// BLOG
Life of Soul
July 2, 2010
Years ago I used to travel around the country in a Boy Scout uniform telling inspirational stories, encouraging a life of service, and collecting t-shirts from Hard Rock Cafe’s.
I had been elected to the highest position a young man could get elected to and I’d made my way to the top by listening to my soul and keeping my ego in check. Once there, when I looked around, I found quite a few people whose mouths smiled, but their eyes didn’t. Like sharks. They lived the life of the ego, rather than the soul. I could see that an organization led by the ego would lose it’s soul. I wrote a small book about my observations and made sure that the people who needed to read it most, got a copy. They thanked me for my service. Then they asked me to leave and to not come back.
Years went by. People changed. Eyes began smiling with the teeth. The organization made important changes and I was asked to return. I was happy to be invited back, but part of me was angry. By then I had forgotten that my soul had led me. I began to believe that I had done something wrong. My ego took over. I had lost my soul.
In the decades that followed, I made a lot of idiotic decisions that led to difficult relationships, challenging situations, repressed emotions, and giving up my power to others. I saw life as something to figure out, rather than enjoy. I thought more of what other people thought than about my own true knowing. It sucked. Not that there weren’t good things that happened, but they were rare. And when they happened I didn’t have the capacity to fully enjoy them.
Fortunately, my soul is stronger than my ego, and I have been able to return to a life of soulful living. It has been very hard work – not for the timid or weak. I have had to confront my demons, clear out programming from society and my family, take responsibility for my choices, and forgive myself and others. I have come to see that while this work is difficult, it is the soul’s choice to be here and mountains will move when you make the decision to live the life you came here to live. I can now say that I am the captain of my life.
I am also a teacher, and I am so happy that my work is to help others to awaken fully to their own life mastery. I want you to be all that you are, to be enjoy being on the planet, and to fulfill the purpose that you came here to embody. I will not be easy on you. I will not tell you what you want to hear. But I will see you strong. I will see you capable. I will encourage your soul’s full expression, and help you graduate from a life of the ego. You are the one you have been waiting for. Get on with it! Let’s Play!
Feminine Leadership at the U.N.
June 3, 2010
I was delighted to receive this letter from Mary Olson of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service about her recent presentation to the General Assembly of the United Nations. Notice how she addresses the assembly as her U.N. Family. Feel the feminine leadership of that! Not nations, not member countries, but Family Members. Introducing this meme is important work in addition to the message Mary shares. She speaks from her heart to the hearts of the other family members and, with her permission, I am delighted to share her letter with you.
“Thank you President of the Assembly. Hello my U.N. Family!” are the words that opened the culmination of a consensus process spanning many months, by a core group of activists on 5 continents. The resulting paper advocates for health and sustainable energy for our shared future. As the presenter of this group product, I stood with the council of the General Assembly of the United Nations behind me, also behind me on either side of the council dais were two enormous screens — and to my great delight, on those screens were images! In front of me was a small podium and then hundreds of faces – from all over the world — as the General Assembly (May 7, 2010) was in session to hear the views of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, now in its 40th year. I was full of energy, and yet calm. The images were there!
It may seem common place to use Powerpoint…not so for outsiders inside the U.N! Word has it that I am the first…at least during an NGO session in the General Assembly! I was fully prepared to give this talk without the images – and they were that – not words, however the images provide another dimension to our message and it was important to me to deliver the full experience to the group – and we had only 10 minutes.
I had the great good fortune of having tuned into the idea of having time with Jack the day before. During our chat it was clear that my main sticking point was whether the pictures would happen. Jack made it extremely simple: go there now and do whatever is needed to make it happen perfectly tomorrow. Time travel.
What a sweet idea! It was quick, and simple. I experience that the technology is fine…everything will work at that level – so I see the issue is only whether I will lose precious time by waiting for permission, or whether I will, on behalf of my mission exercise appropriate entitlement…and power with / within the moment. I did! So when I arrived the next day, I walked directly to the area where the computer hook-up was located and set up my equipment. Everyone acted to support my intention. Done!
The images magically on the screen were created by my colleague and friend Scott Ludlam in Australia (though I filled in a few to span of the content of the talk). They tell the story of how futile it is to try and use the energy from splitting a few atoms while making powerfully mutagenic wastes to power our human activities when we have an enormous atomic power source sitting a safe 93 million miles away – with adequate shielding, no need for cooling water, no security concerns and with completely flexible modalities since our star not only sends us photons, it originates the forces of wind, current and tides (in partnership with our beautiful moon). Oh, I digress in telling this story…the talk was a little more Earthbound…and it is posted for anyone who would like to see it at http://www.nirs.org/international/intlhome.htm
In truth, the words are somewhat arbitrary. Simply entering the grounds and buildings of the U.N. one can feel the vessel that it is, even after all the failures, for the reality that we are one world, one family. “Hello U.N. Family” – and I closed with “Thank you for listening from your heart.” Pacifica radio picked up a snippet – you can hear it at: http://www.fsrn.org/audio/activists-push-complete-ban-nuclear-energy-un-conference/6738
Mary Olson is Southeast Regional Coordinator for Nuclear Information and Resource Service (www.nirs.org) and has been participating in the NGO processes as part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1998 when she was invited by Hans Blix, then head of the International Atomic Energy Agency to “balance” a presentation by IAEA to the NGOs.
Comments: Maryo at nirs.org
My Love of Natural Building
April 30, 2010
During my sophomore year of college in Tucson I was invited by my mother to move into a large, old adobe house along with my adult sister, an adult brother and his wife, and my brother’s three young children. It was a fascinating experiment in communal family living and a marvelous introduction to the indigenous brilliance of earthen building.
This house, sitting in the northern Sonora desert along the Pantano River, seemed to have been designed especially for our unique situation. Built in the traditional Mexican hacienda style sometime in the 1850’s, the building was essentially a large square with the middle cut out for a shaded courtyard. There was only one primary entrance to the house from the outside, but once you opened the heavy wooden door and stepped into the large and welcoming great room, you were in another world.
With large rooms for gathering and cooking and a hallway linking the courtyard and each bedroom, we were invited by the space to do what we naturally wanted to do – eat together, play together and share the adventure stories of our lives. The bedrooms were accessed only by the hallway, illuminated with sunlight filtered through the courtyard trees, and each had natural daylight from the reflected light through those hallway windows as well as the small windows cut into the thick adobe walls.
And those walls! More than 2 feet thick in places, they provided protection from the scorching summer temperatures as well as the below freezing winter nights. Year round, with only a fire in the fireplace in the winter, the indoor temperatures swung gently from about 60F to about 75F night and day. The courtyard in the center was shaded in every direction with walls and trees, and was a welcome oasis, even on August afternoons.
I recall the sense of groundedness those thick, cool, walls gave me – the sense of being held in a loving embrace of earth. The clay plasters made it difficult to hang a picture on the wall, but the beauty of the textures, colors and variety of the surfaces provided satisfaction beyond what art I had to hang. I came to realize that a place could be art in and of itself.
I wondered many times of the stories those earthen walls could tell. Neighbors had told us of its early days as a Butterfield Stage Coach station, of parties held in the 1920’s ‘30’s and ‘40’s with Tom Mix, Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, Gary Cooper and other film stars making movies in the area. Many families had lived there. The building had likely changed little since being built, yet had met the needs of shelter and beauty in a challenging environment.
Coming home from studies one afternoon, I found my brother mixing clay soil, straw and water in a wheelbarrow. One of the outside garden walls had begun to deteriorate, and my brother was attempting a repair. He had been to the library and gotten a book on adobe building and repair and was confident that he could save the crumbling wall. Using a homemade form he molded the earthen mixture into mud bricks, or adobes, and over the next few weeks the wall returned to its original shape. We were all proud of the accomplishment and our family enjoyed extending the life of this beautiful home, mostly with the dirt under our feet.
This was the beginning of my love of natural building. To experience firsthand the wisdom of those who had lived generations before me still inspired me to shift my studies to architecture and design. My awareness of the simplicity of building with earth helped open my heart to social justice and the right of habitat. How could we have a homeless problem in a country so wide and with so much dirt? Why do we need mortgages? Why do we need to hire experts for something so basic to living? Why aren’t most houses designed to support changing family dynamics? I love how that adobe building, and the year I spent in it with my family helped me learn new questions to ask about who I am, where I live, and what I value.
Seeing Inside
January 29, 2010
I’m often asked how I came to be called a “spiritual intuitive”. My journey of growing my intuition has been years-long and meandering. Like a river passing through many lands, cultures and eras I have been blessed to share place and time with incredible mentors, leaders, healers, shamans, kahunas, elders and children. That said, one event in particular created a significant change in course.
You may notice that I recommend Brooks Greene-Barton and the Art of God program he teaches in North America and Europe. It was in my second year of the three year program that I had an especially transformative moment. The Art of God intensives are generally 4 days long and involve deep meditation that often leads to strong physical, emotional and energetic reconstruction. It was on the fourth day of one such four day intensive that my eyes changed and my clairaudience, clairvoyance and claircognizance opened fully.
Sitting in meditation led by Brooks, in a circle of about 15 people, we said the phrase, “What I Am as my body”. As usual, I felt my energy flow through me and activate all of my cells – “the surge”, as Hank Wesselman calls it. After 15 minutes or so I gently opened my eyes and slowly turned my head to the left. I looked at the woman sitting next to me, and my eyes began to tear up and flow. I was astonished at her beauty. While I had known her for a few years and was familiar with her external beauty, it was a few moments before I realized that the extraordinary beauty I was seeing included what was happening inside her! I could see into her body!
Small, bright, revolving balls of light, like little suns, were glowing inside her in alignment from her root to her crown. My mind reminded that these must be energy centers. Of course, like most people I had seen illustrations of the energy centers of the body, but I never imagined that I would actually see them. Each center was working independently of the other, each spinning though some faster than others. In my friend, all of her centers were vibrant and active. I watched as the flow of energy between her heart and solar plexus increased. Those centers grew brighter and brighter as she opened in her meditation. I had the thought, “I MUST remember this! What a gift! I may never get this opportunity again!” Quickly, I let that thought go and simply felt gratitude in my heart. The tears of joy continued to flow.
Now moving my gaze past my friend to the person sitting next to her, and next to him, and so on around the circle I realized that I could see inside everyone! Such joy I can hardly express! Again, I felt such gratitude and my mind thought, “Wow! Remember this! It may not come again!”. As quickly, I let go of that thought and simply felt profound gratitude in my heart and throughout my body. I closed my eyes as the tears continued to stream down my smiling face. When I opened them again, my vision had returned to what I used to call “normal”. In gratitude I thought, “What a gift! I am so grateful for this opportunity. If that is the only time I get to experience this, it is enough.”
My next thought was, “what if I could have that experience again?” I opened my eyes and again, the vibrant internal beauty of my fellow artists of God had returned. Again, I looked to the woman on my left and now as I saw her I heard in my mind that she was clearing trauma from her parents, specifically her mother, in relationship to what it meant to be born with a female body. She was graduating from that trauma and coming more fully into her own authority beyond the programming of gender she had inherited from her mom. I watched as her energy centers glowed brilliantly from her root to her heart and then the energy rose through to her crown and beyond. After the meditation, when we all had a chance to share of our experiences, she spoke of the healing she had just experienced with her mom – exactly what I had “heard”.
It was a year before I could publicly acknowledge what had happened. When I told Brooks he smiled and said, “You finally let go of needing your eyes to see the way you had been told they worked. Congratulations!” The gift has not gone away. Occasionally, the ability leaves me when I get into my ego or my mind, though that happens less now. When I experience a limitation to my perceptions I know it’s probably where I’ve stepped out of humility or grace, or have found another place to grow. I am joyfully blessed with the ability to see, hear, and have clear awareness of what is happening inside the experience of my fellow human beings, animals, trees, rocks, mountains. I’ve learned that I can do this without being in the same place as my client, and I now mostly work “remotely”. There seems to be no limit to what can be felt and sensed when I’m willing. If I can do this, anyone can. In fact, I am confident that what I am experiencing is an aspect of a larger natural wave of conscious human evolution.
Before my eyes changed I had been providing coaching and consulting. Now I offer a clearer mirror to those who seek assistance in being more of who they are. I am grateful beyond words.
Mauna Kea New Year
January 1, 2010
Summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii
I awake at 3am with the clear thought, “Get to the summit of Mauna Kea immediately” I turn to see that Carolyn had awakened as well and is fully alert and ready to rise. With only a few hours of sleep after celebrating my 40th birthday the day before, we recognize immediately what to do. We pack our cold-weather clothes, load the 4 wheel drive pickup and leave our warm, tropical Kona cabana for the 3 hour journey to the mountain.
The landscape between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on the Saddle Road is otherworldly as we drive the narrow, winding and steeply climbing passage in the intense full moonlight of the night’s Blue Moon. Lava cones, rolling hills, military buildings, cattle ranches and barren, black frozen lava flows passed by as we speed toward the road leading to the mountain’s summit.
Stopping at the base of that steep, thin road leading up the mountain’s side, we watch the brilliant engorged moon setting on the western horizon. To the east, the sun is just peeking through the thin fog layer that blanketed the Pacific near Hilo. As the sun rises to reveal its full circumference we laugh and gasp in wonder as these two celestial bodies shone in nearly equal dimension and illumination. Perfectly balanced between the sun and the moon, masculine and feminine in age-old mythology, we celebrate our good fortune at being kissed by both at once! Quietly we offer our Ho’okupu and ask permission in a traditional way to visit this sacred place. While not entirely done according to traditional protocol, our hearts feel expanded and we speak of the energy surging through our bodies. We joyfully make our way forward.
Onward and upward we climb, slowly, past signs warning of the dangers of altitude and terrain. At 9000 feet the pavement ends and becomes a steep and slippery road of volcanic soil, deeply pockmarked and rippling like a washboard. Taking the 4 wheel drive was a good idea. With each rise in elevation and bend comes a new vista. I find myself catching my breath as the moon, still visible turns orange then blue then purple before disappearing at last behind the Pacific to the west. The sun, rising higher, shines its crisp white light over ever bleaker landscapes of volcanic pumice, boulders and older and older eroded landforms worn by millennia of wind, ice and rain.
Carefully passing us on their way down, we are greeted kindly by a caravan of New Year’s Day celebrants who in time-honored Hawaiian tradition had just held ceremony on the sacred summit less than an hour earlier. We exchange smiles, waves and chakas as we carefully pass.
The domes and buildings of the telescopes come into view before the summit. Seated snugly into the mountain and scattered across the high landscape these extraordinary tools help scientists from around the world provide insight into the origins of the universe. We drink in the view of these simple yet profound structures. Knowing that their presence here is controversial because of the sacred nature of the mountain, we honor the opportunity of the most advanced science and one of the most advanced spiritual places on the planet sharing the same place. It is the collaboration of science and spirituality that is helping us advance beyond who we have been as human beings on this planet.
Outside, the thermometer reads 43 degrees Fahrenheit, but my guess is with the wind blowing at perhaps 50-70 miles per hour it will feel even colder. Yikes! As I open the door of the truck the icy wind races in, whipping up a frenzy of anything light enough to fly. Adding a few extra layers of clothing including good windbreaker jackets, we carefully make our way to the trail leading to the true summit, amazingly, a hike of only a few hundred meters.
The wind blowing powerfully at our backs, we step gingerly onto the well-worn path toward the summit hill. The cinders crunch and slip a little under our feet and our eyes drink in the vast expanse of mountain dropping below us. Gently undulating, barren slopes, devoid of any vegetation in this harsh environment, extend for a few hundred meters to the east before plummeting down toward the Pacific only miles away under the cloud layer. The clouds themselves blanket the mountain, their undulating tops perhaps a mile lower than we are from our vantage point. The sun has emerged above the clouds, rising in the deep blue winter sky casting a bright and intense white light over the mountain top. We move our feet slowly, lungs burdened by the lack of oxygen at our 14,000 foot (4300 meter) altitude. The last 100 meters or so steeply rise toward the summit, the wind growing stronger as our bodies are challenged by the terrain, the wind and the height.
As I walk begin to sing, adding my voice to the noise. My body reverberates with the vibrations of my song and begins to tingle with the energy of my full being at once completely present in this moment.
Suddenly, our eyes and ears are directed at the stone ahu sitting directly atop the true summit. Those who came in ceremony before us today have either built anew or repaired a whistling wooden framework of short sticks, lashed closely together with strong twine with enough gaps between the sticks to create a channel through which the wind blows fiercely. Anchored into the meter-high pile of stones forming the ahu, this musical instrument makes a mighty noise, amplifying the wind’s already loud wail. Below it and hanging from it are woven leis, fruit, offerings wrapped in ti leaves and other gifts. Neither Carolyn nor I are trained in Hawaiian culture or ritual, so we are uncertain of the true meanings of these offerings. Perhaps they are for Poli`ahu, the goddess who resides here, or they have another intent. We leave only words of gratitude and prayer, and add those to the items on the ahu.
My body tingling, my mind crystal clear, I circumnavigate the ahu several times before sitting at its base facing east toward the sun. The stones block the force of the wind and Carolyn soon joins me, sitting closely next to me sharing some warmth. We are both glad to have a place of relative warmth and peace. We close our eyes and drop in.
I have seen Mauna Kea in my visioning while at other sacred spots on the planet. I see it connected energetically, with broad white highways of light and information, to every other sacred site on the planet. Only a few places on Earth are as well-connected. Here at this ahu, those highways converge and sitting here, I can feel the surge of energy below my root. I am aware that as long as I am clear and present, I can be active in the exchange of energy and information moving at the speed of light around the planet and both give and receive what is needed to support the positive transformation of myself and all who dwell in our biosphere. Great change is afoot!
