Labyrinths

I haven't posted in a long time. Earlier this month I had the chance to go to Maui. While I was there, I and 18 colleagues- admin staff, social workers and nurses- visited The Sacred Garden owned and operated by Eve Hogan, author of The Way of the Winding Path. What a treat!

We listened to Eve talk about the labyrinth as a metaphor for the way we lived our life and few other metaphorical stories to capture our imaginations and allow us to think in new ways. While we were there, we had a chance to walk her 11-circut labyrinth modeled after the Chartres Cathedral in France.

It was a pleasure to walk it with my fellow co-workers and it did indeed reflect a lot of what I have been feeling about my role at the clinic and allowed for an opportunity to pause in time and place and reflect.

What I want to talk about now though is the labyrinth I have busily been working on for the last several days.

 

I came home and within days went to work on a snow labyrinth in my backyard. Well if walking a labyrinth is a metaphor for how we live in the real world, I can tell you that much more so is the making of a labyrinth. 

I started out with the idea and then told Steve, my wonderful husband. He had lots of input, but wasn't rushing to make it for me. I decided it *needed* to be built and headed outside on a mild Sunday morning. I was trying to make it while being followed around by my 9-year-old twins. I love them dearly, but in a middle of this project all I could say was: "This isn't relaxing yet. This is very stressful, you need to stop talking. I'm trying to do math!" I was being completely ignored by my 11 1/2 year-old daughter. 

I marked out the pattern of where the walls would go by walking the diagram in my hand. No problem. Then I tried to invert it. I needed to make the part that was my foot tracks into walls the parts that were currently raised into paths! This might not be my thing. Did I mention that I *needed* to build the labyrinth? The design wasn't complicated, (classic 7-circuit design), but the inversion was tricky. Was I supposed to put a little wall of snow here or there? Where were the lines and where was the path going to be?

Steve sat quietly out of the way in his office until I called into the back hall and down the stairs (while the 9-year-olds were giving me advice about it all). I couldn't come in to the house too far since I was covered with snow... and determined! Steve came out and followed the drawing like a puzzle to assist me in where the walls would be. You can't tell from the picture here, but when Steve came out, I had the first wide ring of lights; then a ring of a rope; a ring of the garden hose that might have a leak; then a ring of lights that don't seem to work; then a ring of the lights that do work, but aren't plugged in.... all in an attempt to figure out where to stomp down the snow to make a path. Oh, and there were some weird blue lines in the snow made by a spray bottle with blue dye. It kept the twins busy, but I have one sink permanently stained blue.

Steve came out and helped with the end part. He solved the puzzle! It was just about a project that would have no ending (literally, since the labyrinth pattern was wrong and kept going in a never-ending circle!) Just when I thought it couldn't be built, Steve came out and declared it a working labyrinth. It all came together! I took this picture and put it on FB, declaring a success!

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Then it snowed. Then I went to walk it. 

I had made a goat path! How could I have invited people over to walk it? I could barely put one foot in front of the other in some places. It might be the most lame labyrinth of the entire arctic wintery history! This is terrible. 

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Finally a few days later I had a day off. I went out with a spade, an edger (think: for sod) and a kids size shovel (the perfect width, but a short handle). I spent two hours carving the snow and increasing the width of the paths! What a life reflection! 

First I started around the wide outside edges. No problem. Man! Am I good! People are going to come to this labyrinth walk and think I'm great. They are going to LOVE it! This is wonderful! I am wonderful! 

Then I got tired. I was really sweating under all my fleece at -15 C! What was I thinking? I shouldn't have people over. They are going to judge this, but tell me it's fine. Its not fine!

Okay, I can do this. Its hard, but really love what I'm doing. I'm SO happy to have a labyrinth in my backyard. Who cares what people think? This is fantastic. I am literally carving out my spiritual journey. I need that. My clients need that-- carving out time and space for oneself. This is important (but really hard) work that I am doing. Its so pertinent to personal development. I'm on a roll! 

I started to get REALLY tired, but I was getting closer to the middle- only three more circuits to go. I can't believe that the paths are this narrow. What was I thinking when I made this? Why would I have done such a terrible job? People won't be able to pass on this walkway. I'll do it better next year. Who am I kidding? I won't make this again. This is way too hard. I should give up now. I can't keep shoveling out these paths. They are too narrow and the snow is too powdery to stay up on the little walls. I should just go in and forget about it. 

Then I cleaned out the snow in the centre. 

I can do this. Look where I am. Who else can say that they physically created a spiritual path? Really! I HAVE A LABYRINTH! This should make the news. This is great! This is the best thing of the year! I actually did it! Do I have enough pictures? One picture won't be enough. I should take more. I wonder how I could get more lights. (ie: 'not enough' thinking- even though I had a lot!).

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Then I walked the labyrinth. I went inside first actually. I took a shower, changed and ate lunch. I felt rejuvenated. I went out to visit my new-and-improved-paths. I walked along the outside edges and I walked along the inside edges listening to mediation music on my phone. I felt satisfied. I kept thinking about who else would come and walk this labyrinth before it melted? How much joy could the labyrinth mete out before it was gone and the girls' trampoline was in its place? Nothing lasts forever, but I will enjoy this while I can. Holy cow! I am SO lucky!

I came to the middle of the labyrinth and paused with a deep breath. I felt the brightness of the sun on my face. And I felt the cold wind on my cheeks. It was still -15 and now it felt like it. 

"I have arrived!",  I thought.

"I am surrounded by the warmth and beauty of my family and my home and my yard."

"I am grateful for all that I have."

"I am enough. 

I have enough.

I do enough."

Ahhh.... Enough. Is there a better word in the English language? 

Now its time to go in and make supper. 

No pretense. No self-doubt. No judgement. Just living to live. Just walking the sacred path because it is carved. Feeling satisfied. It is carved because I chose it to be. How lucky am I? SO lucky! This will only stay a short while and I will appreciate every minute of it. I promise. :-)

With love,

Heather.

The dark passage of grace

Every midwife knows
that not until a mother’s womb
softens from the pain of labour
will a way unfold
and the infant find that opening to be born.
Oh friend!
There is treasure in your heart,
it is heavy with child.
Listen.
All the awakened ones,

like trusted midwives are saying,
'welcome this pain.
It opens the dark passage of Grace.
~Rumi

 

The truth of this quote is ancient. It is the first step on the path of enlightenment; it is the foundation of therapy; it is the key to happiness!

We all do it. We see the pain. We smell the pain. We have a bit of a sense of the pain and we walk away in the other direction. We keep ourselves busy and distracted. We avoid. We numb. We complain. We do anything we can to avoid taking the first step. That is the step into and *through* the pain. 

The mistake we make is in falsely believing that if we feel the feelings of the pain we will never return. We falsely believe that if we move into the pain we will either break in a way that we can't be fixed or be lost in a way that we can't be found. 

Imagine this: (I wish I could draw on a blog).

Numb/ Avoid          <-----    YOU ------> PAIN    ------->     Everything you dreamed possible.

Misery                                                        

2 x 4 over the head

 

We go in the opposite direction of the pain.  We are not happy. We might even be miserable, but it is a misery with which we are familiar and so we keep at it. 

In the numbing and avoiding we are living our lives, but are not happy. We feel stressed, rushed, in survival mode, unable to keep up. We are spinning our wheels in obligation. Trying to get by. We feel alone and depressed or angry and resentful. We have no time for self-care: eating well, exercising, self-reflection and self-love.


We won't take time to stop and when we do stop, we numb.

I think of hitting oneself over the head with a 2 x 4. We keep doing what we have always done because we are so afraid to put down the 2 x 4. Even though what we are doing hurts us we don't know what we would do if we weren't doing this. We are afraid of the PAIN and we are afraid of what is on the other side of it. The void on the other side is a fear only second to the PAIN.

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This is the first step- put down the avoiding/ numbing/complaining behaviors. Dare to walk away from the misery. 

Then you will have to see the PAIN. You will have to admit to the whiff in the air of the thing you are trying to avoid. Each person's pain carries it's own name, but after exploring you will call it worthlessness. You will see that the misery comes from avoiding the feeling that without the misery you feel worthless. This is the reason for the fear of the pain. This is the core of the pain for each of us. It is a part of the human condition.

The recognition of this is the pain akin to labor in childbirth. This is the pain you are avoiding. And it is in moving through this pain that you will find grace. 

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Grace = Exhale. (Take a big breath right now. Allow an exhale. Try it.) 

This is the place of redemption. It is in this grace that you will find the gift of self-forgiveness. You will pay-off the debt: the price you have been paying in misery.

You will be free to feel the love of which you are apart. The greater love of the world- the stuff that is the binding force of connection between us all.

This is the place of worthiness. Of knowing: your value is demonstrated in simply being. There is nothing you need to do to be of value. You simply are. And that is enough.

This is a place of self-realization or divine love. By all names it is the same place and it is waiting for you.

********

It is in this grace that you will find that all of your dreams are possible. You belive this will be a scary place to go. You are afraid of what you will find when you see the treasure of your heart and the vastness of this love.

 I will tell you the name of this place: it is a life of ease. A place where you can create the life you can't yet imagine. It is a place where there is no striving to keep up and survive; no need to struggle to prove your worth. In this place you can be who you are and live without fear of the PAIN.  You no longer need to avoid/ numb/ complain. You can create the life of your dreams.

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I invite you to explore this place (even though you may not think it applies to you). You may accept and yet spend many hours outside the door of PAIN examining the edges and thinking about the frame's construction. Vacuuming the rug you imagine to be right outside this door. I know. I have been there. I have thought the door would not be worthwhile. 

I urge you to know that it is simply by walking through and facing the truth of this PAIN that you will move through into the place of your dreams- a place where you discover the treasure within your heart and the vastness of great love.

It is with great love that I leave you with these thoughts. 

Heather. 

One more time...

Many of my FB friends and anyone who has read more than the intro page of my website will know that I lost 100 lbs over 3 years. (Yay me!) I did it with a lot of hard work and the support of Weight Watchers. They are a great group for on-going support for healthy living. I had a lot of cheering friends and family as well, but mostly I had my own inner determination. Weight loss was a mountain I was going to climb! And I did. At my peak fitness I ran a 10k race in 63 minutes.

Well, like 97% (!!) of people who lose weight I gained some of mine back. It's been 2 years since I made my weight loss goal and I have gained back 30lbs. :-(

I like to think that I know one or two things and so I should be able to keep my weight off. I know that I dealt with the underlying issues for why I protected myself behind excess fat. I know that my intensive years of spiritual work let me shed old skins and move in to new ways of being. I know that I am not the same person I was 7 years ago. So how on earth did I slip right back into old patterns?!

I have lots of excuses. When I have listed my reasons in confession to confidants I hear that they are good reasons (ya gotta love the people who love you!). And they are good-enough excuses: DIY renovations, a sick family member, an intense University course etc. But the real reason is a layer or two deeper than that.

It's about the gravity of habit (As I learned from Ellie Hernon). For all the changes we can go through, we still have a comfortable baseline that we fall back on. We rely on the comfort of the place that is familiar. We do work on the Self and there is an elevation. From this place, we understand a bigger picture and we cultivate and create energy to move into another place. However, there is always the other pull. The weight of gravity that pulls us to the earth and to our comfortable habit and way of being.

For me, it's about accepting food in social gatherings big and small because I am enjoying the love. Its about confusing self-indulgence with self-care as I get a quiet moment to myself. It's about missing work-outs and long runs because I am a Very Very Busy Person and I don't have time for those. It's a place I lived for a lot of years and it's a familiar repetitive pattern: the worse I feel, the more I eat. The more I eat, the less I move. The less I move, the worse I feel. It feels like the Rock of Gibraltar. It's not pleasant over the long term, but it is a place I know well.

Deeper than that, it's about falling into a pattern of putting other peoples' needs ahead of my own. (Ouch, that hurts!) It's true. I am a middle child/ mother/ helping professional and my default is to help others before taking care of myself. In fact, in the moment, I can even feel a little noble about sacrificing my own needs. I will also do it with one area of my life over another. I will choose to focus so greatly on renovations or volunteer work or something else that I will neglect my own personal needs. The sacrifice becomes the excuse for the treat or the missed work out. As I write this now, that sounds weird and wrong to me, but I know it's part of my Rock that when left unchecked, I will just keep rolling up the hill.

You know what though? It doesn't work. I felt like crap. Over the last 6 months in particular, my mental state went from feeling my life was a fantastic gift full of joy and love to feeling like I couldn't handle things. And the more I felt like things were hard, the more I turned to the familiar comfort of sacrificing, eating and sitting.

I am happy to say that I this is recently past tense. After a particularly crazy summer and fall (and who am I kidding- winter, too) I am on the upswing. I am back to working out, running and yoga. I can feel the difference. I sleep better. I eat better. I enjoy my family more. I am happier!

Sure there is still the reality that when I was losing weight, it was like a part-time job. I spent a fair amount time dealing with my food and working out. I don't want to have a life where I have to spend that much time and be that focused, but I do want to do it better.

Instead of climbing Weight Loss Mountain (and apparently rolling down it again!), I want to make a new comfortable home on the mountain. I want to find the place that isn't at the pinnacle of fitness or the apex of professional achievement or even (gasp) the peak of spiritual enlightenment. I want to live on that part of the mountain that offers an integration of all these things- spirit, body and mind. I want to live in all of these aspects of my life everyday.

Here is what I think the secret to this particular spot on the mountain might be; the simplest lesson of them all: take care of your self.

Eat properly. Drink water. Get enough rest. Move your body. Have quiet time alone in your head. Have time with loved ones. Let your own needs be met. Allow yourself to care and nurture your Self- everyday.

It seems too easy to be true, doesn't it? It even feels a little disappointing to think that's it. Well, I think its one of those life truths that is easy to espouse, but remarkably difficult to achieve:

Put the rock down and walk away.

Dare to meet your needs.

Whoa!

Thanks for reading.

Heather.

The Value of an Empty Mind

Isn't your mind mostly full, most of the time? Mine is. I run the to-do lists. Think about the family calendar. Think about what someone said recently or something I heard on the radio. I am always in a conversation in my head. I challenge you to become aware of your thoughts over the next 24 hours. Spend a day watching your thoughts and see what you see. I think you will be surprised how busy your mind actually is!

One thing I notice with my kids in school this year (after homeschooling for Grades 1-3), is that a big chunk of their day is filled with filling their minds. Facts and processes about letters, numbers, nature, art. "Listen. We're telling you something. You need to know this to make it in the world." This is the message schools give.

But here is the problem: The incessant chatter inhibits another whole level of thought processing.

An empty mind is a beautiful mind. Instead of having to focus on a task (listening to someone talk or working out a problem linearly), an empty mind can engage in more abstract thought and take illogical jumps from one place to another. Achieving an empty mind takes time. It takes s l o w i n g down and that's hard. Lately I have to take a whole day. It starts in the morning with time keeping my body busy- washing dishes, running, driving about the town running errands. Then I eat lunch and make some tea. My living room couch has often been my place to slow down my mind. I put on some mind-numbing music. The kind that acts as white noise to the myriad of thoughts. Something with an om or a repetitive beat that acts like a trance.

The state of an empty mind is a trance; a form of meditation; an altered state of consciousness. It's not simply daydreaming. From this place there are other ways of experiencing thought. The conversations at this level of consciousness are not about the physical world or the network of society. It's a slower pace or as some might say, a higher level of vibration. This place is a whole new world. From here creative thought-- the form of original ideas can happen. From this place I can take stock of my life and see what I want to change or appreciate. From this place I can connect with spirit and flow freely in a universal pool of love.

Children need this too. For a child, the empty mind means a chance to ask her own questions. To explore how things work and how things could work if there were no laws of physics. It is a opportunity for creative expression, but also a chance to connect to a larger space and place- to hear her own guides and know her place in a world beyond this one. It's like connecting to home at a soulful level.

To often we think that a full mind, a busy mind, is a productive one. Well that's not true. An empty mind has it's own kind of productivity: it fills your emotional cup, connects you to your larger sense of being and allows you to just simply be- right now, loved and valued for you.

After you watch your busy mind for 24 hours, I challenge you: take an hour and *allow* your mind to empty out. No immediate acting on good ideas. No TV. No directing meditation CDs. I would suggest rhythmic and repetitive music though. Just allow your mind to empty. Don`t push on it. Don`t pull. Just let it be. Remember to set your intention to have this empty-mind experience, but not fall asleep. Start with sitting up. Then just let the thoughts come and then let them go.

When you feel a conversation starting, get a pen. Write down one or two words or more if they come to mind. Play and see what happens. This is the place of your intuitive voice. This is the place of a new experience in the way of being.



Heather.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. ~ Gothe

I have been talking to people lately about how they are planning for their next steps: their FUTURE. Most people work out logical plans for steps to take to get to what they want. It's a planning process that looks like this:

My goal is to have a summer home on Vancouver Island.

First step: go back to school.
Second step: get a job where I make more money.
Third step: get money to buy summer home.

So, when you ask this person: "What do you want?" Their answer is: "I want to go back to school?"

Really?

No.

What they really want is the summer home on the Island. So, why not start there? Why take these long routes around?

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it!
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
~Gothe

This is the difference between planning and manifesting. Planning has a goal and steps. Its path is seen from Point A to Point B to Point C and so on. There is no room to maneuver and wiggle and change.

Manifesting isn't a series of concrete steps. To manifest something, you hold the focus of your intent in an elevated state of consciousness (1) and then you simply let it go. That isn't to say that you do nothing toward your goal. Of course you do, but you don't hold it tight in your fist.

Imagine a child holding a beautiful butterfly. To love it intensely and try to possess it, is to kill it. To release it, is to love it with grace. This is the way to love your dream.

Here is an example from my life. I used to weigh more than 250 lbs and smoke. (Oh, so unhealthy!) I was about 18 months into doing circle work (1) and I reached a place where I was able to hold "health". What I mean by that is, I had both the state of consciousness and the focus to be a healthy person right now.

But, I was still overweight and smoked. I didn't appear any different from the outside. What had changed is that I was no longer: "the smoker" or "the fat girl." Like taking off a coat, I was able to shed those identities. Now I wore the identity of "healthy person."

I was able to shed those identities because I was living with a different state of consciousness. I was able to gather the multitude of fractured intentions within my self and hold a singular focus. From this place I was the new person: "healthy person" and from here it wasn't nearly as difficult to take that weight off. Healthy people rarely weigh that much so I didn't need all that extra padding on me now.

That was 2007. Four years later I have long since given up smoking, lost 100 lbs and I run for fun. I could never have done that if I wasn't able to wear the identity of "healthy person."


Back to the example of the summer home. If that is what you want, are you able to be that person now? Can you hold the place of "I am a person who owns a summer home on the Island."

Does that sound pompous to you?
Do you hold a belief about people who have a lot of money?
Do you hold a belief about how you are able to come to such luxurious things?
Do all rewards have to be proceeded by hard work?

Hmmmm... if you think that rich is inherently bad and that only work will lead to good things (and even then, not too good, just moderately good), how will you ever be the person who owns a summer home on the Island? You will only ever be the person who struggles to be that wealthy.

So, take a moment and think about the thing you want. The thing you truly want. Are you a person who can hold that?

And if you are: begin it! Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.

And if you are struggling under the weight of that desire, come in. This is the work we can do together.

With love,
Heather.



(1) From A Mind for Mastery (unpublished manuscript) by Ellie Hernon.
Spiritual counesling information here: http://www.pointonthepath.com/

Spirit and Abortion

This is a non-traditional perspective on spirit and abortion. I know there are different views on this. This is mine.

Each woman is different in how she perceives pregnancy and abortion. For some women they have worked out their beliefs and how to make sense of abortion in a spiritual context, but for many women the choice to have an abortion brings a spiritual crisis. A woman may question when life begins, if there is a God and what makes a person good or bad.

Our access to abortion has meant that now we are burdened by choice. Whereas once our grandmothers were burdened by pregnancy and childbirth every year without reprieve, we are burdened by choice. What is right? What is wrong? We weigh the pros and cons of making the choice to terminate a pregnancy.

Choice is a gift, but it is also fraught with difficulty. We can only rely on our logic and our on our conscience when we need to decide what is best our self, our partner, our children and the fetus we have not met. Often our logic and our conscience are in opposition.

Many women cannot work out logically how they can possibly proceed with a unintended pregnancy. Each woman may have many things that prevent her from thinking it’s a good idea to have a child right now. However, her conscience fears that there may already be an individual spirit or soul connected to the pregnancy. A woman in this circumstance may fear that she is killing a soul or an individual spirit and in this, feels separate from God or Spirit.

I believe that when a woman has an abortion, although she does indeed terminate or kill the fetus on a physical level, she cannot kill spirit. We don’t have that power. If there is an individual spirit connected to a pregnancy, it is so much closer to the place from where it came- its original spiritual source- than it is to the physical plane. The spirit simply returns home.

It’s really a bit arrogant to believe that we can kill spirit or energy. This is the stuff the whole entire universe is made from. Who am I to be able to kill that? I can only control some things in the physical world, not the matter of the whole universe. That’s the burden of something or someone greater than I. It is not me.

On the spiritual plane that spirit or life-energy continues. If there is an individual spirit connected to a pregnancy, it may choose (or be chosen) to return to this physical place, but it may not. Maybe the purpose of that spirit was simply to be the fetus that you terminated. Perhaps the turbulent emotions or the changes that have come from this pregnancy and abortion are the message to you. And that is all you needed from this spirit. However, maybe that spirit will be connected to you again in the future in some way. If there really is meant to be a little spirit or soul for you to know, you will. You can’t stop that.

I read on a poster somewhere:

“ You are NOT in charge of the entire universe. That’s my job. Love, God.”


I believe that is true.

With love,

Heather.