(Continued from Nature’s Perfect Love) Each moment, healthy or not, is constantly changing. Of that we can be sure. After this most intense year full of immense change, I am still in an ongoing healing process. My body is not the same as it was. In response to my life changes, and miraculous healing, I have had to modify my choreography in my shows. I have had to change my lifestyle and adopt new habits, ones that put my physical health at the same level of priority as my spiritual well-being. There is no doubt that before the injury, I overlooked my physical needs and took my physical vitality for granted. Your question this week says, “The body was designed to be healthy.” I would agree that this is true. But it is also designed to change, grow and evolve. And our idea of health may be limited to what we think “healthy” means. When we live in balance and respect, the body changes so gracefully. Major physical changes, as I experienced, may be part of that. But the orchestration of my healing was masterful from beginning to end. I did nothing. Think about all the body did… the cellular repair and regeneration, the rewiring of the electrical system, the tissues being rebuilt, the nervous system…
(Continued from “My Own Tsunami”) What followed was a rearranging of everything I knew. On one level, I call the injury “karma fast forward”, where I was challenged to let go of that which no longer served and had to learn to absolutely trust a higher power for everything. When you realize that you may never walk again, may never even do the simplest things that we take for granted, your ego crashes and dies while something else is born. For me, what was being born was whatever that whale wanted me to become. It was all about the whale. For those few months that I was immobilized in bed, I felt like the whale was taking over. I saw a blue light almost constantly, like a sphere that hovered over things, around things and within my inner eye as I closed my eyelids. I was being held by a blue bubble of light. When I first realized I could not move my legs, I inwardly dove down, with my inner eye, to the root of my spine, and took a look there. I knew that whatever was preventing me from walking was at the base of my spine. My spine somehow had broken. What I saw at my root was a…
(Continued from Prayers Are Always Answered (Just Not The Way We May Think)) When the tsunami devastated Japan on March 11, 2011, I was severely hit in my own way. When the earthquake actually shook on the other side of the world, I was sound asleep. However, I woke up that morning having had a turbulent night riddled with nightmares and feeling shaken to my core, yet unsure why I felt this way. I got up to walk down the stairs to my meditation room, to find that my legs were not fully responsive and felt numb. The bones in my pelvis, too, felt thrown out of balance. I was in physical pain, and felt like a mess in my head. Out of nowhere, I felt broken and ill. Through that morning blur, I pushed into my day to make it to the meetings I had with music executives, as I was in the middle of promoting my music and shows at an international music conference. I went to my appointments, getting in and out of cars by lifting my legs with my hands because for some reason they would not quite work. I figured the strangeness would suddenly pass, just as it had suddenly arrived. Later that day, a friend of mine…
(Continued from “Following The Call to Nature Co-Creation”) When I was at the top of the world, I did some shamanic healing work on the planet, while the sacred Hindu 1000 names of the Goddess were being chanted – all as a gratitude offering for the benefic bounty of our Mother Earth. Then I quietly prayed with all my heart and said to the planet herself something like, “Mother, I know you are suffering. If there is any way I can help, if I can help alleviate your burden in some way, let me know.” And that was that. A shamanic ritual can be likened to a portal being opened, a window into larger sight that provides an ability to see beyond the lens of our habitual self. And seeing something larger is what I did. In the months that followed the ritual, I had a very intense time trying to integrate the immensity of suffering I saw in our world: the way we resist the exquisite joy of being here; the way we hold onto pain and make it “mine”; the way millions all over the world suffer from not having very basic needs met; the way those with so much squander their gifts and take for granted the bounty. I cried for weeks, not…
(Continued from “The Secret”) If you have been following my blog entries, you will know that I have always had a natural, strong connection to the planet Earth, to Nature as a whole and to unseen energies that are always with us – the spiritual forces that have a lot more to do with our day to day living than most people care to realize. I am by far not alone in being sensitive to such. Many people are, and are acutely aware that our planet, a living organism, is going through a healing, a shedding, a purification that is affecting us all, because we are also literally part of the planet. During the summer of 2010, I felt I had to do more to help raise awareness of our planetary interconnection, our need for conscious awakening and our ecological responsibility. So by the fall, I was on my way to the North Pole to help raise awareness of the melting polar ice. I do not feel I so much wanted to go, as I was inwardly called to go. A voice within spoke so clearly. This is what I was meant to do. Some inner voices come from the voice of our soul, while others from spiritual guides that help mark our way. Perhaps, at…
(Continued from Turning Drama Into Fierce Discernment) Being able to see these unlikely opportunities in others’ lives has helped me to find the gifts in my own. It is like finding gold trapped inside of a rock. We can find hidden treasures in the most unlikely places. Today I had an “a-ha” moment. My mind stopped. Life sprang open into technicolour and multiple dimensions. The daily hum-drum spontaneously blossomed into full life-presence. For a moment I felt through my whole being that all, yes, absolutely all is perfection. It seemed as though all that is, is grace, a gift, a perfect teaching, giving me exactly what I need to evolve in this moment. In this moment, the Universe, God, pure consciousness (whatever you want to call it) is reflected back to me through my life situations, perhaps even most powerfully in areas of my life that seem painful. I love my partner. He also can drive me crazy at times. We have a profound, unique connection, one I know without any doubt I could not replicate with another person. In this way, I know he is perfect for me. Despite that knowing, there are times I have been very much challenged. Last night, I was able to see that even his gnarly bits, when I am…
(Continued from “The Bounty of Boundaries”) Bill can be a bit of a drama queen. He too is sensitive, like Suzie, but in a different way. He can easily lose his sense of self with others, should someone say something that may trigger him into feeling that he is a bad person. It could be the simplest thing. But for him, it becomes big. He then allows himself to get taken over by the idea of being a bad person, to the point that his drama queen will act out to draw attention to himself, so he can feel temporarily better. But like any painful cycle, drama can become exhausting. So Bill has been courageously doing therapy to look into these self-destructive patterns. Interestingly, Bill is an active devotee of the Hindu warrior goddess Kali. When faced with tricky, dark energies, Kali is never sucked in. Without a moment’s hesitation, She fiercely pulls out her sword, fully present for whatever is before Her. With razor sharp discernment that cuts through even the subtle complexities of Time and Karma, She severs any demonic ties and protects the evolution of light. Bill could choose to feel a victim to life and use his drama queen tendencies to act out his pain. Or he could choose to see his…
Problems May Actually Be Opportunities Dear Parvati, Someone said to me the other day that even the things about myself that I don’t like are actually gifts. How can this be true? Sometimes it’s easier to learn about ourselves by observing others. I have found watching people in my life, (at times working my way though judgment, blame, anger, guilt, envy or jealousy – the whole range of emotions one can project onto another), I have been inadvertently taught by those around me. Take one friend of mine, let’s call her Suzie. She is a wonderfully sensitive person who loves the arts, nature and has a real affinity for healing. She also is an addict. Suzie courageously goes to SLA meetings (sex and love anonymous) to face her co-dependency tendencies and to help her find the inner strength to look at and heal her addictive patterns. Through her friendship, I have found myself learning to be present for her ups and downs, finding new ways to express understanding, compassion and patience. I have also had a powerful mirror to face parts of my shadow, such as tendencies to judge, become self-righteous or impatient. Recently Suzie and I were talking, when suddenly I found myself suggesting that I felt her addiction could be seen as a tool,…