Path of the Sacred

From the corner of my eye, I saw her raise her hand apprehensively. Can I...? I'm sorry. Her voice trailed off, and she lowered her head. Go on. He nodded in her direction. Can I ask about your religion? A silence spread over the Taos Pueblo. We all held our breath and leaned in.

He smiled and shook his head. I absolutely cannot. It's the one thing I can't talk about. He paused. You see, when something is shared freely and then in turn is freely shared again, it becomes diluted. It becomes...something else. Hold what is sacred close to your heart so it stays potent. He pointed up, piercing the crisp, cool air. It keeps the stars moving across the sky. 

Out beyond Socorro and Magdalena on the plains of San Agustin, I waited along the eastern edge of the VLA property and watched the night slowly devour the day until I could see nothing but the Milky Way arched over my head. I'd once written in an old story that you can't really comprehend how many stars there really are until you see a Wyoming sky on a clear, moonless night. I could say the same about the sky here in the high desert of New Mexico. The light of the stars engulfing the darkness.

In these wide open spaces I can feel my soul expand and touch the stars. So far, yet so close. So vast, yet so sacred. Perhaps the most sacred things can never be shared because they are inexplicable. So we weave words and make art and music, but how close does it get to the raw experience?

I stood in the backyard of my grandfather's house and closed my eyes. In an instant, all the images and sensations transported me in time--the taste of concord grapes directly off the grapevine, chasing fireflies around the yard on warm, sticky evenings, the brilliant yellow of the giant sunflowers lining the garden, the cool spray from the water sprinkler, the gentle sway of the tree swing. When I opened my eyes again, the yard was barren--no grapevine, no fireflies, no sunflowers, no water sprinkler, no tree swing. Just me on a frigid winter day in Ohio.

Jen and I walked the Wilder Trail along the surreal, cliff-edged coast that separates Santa Cruz proper from Davenport. We talked about the manifestation meetups we use to hold. Four of us would meet every 3 weeks and meditate and share our insights about the world unseen and how to work with it and play with it. The knowledge shared between us was kept sacred and potent. It was one of my last lessons before I left for India.

The inexplicable seems to slip into stories, the ones I read and write and watch--once removed because the sacred always finds a way to stay protected. And in this way, it's safely shared and received by those who it is meant for. I'd like to think it's something akin to telepathy.

With knowledge and information overload at our finger tips, it's easy to question if anything is sacred anymore. Yet everything is if you shift your perspective. What you are meant to know and understand in this life will find you. It will find you in dreams and books and conversations with friends and strangers. It will find you through social media and meditation. The Universe is far more mysterious than we realize. Out there is never as far as it seems. Ask questions often. Someone, somewhere will receive the answer.

What is your relationship with the sacred and the inexplicable? Do you hold it close to your heart? Or freely share knowledge? Do you believe the sacred protects itself and finds its way to those it's meant for regardless? I'd love to hear your thoughts! 

The Quiet Between

Mid-January and I'm driving into the northern mountains of Thailand. Dawn and I stop at the peak and look out over the ridge into the expanse of dull, green jungle. A thin haze has clouded the once vibrant scene. I drive on and slip back into some kind of stable life in Chiang Mai that soon begins to resemble the clouded scene from the mountain. The air becomes thick and my mind foggy. I stare at the ceiling and have imaginary conversations with my characters and call it writing.

I blink and it's February. The evening grows chilly and the sun moves quickly. A few of us attempt to start a fire which proves to be more of a challenge than it should be. After all the wasted kindling and exploding bamboo, someone gets it going. It's our first night manning the Kosmic Nest--a psy-care, safe space at the Jai Thep Festival. My second year volunteering.

My eyes linger in the night sky. I haven't seen stars in months and don't want to look away, ever. I stay up late into the night drinking Chai and reading Tarot for anyone who wanders into the nest. Everyone more or less asks the same question. I'm unsure if it was wise to have put myself in this position. But here I am, ever curious, ever pushing boundaries.

It's amazing the things people will open up about when they think you hold the key to everything they want to know. I attempt to explain the logic of Tarot to the skeptics. They look at me as though I've just tried to convince them into believing in their own intuitive power.

I blink again, and it's mid-February on a Sunday afternoon. I've ended up in a small tucked away ashram dancing with some Hare Krishnas. Sometimes following ones curiosity requires a bit of vulnerability and a serious energy shift. Sometimes it leads to Hare Krishnas. Sometimes it leads to unexpected friendship and ever more curious portals and questions.

Late February. Alia and I go for coffee and she asks me about my novels. I talk about astrophotography and nesting boxes, family secrets, and mysticism. I talk a lot about structure. It's like I'm analyzing books that already exist in the world. And then I remember--they don't. And it's up to me to make sure they become fully realized things. What an incredible yet terrifying task I've been given.

It's already March and in less than a week I'll be back in the US. And then back in Chiang Mai. And then relocating my home base. A series of and then and then and then. But it's the moments of quiet between that drive the questions and adventures and writing. A sacred silence that I hold close yet permeates everything.

What is it that drives your inner curiosity and questions into the manifest world?

T-minus 5 days until I'm off again. And none too soon. Burning season is underway here in Chiang Mai, and all the smog and heat are getting trapped in the city. So I'm gonna go find some clear, starry skies and snow to play in! 

Wisdom From the Trenches of 2018

"Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right." ~Grateful Dead

January: Loss. An extraordinary, but complicated friendship ended. Our soul contract had ended years prior, and maybe I should have seen it coming--we've done this for lifetimes. I sent out a prayer of gratitude and burned the last of the damiana. I also lost my bank card and a bit of my sanity. But such is life.

February: Excess. Between two jobs, teaching yoga, tarot classes, writing workshops, and coven gatherings, when do I have time to just be? I will tell you: In the moment. Just be present. Be the eye of your own hurricane.

March: Release. What would happen to my life in Chiang Mai if I quit the job I moved here for? All I know for sure is when a void is created be mindful of what goes into all that empty space.

April: Connect. I landed on Bali with Meno's question lingering in the back of my mind: How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you? Through the alchemy and magic of human connection.

May: Allow. What would it be like to move out of the city and into a rustic little hut in the jungle? Step carefully. Ease into this new life and let the ever morphing nature of Chiang Mai fill in all around.

June: Stillness. I've nothing to do most days except sink into the still quietness of this jungle life. This is where intuition strengthens and the journey to other worlds begin.

July: Expansion. In what new ways can I move out of my comfort zone? My soul knows better than I do so I head to Vietnam. Challenging and eye-opening and at times shocking, I adapt and I learn to navigate through this strange new energy.

August: Discover. Epic rides along the coast and through the jungle--the freedom of the open road sparks inspiration and ancient memories. I didn't just discover hidden layers of Vietnam, but a story tucked deep inside of me that began to inch its way out.

September: Integrate. Detox, meditate, integrate, repeat.

October: Alignment. My third birthday on this magic island in the Gulf of Thailand. I'm lured back here each year to reevaluate and realign, to walk the labyrinth and ask more questions. Hammock naps hold the answers to everything.

November: Discipline. Thirty days and 52000 words later I have a very rough draft of a new novel. Discipline is not just mindset. It's also structure and a solid, supportive community of friends who are on the journey too.

December: Healing. Sometimes it takes extreme circumstances to bring me back to point zero. Some times it takes going off grid into the heart of Laos and falling off a motorbike to get me there. Lots of rest and recovery. It took three weeks for my body to fully come out of shock--and to finally heal.

I slid into 2019 with ease. I was asleep well before midnight and woke up to a new year. A calm blanket of peace washes over me as I move slow through this first week of January. It is going to be an amazing year of curiosity and creation and, of course, magic.

I dare you to tap into your unlimited potential and work it to your advantage this year. What will you create? What magic will you cultivate? 

The Wild, Wild East

"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order." ~Carl Jung

As within, so without.

Somewhere in the northern mountains of Laos between Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang I'm lying on the ground staring up at every woman in the small Hmong village. They all stare and smile and giggle at me like I'm some strange novelty fallen from the sky. Oddly comforting given my position there on the ground, far from anything familiar. Feet from me Hmong rebels walk up and down Route 13, machine guns slung over their shoulders, hard eyes staring down every passerby. I'm hours away from anywhere resembling civilization as I know it. This is the wild, wild east after all--remote and untethered and timeless.

Landlocked and full of dense jungle and rivers and waterfalls, there is an unsettling energy about Laos that is hard to pin down. For two weeks, I moved slow through the breathtakingly, surreal landscape, breathing in the vast, open wild. It was as though I'd fallen off the edge of the earth into the far reaches of this wild east. Hmong in Laos, I discovered, means Free, and it is this raw freedom that feels so unbounded and otherworldly.

I fall in love with stories about the unknown--my imagination moving across adventures in distant landscapes, places I've never been--from the stories of Indiana Jones and Firefly, to the ones of Kira Salak and Lawrence Blair. I'm suddenly transported to the here and now, terra incognita, land unknown, on the ground, staring up at the bluest sky. Days ago I'd been staring up at the same sky with the warmth of sun on my skin and the frigid water of the Nam Song around my dangling feet as my inner tube lazily floated down river. Life is but a dream.  

Few roads cut through northern Laos. To experience it you need to walk or take a boat or simply teleport about. This wilderness is protected by nothing but rebels with guns and un-exploded bombs scattered over the country. To wander into the thickness of it, could mean never returning--literal or otherwise. The greenery closing up tight from behind with each step forward, with each step inward. Here be dragons. 

To travel to other realms and worlds, you only need to walk through the opaque clutter of your own thoughts, navigate landmines, and sit in the still, dark, ether until you arrive. Listen, learn, integrate. This is the final frontier. Terra incognita. Here be dragons. 

I crash to Earth and lift myself. I move on. I move slow. On the mend in more ways than one. I will continue to explore this mysterious world--the one inside of me and the one outside of me--and share my stories. The entire Universe is inside each of us--and outside of us. As within, so without.

Inching my way back to the familiar on a two day slow boat up the Mekong River. Misty karst covered hillsides, scattering of villages along the banks, vast silence, wild magic.  Life is but a dream.

As we roll over into 2019, think about how your outer world is reflecting your inner world--and vice versa. Are they in harmony? What do you think would happen to your outer world the further and deeper you explored your inner one? Become explorers of the unknown. Experiment with this and see what begins to shift.

This will be my last post of 2018! I'm looking forward to new adventures in 2019 as I continue to follow this curious path. What visions do you have for 2019? 

As Above, So Below (Some Notes on Soul Alignment)

Erica and I had just sat down to dinner when we saw it. Like a diamond flying through the night big and bright, it pulsed and shot across the black sky. It didn't look real. The best ones never do. The best ones are never the ones I chase.

After dinner we gathered around the bonfire and opened our hearts with cacao and listened to the shamanic beats and sang out ancient sound currents. How can we ever predict where we'll be when we see the next shooting star? How can we ever predict that we will look back on the most insane moments of our lives with such love and gratitude.

Tucked in the jungle between the beach communities of Haad Tien and Why Nam is a labyrinth. There are no choices on this path, only the meandering soul moving steadily toward center and back out again. It's my third time on this island and the third time I've walked this labyrinth.  I am not the past. I am not the future. I am only this ever present eternal moment spread across dimensions and space.

It wasn't until I saw a meteor shower under the dark skies of a 4am mid-western November chill that I knew meteors could explode in a tones of reds and greens as they hit the atmosphere in a bang. Little did I know then that it would be last time I'd see such magic in the sky. Little did I know then the things my soul had planned for me and what I would have to experience in order to finally find that magic again--not just in the sky, but everywhere. As above, so below. 

I hadn't intended to return to Chiang Mai to stay. Since March I've attempted to move away 3 times, but it calls me back again and again like the whispers of fae. Early morning practice, I fold over into bound lotus and press my forehead into the floor. I hear the ocean roaring. I hear the static of space. I see those things I'm meant to see. I understand why.

I've been back from the island two weeks now, and I'm 11 days and 20,000 words deep into a new novel. I'm 3 days into a powerful new morning sadhana. And next week, I will move out of the jungle and back to the city, into a place of my own where I will ground for the winter, where I will cultivate and fine tune my writing life in ways I've simply not before.

There is a season for traveling and exploring and a season for grounding and writing. There is a season for city life and a season for beach and jungle life. There is a season for outer worldly exploration and a season for inner cosmic exploration. To stay in alignment, I need to listen to what season my soul needs.

This lifetime is a gift--to explore the world with curiosity and craft messages from the cosmos into stories, is a life to care for and wield.

Are you in alignment with your soul? Do you listen to what it needs in order to stay aligned? Or do you feel completely disconnected? I would love to hear about your practices and experiences and where you are at. I would love to hear your soul speak.

"Travel light,  live light, spread the light, be the light."
Sending you love and light and magic.
Sat Nam.

No Map Needed

"There was a map of Vietnam on the wall of my apartment in Saigon and some nights, coming back late to the city, I'd lie out on my bed and look at it...That map was a marvel especially now that it wasn't real anymore....That's old, I'd tell visitors, that's a really old map." ~Michael Herr

Wandering the Old Quarter of Hanoi, the streets narrow and fill with picturesque alleys and railways and images ripped from history. No stop lights or stop signs, weathered buildings, muted colors, people and motorbikes fill every inch of space. I look down at my phone and see a blue dot. You are here. 

I slip into a cafe complete with a piano, a floor to ceiling wall of books, and soft jazz music playing in the background. Immediately, the Murakami section catches my eye, and I pull a book from the shelf--Hard Boiled Wonderland & the End of the World. My entire existence in Vietnam has bordered on the surreal from the start. I've not read any Murakami lately so I hadn't considered the Murakami factor, but it could explain a lot.

If you've ever read Murakami, specifically this novel, perhaps you'll understand how a couple days later I ended up in a unicorn themed cafe sipping coffee while wearing a pastel unicorn onesie. Or how seeing pieces of a B52 jutting out of a pond in an upscale neighborhood seemed the most natural thing.

I first read Murakami in a tent somewhere in the interior of Alaska camped out on the median of a deserted highway. The nameless narrator slipping between worlds--one of secret labs and tunnels running through underground Tokyo, the other in a magical realm full of unicorns and stolen shadows. Somehow, an accumulation of all the choices I'd made in life had lead me to that moment--in a tent, somewhere Alaska, reading Murakami. No map needed.

Perhaps we wind up in the most interesting places by not following any sort of map laid before us, but a built in navigation system that we create by tuning into the divine and allowing guidance. Allow the magnificent and surreal and wild to fill your essence and watch it become your reality.

Toss your maps of yesterday away and create a new one. Old roads destroyed, new ones created, boundaries always shifting. There are parts of me that no longer exist and parts that I have created and parts that I have refined. Looking into my past, like a map, in awe at where I've been--a marvel, now that it's not real anymore.

How do you navigate your life? Was your map laid out for you by society or do you create your own as you move through the world? Tune into how you feel about where you are and where you've been. You are here. Look down on that blue dot. How you feel about it will tell you all you need to know.

Ten weeks in Vietnam--stunning, indescribable landscape, shocking, war ridden wounds, and an intense energy unlike anything I've ever felt. It feels good to be back in Chiang Mai, back in the jungle, but I look forward to creating more Vietnam adventures down the road. 

What is a Miracle?

Entering into September, things slowed down considerably for me here in Vietnam. I traded in motorbike adventures for a week of detox and moving slow. And in these slow movements, I can focus on those new routines that I'm cultivating in my writing life and yoga life.

But amidst my attempts to focus, I can't stop thinking about the story my amazing soul-sister Sadie told me recently. After sitting in meditation with her dad, she asked him if he'd had any insights. What's a miracle? he asked her. And she told him about me.

What is a miracle?

According to dictionary Google, it is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws, in other words, a divine event. It's something external that we can witness. Whereas this can be true, I believe most miracles are far more subtle and work deep in the folds where we typically aren't looking.

When my entire life as I knew it in California crumbled around me into something I couldn't make sense of, miracles were at work. They were helping to restructure my world so I could realign with my soul's path--though at the time, it seemed like the opposite was happening in every direction I looked. Only now can I see how obvious they all were.

According to A Course of Miracles, a miracle is a shift in perspective from fear to love, when that "tiny, mad idea" that we are separate from each other and God dissolves. This perspective shift is not one that you simply think in your mind because it does not come from the mind--it comes from the heart, and it must be felt. This can only happen through complete forgiveness, compassion, and gratitude. It happens through surrendering and letting go--sometimes leading us to places where we are forced to face our deepest fears and buried emotions.

I have learned that miracles are those things that move us closer to our core values and soul alignment--even if it means ripping us from the foundation we've spent our life building. Because the more aligned we are, the more at peace we are, and the more at peace we are the better we are able to process emotions and the world around us. And the better we are able to process, the more fine tuned our intuition becomes and the clearer we can see everyone and everything around us.

The miracle is being able to stay fully present with a profound understanding and knowing that we are sovereign souls meant to live in alignment with why came here--and those reasons will be different for everyone as we are unique, energetic expressions of source.

A miracle is coming into the awareness that the past and the future do not exist and that only our minds give them life. It is the ability to re-frame our past and the stories we tell ourselves. It is the ability create our future with the present. And that, my friends, is a powerful miracle!

What do miracles mean to you? Have you experienced any in your life? Tell me your stories!