August 12, 2008

Do you like my new hat? I got it last week at the Exchange. That's just a fancy name for the dump.

Here on the island, we have a great big phat state-of-the-art transfer station, otherwise known as a dump. It's a super-nifty facility that you drive up to, a nice, orderly, clean system of tossing your garbage, as well as sorting recycling: cans, bottles, tin, aluminum, plastics (six levels to choose from!), cardboard (waxed or unwaxed), batteries, paper, steel, lumber, dead beds, lawn mowers and weed whackers, old tires and appliances and every other assorted sundry under the sun.

On a regular basis, the staff smash cans, crush bottles, compile stacks of cardboard, compact trash, round up the dead beds, lawn mowers and weed whackers, and load them onto flatbeds to mysteriously disappear from the island never to be seen or heard from again.

All that remains is one last category, of those things that are too good to trash but that you don't want anymore. For that, we have the Exchange.

To understand the Exchange, you must understand the history of our dump. In the way back, thirty years ago, we piled our trash into the car or truck and drove out to a long driveway just this side of the airport on lakeside. At the end of this driveway was a gynormous hole in the ground that was burning, and a little hut that housed a man named Skeezix.

God bless Skeezix, he was exactly the character you expected to be manning the dump: a sweet loner, eccentric, a little ripe, played the spoons, laughed big, probably drank too much, heart of gold. We'd take our garbage out of the car or truck and got the privilege of flinging our bags and whatnot into the big burning hole in the ground. And everything, I mean, everything got flung into the hole.

There was a great episode of the 1990s TV comedy, Northern Exposure, when, in a moment of creative angst, poet-artist-DJ Chris in the Morning needs to "fling" something. He builds a huge catapult intending to use a live cow, but instead ends up flinging a piano, the entire town watching as it sails into the big blue and drops nicely into the river.

At the dump in 1979, everything got flung. I thought I died and went to heaven. Going to the dump was a spiritual event. Out here, I could come with my empty cans of Aquanet and Easy Off and fling them into the big burning hole in the ground, watching them explode from a safe distance while doing a nip with Skeezix, out in the middle of the beautiful forest, high summer, all with a soundtrack of spoons. Is there any richer life than this? Here on the island, one would never know.

One of our first modern island garbologists was Ludlow North. When he wasn't teaching the rest of the year in some college or prep school, he came to the island for the summers and turned his little Datsun 4-cylinder truck into "Ludlow's Island Garbage and Dating Service." He would talk people into paying him a couple bucks to come at the same time every week and haul away their garbage so they didn't have to personally go to the burning hole and fling with Skeezix. As I recall, the "dating service" part didn't work too well, but hope sprung eternal back then.

Part of his operating fleet was always one "mom-back." I started as a mom-back (standing behind the truck motioning with my hand while saying, "Come on back," when he backed up to the garbage) but quickly rose to being invaluable to the organization. While Ludlow was inside having coffee cake with the clients, I was doing the actual work of hauling the bags out of their cans and into the company truck. For this I received the title, "First Lady of La Pointe Garbage."

The pay off was, back at the dump, I was the one who got to fling those bags high into the air and watch them sail into the eternal flame of the dump. I often wondered, memorized by the fire, when was it first lit? How long has this dump fire been eternally burning?

One youthful day, island son Tommy Nelson is at the dump, enjoying his own flinging. Tommy is the kind of kid who brings stuff home from the dump. But this day, Tommy has a nice pair of tennis shoes, too good to fling. Out of nowhere he creates a small structure at the foot of the driveway, much like children wait in during winter for the rural school bus. In the shelter are the shoes, with a note saying, "Free to good home."

A funny thing happens. The shoes disappear, but in their place are a shirt and a pair of pants. The note is untouched. And thus is born The Exchange.

Today, we have a state-of-the-art Exchange, a 40-foot pole barn where you can give or receive literally everything under the sun. I shop every day in the summer when the dump is open. One visit, I got out of my car and before I was even in the building, someone screamed up, whipped open their trunk, pulled out a bear skin and thrust it into my arms and drove off. I've furnished my bedroom with wicker, found replacement bulbs for all my ceiling fans, curtains, dishes, clothing, shoes, and, well, hats (see above). But also mowers and barbeques, bikes, scrap metal and wood, appliances, anything that is too good to toss. It's not uncommon for the island children to pass a piece of clothing around because when your kid has out-grown it, you bring it back to the Exchange where you got it and the next ones in line get to wear it until it's done gone. Easy.

But the transition… how did the system transition from the art of flinging to this space-age model of sustainability? How did I go from knee-deep in dirty disposable diapers to shopping for a new hat?

After Ludlow died, our friend Craig Dear inherited the truck and the garbage service. Craig was everyone's favorite bartender. He also opened "Lame Deer's Pretty Good Bike Rentals and Pasties" and had the island's only taxi service. (None of us locals ever mentioned to the tourists we were sending to him for rides that he was legally blind.)

Craig took this new garbage business seriously. He saw the need for the island to make the quantum leap from burning to recycling and decided to become the leader in the movement. He enlisted my help to start a movement to educate, change systems, and get community buy-in.

We started by making a flyer, educating and inspiring people to begin thinking and acting differently. We explained what can be recycled, asked people to sort, encouraged them to wash everything first, all the while touting the features and benefits of recycling. Every run he made to pick up garbage, he talked personally to the community, one household at a time and left the flyers behind. He left a flyer with every run at first because at first, as willing and excited as people were to talk about the idea, no one was actually doing the sorting and cleaning. We still just picked up big bags of garage with unsorted recyclables inside.

For a period of time, we needed a system of retrieving the recyclables so Craig could take them over to the mainland in his old truck and sell them at facilities there. The system we created was to take all the garbage to a back corner of his property where he had a flatbed, don over-the-elbow thick rubber gloves, spread the bags down, rip them open, and retrieve the recyclables by hand, one at a time.

Some afternoons, in mid-summer, with our faces masked, the flies biting, the reeking stench of, you can only imagine, I would curse the people who weren't recycling, my fate of working in garbage in the first place, and the fact that it seemed like people would never change. Would we be back here at the flatbed the rest of our lives sorting people's garbage?

Of course not but I'm telling you what, some days, it seemed like forever.

So in regards to your own transformation, ask yourself, what stage of the transformation are you at? If you're elbow deep in garbage, well, maybe it's the beginning of change and it's suppose to be chaos while you are constructing the new system. But there is also a stage when the system is complete, up and running smoothly, and now it's easy. If you had told me in 1988, as I bent over the flatbed in 95 degree temps with rubber gloves pulling aluminum cans out of endless bags of dirty disposable diapers, that someday I could casually toss my cans into the state-of-the-art transfer station and get a new hat at the same time, I would have replied, "It would be an answer to a prayer."

Have hope, people. As I was shopping last week at the Exchange, Avery came running in with a huge bag of Italian leather sandals and several summer hats (see above). As I walked the aisles to see what new treasures could be had, I came upon a pair of huge rubber gloves in very good condition.

Nope. Won’t need those.

At this time Teresa was going through a period of loss. She couldn’t stop crying. Don’t misunderstand, she was not whining or complaining. She simply could not stop crying.

As I pulled the Arizona rental car onto the highway into town, the sky before us opened up and poured tigers and wolves (a more ferocious form of cats and dogs). She wept through the desert thunderstorm, she wept as we checked into the hotel, she wept when she went to bed. I had no problem whatsoever being around her in this condition. I lovingly gave her privacy, offered perspective if she asked, maintained my generally cheery self and it all worked out.

At one point in the car, she apologized for being such a mess. She felt she was not “doing it right” because she was in this condition. Aren’t we supposed to be evolved spiritual beings who never get fooled by the illusion of physical reality? Aren’t we supposed to spread love and compassion, not tears and pain? How can she teach anyone manifestation through Con Rev when she herself feels so inadequate?

I took a breath and paused for a second. The wipers were on the highest high which was still not high enough. The rain came down with such intensity I almost had to pull over. Then, in one instant it stopped and the sun snuck out from between thunderheads.

I had to stop myself from laughing given her teary state. But I knew she was going to love this…

“The theories of manifestation require direct focus on present moment as a whole. If we ‘pull back the lens’ like the angels taught us and look at the whole truth being created in this moment, then I see those mountains glowing orange from the sun peaking out from between those storm clouds. I pay attention to the fact that we’re driving a brand spanking new car (which is why we love rentals, right?) and I look over at you and even after getting up early and the flight and all, your hair still looks fabulous, I love those Capris and are those new strappy sandals? I remember we are traveling the world together teaching and training, our dream come true. And you think you are inadequate? That’s a downright lie! Looks to me like you’re doing a mighty adequate job manifesting a beautiful place to feel and breathe.”

She stopped crying and sat in silence for a few minutes staring out the window at the desert. It began to rain again, but gently this time, and measured.

Teresa turned, eyes still red with tears but a small smile spreading across her beautiful face.

“Dang. We’re good…”
That we are.

We went on to present at WILD Women where we spoke the concept that we are all liars. I was revving a conflict with one of my girlfriends and using a sound byte, “She lies.” I looked inward and discovered my own lies embedded in my subconscious by various influences—culture, karma, science, religion. Teresa and I discussed on the flight to Phoenix how much all of us lie to ourselves on a daily basis. Every time we tell ourselves we aren’t intuitive, that we can’t create what we need, that we are inadequate—all lies we tell ourselves without thinking. We are all liars.

This was Teresa’s first out of town presentation, and I knew that was part of her anxiety. She’s a very private person. I have to remember not everyone relishes standing up in front of people and making a fool of oneself with the same intensity I do. Making a fool of myself keeps me honest. Especially when done in public.

Turns out, as I knew it would, she was the poster child for articulation, honor and compassion. The workshop was great fun and I think we turned some heads with our “revolutionary” ideas, not to mention my polka-dot shirtwaist retro dress and her leather jacket and black Ann Taylor capris.

After the event a participant approach us. She seemed hesitant to ask her question, so I encouraged her. “I just wonder if it might be possible to call myself a ‘recovering liar’ because, well just coming right out and saying, ‘I am a liar’ is really hard for me.”

Without pausing, my response was, “No. There is nothing to ‘recover’ from and there is no shame in it. We create it and have to take full responsibility for it if we are to un-create it, if we are to recreate it.”

This gentle woman looked a little shaken. I supposed she was expecting a more “angelic” answer.

Teresa stepped up, put her hand in her forearm and in her southern drawl that we all aspire to, smiled at this kind lady and said, “Oh honey, I know what you mean. I couldn’t hardly take the idea at first, but then it started unlocking all these door for me that helped free me of that shame. Like coming into Phoenix yesterday, I had been crying for days…”

She then told the story of the moment she realized how good she was in the car, the very second her perspective changed from, “I’m not doing it right” (the lie) to, “Look at me creating this beautiful mountain scene in this new car with this great hair.”

Those are the moments I adore. Creation is its own reward.

Where are you focusing your energy in any given moment? What lies do you tell yourself that no one else but you can hear? Find the source of those lies within you, where you are creating them, so you can un-create them so you can recreate them to align with the divine voices of truth and unity: you are a miracle just sitting in a chair, you have the power of the entire universe inside you, you are manifesting this moment now whether you like it or not.

Take a couple deep breaths, pull Emotion through you as you ask yourself, “What do I want to create and is it for the highest good” and you might just unlocked the key to manifestation of your own abundance.

Later that night, drinking Veuve Cliquot at Hilton Tapitio, our hair still gorgeous, Teresa and I toasted to our manifestation. In that moment, it was exactly what I wanted to create and as far as I could see, for the good of the whole.

And that’s no lie.

Home Again
Every time I leave Corpus Christi, Texas for Madeline Island, Wisconsin, I make a point to set my mileage indicator to zero just as I turn left onto Highway 37 in downtown Corpus. This is the intersection where the freeway dead-ends at Corpus Christi Bay and is a straight shot all the way up the middle of the country. I love having the bay at my back as I direct myself north towards the lake known as Superior.

When I left Texas it was 98 degrees. When I arrived on Madeline Island three days and 1638 miles later, they had just broken out of a long cold spell. The week before it had been 39 degrees and they were half expecting snow. “You brought the nice weather with you,” I heard from many. Yes, indeed, I did.

What an amazing year it has been so far and it ain’t over yet. Never would I have imagined going to all the places I have since September when I appeared at the Crimson Circle Quantum Leap celebration. Since then I have channeled readings for people all around the world. My appearances in Romania and Hungary upped the ante. I have received so many invitations from around the world to come and share Einstein and Conflict Revolution that I had to hire an assistant. Tess will help organize my events. It’s all wonderfully and magnificently overwhelming. On top of all that, “Party of Twelve: The Afterlife Interviews” won its first book award.

I plan to take the next month and sort through all the requests for Einstein, Conflict Revolution and me, and once I do, Tess and I will begin to book my next appearances around the world.

Many have inquired about the new courses, Manifestation, Time Travel and Materialization. These won’t be offered until next year, but in the meantime, I can tell you that prerequisite work for all of those studies will be Conflict Revolution. This revolutionary new process to bring peace to the inner world as a way to reflect peace and abundance in the physical world is the first step to manifestation.

But for now I am back on my wild and wacky island. Surrounded by my tribe of eccentrics, I am taking a little time off, kicking back in the afternoons at Tommy’s Burned Down Café with a Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Shake-a-Day. Or headed to Ed’s grocery store for a smoke and some esoteric conversations about politics, prose and republicans. Thursday night softball games, morning coffee at Marie’s, long afternoons at Joni’s Beach—truly food for my world-weary soul.

Again I want to say thank you to everyone who I met along the way and all your kindness. It won’t be long until I am up and at it again. But for now, give me a moment at home to sleep, to dream, to breathe, to swim, to love, to rest.

I have come here to introduce them to a new Einstein. As a guest of Geoffrey and Linda Hoppe and the Crimson Circle, I am honored to be part of a changing consciousness in this part of the world. Many of the participants at the event on Mother’s Day were teachers, doctors and scientists. Because they have not had years of unlimited freedom that has made them groggy from choice, they are as open minded and anxious to learn as children.

Sitting at dinner Friday night with the New Energy teachers, I felt like Einstein must have in his youth, gathered at the tavern with the great minds of the time, drinking beer and passionately discussing potentials. That night I talked with people from Romania, Bulgaria, England, Germany, France, Finland, people not filled with nationalist spirit but with the hope of international unity.

On Sunday, as I opened myself up to allow Einstein to speak through me, I was reminded that there would be an interpreter. I was to speak slowly and leave room for her to address the crowd of over 400, repeating what I said in Romanian. I had only just met Ramona, a beautiful Romanian in her 20s who was anxious to make sure she got the message correct.

I closed my eyes, got out of my way and allowed the energy to come through me. I thought back to the day before, me and Einstein walking through Herastrau Park, carefully preparing his address to make sure those listening would understand his words. I asked him as we walked how he would ever deliver this complicated information in the short time I was given so that everyone understood.

Silly me.

The energy in the room was palpable. Geoffrey had channeled Tobias before me. Two amazing musicians, Gerhardt and Einat, a married couple from Austria and Israel respectively, performed a haunting number involving overtones. Later at dinner they told me what they had gone through when Einat brought Gerhardt home to meet her grandmother, whose relatives had been victims of the holocaust. As Austria had been Hitler’s birthplace, Gerhardt had a bit of convincing to do before they accepted him into the fold. But they did and now Gerhardt and Einat live a simple life, visiting sacred spaces together and making sacred music. Talk about international unity in action!

I closed my eyes and started to speak. Ramona later said she felt this unearthly presence overtake her. Her voice lowered and sounded very much like a man. She and I work in complete synchronicity, Einstein speaking short concise sentences and stopping very deliberately to allow Ramona to translate.

The message was clear, as it has been since the beginning of this strange odyssey of being his emissary: world peace, one person at a time, starting with each individual. He once again painted a precise picture of a compilation of consciousness, reminding us that on a quantum level we are individual facets of one being, the family of humans all living on a beautiful planet spinning through space. He thoroughly explained Conflict Revolution, a process of self-scrutiny that allows us to use the details of our lives as clues to our inner world, and how to align to compassion from within.

People often ask me why I think I was chosen to be his emissary. I tell them, I have no idea but why not me? Does Barbara Walters ask herself why she gets to interview the world’s most famous people? Perhaps. For me, the challenge that my interviewees are dead people only adds to the allure and the mystery of it all.

I can hardly wait for the big summer celebration in Hamburg in August! Einstein comes home to Germany.

Here’s to the mystery and the wonder!

I turned to Chapter 31, “Years of Crisis 1919-1939.” Under the heading “Age of Uncertainty” was a picture of Einstein along with a sidebar about Freud. The caption under Al was about how his genius was partly due to his tenacity to stick with a problem until he solved it. Freud was credited with the idea that much of human behavior is beyond reason.

I was after the answer to a question: what happened that so many people could propagate Nazi Germany and what would one do if those circumstances arose again in current culture? What if, like Hitler and the Nazis, through the use of legal pathways a party rose to power so set on destruction and domination that it might arrange its own terrorist attack to kick off martial law? What did the ordinary citizens of Germany do during these so-called “Years of Crisis” as they watched Hitler march the Nazis on a blazing trail of human destruction?

Hitler pushed Einstein off his pacifist stance. Though he was using his rock star status to promote world peace, Einstein the pacifist did not know a way to face Hitler. And who can blame him?

What Einstein did know was that Hitler could not have done it alone. It required a mass effort on the individual parts of the Third Reich. The hearts of so many men and women had lost their moral compass. Is this his lament “It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man”? How does one get to the root of that kind of degeneration?

In these turbulent days, it’s sometimes difficult to believe any one of us can make a difference. What kind of impact can one human have against the terrorists, errant governments and systems of culture that strive to keep citizens dull witted and unaware of the lies and nefarious dealings of subversive fundamentalists? Because according to the history book, this kind of behavior has gone on since humans first emerged from the apes.

It seems to me it can only begin within each individual, committed to looking at one’s own life to see where we might be driven by fear to inadvertently fall into lockstep with the voice of authority outside ourselves. It is our duty and responsibility to find our inner moral compass, align to compassion and learn how to measure our actions against it. We must quit lying to ourselves and refuse to propagate the “US vs THEM” mentality.

I believe Conflict Revolution® is the formula to denature our evil spirits, one person at a time, starting with self. And who else but Einstein would find a way from beyond the grave to create a simple formula to align our actions to compassion? Who else could come up with a geometric definition of love? Talk about sticking with a problem until it's solved!

The beginning of the 20th century was indeed a time of great change and uncertainty. Einstein had brought forth E=MC2, which threw everything science had known into a new paradigm. Freud was dealing out concepts of the unconscious that had never been considered, putting psychology into new realms of thinking. Europe was spiritually, emotionally and economically depressed and uncertain. People were disillusioned and hopeless. Their answer was to follow the leader, who eventually led them into ruin. People believed the lies, overlooking their own instincts.

Let’s not blindly follow some leader in times of insecurity. Let’s use those times to really examine our motives, our decisions, and ourselves and see where we can become the change. Where are you lying to yourself?

We have so much more power than we can even imagine. Let’s use it to create peace within. According to my imagined Einstein, when we do that we help reprogram the gravitational waves that manifest the Earth.

What’s it going to hurt to self-scrutinize? Knowledge is power, after all. And what will it take to get you to stand up?

I have recently been struggling with a relationship with a man with whom I know I share concurrent lives. He is a person who I have such a deep seeded emotion around, I can only assume there are several concurrent lives that exists within the matrix of energy that bleeds through to this life.

He is not particularly spiritual in this sense, a very practical man who does not subscribe to New Age mentality. He is a Taurus, grounded in the earth and very much concerned with today’s news and politics. He is a teacher, so he deals with young minds every day. Since he works in one of the worst school in town, he is constantly dealing with teen pregnancies, lack of motivation and a daily challenge of how to inspire the kids to want to learn.

Our experience together has been both exquisite and agonizing. A part of me is so attached to him, beyond reason. I find myself driving past his home and surrounding it in white light and saying a prayer for his well being, even though we are estranged.

At the psychic fair I worked this weekend in Cincinnati I had several readings and in each one I asked about him. I wanted to know about our past lives and what was causing this attachment to a man who clearly did not want to, in this life, be close to me.

The answers were so revealing that I couldn’t help but find illumination in them. In one life, I apparently had executed him during the French revolution. In another he had been my grandfather, and for some unknown reason I murdered him. In yet another, we were married in an elaborate ceremony in western Ireland, he as my prince, making me a princess. But he went off to war and never came back, leaving me stranded and alone in a desolate part of the world to rule without him.

All of these lives showed me why, first and foremost, he wanted to hurt me in this life. And then, why, when I found him in this life, I was so relieved to have reunited with him. I remember laying beside him that first night we were together a few summers ago, looking at him sleep, feeling like it had taken me so long to get to him. I looked at his ring, which I knew he had gotten in Ireland and felt attached to even it. And I had a dream, wherein I dreamt I was sleeping beside him and a leprechaun appeared between us, looking me up and down before “allowing” me to remain nestled up against his back.

What is the point of knowing or learning these past lives? For me it is helping learn to let go of him. Sometimes “soul mate” does not mean happily ever after. It means we come together to help each other learn how to be whole without one another.

Being with him for the short time in this life has allowed me to examine parts of myself I never would have seen without the mirror of him. I learned about some of my deepest, darkest parts of self over the past year or so, being with him, struggling with the “issues” of this present life as a reflection of all the other lives culminating in who are together today.

As I got clear on my own part of our lives together, I have been able to detach from the deep angst he creates in me. And in that detachment, I was able to see him for who he truly is.

He turns 50 soon. Will I be able to share with him these insights, with the hope to help him find wholeness for himself as he has helped me? Only time will tell. He might find this all ridiculous. On the other hand, my recounting this might spark a part of him past the conscious mind and appeal to an age-old part of him and his Celtic heritage.

Who know? All I know is I love him deeply and dearly, and even though I can’t be with him in this life, a part of my heart will forever love him without reason, without purpose or understanding. A passion everyone should experience at least once in this life.

Happy birthday, bwana. I love you. Always and forever. I will see you in our dreams.

As we flew in I was impressed with how small it really was. One long strip stretched from north to south, filled with the most impressive array of strange and wonderful architecture I’d seen since Disneyland. New York, New York simulated the skyline of my favorite island of Manhattan; The Luxor created the illusion of the Great Pyramid, complete with sphinx; The Venetian had actual canals with gondolas. Then there was an older Vegas: the Flamingo, Circus Circus, the Golden Nugget. Everywhere there were sights and sounds that stimulated and thrilled the senses. Truly a giant playground complete with roller coasters, dancers and singers, magicians, gamblers, acrobats, children and the most international collection of tourists imaginable.

Christina and I walked from one end of the strip to the other. I saw the Dancing Waters of the Bellagio, the indoor rainstorm at Planet Hollywood, the opulent Roman baths at Caesar’s Palace. As we ate the first night at the top of Mandalay Bay, I took in the strip from 30 stories up and pondered the blessed excess of it all as it stretched out before me like a runway.

I came to Vegas to conduct one of the most intense Conflict Revolutions I have ever performed on myself. Sometime like self-surgery, I sought to resurrect the deepest part of me to reunite my consciousness. As so many of us have experienced in our lives, wounds from childhood have kept us from ourselves, secretly blocking the divine abundance that is our birthright. For me, the abuse from my youth has haunted me since that time. I have transformed over and over throughout my adult life, each time getting a little closer to that purity we seek, that divine essence coming into the mundane and making everyday life sacred.

The past year or so I have been plummeted to the depths of my pain, becoming incapacitated by its overwhelming and illusive reality. Thinking I had healed, I was surprised when it returned to overtake me in the summer of 2006 when my cousin was brutally murdered. Since then I have struggled to rebuild the hope that was taken away from me in the form of murder, death, divorce, a broken heart, business losses, sexual assault. It’s only been the last few months I have made headway and still some days the ground disappears beneath my feet and I am left with a hole where my heart and soul should be.

So why come to Vegas to resurrect this divine part of me? Why not a hejira to some sacred energy place like Sedona, or a vision quest into nature, or a retreat to a monastery? Why not be like Elizabeth Gilbert, author of “Eat Pray Love,” in the story of her divorce and subsequent journey to Italy, India and Indonesia to find herself? Why Vegas?

Because Vegas represents the most mundane and yet fantastic world imaginable. If we can bring the divine into the mundane, isn’t that our mission here? To make our ordinary lives as extraordinary as possible?

As I watched the sun rise over the Mojave Desert after being up all night I tried to feel and breathe the ache in my heart. I looked into the light and imagined it a magical reflection of some part of me I could not see yet. Even though I couldn’t feel the joy, I could believe in the sun, and somehow knew that if I keep working, keep trying, something’s gotta give.

On the cab ride to the airport, the driver and I talked about how difficult it is to address the evil in the hearts of humans. He did not believe we would ever change, that it was an impossible task to try and inspire people, one person at a time, to commit to peace in their lives. As we were talking, he purposefully drove the long LONG way around, thus charging me twice the cab fare I would have normally paid. By the time I finally caught on, he had proven himself to be one of those people he had no hope for.

As I threw down the twenty on the front seat, I figured he needed it much more than I did. At least I had my commitment to becoming the change. At least I was trying.

As the wheels of the plane folded into its belly and I watched this mecca of excess disappear beneath me, I knew I was leaving with a tiny piece of myself I came to find.

One small step…

After the first long day’s drive, he laid up in a hotel in Baton Rouge only to discover he had forgotten his shirts at home! Drat! He had so looked forward to showing off his collection. During the remainder of the long drive to the Pacific, he kicked himself often for not remembering to bring them.

On the last night in Mexico, at a little rural hotel near the border, he and his friend went out for dinner. They returned to the hotel to discover…no hotel! While they were dining out, their small hotel burned to the ground, completely destroying everything, including their laptops, cameras, all their clothing and everything else they had with them.

As Max stood before the pile of cinders that contained the remains of his road trip, he suddenly thought of his shirts, safely on the bed back home. What had previously been a big mistake had suddenly become his heartfelt blessing. Perhaps he was considering how close he came to being cinders himself.

How many times have you done this? Spent too much time regretting things that have happened, flailing yourself for not being more—aware, smart, in tune with your intuition, outgoing, thin, successful? On and on goes the list of what you don’t have that the Intellect can focus on. And then one day, a life-threatening event happens that allows us to see those shortcomings from a new angle, one that reminds us how short and miraculous this life really is.

One of my favorite saying from the myriad of readings I have given through the last 20 years is, “You’re a miracle just sitting in a chair.” Truly if you were consciously aware of all the miraculous systems at work that make up you, just sitting in a chair, you would be astounded: neurological, biological, cosmological, physiological, psychological, quantalogical. Who or whatever plans and implements creation is truly a god and you are a miracle of creation.

In the construction of a physical body, I believe it is Intuition instructing which stem cells to be bone, which to be skin. As if Intuition knows the gynormous plan that will become your body and your life on all those aforementioned levels. The tiniest step, from stem cell to bone, is inspired by something that knows the whole plan. If your Intuition can know which cell is suppose to be bone, perhaps it knows that forgetting your shirts was no accident.

So why do we flail ourselves for forgetting? Our Intellect lies, telling us we screwed up, and then sets about to punish us with harsh judgments in our self-talk. These lies are the basis of what keeps us from living in the truth of the miracle that we are. The abundance that naturally exists within us is diminished each time our Intellect concocts a story about our lack. “What is wrong with me that I would forget my shirts” and the constant intellectual belittling prevents abundance from flowing through.

So how can we surrender to the knowing? First, remind yourself what a miracle you are. Then, commit to doing some Conflict Revolution: when despair, anxiety or frustration arise over your forgotten shirts, turn your attention inward and breathe this abundant energy of emotion into your body. You don’t need to know why you feel this emotion, you just need to feel it. Analyzing where or how it came about (forgotten shirts) is not feeling it. It’s analysis, an activity of the Intellect. You cannot feel with your Intellect, just like you can’t pump your blood with your liver.

Truly feeling your emotions means opening your heart and letting all those emotions, even the seeming “bad” ones, actually flow through your physical body. If you need to, create a little mantra to use while breathing: “I don’t need to know why I feel this, I just need to feel” and then set about to let that abundant, precious, miraculous energy of your own life force flow through you.

Max returned home to his precious shirts having learned a new lesson. Mistakes can be turned to blessings. The more we can connect to present moment through Emotion without having to diminish ourselves with Intellect’s lies, the more we will manifest our pure abundance.

Happylooya.

Happy Birthday to Me
02.07.1955 5:17 a.m. Chicago, IL
7.5714 in dog years
47 in Match.com years
53 in 365 day years

2008 is not only a “1” year, which indicates many new beginnings, but heralds the start of a ten-year cycle that is sure to bring profound changes in personal and global transformation. Let’s use this new energy to create innovative ways to bring peace to all levels of our world.

For my part, this year’s New Year’s resolutions are simple statements of gratitude, love and appreciation for life itself. On the drive from Minneapolis to the Windy City, I had been contemplating how much I lost in 2007: home, relationships, family, so many things that had previously kept me secure. Unfettered by material possessions, a committed relationship, obligations of family, I feel as if the Universe unbounded me in order to launch me into greater heights of service to the world this year. I see myself standing on the edge of a precipice, arms outstretched, ready for flight. This stance is frightening and yet, when all is said and done, what is life all about if not to live to the fullest? Holding onto material possessions as a way to bring security is an illusion. When all is really said and done, and we are on our death bed, will our 401(k), big home and all our toys be of use to us? Will all that money in the bank help us in that moment of passing?

Not that we should stop working to achieve material gain. I look forward to the day when I have my own home again and a nest egg in the bank. However, in the meantime, remember that what brings us security is love, the quality of our relationships, and the integrity of our actions and decisions. How are we living each and every day? Are we committed to honesty and peace making on all levels of our life?

Use the new energy of this upcoming “1” year to continue to refine your relationship to your higher self, your family and friends, and your own life. Be grateful for life itself. Use the love you have to make positive, powerful changes. Become that change you want to see in the world.

I myself have vowed to always remember in 2008 that I am not alone. I will let go of despair and nostalgia and choose to make peace with loss in order to move forward. I will release my regret and fear to make way for forgiveness, pleasure, beauty, abundance and hope. I am empowered by my conscience and my gift is forgiveness.

Have an absolutely fabulous new year!

Let it all go. Feel and breathe. Take time to appreciate what you have left in your life. Chances are, there are so many things to be grateful for.

For me, after murder, death, suicides, ending of relationships, assault, divorce, a failing business, as well as great success and triumph, I am ready for this new 26,000 year cycle to begin. I have my health, my sense of humor, renewed strength, tons of great friends and wonderful family, a beautiful home, and the ability to watch the sun rise and set. Such a miraculous gift life itself is. We are miracles, just sitting in a chair doing nothing.

Know that everything you have been challenged with has been specifically designed by you, for you, to strengthen you, to empty the recesses of your spirit that you could not see from waking consciousness, to prepare you to receive the bounty of 2008.

So let it go. Create comfort in your home. Nurture each project and friend as if they were your only child. Foster independence and the ability to grow strong. Choose quality over quantity. Tend to your garden and have faith in the Universe. Get ready for greatness. You deserve it.

Until next year, I wish you all joy, happiness and peace.

So how does peace begin within, and how do our individual efforts to create peace in our own lives translate into helping the rest of the struggling world?

If we are all indeed one sentient being with Earth as our home, then every effort made on the part of the individual can have an impact on the whole. Much like medicine moving towards a more holistic approach, doctors are now realizing that treating body, mind and spirit contributes to the overall health of the individual. Even though there are conflicts around the world, every effort each one of us makes strengthens the whole and helps with healing. Whether that is resolving inner conflicts, or working in our communities to bring peace, all efforts assist the whole.

Unfortunately, President Bush’s efforts probably won't bring peace in the Middle East. But everyday there are ordinary people on grass roots levels making a difference. Listed below are some brave individuals becoming the peace in one of the most violent areas of our planet.

Check out the work of these activists and let it inspire you. Know that everything we can do in our local world to make peace, whether within our own hearts, or in our families, our community, state or nation, will help contribute to peace on a global level.

Conflict Revolution® addresses the conflicts that exist within us. To resolve conflicts on that level profoundly affects how we manifest our lives. And each time we work to bring peace within, we contribute to peace on the planet. Einstein explains exactly how in “Imagining Einstein.”

Bravo to the brave activists around the world working for peace every day. Our hearts are with you.