FAITH and the way I see it

This week I pray for FAITH.

I just returned from Northern California.

It was not part of my planned trips for these last few months of 2014.  However, an email about studying with the elders, a retreat with the Sequoia Trees, showed up in my inbox.  I sent a Thank you email for the inspiration and please keep me posted for upcoming trips in 2015.  

I get a phone call Wednesday night telling me that there is space and what would it take to make this trip hahahappen and be in California on Friday.  I was going to say No.  I already had plans for the weekend (visions of pink and SisterGoddesses and South Beach).  And a flight less than 48 hours away?  Hahaha.

To tell you the truth, thinking of the trees brought me great pleasure - a warmth in my heart and a tingling of excitement in my body.  I  took a deep breath and had a good laugh.  I said YES let me see what I can find.  I got on the internet to check itineraries and prices.

For those of us who have booked last minute travel - especially from Florida to California - price of airfare can be pretty hefty.  Direct flights from Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco were $1,200 pre tax.   I was about to give up a when a little pop-up for USAir showed up on my screen.  A non-direct flight through Charlotte with minimal layover time would have me arriving on time to San Francisco to meet the designated shuttle.   The flight price was a more reasonable $460.00 tax included.  Trying to book the flight online proved futile.  I picked up the phone and had a pleasant conversation with a young man named Josh.  He pushed some buttons and typed in code and all of a sudden for $400.00 and points, I was traveling first class to California and back.  My NO turned into an emphatic YES YES YES.

Once I had my tickets, I called to find out where exactly in California this retreat would occur.  Ben Lomond, the voice at the other end of the phone said.  Ben Lomond?  Of all the cities in California,  this is one I know quite well.   My cousins - Auntie Sylvia's niece and great niece and great great nephew hahahappen to live in Ben Lomond.  I've been blessed to be in Ben Lomond twice for weddings.

I could see Auntie Sylvia's hand, RIP, all over this trip.

Friday morning at 5:00 a.m., less than 24 hours after purchasing my ticket, I boarded my flight. I was beyond exhahahahausted.  Besides getting up at 3:00 a.m. to catch my flight, we had Auntie Sylvia's funeral the day before.  My emotions were a mess as was I.

I surrendered my fears and concerns and not knowing to the Universe and started my adventure.

The privilege of first class, it is quite nice.  You are the first to board the airplane, one of the first to deplane.  There is always space overhead for a carry on and there is no fee to check in a baggage. The seats are big enough to sit crisscross applesauce (once you take off your shoes).  Blankets are provided to ward off the chill and you are only a few rows from the bathroom up front.  You also get as much water, as often, as you want.   

Leaving Florida's warm and balmy 77 degrees - I encountered Charlotte's freezing and blistering winds and 34 degrees and then transitioned to the sunny and frigid skies of San Francisco registering at 54 degrees.   However, the landscape totally shifted as did my state of mind.  The 1 1/2 hour drive in the shuttle helped me loosen my layers.  I was finally able to release all the pressure and stress and tension that had been accumulating in my body.  As we climbed into the mountains and were surrounded by trees, I took a deep breath of the crisp air.

I had the pleasure of meeting a tribe of bee Goddesses - women who identify with bees as a busyness model - women who had heard the calling of the Trees and gathered in Ben Lomond at the Sequoia Retreat Center to be nestled in the Redwoods.   These Elders, Sequoias or California Redwoods are the tallest trees on earth.   They grow in a very narrow strip along the coast of California.

I came here to learn about being grounded and rooted into the Earth.  I found my way here to find my balance.  I was led here to remember my purpose.  I am here to release my stress and hahahand it to the Trees.    I am here now to be One with the Elders and uncover my bliss.

I am here hugging trees.  There is something so magical about connecting with a tree trunk and putting your arms around it. When I am still with the tree, I can feel energy coursing out of me and right through to the tree.  In return, I am filled with a sense of peace and comfort.

It has now been confirmed by science that hugging trees can beneficially affect human health by altering vibrational frequency.    Read More: HERE

I was under a lot of stress this past month.  Trying to cope with family illness and helping parents adjust to a new way of living and being an aunt and a domestic Goddess that maintains and runs my household - it's been a little overwhelming.  I kept on thinking I had to do it all.  I was taking life way too seriously and not having as much fun on this Heaven on Earth as I am entitled to enjoy.

I needed to return to the trees to gain perspective and patience. I had to sit under the trees' shade and do some deep breathing and being.

Trees give me a reality check - they dwarf me until I remember that I am but a speck in this Universe. They reMIND me that all is well and this too shall pass.

I am humbled by my experience with these trees. Their size - their beauty - the energy of peace I feel when amongst these giants - it helps me laugh at my life.  It helps me laugh at the things I take so seriously and focus on what I take for granted in my life.  My faith is restored when walking amongst the Elders and kissing their sacred skin.

Mike Dooley, at www.tut.com, shahahares this story about Faith:

Yesterday I watched a small bird, flying very fast, disappear into the canopy of an oak tree. So dense were its leaves that it was impossible to see what happened next, though I can tell you it remained inside.

I wondered how the little bird found its opening through the leaves at such a speed, and then managed to gently align its fragile body on the branch it chose to land upon, all within a fraction of a second. Not to mention the impossible to imagine flying maneuvers required: the banking, the curling, the vertical and horizontal stabilizations, the deceleration and landing.

Memory? Calculation? Not in that tiny brain. Instinct? Maybe, but how does instinct know which way the branches of a tree have grown when no two are the same?

That little bird just knew. It had faith, in spite of not being able to see how things would work out, that if (and only if) it stayed the course the details would be taken care of; that an opening would appear and a twig would be found. In fact, had she slowed down enough to carefully and logically inspect the tree first, the prudent thing to do, she would have lost her lift and fallen to the ground.

Kind of like reaching for your dreams. Neither memory, nor calculating, nor instincts are the deciding factors, but faith coupled with action.
Tallyho,

The Universe

Here's a little bit more about Sequoia Trees and climbing them.   This is Richard Preston's Ted Talk on Climbing the World's Biggest Trees

P.S.  I did get to hahahang with my cousins in Ben Lomond and meet a whole new generation of cousins.  Auntie Sylvia and her sisters are laughing up there in heaven seeing that our family keeps on growing so beautifully, like these trees.

INTEGRITY

This week I pray for integrity.

This week I made choices that were so totally freeing to my soul and yet  contradictory to my family’s tradition and culture.

This weekend was Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year.  According to Chabad.org, it is the "day on which we are closest to G-d and to the quintessence of our own souls.  It is the Day of Atonement.  For nearly twenty six hours, practicing Jews abstain from food and drink, washing their bodies and sex.   They pray indoors, in a synagogue, in a type of religious fervor until the end of the Fast when they share food together.

This tradition no longer felt right for me.   On so many different levels, I was seeking a more spiritual experience of connecting with my divinity.    Friday night, after sitting with my parents for their Friday night meal (cooked by LoverBoy – woohoo), I took myself to Raja Yoga at Anuttara Yoga Shala.

This Friday, our class was smaller and more intimate.  I had the opportunity to practice right next to my yoga teacher, Philip, and right in front of a mirror.  The music embraced me while the heat in the room allowed me to release the tension in my muscles and access a deeper layer of myself.

 

This form of practice tranquilizes the mind while energizing the body and soothing the soul.  For me, it is an opportunity to open my body and heart and empty my mind.  My teacher, Philip has a peaceful engaging voice which keeps me present and focused in my body – melting into my bones while my connective tissue expands and my hips open.

As I listened to his gentle voice guide my body, his truthful words were punctuated by powerful thunder that matched the electromagnetic energy we were creating in the room.  A bolt of lightning illuminated the top windows in the Tapas Hall and lit up the statues of Shiva Shakti and made my experience even more mystical. 

Philip reminded us of the sacredness of our practice as it was also the 9^th day of the Navaratri holiday – a Hindu holiday that honors Shakti (the Divine Feminine/Mother) and looks to her for spiritual cleansing, guidance, and enlightenment.    With sweat pouring out of my cells, my body felt limber and my mind was at peace.  I knew I was in the right place, at the right time.

I prayed during my practice for my forgiveness and asked for more compassion and patience with myself.  I prayed for more listening to the guidance from within.  I prayed to the inner child that I honor her and laugh with her and put her first.

Even though this is not how many Jews practice this High HolyDay, this is how this recovering Jew became in integrity with her spirit.    

For me, integrity is finding my way into the world truthfully – not because my parents said so, or religion dictates or this is how everybody does it but rather because it resonates within.  It creates an inner experience that radiates my light into the world.

And so, I laugh at loud and follow my own path, knowing that this is my way of bringing peace into this world and chahahanging history to herstory.

Nico & Vinz sing it like it is.  Enjoy!!!

Art of Doing NO Thing

 

  

Rest and laughter are the most 

spiritual and subversive acts of all.    

Laugh, rest, slow down.

                             

 -  Anne Lamott, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

I've spent years perfecting the Art of Doing No Thing - one of the most difficult things I've ever had to learn to be.

First, I thought doing no thing was taking a day off work and lounging around the house - watching TV, reading a book, catching up on household chores.... I realized I was still doing something.   

I incorporated napping into my schedule.  I would lay there on my bed and while my body was at rest, my mind was running thousands of miles an hour.  Feeling guilty for all the things I should be doing. Not giving myself permission to just be.

I incorporated guided meditations during naptime - listening to someone's voice take me on a journey of the inner recesses of my mind - focusing on a mantra and tuning into the musical soundwaves.  Gradually, my mind slowed down.  Emptied out a little bit.  I realized that I didn't need to sleep.  I just needed to be still.

My dog encouraged me to go outside.  We would sit on the grass doing no thing - listening to the wind blow.  Feet naked in the ground - watching the tree branches sway.  When thoughts would come up, I would watch them and bid them peace and farewell.  Taking a deep breath and focusing on my environment - the luscious grass, the cool earth, the trees providing me with shade.

Laying back on the ground, watching the clouds dance.  Turning over on my stomach, observing the ants marching up and down grass stalks. A whole ecosystem below me - holding me up and providing me comfort.  Connecting my nature to Mother Nature.  It felt so peaceful and energizing.

I realized that slowing down and resting gave me more energy and stamina when I shifted into being a human doing again.

I began to seek other ways to find this delicious peace of resting - this pleasureful sensation of feeling loose and present in my body - relaxed yet aware.

I found it in laughter.   When I have a good laugh, it's like I shaHAhake all my cells up and down.  Everything jiggle and joggles and gets moved about.   A delicious chaHAhaos of breath erupts resulting in peace and pandemonium within.   

In the beginning, to have a good laugh laugh, I watched funny movies or listened to a comedian.  While that helped, it kept my mind going with all sorts of stimuli.   Laughter Yoga - laughing for no reason - brought me the stillness of mind I was seeking.  Engaging my body to function in a way that was pleasure-full to my soul. Creating a sensation of mirth within that would overflow outside of me and make a wonderful sound.

We live in a culture where we are taught to do, do, do - rest is seen as being lazy.  We live in a world of seriousness and stress.  Laughter is not the norm.  Both of these birthrights - Rest and Laughter - taken away as we grow up to fit into our society.

Yet - we seek it.  We crave it.   The pleasure of stillness - of being, resting, laughing.  When we hear it and experience it, it lightens up our soul.   Yes, Anne Lamott, I am a subversive, a pleasure Revolutionary to my core.   Woohoo!!!

JOY TO THE FISHES & THE DEEP BLUE SEA

"Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves

 to recognize how good things really are."

Marianne Williamson

I have a gift  - a talent - something I took for granted for so long because I thought it came easy peasy to every body.

I know how to access my JOY.  I know what it feels like in my bones - I know how it feels to open my heart.   I know how to shahahare it and spread it so others feel it too.  

It's something I practice daily.  I jump for joy.  I dance.  I sing.   I laugh in the sea.  I lay back in the water and let her hold me gently.  I open my mouth and make a sound - hahaha.   I hear it with my ears submerged under the water.  Feeling vibrations in the waves as I flow.

I didn't realize that peeps have become disconnected with their joy.  Misery does love company and peeps love to complain and focus on the one gray cloud in the sky rather than the vastness of  blue and the occasional white cloud ballet.

Most people think that JOY is something outside of us - to be found or acquired.  Actually, it's an energy we knew how to access as children and over the years, we forgot.

JOY is a fire from within. An energy of HAhaHAppy that gets ignited by touch, smell, sound and memory. It's a feeling - a birthright - that we get from the simplest of things.

JOY is about finding the pleasure right NOW. Accepting ALL that is in our lives with grace. Surrendering to the circumstances with gratitude.   For me, this means focusing with an attitude of gratitude on everything that is within and surrounds me. Enthusiasm for my time RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW on this heaven on Earth. Joy at the simple pleasure of being alive and breathing.  Joy at the freedom I have to rise and stretch.  Joy at putting my fingers in paint and plastering a piece of paper with color.  Joy at the opportunity to sing with the birds in the early hours of dawn.  Joy to move and shake and dance - woohoo.

I've spent the last ten years of my life remembering how to shift my focus from outside of me to within. Learning to redirect my energy and attention to a vibration of gratefulness for all the abundance I am blessed with.  Doing this with kindness and compassion for me as I delve deeper into the OMazing miracle of life.

This last week, on Day 12 of Oprah & Deepak's 21 Day Meditation - the theme was Living Laughter.  Deepak shared that: "pure, innocent laughter is the most obvious sign of the joy we feel in our hearts. It is also a powerful and instant way of spreading that joy all around you."  

This gift is so easy and yet so difficult to achieve.   It is so much easier to complain and stay in the negativity. It takes work to shift this mindset and raise our altitude.  It takes just a MOMent to open the heart and share our true nature.   There is no other way to the LOVE that we are.

This spiritual discipline of HAhaHAppy - LAUGHTER - keeps me in the flow of bliss.  I connected to this truth years ago.  I saw people's eyes light up with laughter and I wanted this magic in my life.  I wanted the lightheartedness of spirit that I felt and the energy of ecstasy that I witnessed.   As I let go of things that no longer served me and became a Master at the Art of Doing Nothing, I built my laughter muscle.  I remember recapturing the feeling of childhood and expressing my joy through laughter. It felt so good to relax muscles and organs and just be free to express my heart's haHAhappiness.  Today, the joy i feel in my heart shows up as laughter on my lips - a deep appreciation for all that I have and am in this moment.

"Joy to the World, all the boys and GIRLs.

Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea,

Joy to you and me."

- thahahank you Three Dog Night (see video below)

Zest for Life

When I get up in the morning at the crack of dawn - the first thing I think about is - I am breathing - I am alive - Today is a beautiful day.

I am up at 4:44 am.  I lay in bed and give thanks for my breath and the fact that I am alive and able to move.   I pat my arms and legs and belly and head.  Woohoo!!!

My doggessGoddess GingerMama awaits me on her couch - belly up and tail wagging - time for hugs and loving touch.    I put on my sneakers and out the door we go.   

We start our journey through the neighborhood and serenade the moon as the stars twinkle their love to us.  We chat with the squirrels and listen to the birds communicating through calls and songs.

I love this early morning time - when there is stillness in my community and it just me and Nature (and the other dogs and their owners who are up and about).   I love walking and smelling the trees and exchanging energy with the Earth.

Slowly the sky shifts - the clouds dance - and a canvas of pinks and purples and oranges and blue emerges.   The air is fragrant with plumerias and gardenias and magnolias.  A hint of night blooming jasmine remains.    

I make a wish - I put a desire out into the Universe and then I haHAha and release it.  

We walk for an hour - walking, running, jumping -  getting my heart pumping and my blood circulating.

This is how I start my day.   I feel so blessed and lucky.  

And the best part is that I may get the opportunity to do it all again tomorrow.  Woohoo!!!

DoggessGoddess GingerMama

The HA in CHArisma

I spend time looking for things that make me laugh out loud.   A giggle or chuckle is good.  However, I prefer the breath knocked out of me as I hold my belly and sputter from the mouth and exhaHAhale my HA HAs.  WhaHAhat an invigorating feeling.

I scour YouTube for feel good moments and pleasure practices that activate the right side of my brain and allow me to tap into my belly laughter.  

Why think when you can feel?  

And that is what the essence of Laughter is truly all about.   An inward feeling of joy that bursts out of your mouth and creates sound waves - ripples that touch others.  Allowing sound vibration to emanate from within.  ShaHAharing enerchi, breath, PRANA, just by exHAhaHAling what is inside of us.   

That is what ChaHAharisma is all about - the bliss of shaHAharing what makes me juicy - an energy emanating - a vibration - a joie de vivre - an excitement for what life has to offer in every MOMent.  And shaHAharing is caring.  I am a big LOVEcat and so I transfer my enthusiasm with every breath I take.

ExhaHAhaustion

As I write this, I have been up for 34 hours with no end in sight. Sitting in the airport in Guayaquil, waiting for this flight to arrive so it can empty and bring me back to Miami.

I am past the point of tired - my body and brain functioning on overdrive, emotions all stirred up. I sit here on the brink of tears and start to giggle. I mean, it's just so silly really. Being in an airport surrounded by people and yet feeling so alone and vulnerable. Trying to keep myself from nodding off and losing control of my body.

I laugh, a shy humming HaHa - feeling the vibration of air on my tongue. I tap my thumbs to my different fingers - ho ho ha ha hee hee ho ho - ho ho ha ha hee hee ho ho - developing a rhythm that feels good - as I feel my fingers pulsating with energy. Heat in my hands from the repetitive motion, I am slowly awakening from within.

A smile creeps onto my face as I look around at the other passengers also waiting for their flights. A woman across from me smiles back. A conversation starts. As I speak, my tongue slips into gibberish. My new friend and I start laughing and laughing and laughing. Laughing so hard that I need to pee.

The wave of exhaHAhaustion passes. Calmer, I surrender to this experience and know that soon I will be boarding my flight and closing my eyes.

HAhaHAllelujah

Yesterday, I went to Hopewell Baptist Church for a Fifth Sunday service.  

Any time there are Five Sundays in a month, the women of the Hopewell Community take over the stage, the pulpit and the choir.  

An all female choir dressed in white, prayers and messages from the pastor's wife and the Sisters - the energy is electric and eclectic. The women light up the sanctuary with joy and music.  When that sound permeates your soul, you can see and feel the fervor of their devotion to
their song and God. 

I sit amongst the Elder Sisters, Queens, as they are respectfully called.  We sit in the first three pews and we belt out our Hallelujahs and Amens as we sing along.

SisterGoddess Alice (gorgeous Goddess in purple, below) and I hold hands and share our HAhaHAllelujahs and then look at each other and crack up laughing.

We have so much fun and get totally energized by joining our voices as one with the Women of Victory on the stage.

There is something about singing and laughing together, in community, that is so very powerful and replenishing to the soul.

A great big thaHAhank you to SisterGoddess Susan for inviting me to join her Hopewell family and for being up on the stage shining her light bright.