Soul Work

And so .....

As the months of 2014 ebb and flow to us, I realize that I have been on a 7 month journey of unemployment insurance that has drawn to an end.  

I know without a shadow of doubt that I am not the same woman who looked out into the world on November 27, 2013.  I cannot even remember who she was.  There is a tad bit of a memory of how she felt and an understanding of her story.  There is a deeper understanding of how the story dissolved, the realization of a stronger essence of her, and a willingness to feel into the moment and hold no expectation, no opinion of what is to be. 

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Oh the journey was complete with wildness, back-ups, and delight.  It carried me to a place I had desired to hold deeply.  It carried me out into a jungle replete with tangles, rushing water, and mystery.  The adventure did not disappoint.  It has no ending.

I am truly blessed with the opportunity to focus solely on my path.  And these last 7 months allowed a deeper involvement into uncovering this path.  It enabled me to bring into my daily life a realization of how my path, even the search of it, was individualized from others. 

Through this time a stronger concise understanding of who I was, coupled with a releasing of old patterns and beliefs, balanced by acceptance of the value of illusion moved me into an empathy of self and my community.  The freedom to lay about, wander the mountain top, grovel in the frustrations, and epitomize standardization pushed me to turn and deny the existence of self; to die to myself as I had never imagined.

There has been a shamans death experience, a mystics evaporation, and yet what I was being asked for did not contain another level of these prerequisites to soul evolution.  I have experienced a burning to the ground, the severing of the leash, but I had not experienced the dying to myself.  The dying took place sudden with the realization of the ask, moved into flowing with the demands of daily life, and ended in an ancient ritual that almost seemed uneventful.  It was the forward motion after the dying that emphasized the Divine's request.  

Every time I looked to draw a frame of reference the screen was blank.  It wasn't just the screen of Future but the screen of Past that lay black and empty.  Only the place of Here and Now held any form or design.  Anything presenting itself to me was met with nothing but what I knew to be true for me.  Trying to decipher anything has been unsettling.

The unsettling is not in being unable to fit in or know the direction.  The unsettling is learning to walk completely within the present.  It is learning that where I once related in life with others is non-existent and non-essential.  It is non-identifying.  It cannot relate to me as much as I cannot relate to it.  In the midst of all of it, there is laughter, joy, tears, love, and a completeness.  A focus of all is finished within itself bringing with it a solid sense of self without identity.  

Spirit has said others have experienced this and many will join in the dying to themselves.  Everyone will be offered, not all will accept, and all will continue along their path.

Having words to express this past 9 months has been very difficult.  Having words to express this newest endeavor has been even more difficult.  It has not mattered that there are no words.  It does not matter if I ever climb the mountain top, it no longer matters what I hold dear, where I wander, who I meet or don't meet, how I show up to the world is all that matters.  Do I come with my heart open, my mind quiet, my eyes bright, my ears listening, and my tongue gentle? Do I come willing to share everything including the unacceptable?  Do I come each day willing to make it a good day to die?  Do I come prepared to return to the primordial juices?  Am I willing to live outside the perceived existence of all that matters?  Am I willing to be the ancient?  Am I willing to hold past, present, future completely within me?

These questions may seem to be those we all ask ourselves daily.  This time there is a very large difference in asking them.  We all know being who we truly are means living with hearts open, mind quiet, listening, no opinions, etc., and yet this is different.  

Dying to yourself means you cannot do anything else but show up as an unidentifiable person.  You cannot be You.  You can only Be.

The Soul Traveler

 

Shifting .... time

One wonderful gift I have, is shifting time.  Unaware of what I was doing for most of my youth, I would be amazed at the ability to move through a difficult time very quickly, stretch out in a marvelous moment, and change traffic signals.  It was the ability to change traffic signals that woke me up to my little gift.  Yes, those too long lingering stop lights especially when one is late to an event!  My first realization became a game very quickly.  Counting to 5 as I said out loud, "Change now" to watching the series of lights ahead in downtown Denver change with each planned blink of my eye as I never altered my speed developed a realization of the illusion I lived.  This playfulness became a salve to my road weary heart.  It taught me a wisdom I did not realize I had.  Time became my secret.  Time was my best friend.  Time allowed me to shape shift and led me to my soul path.  Well, actually, time is my path.  

It was in realizing the essence of time and the illusion we had created around it that I began to fulfill my desire to be who I truly was.  

In the moments that I believed I needed to fulfill the dreams of family, friends, society, I disconnected to my ability to shift time, my connection to my soul, and my heart became weary.  When I bought into the demands of those living within our perceived time constraints the only way to remove myself was to play with Time.  It was those moments caught in abusive turmoil that time became my ally.  I did not leave my body or disassociate from self when I remembered to shift into a time filled with the end.  I know this explanation borders on "psychological dissociation" but it is not.  I know when I created means by which to cope with the abuse.  I am referring to using time to alter the illusion and repair the wound.

A shaman using an altered state travels to the time and space of soul loss.  It is by shifting time that a shaman retrieves the lost soul piece and returns it to the client.  

So even in times of abuse or trauma, never having completely separated from any of my soul gifts especially the gift of shifting time, I was able to lessen the soul loss around these events.  I did not realize what I was capable of doing in the moment, it wasn't until later that this abilities deeper essence was revealed.

Because we are not broken and do not need to be fixed, we have always used our gifts to move through our life and experience those events and moments that will bring us back home to ourselves and the Divine.  It is when we use time that we can reflect upon our abilities to remember who we truly are.  Every one of us takes time to look "back" upon our lives to learn.  We may not do this consciously as in "Hey I want to see why I experienced this loss, abuse, trauma, reward, etc." but we do reflect every moment of every day.  As we are moving through traffic we are reflecting upon where we came from, we are looking to where we are going, and maintain a strong awareness of where we are.  We have to do this to drive our cars.

Do you honestly think you don't do this with everything in your life?  Come now be honest.  As your discussion with your partner escalates up or down are you not reviewing what got you here and how fast you can get to the other side?  

Guess what?  You just used Time to shift the moment at hand.  Now lets do it with a sense of deliberate outcome.  

As a shaman, I listen to your story, looking for the exact place in time where the soul loss that is impacting you now needs resolution.  That moment or time is suspended in a dimensional latitude that spins timelessly waiting for the impactful moment to collide and bring it forward to move your soul further along your path.  In an altered state or a time shift I journey to the moment moving through dimensions and time to retrieve and bring it to you.  Time is fluid.  As in a stream or ocean it moves continually upon itself creating and recreating.  It never begins nor ends.  It shifts us, itself, and eternity continually.  Collapsing upon itself it is giving birth to a never ending beginning.  Remembering, as we know it, allows time to lead us deeper into all that we are.  Grasping this concept even fleetingly without over thinking brings awareness.  The altered dimensional moment uses time to refocus and create.  It splinters the outcome across many realities shifting past, present, future, parallel lives and experiences simultaneously.

A simple game of change the traffic light becomes a catalyst for shifting realities.

What time game is waiting for you?

The journey continues ~

The Soul Traveler

 

Turning Points

Life is filled with so many turning points.  They can be driven by us and sometimes we perceive them to be thrown at us.  

Many years ago I stopped perceiving them as out of my control and sent by others.  I have also stopped using change, closure, and endings.  Those 3 simple words carry a heavy dose of societal fear.  I don't believe that the true essence of these words is fear.  No, we have created stories around these words that have driven us for many centuries deeper into fear.  

Turning points still hold an essence of movement forward, a grace of accomplishment, and a base of self creation.  This word carries an elegance of dance waiting to be performed.  It holds within it beauty, presence, and mystery.

This week holds a particular turning point for me.  This week I complete the final year of an apprenticeship.  Three years ago I was gifted a teacher to support me in unlocking a deeper sense of my true essence.  The first year was filled with an immersion into a grounded contemporary shamanic apprenticeship where I discovered a deeper understanding of my innate connection to this ancient modality blended with modern perspective and tools.  I relished in the guidance and unfoldment always excited for more.  The 2nd year was a practicum.  Although it was 4 months in actual interaction it did not come up short.  I was challenged to bring out into the world what my first year unlocked.  There were many days of struggle to create the essence of leaning into my style and signature.  Through it all was my teacher, Robin Rice, holding the space from a distance.  This year I was a gifted with helping her to support a group of apprentices under her guidance while continuing my learning.  Spanish immersion was the phrase used to describe the teaching, sharing, and growth.  It lived up to its title.  As the months unfolded it became very clear how expertly she had taken me from our first encounter, through the pathways, and back to my original teacher ~ Spirit.  I had come full circle in the spiral always moving up and forward.

The gratitude that flows as I reflect upon this journey will carry me deeper and further than I have gone.  I bow in honor of who she is to the world, to me and to herself.  A woman who has heard the call of her soul and answered time and time again.

In life we are gifted people who bring to us without question pieces of our essence and hold us as we unwrap and embrace them.  They stand holding no judgement of our choices and too long held stories.  Always patient they wrap us in our essence we, ourselves, have yet to discover.

With this turning point being held out in front of me, I step gently ready to continue forward, welcoming the adventure, and relishing those I will meet along the way.  I carry within me a deeper knowledge of our communal journeys, my commitment to my community, my delight in the mystery around me, and the courage to answer the call of my soul over and over again.  My life will be different.  It has no choice because I am different.  My life will be more.  I am more.  

Will a teacher cross my path again, perhaps?  

For now I embark upon a stronger knowing of my true essence bringing it out into the world, sharing all that is being asked by my soul and Spirit to continue giving to my community, family, and friends.

To Turning Points xoxo

The Soul Traveler

No sympathy... just be

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I honestly don't know how to begin or really why share what I am being asked to share.  

All of our lives are punctuated by moments that shape them.  They can be tragic, simple, moving, courageous and a myriad of other adverbs.  Having added shamanism to my modalities I truly believe that it is through releasing our stories that great healing and spiritual communion takes place.  I also know that the human species learns through stories that are shared.  My dilemma is about sharing one particular personal story.  

I am currently taking a writing intensive course to help push into the world a story I penned several years ago.  Stories need to be written and if they only touch one person it has accomplished its purpose.  I get that.  What is happening is a personal story is surfacing, one I verbally share when the need arises. It is a subject that has been written many times by other authors.  I personally am not in need of telling the story, yet the story keeps asking to be written.  

I am adding a disclaimer here - Please NO sympathy... just be with this raw and naked story.

 

The Matrix of the Heart -

May 4, 1999 was like no other day.  It was a day of reckoning, not just for me it would also be for everyone who had ever come in contact with me.  It did start unusual but not glaringly unusual.  I am getting ahead of myself so let me start over.

Once upon a time there lived a very beautiful, stubborn, independent young woman.  Oh she thought she understood the cruelty of the world and how to traverse through it so as not to get harmed.  Little did she know that soon her life would ask even more.  Into her life would come a screaming, demanding, carefree loving creature that would one day break her heart.

But before that happened there was much to take place.  

Yes you guessed it I am describing the younger me.  I really believed that I knew how to traverse the world, the world that had given me years of pain, confusion, and isolation during a time when most young women were trying on new dresses, new boyfriends, and new identities.  As soon as high school was over I leapt at the chance to get as far away from home, friends, and family to strike out on my own.  I succeeded by arriving in Albuquerque to start what I thought was to be a new life.  The new start lasted 2 years before all the pain that had been buried surfaced in the form of drugs and alcohol leading to the departure from New Mexico and the return to my beginnings.  Stubbornly I refused to seek help and once again traversed the highways for a new beginning.  Thank god I had a magnificent guardian angel that tweaked my trail to recovery. Leaving the bar scene behind literally, I found employment in banking taking me to an environment that required I sober up.  I excelled at the banking craft, found a wonderful man, and started to clear the fog from my eyes.  As so often happens moments come forward that forever alter our lives.  

One lovely winter day, as I stood in the dressing room with my mother, I made a remark on some physical changes I was experiencing.  My mother never even blinked.  Two months later I knew without a shadow of doubt what those physical changes meant. Yep you guessed it.

Before my son was born his father in the quiet of the night left me with the excuse he had not asked for this right now.  I cried for 3 nights exactly, begging to not be pregnant then quietly put his picture away and assumed the position of single mother.  I struggled to pay the rent and panicked over telling my boss I was pregnant.  Telling my parents was scary but nothing like telling a boss who held the ability to fire me.  This was pre-FMLA, not so long ago they could fire you for being single and pregnant.  I carried on.  It was a time of reflection, determination, and a strange connection was building deep within me.

Oh I remember the day he was born!  I adored this bundle.  The hushed whispers weren't hushed enough.  I heard the remarks of being an unwed mother. I felt the judgment.  I also firmly told the nurses if one more person asked me if I was going to give him up for adoption I would rip their heads off.  It was at that point that I finally was able to hold my son, not a couple of hours later but 6 hours later.  He was beautiful!!  He spoke to me and whispered thanks.  Together we walked out into the world ready to face anything it could serve us.

The first 5 months were pure hell.  He had colic and would not sleep.  I had a job that required I show up rested or once again they could fire me.  His father reappeared asking to see his son, apologized, and then broached the subject of his return.  I agreed, said my peace and he became the nanny until he went overseas.  Stories could be told of those months, funny stories but those are his stories not mine to share. His father stayed 18 months and once again my son and I were alone.   

We spent the next 4 years alone together.  It was not all ice cream and cake.  I wasn’t particularly the Martha Stewart of Motherhood.  I loved him and parented the best I knew how.  We giggled, we cried, we yelled, a lot of yelling, we moved, we talked, we read, we lived and knew each other like no one else knew us.  Again changed entered our life. 

Thinking that we needed to add a father into the dynamics  I remarried.  We welcomed him and his children into our life.  This was a whole other ball game, a game that really needed help.  It lasted for 9 years until finally I came home and called it quits.  I left because my son was changing from a caring, loving boy into a bigoted, uncaring robot.  I was responsible for instilling love and care into him and could not stand by as a witness to what he was becoming. 

We left in a cloud of destruction.  It was a very nasty time that blew up any false images I had been hanging on to about myself.  It was the moment we had both been marking time for.

My son and I spent the next 5 years reconnecting and growing.  They were times of mud slinging, blaming, crying, and a return to home.  This time was so welcomed by us both!  We could breath once again.  I left behind everything I thought was true about myself.  I walked straight into a spiritual communion with my soul.  My son walked right beside me discovering who he truly was and what all this had been about. 

For the first time without all the baggage, I watched my son excel and become this incredibly wise man.  We would have deep spiritual discussions of why, how, what, and just because.  He mirrored to me how my ego would interfere with my perceptions.  He taught me how words could change realities and he helped clarified for us why we danced this dance.  I remember having a discussion with him about soul mates and arguing the difference between soul mates and soul partners.  He said to me, “these are just words and labeling used by us to remain in the old paradigm.  There is no difference between the words.   Every person you come into contact is your soul mate/partner.  If we choose, these interactions will offer a deep intimacy.  We get confused and think the intimacy we feel with a soul mate should lead to sex because sex has been our tool to this intimacy.  The common form of sex, the way we use it, is the ego’s use of illusion and deception.’   And his favorite, ‘get over yourself, there are a billion other you’s out there struggling with the same questions, believing the same illusions’. 

I loved those nights of deep discussion and sharing. I relaxed the mother role, welcomed him into a new relationship of being the adult I had seen he would one day become and mentored him as he stepped into his dreams.

Together we woke to a morning that would forever punctuate our lives.  It was a normal early day in May but it wasn’t completely normal.  He struggled with waking up and starting his day.  My appointments for the day had changed twice before 9am. 

The night before we had stayed up late just chatting.  The conversation found itself heading into a baring of our souls to each other.  I apologized to him for not being the mother who could go a day without yelling and keeping his younger years stable.  I told him I was so very proud of him and that the man he was would be an incredible husband and father.  I laughed with him about my sometimes over-the-top stubborn insistence on respecting all women and fighting the good fight.  I told him I loved him the minute I found out I was pregnant through all the years and especially now.  He told me he understood I did the best I could and that he always knew that I would be there for him.  He told me he loved me.  I gave him my blessing to follow his own drummer. We finished the night with a hug and kiss. 

Having this memory of that night would support me through the days and years to come.

At 10:30am on May 4, 1999 I would receive a call that would insure I would never remain the same.  I could recite to you the call, the drive, the scene but I don’t want your sympathy.  What I want is to share with you how the matrix of the heart works.  I admit it has taken me many paragraphs to get to this part.  The words have been condensed considering they cover 21 years.  I wanted to show the pattern of our life together.  The pattern that can never be undone nor redone.  They are years that brought my son and I to a departure.  A departure I would not wish on anyone.  It was divinely orchestrated and held wisdom of the ages, deep eternal love, and required me to truly become who I really am. 

The Matrix of the Heart is how I survived my son’s death.  Yes, at first it was survival.  I hated everyone who had a child. I hated myself for being such a shitty mom.  I hated Josh for leaving.  I especially hated God and all his guardian angels.  I hated life.  At the same time I pleaded with God, the Divine, the Universe to take me back to the exact moment when I arrived at the accident and heard the choir of angels welcoming my Josh home.  I wanted to remain forever in their Grace.  I wanted to remain where I could see Josh walking towards the light, towards the love that knocked me off my feet.  I wanted to go where he went. 

Instead I heard his voice call out to me at night telling me he was ok.  Telling me I had promises to fulfill and reminding me of the discussions we had that were to be shared with others.  In my darkest minute a phone would ring and a stalwart friend would bring me back to the present.  Through my dear friends Josh would speak to me.  They shared with me the way I would always know he was near; the penny which would appear out of nowhere.  They sent emails describing him showing up to ride with them on long trips or sit with them as they moved through their own dark nights.

My heart was shattered into oblivion, ached deeply and constantly.  I found myself alone in my grief.  I questioned my sanity. I prayed, begging God to bring him back knowing full well it would never happen.  I gave myself permission for the very first time in my life to sit with all the pain, the pain of being human.  In sitting with all the pain, I found myself.  I glimpsed the light that would bring me out of the dark.  I did not know nor did I care what my life would become.  I just sat in my pain refusing to build a story around it, allowing it to heal.  I allowed the pain to mend my shattered heart. 

My heart healed because I believed that the love I had for my son could never be destroyed.  I knew that his heart and mine, his heart and those he met, my heart and those I met were deeply entwined never to be broken.  No one could ever take that away from me.  I knew God would never ask me to give up Love.  It was through truly loving that I would live again.

No one except someone who has also lost a child could ever understand this moment in my life.  I did not ask anyone to join me there.  I did seek someone to listen as I wailed and grieved.  I found that someone, those someone’s and I know there were times when they felt helpless and tired of hearing the same song.  They never refused to listen.

I know everything leading up to May 1999 prepared me for his death.  My longing to be understood and loved prepared me.  The innate knowing of something deeper than the world I saw outside my window sustained me.  My stubbornness drove me to push through the pain, confusion and helped me not to give up.  The real piece that allowed me to believe in the light, believe in myself, believe that nothing was ever in vain was my awakening to my soul and Spirit.  It was those early years when I first embraced my true essence that brought me through to share my heart. 

There were times when I was carried by my soul. 

It is not for us to know what lies ahead.  It is for us to trust that we have within us the tools to walk our path.  Our lives are not defined by our stories.  They are only punctuated by the moment.  It is when we allow our stories to direct who we are and where we are going that we are lost from the intimacy of Spirit.  No one can ever walk your path for you.  They can and will walk beside you creating a matrix that gives freely.  The matrix can support you during the punctuated moments.  It will help you to loose the story.  It works because the matrix is the true essence of Spirit, of our souls.  It is up to you what you do with the gift of the matrix.    

I know what I did with the Matrix of the Heart. 

xoxoxo

The Soul Traveler and Josh

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Decide ………..

What a big thing…. To Decide.  To decide what it is you want to be when you grow up or perhaps what to wear, what to eat or who to date?  We grow up being told making decisions should be major events.  Yet somehow we know this really isn’t true.

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As toddlers we saw, thought and decided all within a split second.  We ventured forward out of our singular space into a larger space.  We grabbed first one toy and then another never pondering for days on end.  We decided to take our first step on our own and then another.  Someone could argue that it appears a child is debating whether to leave the safety of crawling to begin the adventure of walking but if you watch closely you will see that isn’t the case.  The child is content to move at their pace not sit and ponder for days the next move.  

Every single day we make decisions and some we choose to make more impactful than the decision to take another breath.  Why do we do that, how did we get here and what would happen if we took even the “big” decisions in stride like all the other ones we make every single second?  How can we get to this place of innocence and spontaneous decisions again?

Before the Age of Reason the veil is still very thin and often times completely open for many.  The invisible playmates, clips of wisdom, and spontaneous joy shown by children that can seem daunting to those whose veil is securely intact are everyday examples of a thin veil.  Then as time passes we notice that our children begin to mimic us in ways more than just words.  If you notice our children begin to hesitate in making some of the simplest decisions.  Who to play with, what to answer on the myriad of tests that are now required, hesitation in what to wear and on and on.  I do believe that if we were honest with ourselves a niggling deep inside us that we notice with a bit of whimsy, occurs when our children hesitate in their decision making.  That niggling deep inside is our soul reminding us that it hasn’t left and is within our reach,,,, if only we would open the door,,, just ever so slightly.

Your soul is the connection to the Divine. It is the piece of you that knows without a shadow of doubt that you are Divine.  It is the Christ piece so many strive to attain.  It never left and it will never leave.  We might duct tape the door shut, seal it in hopes that the light that peaks out is diminished, we might camouflage the entrance so our uniqueness is smothered and we are deemed normal and sometimes we may nail it shut with 2x4’s and millions of nails in hopes it goes far, far away never to be seen by us and others again. 

Fortunately, these tactics are not forever, our soul finds help in many forms.  One of the most obvious is nature.  When lost in the woods, we may create a grand story of aloneness, but one moment of pause and BLAM the story has a new twist!  Hark, the many wondrous sounds and sights’ surrounding us confirms that soul has crept through the duct tape.  What about all the children?  We recognize soul within them there is no denying that!  Acts of simple kindness is soul peaking out from within another.  And when it seems that darkness has alighted upon us, there reaching out to us in the form of a helping hand, is soul.  I think the most amazing time is when we finally realize that we have created these affirmations to remind us that we are not separate – we are the Divine, we are soul.

Throughout human history we have ensured that our souls are not lost to us forever.  And yet we still struggle with the divine within us.  I remember the gradual lowering of my veil.  I remember wondering at the age of 8 why the magic was being stolen from me.  I remember feeling lost and all alone the day my dad told me I was too old to hold his hand.  And I remember going out into our backyard to sit under a large elm tree looking up into it and wishing I could go home.  Home to where? I paused only shortly and once again wished to go home to where I was not alone and the magic never ended.  I remember climbing high up into the tree embracing each branch as I climbed higher hoping to reach home.  And then it happened.  I nestled myself close against the trunk of the tree held safely by its branches finally realizing that I was here to stay.  But I was no longer feeling alone.  I felt a warmth grow deep within my heart, the comfort of the tree, and a whisper stirring telling me I would not walk alone ever in this life.  From that moment on, I lived by this motto, “I will not grow up to be like you.  I will never be separate from the trees and rocks as long as I walk upon this land.  I will always listen to that voice that arises from within.” 

This decision at 8 years of age was sorely tested and like the divine it has withstood the tests life would throw down in front of me.  My life experiences with soul has had some very quiet moments, some life saving moments, some holy shit batman moments, and some this way please.  I have stood steadfastly to the direction I wished to follow in hopes of smothering my life force only to be guided gently out of the foray into the meadow.   I have been held ever so gently by my soul as my heart lay shattered in a million pieces at my feet, and with each I have found great joy, strength, and the wisdom to continue. 

To allow our soul to truly enter our place of life helping us to change the story is what transforms you into you.  It is at those times that being us brings peace.  We do not travel this life alone.  We have been so smart in creating others in our life.  There may be times when those around us bring stories we wish were never written and yet soul still speaks within those stories always willing to help us heal those stories and leave them far behind.  It is in traversing our journeys that soul speaks, guides, and yes – grabs us.  Soul is not a complicated experience.  It is a simple expression of daily life.  As the sun rises, soul shines, as the child laughs, soul speaks, as the parent embraces, soul nurtures, and as we give, soul rises. Living from your soul makes decisions, simple and natural.  Decision making from your souls' perspective doesn't require days of pondering, list making, or consternation.  It only requires that you listen, feel, and trust that every decision is made for the greater good of you and all.  Be brave and remove the duct tape, the 2x4's and allow the light to shine through and then out of you.  Allow the veil to thin and embrace the courage and wisdom the resides within you.  

Think back to the mantra of Count your Blessings.  Each time you make that list, you are connecting to your soul.  Each moment you say a quiet prayer of thanks, you just welcomed soul in and those hugs you give are an exchange of soul love not just to the recipient but also to you.  Soul knows no boundaries, no limitations, no prejudice; soul only knows the divinity within each of us.

Take time each day to pause and welcome soul in – it doesn’t have to be upon first rising or the end of the day, let the time be spontaneous, let it be guided by your soul.  Don’t make this Decision driven by Hesitation, let it flow as it did when you were small.  You might just find a miracle.

Xoxo – The Soul Traveler

So many ...

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This is a very special time of year for everyone no matter your spiritual leanings.  I have so many memories, so much to be grateful for, and so so many changes coming for me.

I sit here in my beautiful home viewing the mountains outside, the sun shining brightly which for Missoula is a feat this time of year, waiting for the days festivities, and so many thoughts and visions flash before me.

Tomorrow will be the final day of my severance and so officially I will be unemployed.  This is such a bizarre thought.  To not have a "steady" income deposited into my lovely bank account to assist it in staying fat and sassy, to no longer have a bi-weekly reminder that I am a viable and functioning American, to not have to rise each morning and go out into the world to assist others to be their Type A best, to not have my adrenals screaming for no more Stress, and to not measure myself in the Corporate Eye… is to say the least - one hell of a Relief!!!   

Don't get me wrong I have always enjoyed my career about 90% of the time and I most definitely enjoyed everyone I was with M-F 8 to 5pm but I never ever felt like it was a true passionate, fulfilling, jaw dropping, wisdom deliverer.  I got up every single morning because that is what you are supposed to do from 12 - 70 years of age. I know there were days when many co-workers would have preferred me to keep my grumpy self at home.  I also know that over time I had to force myself into going to work.  It became harder and harder as I grew older to find passion in my work.  

I looked out upon everyone I knew to see how they were finding joy in heading into work.  I couldn't find their secret.  

What I found for me was a passion, wisdom, and fulfillment from way outside the 'norm' of occupations.  I found a desire to learn and share in very non-traditional 'schools'.  I found that the more I worked closely with where my Soul wanted me to go the happier, inspired, and eager I became.  Working "overtime" when participating in "soul work" never phased me, time didn't exist.  The 9-5 regimen managed to fit into these times of "soul work".  Over time any desire to climb the ladder, be recognized even remotely, and engage in office politics disappeared.  I no longer defined myself by my career.  I defined myself through my Soul.  I found that what once irritated me… office politics became like a speck of dust I noticed and lightly flicked off me. Recently I might catch a glimpse of it but really never noticed it.  I found myself bringing my soul work into my 9-5 and I started to watch its impact.  

I watched as more people gathered around me to 'just catch up' and others who stayed very far away from me. I watched as the turbulent energy of meeting deadlines literally went around me with many coming in to ask, "how do you do that?'  I listened on my last day of employment when co-workers stopped by to say good bye and ended with "I will miss your caring spirit."  I knew then that my career had to be 'soul work' as that is what fed me and my co-workers.

Where will I be in 2014 from a career standpoint?  I really don't know and honestly I really don't care.  The only requirement I have is it must be soul work, feed me passion, draw wisdom, and create joy for everyone.  So my guess is it will be far from the norm.

As we find ourselves on Christmas Eve looking forward, let us remember that this time is a reminder to us of two people following their hearts, their higher guidance, and their willingness to go against the norm to bring into the world a way of living called 'soul work'.  

Warmest Blessings to you and yours - The Soul Traveler.