THE WAY THINGS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE

THE WAY THINGS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE There was a time I had a very definite grip on my identity. Life was well orchestrated and defined. Living was a point-by-point, goal-by-goal, walk through the world. Some things went the “way they were supposed to” and some things didn’t. I had successes and failures, curses and blessings, the back and forth, up and down’s of life. Normal, typical, day-to-day was the chosen way. I had no big questions of what else might exist beyond how I saw life and the world. I was not particularly religious or spiritual nor was I very interested in such things. Not against it, not for it, I really didn’t care. The world was interesting enough to keep me busy and engaged. As the years rolled on the world got smaller, relative of course, and my attention got less interested in the status quo. I was doing what I wanted, living my choices but not actually aware that what I was living was a choice; not really, life just was what it was by no particular responsibility of mine. Then one day my not so aware little bubble began to crack. There is no specific event that I can pick out of my story but I began to feel restless, unsure, frustrated with the “way things are supposed to” be. This made for some more compelling conversations with friends around what we were doing with our lives, could there be more that we are missing out on? Deep inside me an empty space was developing, a longing feeling that I didn’t understand and that feeling pushed on the restless and anxious feelings that kept coming around in my mind. Some friends turned to religion, some to sports, some to making more money, some to sex, some including me to getting high and rebellious toward our “way it’s supposed to be “ lives. I was stuck. Trapped in a personal world of my own making that had become a cage. Not literally of course but energetically and consciously. That business should be the point in life philosophy turned to mud, as there was more masks on the people than a New Orleans carnival and the dynamics became more like predator and prey than working together to do something worthwhile in life. As my personal reality cracked the scene got weirder and weirder and I had no clue what was happening to me as I was now living from reactions rather than choices and judgments and anger were my constant companion. What I used to keep me entertained in my not so supposed to be world became an addiction to drugs, a drug anyway. I was lost in a matrix of my own making with no idea how to get out. Of course when you’re lost in an addiction there is another “supposed to be” way to address that so I chose, an actual real choice, to go to Rehab. At least Rehab felt new as I was made aware for the first time in my life, in a very real way, just how twisted life in this world really is behind the supposed to be’s and masks. I had never known how terrible people could be to each other, how sick and mean and deep the wounds of humanity ran. I heard and witnessed so much of the truth of what was going on behind the masks of our culture and the propped up identities of our beliefs and religions. This really blew the supposed to be world up and opened me up to wonder what the hell are we doing, what is life really about anyway. The official story was far more lies than truth and the way out for me was clearly not the supposed to be recovery story. I was not interested in falling back into someone else’s version of what I might do to now be good enough as a “recovering “ person. No more matrix, no more life by identity and judgment I was determined to question everything and find something that was not a punishment and reward Pavlov’s dog reality. I began reading books, all kinds of books that offered different views on life and living. From Buddhist to Christian, Hindu, Shamanic, Celtic, A Course In Miracles, Life after Death, E.T.’s, whatever looked interesting. This was a great process as I was in a place of not believing anything official and my new passion was for something that actually felt REAL to me. A piece of this and a bit of that I gathered points of view and ideas on Life and Creation that I could hold up to my lens of experience to see if it fit or not. What had started as a train wreck in my life had become a door way to waking up to so much more than “supposed to be” ever had to offer. I was inspired and hungry for life. It was funny to me that the people who had taken the official recovery road had no use for someone who would not tow the party line so my journey was destined to be authentic as I was not welcome to take refuge in that respite. Life was answering my new found prayers for a bigger life with more to live for than being good enough. This was not an easy way to go. I had my share of lonely and scared and I also began to trust my own feelings and Heart, as they were my only constant companions. As life would have it I was introduced to the idea that our lives are an awake dream, a reality held in each individuals mind unique to that person and having the qualities ascribed to by that person. Being a dream we hold the power to bring the energy and life force we choose to our reality, our dream, and we are 100% responsible for what we choose, how we react and how we live in relation to our worlds dream. Dreaming my life became my practice, my dharma. Life responded. There are as many views on life as there are people living life. We all have our shot at it. The bottom line for me is there is no “supposed to be” anything. Life has given each of us a chance to make what we will from what we inherit being born into this world and that’s all any of us have, a chance. How we respond is our individual business, it’s also our individual responsibility. Hell and Heaven are both ours for the creating and we are working towards one or the other most of the time, know it or not. Life is on our side even when we aren’t. Many blessings await those who have the guts to go for it. May your Dreams come true, not like they are supposed too, but as you are willing to dream them.

A CONVERSATION WITH LUCIFER

Dreams come in all kinds of forms and states of mind. Over the years I have participated in various forms of “dreaming”, from sleeping dreams to meditation dreams, to guided imagery dreams. As a part of my personal practices I learned to move into what’s called lucid dreaming. Literally this is realizing, during a sleeping dream that you are dreaming and bringing your focus to the dreaming state where you can move through the landscape with intention just as in an awake state. On one such occasion I was conscious in my sleeping dream when I asked a question of the dream world, Why does Humanity suffer so, why are we so lost in our wars, killing, fear, Why? Instantly I was transported to an open desert landscape, a great endless expanse where the sky was a glowing amber light and the world was like an old painting of Egypt. Some 20 feet in front of me with his back turned stood a huge being, a Human like being maybe 10 feet tall with reddish skin and the form of wings on his back like an angel. He was looking away from me toward the horizon and as I looked past him I saw the Pyramids of Egypt appear in the distance. The being was beat down, he looked haggard and worn out like he had lived lifetimes of burdens and suffering. His skin was ruddy almost sunburned looking. He never turned to look at me but I knew he knew I was there. I asked him, “ this is Egypt isn’t it?” he nodded his head yes. As I spoke the scene moved closer to us. “ It is very old isn’t it?” again he nodded yes. “It’s much older than what we have been told by science isn’t it?” again he nodded yes. “How old is it?” he didn’t reply, “Is it five thousand years old?” he shook his head no, “ No, I knew that, it’s more like 10,000 years old isn’t it?” he nodded yes. Then I knew who he was, maybe I knew all along. “You’re Lucifer aren’t you, the one they call the Devil” he paused turned his head sideways and nodded yes. “ You look terrible”, I said, “Why do you do this why do you carry all this pain and suffering I don’t understand?” he paused and the Pyramids disappeared in the background, I felt a bit of fear but actually I felt more deep awareness that I was there for a reason larger than my understanding and I was not in any danger but to be a witness to something. “Why do you do the things you do? You were the most beautiful of all the angels why do you not stop?” Lucifer turned to face me and he said not just in spoken words but in a powerful energetic telepathic feeling, “ I am bound by God to serve the Humans until they take responsibility for themselves, I carry the weight of your legacy of suffering and fear, I am bound until you take responsibility for yourselves!” In that instant I realized that I /we held the power and responsibility for all the choices and decisions in our lives. That we are the ones who are perpetrating the suffering and pain in our Human reality, that only we can stop it and wake up to our truth and power as Human Beings. That experience was imprinted on my heart and soul. I had no pity for him and yet I had a great compassion for how broken hearted and disempowered we Humans have become by our own lack of awareness and faith in what we are really. This was not “just a dream” it was a revealing of reality and truth. It changed my understanding and knowing of how powerful I am in the choices of my life and in how important it is that we all wake up to what we are doing to ourselves and to each other out of ignorance and fear of the truth of our power and beau

MAYBE ONE DAY- The Story of the clothes.

MAYBE ONE DAY The story of the clothes I have been watching you and you appear to be uncomfortable? Yes, I am uncomfortable, it’s my clothes, I have worn many styles of clothes and these are more comfortable than the others or maybe I should say these are the least uncomfortable. Sometimes these clothes are fine but mostly they are to tight. If your clothes are so uncomfortable then why do you wear them at all? What kind of question is that, everyone must wear clothes, it’s the law, it’s the rule of Life and of our World! But you were not born wearing such clothes, you were born simply as you are underneath the clothes, you were born simply as you, no clothes needed. Yes but we all must grow up, we must take our place in society, we must become members of the society, we must find value in our life and wear the clothes that represent our value! Did you not have value when you were born? A Son of God, a Child of the Light, A Pure and beautiful Human Being? That does not matter, I live in this society I must do what society offers as the right way, the responsible way, the accepted way. That’s all there is too it. But your clothes are not comfortable? So what! Whose clothes are comfortable? No Ones or maybe everyone’s clothes are comfortable except mine I don’t know, it doesn’t matter. Not wearing the clothes of society is not an option. This is where I live , this is my people’s way. Have you ever tried taking all those clothes off and just sitting with yourself as you were at the first, before Society taught you you must be as Society demands in order to be good enough, in order to have value to society? I have thought about doing that once or twice but there is no time for such things. Tell me why do you drink the wine and smoke the herb , why do you eat those pills everyday and live with such anxiety and angst toward the future? That is the way I have learned to live with these clothes I wear, they cut into my flesh, they are too tight, the wine and the herb, the pills of the doctor they are all gifts from Society, gifts that make our clothes feel better, why we are so fortunate to have these things to help us with the discomfort of our clothes! But you could simply take off the clothes and go swim in the river, take a walk through the mountains, dance in the rain, you do not need Wine or pills or herb to do those things they are Creators gifts and they do not require clothes that cut and bind? Creator wants us to be fruitful as members of society, society is why we were created, we are the children of society not the Children of the Light, that is silly we would be nothing with out our beliefs and faith in Society, society gives us our value, our value is in our clothes. What if you had been born in another society, with other clothes, with different languages and beliefs, what would have happened then? That is not possible! But you were not born of the Society, you were born of the Light, of the Body of the Mother, of the Earth! When you were born you knew nothing of society and you were beautiful and happy, sweet and innocent and you had Great Value to Creator! You were not created by society you were created by the Great Creator, the Great Mystery. You have worn the clothes of society for so long you can not remember yourself with out them and you are not the clothes of Society you are the Light wearing the clothes, believing you are what the clothes represent, believing that you are the stories of society that you are not the Light. All you need do is lay these clothes aside and walk into the woods, swim in the river, lay in the sunlight and ask Creator to help you awaken, then you no longer need the clothes or the Wine or the pills or the herb or the roles that you have come to believe you are. None of those things are as great as your light. Your light is the light of Creator. It is time to awaken to find your Hearts beat and your smiles reflection in the wind again. Maybe, maybe one day but right now I must get back to work, I must not lose my place in the great scheme of things, but maybe one day…….

Dreaming Heaven: An Interview with Lee McCormick by Edie Weinstein

Lee McCormick is the co-author of Dreaming Heaven: The Beginning is Near (Hay House), the powerful Journey Book, DVD and meditation that enables you to walk in the footsteps of Lee and his fellow guides as they take you on a journey to your authentic self by following the pathways of the great mystery school at Teotihuacan, Mexico, first created by the Toltec masters thousands of year ago. Lee is the founder of The Integrative Life Center in Nashville, The Ranch Recovery Center in Tennessee, and The Canyon Treatment Center in Malibu, California, and has been a creative force in the Mental Health and Recovery scene for more than 15 years. He is also the executive producer and has a leading role in the documentary Dreaming Heaven. Lee has led many journeys to Teotihuacan, that astonishing place of power, and he has developed a far-reaching relationship with the mystery of the shamanic world that is present there. For more information, go to www. dreamingheaven.net or www.spirit recovery.com. Wisdom: Lee, please tell us a bit about your background so that we can get a sense of the man behind the movie. - Lee: My introduction to what Dreaming Heaven is about really began in a large part when I was 40 years old and checked myself into a treatment center. That was the beginning of my realization that who we are as human beings and the larger reality of what’s going on in our cultures, communities and families is so much more than what we typically give any attention to. In that early recovery process, I began to question everything. The ‘official story’ is not really true. It may be what the people are wanting to believe, but what we believe and the truth don’t necessarily have anything in common with each other. This was 17 years ago and I just consumed all kinds of self-help or spiritual books. Two years after I got out of treatment I had the inspiration to start a recovery program that was a broader perspective on healing and recovering our authenticity as opposed to the disease of addiction based philosophy. What we suffer from as unique individual people is a lack of authenticity in our lives and a lack of faith in ourselves. ‘Give it to a religion, give it to a faith, give it to a practice, give it to a program’, but it’s all externalized and so it causes an underlying anxiety. We’re always searching for more and are trying to get the next or the best or the better. The unsaid aspect of our culture is that we’re not good enough just as we are. On my personal journey, during my early recovery, I read The Four Agreements and Miguel Ruiz’s book lit up and I thought "His point of view reflects what I feel inside," and so I made some connections with friends and found out that they led journeys to Teotihuacan. I booked a trip and went on a journey to Teo, not unlike what is reflected in Dreaming Heaven, with a couple of teachers named Ted and Peggy Raess. The first time I went to Teo, I literally got out of a van in a parking lot of a little hotel and turned around and looked down this long avenue at the pyramids and the whole place just lit up. I knew what it was and that I had been there before. I started laughing and crying, thinking "I know this place." I felt like I was home. I had that profound sense of "I belong here." Wisdom: I have long considered addictions as a way of filling a proverbial hole in the soul. What’s your take on that? - Lee:: Addiction to me is just an energetic. I am not a big proponent of the disease model. I understand the origins of it and the orientation of addiction. I believe it evolved as a way to protect people from judgment. If what I have is a disease, then maybe it’s not a weakness of character or a personal failing. We have created a pattern of behavior that we have reinforced over and over; whatever the behavior or drug of choice is. It could be behavior, it could be food, it could be sex, drugs or alcohol. From a shamanic point of view, the energy that addiction holds is our energy. My addiction was as strong as it was because I fed it. I was giving it my attention. It was the most important relationship in my life. If I’m going to reclaim my energy from it, then I am going to stop feeding it, to break the pattern. I have to learn to shift my attention away from engaging in it in an endless loop. I have to shift my attention from thinking about getting high, thinking about indulging in whatever my behavior is and open my attention to what else is present now. As you begin to shift all of that and open all of that up, you can truly start reclaiming energy. You feel more present, you are more aware because all of a sudden you are seeing all of the other stuff going on in the world. You’re not shrouded in the attachment and the distortions that exist when you live out of balance when in an addictive pattern. I do not believe that in any way, shape or form that our diagnosis defines who we are….period. I was never ok with "My name’s Lee and I’m an addict." That never felt right to me and I challenged it from the beginning. I got all kinds of grief from all kinds of people who’ve been sober for 20 years. I said "Look, dude, I did not get into recovery to have a co-dependent relationship with all the people who have been in the rooms longer than me. I got into recovery to be free from living that way…period." My response to a lot of people is that this is about me, because it is about my life. It’s not about me needing to fit into what someone else may have come to believe about addiction based on their experience. It’s about what I choose to believe and how I’m going to live based on my own experience. There’s a fundamental piece to this. We have to be willing to own our reality 100%. It’s not my father’s fault, it’s not my abuser’s fault. It’s not even a fault at all. It’s literally that I am where I am based on the choices I have made and the way the cards have been dealt; it’s just a matter of fact. Until I own it 100%, I can’t possibly unravel it and release it and move beyond it 100%. Wisdom:- How did the film come to be?- Lee: It was one of those funny events. Gini Gentry who is one the teachers in the film, had a friend named Dana Waldman. Gini called me and said "This friend of mine, Dana is a musician and music producer. You guys would get along great. You ought to meet him." I called him and he came up to our house and we had this 2 ½ hour great conversation about stuff we had been doing. We were getting ready to create a journey to Teo and Dana said, "It would be fun to film one of these journeys and see what it looks like and see what happens." I was intrigued because the energy of what goes on there is so profound. In the mythology it says that energy and consciousness exists originally in this world because of light. Could the light that you capture when you’re filming convey the energy of the place? Dana and I put a little crew together, including all the people you see in the movie. We just wanted to film the journey and make a high-tech home movie. We filmed it, we really had fun and it was great. We came back and had about 100 hours of footage. Dana and a couple people watched it and it sat for a couple of years. Life goes on and I by chance met a man named Straw Weisman who was the post-production supervisor for What the Bleep Do We Know? He said "Let me see this footage you guys shot." He watched it and said "This is really good and you really have a movie here. This is like what Bleep brought up about the nature of reality. Basically Dreaming Heaven is "what the bleep do we do with it?" So I turned it over to Straw and he started editing and started making a film out of it. Dana got involved and over five years we ended up with what you see now. After we finished the film, we screened it in several places and the response was so consistently "Wow, I feel like I was on this journey with you. I would like to have a way to interact with this; you guys ought to write a book to go with it," and so we did. Meanwhile Dana and I wrote music and the soundtrack was created and I said, "Let’s do a series of meditations to tie the whole deal together." I’ve never seen a package like this where you buy a journey book that has a film in the back, that has downloaded meditations and an original sound track created around it. Wisdom: How can we create heaven on earth? - Lee: If you read the Gnostic Gospels, if you read the Christian mystical books, it you read what the Buddha talked about, if you read the Sufi wisdom, if you read the Bhagavad Gita, if you can sit with all the mystical traditions and what they are offering and have the ability to get beyond literal translation. None of the above were written from a literal point of view. The Bible has been translated and re-translated and what we are reading today is not reflective of what was written in Aramaic 2000 years ago, because the nature of language was completely different. The concept of heaven is in truth, what we are. "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you and all around you. Men have lost the eyes to see it." It’s not unlike an addiction. When we stop doing the things that are creating our suffering, all of a sudden, from within us, we begin to have a whole new experience of life and of ourselves. The idea of heaven as a presence of life on Earth becomes an experience when we stop engaging in a way of life that’s based on fear and suffering. It’s something that comes about as a result of our letting go of the way that we have been taught life must be lived and we allow the integrity of what we really are to come through us. Wisdom: How can we face death cleanly and clearly and be prepared for it on any given day? - Lee: I’ve had my own experience with death. It’s deeply personal. On the level of Dreaming Heaven, the concept of death is fairly simple. The truth is we don’t own anything in this world. We don’t own our house. We don’t own our body. We don’t own our labels, degrees and profession. We have the opportunity to have a relationship with all that stuff. We have the experience of being in a physical body, of being a therapist or writer or cowboy or teacher. The Angel of Death owns this world. The limited awareness of what we are born into is all based in the physicality and desperation to find security by owning the world around us so that we can feel safe on a mind level. We continue to feel rattled because the presence of death is always there. In the Toltec process, death is coming to the realization that in order to be free, I have to be willing to release myself from the dark side attachments like addictions and attachments to ego and glory and fame. If I am going to be free to be what I really am underneath all my identities, I have to be willing to die to all those identities. The dying process in that context is not unlike the dying process that a client who is going through an addiction issue is going to go through in order to truly release all of the attachments that fed into "My name’s Lee and I’m an addict." You’re releasing the energetic of all the stories, including the story of being a recovering person. As long as I’m clinging to how many days I’ve been clean, I’m still clinging to how many days I used. You can’t have one without the other. The Angel of Death comes along and says "When you’re tired of carrying all this stuff around, you can give it to me because I’m going to take it anyway. If you are willing to consciously and intentionally hand it over to me, you’re going to free yourself from carrying the energetic weight and the baggage and you will be able to live the experience of what you really are underneath all of that. Wisdom: How can we bring what we perceive as ‘other worldly’ into our daily lives…making the metaphysical more mainstream? - Lee: It kind of already is. Life is mysterious and it is magical. Do we have the eyes to see it? Are we open to the nuance of everything going on around us in the moment? Most of the time, until we have entered into this unraveling process, this dying process, we’re so wrapped up in being who we think we are, and worrying about the traffic or getting there on time or our next appointment. The whole time, all around us is all this magic and creativity and mystery and beauty. When you walk down the street, do not look at the sidewalk. Look up and all around you. I led a three day workshop in Manhattan. I had all these New Yorkers walking down the street, looking out at everything and seeing how much they could take in. It literally freaked them out. We need to be willing to drop all our filters and take off our shade. Put your sunglasses back in the case and let all the light in. There’s a great saying in Way of The Peaceful Warrior. Nick Nolte puts his hand on the kid that’s playing Dan. He jabs him energetically and the kid starts seeing everything that’s going on around him and Nolte says "There’s never nothing going on here." That’s the truth. There’s just one of me and one great life that I’m living here and it’s all interconnected. You come back into balance. We have to bring all of us into the room at the same time. Let the walls come down and let the separation come down. The integrity of spirituality is in the little things we do day to day. The real grace is in our day to day life. That’s where the real difference will be made. Edie Weinstein (Bliss Mistress) is an opti-mystic who sees life through the eyes of possibility, a multifaceted multitasker, colorfully creative journalist, dynamic motivational speaker, interfaith minister, social worker, therapist, BLISS coach and PR Goddess She is the author of The Bliss Mistress Guide To Transforming the Ordinary Into the Extraordinary. www.liveinjoy.org

Holiday Season Emotional Train Wrecks: 6 Tips On How Not To Get Derailed

By Lee McCormick We call this the Holiday Season. Family, Food, Fun and train wrecks, all rolled into one span of days, Thanksgiving through New Years. There are memories rolling like thunder through our minds and emotions, traditions that seem to come back around again and again — some so sweet and some reoccurring nightmares. Why we always go there is one of life’s great mysteries. I am from a Big Ol’ Southern family and our home scene at holiday times was Cat-on-A-Hot- Tin-Roof-on-steroids. I can look back now and it was so funny, crazy, tragic, and real all at once. But today, I no longer have an emotional charge around any of that stuff. I have cleaned and cleared my life for many years and I am at peace with it all. Life goes on and so do we, peacefully if we have done the work to let go and live for today’s real-time moments. I’m fortunate to be where I am today and GRATEFUL–very, very grateful–to be living life with my Eyes, Heart, Mind and Spirit wide open to the here and now. That’s my gift to myself – and a reminder that the holidays have not always been the peace and freedom I know today. Over the years I have picked up a few valuable tips on keeping the Holiday Cheer clean, clear and HAPPY! Tip #1. Be mindful around the food and drink of the season. The truth is this applies to life everyday, but is even more relevant when we are all in the eat-like-we’re-still-kids-stuffing-our-faces mode for the holidays. Sugar is toxic, poison to our cells. It feeds all the auto-immune diseases, is a disaster for blood sugar levels, contributes to mood swings and takes us from high-and-happy to crashing-and-burning rapidly. So being very mindful of the sugar land temptations is very smart. Easy does it. This reduces your sensitivity to be triggered. We also need to be mindful of carbs, as they are immediately transformed into sugars during digestion and head straight into the blood stream. Eating fresh foods, veggies, salads, whole grains and reasonable portions of meat keeps the body and blood sugar in balance. And with all the other potential challenges of the season that are not necessarily within our control, what we eat is one we can control. Moderation also prevents that terrible emotional guilt over overeating that can also contribute to depression or hyper-sensitivity. Tip #2. – Break the cycles of the holiday history. Rather than following your personal history of holiday behavior, change it up. If you tend to sit and watch football games, get up and out of the house, take some long walks, see the world on foot. If you like to sleep late, make yourself get up early, catch a sunrise and say some personal prayers for those who are no longer with you and to life itself for that beautiful morning. Changing patterns allows us to live in the moment, rather than living in a rut of old stories—the ones with which you fool yourself, such as “It’s going to be better this time around.” When you catch yourself getting triggered, stop! It is that simple. STOP. No need to explain. Just say, “I’m not going there,” change the subject or let there even be some stillness. You don’t need to engage. Break your pattern. Tip #3. – Make an alter to your life, to the Now of your life—not the past. The holidays are a time when you are filled with the enjoyment of decorating the house, so include in your decorating a special alter to your faith—whatever that form takes– to your family and friends, and to your personal journey through life. This could be placed on a side table or on your dresser in your room. It commemorates your corner to connect, to breathe and acknowledge how far you have come through the years. This marks WHO AND WHERE YOU ARE NOW in your life! Consider lighting a seven-day candle to keep the flame of gratitude burning and to honor your living journey. Tip #4. – If you are musical or love music, make a song mix for the season, something that’s relevant to the past, present and future of the sound track of your life. This is an easy and creative effort that can get a lot of play. Plug in the songs of the year that mark the good times, the transitions and accomplishments. Music is a big part of life, so why not create your own personal Holiday Mix! End it with something joyous, something that stirs your positive uplifting emotions. Tip #5. – Have a go-to friend– or better yet, two–people with whom you can pledge to have each other’s back for the holidays. If any one of you gets into a bad spot or in too deep with an emotional crisis, you have a bond to be there for each other. This is very important. It brings us close to the ones with whom we are in it for the long haul, and insures ahead of time that we won’t get stuck in a bad situation with no one to call. Consider getting together on a regular basis for coffee or a meal where you can each unbend about the challenges of the day—and the blessings that are unfolding. Keep it here-and-now, and keep it honest-and-sincere, Heart to Heart. The past has a way of haunting us over the holidays and that is a choice. It’s one we can change, to our benefit. By staying with the present, with life today, we experience the beauty and grace of the opportunities to be connected together, moving forward as a band of friends –and even family. In the now, we own this minute only and save ourselves from getting lost in that old-time-feeling minefield. Tip #6. – Most important. Do not isolate! Being alone with yourself by choice is good, but isolating out of sadness, anger or fear–any of those old emotions and feelings that often erupt over the holidays–is exactly the opposite. Don’t let those emotions or feelings OWN YOU! Our feelings are solely our responsibility. So take action to keep the energy moving and your attention on today, the present, where you can change what needs to be changed and choose where to put your attention. We create our lives based on where we place our attention. It serves us well when we take 100% responsibility for where and what we do with that attention. Follow these tips and you’ll never again derail in one of those emotional holiday family train wrecks. You’ll preserve your peace, calm, sobriety and enjoyment regardless of what is happening around you.

Working with the Stones

Over the years of living with healers, teachers, Shaman, Curanderas, There have been a few consistent threads that give life and power to the practices of healing and transformation. For many years now I have spent time in Mexico and Peru serving as a bridge between the worlds of the people who journey with me and the light, wisdom and energies of the sacred places we visit. In our film Dreaming Heaven you can see a few of the ceremonies and practices we use to support awakening to the power each of us hold deep inside. Our deep seated power is our connection to the light of Creation, the Spirit of life it self. We are that light, we are the energy and consciousness of Creator embodied in Human Form, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God. Years ago while on a journey in Mexico with my teachers I encountered a stone statue of a Ancient Toltec God. This statue was not more the 30 inches tall, simple carved stone of a Being sitting full body, head, face, arms on the thighs in a meditation like pose. But it wasn’t the image that was so powerful it was the presence emanating from the stone figure. This statue was alive energetically, you could feel it, in fact you could feel a presence the moment you walked into the room where it was displayed. I was amazed, intrigued, humbled by the feeling of consciousness that was there communicating to us. As I asked about this crazy encounter I was taught that consciousness is energy, emotion is energy, our beliefs are simply energy, our bodies, stories, roles all are varying applications of energy and light. From this experience we developed a practice to support our letting go of energies, emotions, stories of suffering that we know no longer serve us in our life. It is very simple this offering of the Stones. First you get very clear on what you wish to release, connect to the full body of energy, emotion, memory of the situation or belief you wish to release. Next you find a stone to serve as the vessel of your practice, the object that you will transfer this energetic into literally. Hold this stone in your hand and give it all your gratitude and love for being there to help you. Take some deep breaths and blow your life force/breath into this stone. Next breath into that place inside yourself where the energy you will be releasing rests. As you breath to the bottom of the energy you exhale through your breath all the energy of release giving it to the stone not with judgment but with gratitude for this opportunity to release what no longer serves you. Repeat this til you feel clear and when you ready hold the stone up to the sky, to the sun and with all your clear intent say out loud “I release you now and forever more”. Then you place this stone back on the ground or into a river, the sea, whatever feels most freeing to you cutting all ties, judgments attachments to the energies you’ve transferred into the stone. Turn and walk away looking up and out with Love and gratitude for life, simple, free, with faith in yourself and your ability to heal and free you. May Peace be with you and May the freedom you seek come with ease and grace.

The Light of Change

5:40 am In the Heart of summer. Looking at pictures of my friend Arthur Robert Cushman walking the grounds of our Dreaming House in Teotihuacan and shots of my Mee cooking here at home at Pinewood Farms. Thinking about where my energy is going and what is real these days and what is nothing more than shadows of an old paradigm that is no longer worth the attention to keep it propped up, like so much of our existing ways in the USA.Our Human matrix is no longer sustainable, period, we are being offered choices to CHANGE what we believe and how we live in every moment but just like all the addicted and lost I have worked with for years now I see that for 90% of the people in the USA getting off the merry go round is not going to happen till it collapses and that's tragic.The consequences of refusing to look at our reality will become more and more dire, more shootings , more killing, much more disease and sickness, more poverty and loss of so called security, hunger, all Lifes ways of trying to get the attention of those who are not willing to see what's right in front of them. Meanwhile living on a farm is as alive as ever now that we have quit with consumption agriculture and we are working WITH nature again instead of what the Universities are teaching. Simple will one day be respected again but that is a ways off and a lot of suffering from now and that is the choice of Humanity. Meanwhile we can all buy local for almost everything, sure you pay more in dollars but you will be recreating a broken economic system that will in the long run sustain you again. We can eat clean, simple NON processed food and demand that things like FRACKING for natural gas be stopped before there is no more clean water in America. We can believe and live for BEING RECOVERED from addictions and diseases and let the identities of less than go with the paradigms of fear that we have all come to identify with. We can Pray to the great Mystery and Dream of possibilities then TAKE Action for those possibilities to become reality.We can stop hating, killing and judging each other over our twisted, insane ideas of God. We can walk more and drive less, sing more and bitch less, share more with strangers and hoard our wealth less. Enjoy being alive and well, it is a privilege, an act of grace ,not a right any longer as we will see very shortly. Sometimes it takes courage to be honest about the house being on fire while most either won't acknowledge the smoke and flames and others say fire is negative so don't look at it and the only survivors are the ones who say FIRE OUT LOUD and leave the building. I have children and grandchildren and I care about the world they will live in and I am afraid for what they are going to inherit from us at this point and I will do my best to give them a place to live and an awareness of life as a living creation not what they are taught in school.

We will see huge changes in this Human world over the next 10 years, huge changes and the way we are going those changes will be very hard on many many people and we can not say we didn't do it to ourselves cuse we are and we did and it is all unnecessary except that we have demanded this for ourselves and WE are all 100% responsible. It's going to be another hot one in Tennessee and I have horses to feed so see you around, May the light of Change be with you!