Making Peace with my Mother

Sedona is a place where “magic” happens. Nature has a high vibrational frequency where the energies from multiple dimensions are accessible. Sedona opened the portal to making peace with my mother.

For years I had been seeking understanding about the soul lessons that I encountered while my parents were living. Since their passing I have been able to look deeper into what we had contracted to learn together, sharing ancestral woundings and traumas that needed to be released. I have understood for many years now that my soul agreement was to heal our lineage through forgiveness and transformation of old limiting beliefs and patterns. However I now recognize that even after my mother’s passing eight years ago, I have still not been able to see her as a positive teacher. I loved her and knew she loved me but I have always said that I learned what I did not want to become by watching my mother's journey.

The transformative vibration of Sedona showed me a new picture of my mother. As I sat in meditation about the Divine Feminine and what that looks like embodied within, I was shown an image of my mother’s soul, a snapshot of her “true” self. What I glimpsed was not the woman I knew in real life. This picture was a beautiful soul who was connected to Nature and loved exploring the world. My mother’s soul was peaceful and wished to share wisdom with others. But my mother’s life did not reflect this deep soul’s knowing, this inner wisdom, and I wondered what had happened.

As I continued reflecting and writing in a meditation garden, I heard a young man’s voice saying, “Excuse me Mam. Can you help me? I’m lost and I can’t find my way home.” He looked frantic, filled with fear, and I stood up to help him. He explained that he was from Florida, far away, and didn’t know this place. He had taken a dirt path from his hotel to the church chapel because he wanted to spend some time in prayer. He found the chapel but when he came out he was turned around and disoriented and couldn’t find his way home.

I tried to calm him down and as we walked around the grounds I asked him to look for familiar landmarks. I continued asking him questions and we finally spotted his hotel nearby. We found the path that would lead him back to his family. He was grateful and we blessed each other as we parted.

I knew that this encounter was more than what it appeared so I continued walking and reflecting. He had repeated, “I was looking for the chapel. I wanted to find the chapel. But when I came out I was lost and couldn’t find my way home.” 

As I meditated on this statement my heart opened and I realized it was a message from my mother. She had come to this lifetime with the intention of finding “the chapel,” her sacred place, but during the journey she got lost and couldn’t find her way “home.” She lived her life in fear and disappointment and never seemed to find true happiness, at least not for long. The last five years of her life were lived in confusion and sadness. She had lost her way “home.” The true story of her life’s journey had been lost and she didn’t know how to find it.

This breakthrough was significant for me because I began to see how similar my soul is to my mother’s. The difference is I have had the support and guidance along the way as I needed it to allow me to find my way. This has provided me the opportunities to shift the old family story of so many of my ancestors and to find my way "home" to my soul's purpose. During my lifetime I have encountered many beautiful teachers who guided me and heard my longing to find my soul’s true path. I am grateful for all of them, those in physical form in this lifetime and those from the Other Side.

What a gift my mother’s life has been for me and how grateful I am that she was my mother. She always loved me and always tried to support me but her own wounding prevented her from being fully present. However that was what I needed to “kick-start” my own journey. My quest has led me to reconnecting to the Divine Feminine within myself, through the lessons from my mother.

Thank you Mom! I love you!

The Gift of Spring ~ Hope & Joy!

Spring brings melodious bird songs with such renewed vigor and enthusiasm! In my yard a Rufous-sided Towhee has reappeared. I had forgotten about him until I spotted his bright orange sides, white chest and black back the other day, pecking in the soil for tasty morsels. His presence brought back the feeling of hope and abundance that I experience every spring. Nature brings the visible and audible reminder that there is balance and harmony in the world and that there are repeating cycles of change and evolution. 

In the quantum world, nothing is real. There are infinite possibilities until we choose a direction and focus our intentions on an outcome. The observer changes the observed. 

"Let us remember that space is never empty. If it is filled with harmonious voices, a song arises that is strong and potent. If it is filled with conflict, the dissonance drives us away and we don't want to be there. When we pretend that it doesn't matter whether there is harmony, when we believe we don't have to 'walk our talk,' we lose far more than personal integrity. We lose the partnership of a field-rich space that can help bring order to our lives." (Margaret J. Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science).

Words and thoughts have the power to expand our beliefs or limit them. When we encourage our children and allow them to feel successful about themselves, they thrive and feel empowered to take risks. If a child is criticized and told they are not worthy or important, they grow up believing that in their core.

As adults we carry the blessings and the wounds of our childhood. The journey through life asks us to be brave enough to lift the lid of our beliefs and to reveal what lies in the "box." Once observed, core limiting beliefs can be released and transformed. Those old "stories" can be rewritten and a new story created, one that has a happy ending!

We have the power to change that which is not working in our lives. Sometimes this requires great courage. To thrive and participate in co-creating a more peaceful world, within and without, requires that we choose change. It means letting go of old limiting beliefs that no longer serve us. The result is transforming the limitations that we have believed hold us back into possibilities for personal empowerment and joy!

How do we begin? There are many ways for the observer to change the observed but here are a few ideas to begin the shift:

1. Gratitude. Every day, write down at least 10 things you are grateful for. If you have been fixated on an old wounding, look for the gift, the lesson learned from that experience. How did it change your life for the better?

2. Spend time in nature. Sit by a tree, walk in a park, stand with your feet at the water's edge. It really doesn't matter whether it is a community park or a wilderness area. Just spend time breathing through your heart in nature. She will help you find your center and help you experience harmony.

3. Experience joy. What do you love about life? Do you enjoy writing or painting or other creative expression? What makes you laugh? Do you find joy in watching young children play? Maybe it's watching your favorite movie with a friend or sharing your week over a delicious meal with loved ones. Is it spending time in nature, running, walking, biking? What brings you joy? Gift yourself time to enjoy life. 

4. Prayer and ritual. There are hardly any limitations to creating rituals. Set an intention for shifting a paradigm in your life and then choose an element that you love - fire, earth, water, mineral, nature. Find a setting in nature that incorporates the elements that create feelings of harmony within you. Bring an offering of flowers, tobacco, birdseed, crystals, stones - whatever natural materials have value and meaning for you. Sit quietly in meditation, breathing from your heart and bringing your senses into balance with the natural setting around you. Then begin praying in whatever way you feel comfortable, first offering your gratitude for the gifts and blessings in your life and then asking for assistance in co-creating the changes you want to manifest. 

All of us long to connect with someone who can identify with our circumstances and share in our day-to-day life. Prayer is just that - a personal experience and intimate connection with Ancestors/Source/Creator/God(dess). Healing, ritual, and community are intertwined. Woven together they bring about healing. The gifts of one person connected to the gifts within a community of people have the power to change the world. When a group of people has a clear vision, a new story can be created. 

During this hopeful time of year, allow Spring and Nature to bring you into balance, to find your own inner voice and to restore hope. Connect with others who are like-minded and experience the joy of community support. Love yourself enough to experience the gift of hope. 

Blessings of peace, love and light,
Gretchen

Happy New Year, 2012!

The end of 2011 is here and 2012 is about to begin. As you look toward 2012, what do you want to create? What accomplishments have you been able to manifest? What habits or behaviors have you been able to release? What is working for you and what is not working?

What do you want to invite into the new year? What do you want to "feed" this year, love or fear? It is important to make conscious choices and set clear, positive intentions. Whatever you put out into the world is what you will manifest. If you choose to feed love, love will grow wherever it is focused as you join with other like-minded people throughout the world. However, when you connect with the daily barrage of fear-based news stories or conversations you feed fear. It is a choice.

Currently there are tremendous, ongoing, global and individual shifts. 2012 will continue to bring change throughout the world. How we perceive and respond to these changes will determine our future as inhabitants of planet Earth. So, instead of reacting from fear, anger, and/or resistance, I want to encourage you to respond to any challenge with an open heart and trust that this energetic shift is creating our personal and global transformation.

The global perspective can be overwhelming so I suggest that each of us begin with our personal growth. It is what we become that changes the world, not what we do. So what changes do you want to see in your own life? What fears do you want to release and what hopeful, positive expansion to you want to envision?

This is a powerful time to sit down and write out your goals and wishes for the coming year. One suggestion is to choose the areas of your life where you want to grow and write about them, in the present tense, as if the changes have already manifested. The more succinct you are in the writing, the clearer your vision and resulting manifestation will be. Consider some of the following questions:

1. What do I want this year in my personal life?
2. What do I want this year for my financial life?
3. What do I want this year for my business life?
4. What do I want this year for my spiritual life?

Now take out your new, 2012 journal out and write about each question.  For example:

I now have the financial freedom that a stable cash flow provides. I now have a monthly income of at least _____ each and every month, with ease and grace, and I am able to meet all my financial agreements plus put away money for travel and extra expenses. 

Do this for each question and then read them daily. This will help you shift old limiting beliefs and change out-dated paradigms in your life. Have fun and be creative! You can also create vision boards or a collage to provide a visual representation. What you do is not important, it's the intention, focus, and passion you have to recreate your life!

I wish you the happiest of new years.

May 2012 be filled with personal expansion and blessings for our world and for all sentient beings on Mother Earth!

Blessings of peace, love and light ~ Gretchen

Inner Light

The days grow shorter. The temperature has dropped and today I'm sitting at my computer wearing sweats with a cozy wrap around my shoulders and a cup of steaming Peach Blossom White Tea beside me. 

Winter is approaching. Solstice is just a few days away and the holiday season is in full swing with parties and celebrations everywhere.

This is a festive time of year but it is also the time of year to reflect on the previous months of experiences and lessons, honoring areas of growth and expansion. The soul's journey requires tending. My past experiences have provided opportunities for learning and my life is enriched because of these life-lessons.

Winter is the final phase of the twelve-month cycle of Earth’s seasons. Like all cycles, winter holds evidence and clues within it about what came before, what is and what will likely be. The energy of winter is an ending and a new beginning. There is increasing darkness, the darkest point and then the shift toward increasing light.

At this time of year I look to nature to show me her rhythm, her way of "being." She is quiet. Her leaves cover the ground, decomposing. During the process of decomposition, the decomposers provide food for themselves by extracting chemicals from organic wastes to produce energy. The decomposers will then produce waste of their own. In turn, this will also decompose, eventually returning nutrients to the soil. These nutrients can then be taken up by the roots of living plants enabling them to grow and develop, so that organic material is naturally recycled. Virtually nothing goes to waste in nature.

During this season of quiet reflection and review, I encourage each of you to recycle your energies. Renew, refresh, and envision the richness of your journey to date and the possibility that lies before you. 

I love to search for quotes that inspire. May these quotes help invoke that spirit within.  

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
~Albert Camus

One is wise to cultivate the tree that bears fruit in our soul.
~Henry David Thoreau

We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.
~Mary Dunbar

This is the season we are invited to go within and honor our personal journey. In the darkness of winter, may we find our own light. May we shine and, collectively, may we brighten the world.

Happy Holidays!

Gretchen

Chaos to Order

Fall is a gentle season. In Southern California there are subtle changes of cool nights, early-morning fog, falling leaves, and withering vines. Monarch butterflies continue to grace my garden but there are fewer now and the milkweed is no longer being consumed by their offspring. The earth seems to be drawing into herself, preparing to rest. She will continue to provide winter fruits and vegetables to nourish our bodies but there is a shift in the elements, even here in sunny California.

This is the time of year when I begin to prepare for my own wintering. My stack of non-fiction books is growing by my bedside ready to assist me in gathering new wisdom and insight about myself and the world I live in. I love this time of reflection and discernment through the written word.

Lately I've been reading Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World by Margaret Wheatley. Margaret Wheatley writes, teaches, and speaks about radically new business practices and ideas for organizing in chaotic times using quantum science and nature for guidance. She works to create organizations of all types where people are known as the blessing, not the problem.

Leadership and the New Science was published in 1999 but the wisdom and insight Wheatley shares is even more relevant in today's chaotic world than it was a decade ago. Daily we observe chaos in government and the global economy. Unemployment plagues once-thriving countries and communities and depression is at an all-time high. There is a growing fear of disorder and chaos.

Yet chaos and disorder, and the falling apart of antiquated systems, is exctly what is required in order to move into the prophesied new era. Old systems that no longer serve must fall away and be replaced with sustainable systems that do not deplete the natural resources of our beautiful planet while supporting the growth of communities.

But where do we look for inspiration, hope, and wisdom? Where are the systems that can serve as a model for more sustainable systems? Nature. Nature is constantly changing from one cycle to another. Look at the cycle of a butterfly, the migration of birds, the seasonal transformation of deciduous forests, and the life cycle of all sentient beings.

Perhaps if each of us makes the commitment to reflect on our own inner nature and spend time each day meditating in the arms the natural world, especially wild places, order will begin to emerge within and without. Inspiration can replace fear and ideas for creating order from disorder can begin to emerge.

Nature is filled with cycles and rhythms of change, order and chaos. What plants thrive naturally in the wilderness habitats where you live? What seasonal changes can you observe around you? What natural systems are working together to create balance in your garden or neighborhood? What is not working and needs to be changed?

We live in evolutionary times, more globally intense than at any other time in recorded history. Human beings are amazingly adaptable but we have forgotten how to live together in balance and harmony. We have lost our interdependence with Mother Earth and are out of rhythm with her cycles. She is reminding us that the world within is reflected in Nature. None of us can live alone. We need each other and our communities to solve the daunting problems in our world.

During this season I encourage you to slow down and look within. Is there any chaos in your life that you wish to transform? Spend some time in nature and allow her to speak to your inner wildness. Reflect on what is working and what is not. Let the chaos within and without guide you to creative solutions as you bring order to your life and hope into the world. Be willing to let go of the things that no longer serve you and embrace the invitation to transform the internal and external chaos. Allow nature to be your compass.

"One is constantly reminded of the infinite lavishness and fertility of Nature -- inexhaustible abundance amid what seems enormous waste. And yet when we look into any of her operations that lie within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her material is wasted or worn out. It is eternally flowing from use to use, beauty to yet higher beauty; and we soon cease to lament waste and death, and rather rejoice and exult in the imperishable, unspendable wealth of the universe, and faithfully watch and wait the reappearance of everything that melts and fades and dies about us, feeling sure that its next appearance will be better and more beautiful than the last." ~ John Muir