self certainly helps.

A member, Lindsay, posted that she was looking for volunteers to practice her mediumship on. I’m always game for a reading, so I raised my virtual hand.

We met on Zoom. Lindsay seemed a little nervous. I remembered that feeling. When I was starting out, I’d feel anxious before each intuitive reading or energy clearing because the craziest stuff has a way of surfacing.

I felt like an idiot saying things like, “It’s a sunshiny day, there are diapers—outside–and you are SO happy.” Or “What do Chili Cheese Fritos mean to you?”

Despite her anxiety, Lindsay jumped right in.

“Jennifer,” she said. “It’s a woman named Jennifer. She’s holding a megaphone YELLING Jennifer. You went swimming or boating with her. She’s holding a green crystal. She’s showing me the Red Cross cross. There’s a winding road…”

I told Lindsay I’d do some digging and see what I could find out about the Jennifer I suspected it was.

I always thought I’d make a great private detective. If I can’t solve the mystery, I like to think it can’t be solved. The game was afoot.

I asked my high school graduating class if anyone knew where Jennifer was. I struck out.

I searched the internet. I googled some more. I dug a little deeper. I pulled out a booklet from a class reunion twenty years ago found an old email address. Would it work?

Bingo! I sent an email to see if she was alive. She was and sent a tentative reply. I then wrote to her hoping she wouldn’t think I was too far out there.

I sent another message.

“A woman in a group I’m in, it’s for people starting metaphysical-type businesses, asked for volunteers so she could develop her mediumship. I said she could practice on me. We got on the zoom call and she (Lindsay) said a woman named Jennifer was coming through. We weren’t born during the Jennifer epidemic, so I don’t know a ton of women named Jennifer, and especially not many (any?) who would be dead. Lindsay said it was someone I went boating or swimming with. It wasn’t ringing a bell. Lindsay said she was showing her a green crystal—which we both assumed meant healing of some sort. This Jennifer showed her the Red Cross cross, which seemed to confirm the healing. There was also a winding road and a blockage of the throat or throat chakra—Lindsay thought that might have been how she died. The only person I could think of that it could be was you because you’re Jennifer, we lived not too far from the lake AND went to Lakeshore Middle School, and you’re a nurse. The only problem is that you’re not dead. And that there’s no reason for you to be hanging around me if you were dead. I mean, I always liked you, even admired you, but we weren’t terribly close.”

Would Jennifer think I was a kook? I mean, everything fit except the being dead part.

Here’s what she wrote back.

“Well, this is not at all weird to me.

I am a channeler, and have been receiving dictations for many years. I live in a very small community in northern MN and don’t have many contacts with intuitive peers.

One of my Spirit Teachers told me to make a space, invite some friends, and she would invite some friends too. I’ve started a gathering at my house, we’ve only met a few times.

I think the Teacher might have invited you, too. XOX 

It sure seems that we could be working together in another domain? I would love to make more direct contact.”

This would all seem bizarre and inexplicable, except it’s not the first time something like this has happened to me.

When we’re willing to open the door to the mystical, we never know what will fly in. But we can expect it to be from the realm of magic.

Full Moon in Aquarius

Full moons always bring the opportunity to release what no longer serves us. The full moon in Aquarius asks us to contemplate how we can best be of service to our community and to the wider world. You can journal on that question and pull cards using this spread for additional full moon insight.

Bite your teeth into the ass of life and drag it to you!

Secondo: You know everything has just become… too much.

Pascal: Hey, hey, fucking guy! What is this: “too much”? Hey! It is never “too much”; it is only “not enough”! Bite your teeth into the ass of life and drag it to you! Hey!

Secondo: [pause] That is why I come here to you, you know…

My husband and I watched Big Night again last week. It takes place in the 1950s. Two brothers run an Italian restaurant in New Jersey. They are being out-done by their competitor who runs what my Italian father would call an Eye-talian place.

Tony Shaloub plays Primo, the brother who is the chef and Stanley Tucci plays Secondo, the businessman brother.

Primo refuses to compromise the authenticity of his dishes. He’s not giving the people in this part of New Jersey what they want. Because of this, the restaurant is failing. Secondo is worried, and rightly so. He goes to see Pascal who gives him some unusual advice.

And I love it.

I’ve written a lot lately about facing your fears. About not living a small life. About doing what you came here to do. Maybe it’s my age biting me in the ass, urging me to say, “Not enough!”

Maybe it’s the two memorial services I’ve led lately. There’s nothing like a funeral to remind you that no one gets out of here alive.

One was for a young man, only thirty-six, the one who had lips tattooed on his posterior, the better to moon people with.

The other was for a seventy-one-year-old man. I’ll write about him some other time. Let’s just say he has me thinking about choices and mortality.

It’s important for us to remember that Spirit doesn’t want anything from us other than for us to see clearly.

“When we see clearly,” says Buddhist teacher Sylvia Boorstein, “we behave impeccably.”

What she means is that seeing clearly allows us to align our vision with that of Spirit. And Spirit’s vision for us is that we be joyful and liberated from anything that keeps us from seeing ourselves as Spirit sees us.

We are perfect just as we are. We are loved exactly as we are. Accepting this, believing this, leads us to know that we can’t fail, not in the long run.

The only fiasco would be to waste the fire and passion and love that fills us.

Could our hearts be broken if we take a risk and love fiercely? Sure. But we’ll love again.

Might we be humbled if our venture flames out? Yep. And then we know what to do differently the next time.

The best memorial services are for people who lived big, bold lives. They’re best for me because I have stories to relate to the people there. But they’re also the best for everyone who attends. We love people who take a chance on loving life. We love people who say, “Not enough!”

We love people who bite their teeth into the ass of life and drag it to them.

And when we put ourselves out there and do the same, ultimately, we learn to love ourselves as Spirit does.

The Devil, Death, and Weight Loss

How about a martini, lovely lady? Can I get you a cannoli? You deserve a treat.

The Devil offers you his hand with a promise of delicious release.

Had a tough day? Reward yourself for getting through it. Bored? Something sweet will add a dash of excitement. Happy? Did you accomplish something? Celebrate!

Or maybe it’s the other way around. Does the Devil beckon you by telling you how good you’d look if you were slimmer? Offering clever ways for you to lose weight?

I led a memorial service on Wednesday. The man who died was seventy-one. Sad, yes.

Also senseless. He didn’t want to take insulin for his diabetes because he thought it made him fat.

Would you rather be thin and die young? Or on the heavy and healthy side?

There was a time in my life when I thought I had found the perfect solution to the struggle with my weight. I stopped eating. I was 5’7” and weighed barely 120 pounds.

The Devil is gorgeous and seductive. He whispers pretty lies. “Don’t listen to them. You don’t look like a skeleton. And you’ll be stunning at 115 pounds.”

He shows up after the Death card in the tarot deck, with Temperance, the card of balance, in between. But in our lives, he often shows up before death as dangerous addictions like alcohol, drugs, work, sex, even co-dependent relationships or relying on how others make us feel.

Death is a cycle of transformation. For a caterpillar to become a butterfly, every caterpillar part has to die. We have to let go of the past to allow for the energy of new awareness, new beliefs, and new beginnings.  

But we’re not caterpillars. We don’t have internal clocks telling us it’s time to spin a chrysalis.

The Death card asks us to purge ourselves of anything unhealthy or not beneficial to our souls. It invites us to allow and embrace a fresh way of thinking.

It doesn’t have to be extreme. Small changes can effect profound shifts.

Maybe I’ll try something like putting on a pair of fancy undies to remind me of where I want to be. Because it’s hard for me to feel sexy while I’m overeating.

The Stain of Stinginess

In the last year or so, I have taken to being less frugal.

And by “frugal” I mean so damn cheap. Two paths led me there.

The first came from a business class I was taking. The instructor was talking about getting sales leads and said matter-of-factly, “There are billions of people in the world. You can get all the leads you want.”

Mind blown.

The second came from hearing some people complain about not having enough money, but “knowing” that being rich would only lead to trouble. What? There’s no reason they can’t be rich. Do you know anyone like that? Someone who says having money would only cause trouble?

Don’t you believe it. Because we can do whatever we want with our money. We can give it to our less fortunate relatives. We can donate it to a worthy cause. We can start a charitable foundation. We can hoard it. We can spend it like there’s no tomorrow if we choose.

There is unlimited money in the world. One person being rich, you being rich, doesn’t keep wealth from someone else.

Money is not dirty. It isn’t evil. Nor will it transfer those qualities to us. Money is energy and it does best when it flows.

“Money flows to me and through me with ease” is an affirmation I used for close to a year.

Then the lightbulb over my head went off. To me and from me.

Get the floors redone, Toni. Remodel the bathroom and don’t base hiring the contractor on the lowest quote. And remodel it because you’ll love your house even more, not to increase the resale value.

In Buddhism, generosity is to releive the stain of stinginess. There is plenty to go around.

Generosity leads to releasing attachment. When we loosen our grip on something, money, love, control, whatever, we allow that something to flow with ease.

We see this in the 6 of Pentacles. There is a sharing of the wealth we have, whether it’s money or knowledge or time. There is also a willingness to receive. Those people who say that having money will only cause trouble? They are showing a reluctance to accept abundance.

I taught a class years ago called Building Your Own Theology. A woman taking the class shared with the group that whenever she was down to her last ten dollars, she’d give it away because she knew the Universe would send it back.

That is some radical thinking.

That is a woman who is allowing the flow of money, both in and out, who knows how to harness the Law of Attraction. She believes that Abundance-with-a-capital-A has absolutely no limits.

What do you have to share? What would you like more of? Where do you hold the reins too tightly?

How radical are you wiling to be?

Insecurity is always a collect call

Do you have a friend who complains incessantly? (If it’s me, tell me right now so I can stop.)

Someone who never has anything positive to say? Who feels life is one big punch in the nose?

I need some advice.

It’s never easy to watch a friend flail, especially when you feel she’s bringing it on herself. This friend wants to find her Person but won’t talk to anyone new. She hates her job but won’t consider looking for another one. Has a complaint about almost every product or service she purchases, but never asks for what she’s looking for.

Which is better?
A.) Listen with an open heart
B.) Listen and offer suggestions with kindness, or
C.) Admit that the friendship has probably run its course

None of those options feel right. I don’t think I can listen with an open heart. Not anymore, anyway. No one likes unsolicited advice—and I know that’s not what she’s looking for because I’ve offered my opinion and it’s been ignored. But cutting the ties to her seems harsh.

As I’ve said before, it’s easy to see where someone else might want to do some shadow work. I need to reframe this and look at which patterns of behavior I need to change.

As I write this, I am in an ankle brace inside a boot that has me walking like Frankenstein’s monster. Unrelated, I’m also doing physical therapy for my knee. And I have a huge stye on my left eyelid.

I want someone to throw me a surprise pity party. I can just see me walking in. All my friends jump out and yell, “Surprise! We feel sorry for you!”

But I’m trying not to wallow. P.S. Can I get a “There, there” and a pat on the head?.

When we’re grateful for everything in our life, we open ourselves up to receive more. Thankfulness for every little thing harnesses the Law of Attraction.

Hot water that comes right out of the wall? I am grateful for this every single day. An attached garage? Yes! With a car that gets me there? Yes! A green light? Thank you—more please! The opportunity to learn to slow down, ask for help, and then accept it? I can say thank you, but I might not ask for more.

When we’re insecure or fearful, it can be difficult to admit it. Instead, we shift the blame. Rather than facing our anxiety about rejection from a potential job, we say we have to stay where we are to get our year-end bonus (never mind that there might be a sign-on bonus at that new place). Rather than feel vulnerable and ask someone out, we make excuses. “Online dating? I’ve heard nothing but horror stories!”

But we pay for our insecurities. Insecurity is always a collect call. (Does anyone know what a collect call is? I’m pretty sure I just dated myself.)

Maybe we’re not all the kind of person who grabs life by the horns. But what will you regret most in the end? What you did? Or what you didn’t?

Each time we’re grateful, the Universe sends us more to be grateful for. When we open our arms and accept it, we step closer to our purpose. What did you come here to do? Are you ready to fulfill your destiny? Or would you rather sit there and bitch about all you don’t have?

And don’t forget to give me your advice about my friend.

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