The people I love the deepest and the truest all have something in common:  a fierce independence that finds its center in god and the soul.  They all hold in common that the arbiter of their actions is not located out in the world, but in a deep and personal connection to inner guidance and listening to a greater intelligence navigating their lives.  Of course, this means that there is absolutely nothing I can do to control them.  It’s impossible for such people to be fully themselves in the context of control.  They navigate by an authority that is divine, human and entirely emergent through their own listening.  It’s terrifying to love such a person – because one never knows what they will decide or what God will decide for them.  But, it is this kind of love that shows us what love really is, not on romantic human terms, but on the terms the universe offers us to understand what life and love and consciousness really are.

To love such a person is to really love, to love unconditionally, to love as an art of setting another free.

In my experience, this is unconditionality is both a prerequisite to and an ongoing foundational practice within any relationship that “works”.  It’s not easy.  It’s the hardest thing, and the most beautiful thing.  The pleasure it offers is it’s own reward.  But, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.  It’s just that, if you want a  relationship that is really honest and true, courageous and surrendered, and authentic to your soul, it’s the only way to go.  It’s the only path to soul level, sustained intimacy, whether with a lover, a friend, a child, a parent or a colleague.  Unconditional love empowers each person to be wholly themselves.  It supports each person to engage the other and the relationship itself (which  is a third intelligence) from what is truly present rather than from what is past or what is projected into the future.

It takes a lot of maturity, softness and courage to create a relationship that lives in the present moment – a lot – because you don’t get to lean on future guarantees or projections based in past experience.  You don’t get to create contracts to control each other or keep the other safe from experiences projected into the relationship from the past or onto the future because the past was scary.    Rather, you operate from a primary contract to protect and uphold each other’s liberation.  You get to gather yourselves into the present moment continuously as you do the healing work that inevitably comes up around the past and around what shows up on the path of your relating in the present.

This is the only true union -  a moment by moment dissolution into love, honesty, co-creation, trust, presence, vulnerability and all the pleasure, pain, wonder, stillness, inspiration, awareness and responsibility that arises when we give ourselves totally.  Why would we do this?  Simply because we can.  Simply because we are given to do so.  Simply because we need each other in order to truly know what it is to be free.

Ceaseless fascination with the songs of light, the turning of seasons, and the camera’s invitation to co-create with the eye of god.  photo:  ss

Hey Friend,

This is an invitation to pause.

Imagine, just for a few minutes, the world you really want to live in – the one Yoko and John showed us, the one where you get to romp in the grass everyday, where the sun warms your skin, where your body is radiantly healthy, where everyone dances regularly, and where our parents  and children and partners and lovers and neighbors are true friends.

Bring in the color.  Tune up the sound.  Make a smell symphony.  Melt into it… just for a minute, let yourself have the world you imagine.

Where are you?  Perhaps it is the home you never fully let yourself dream of, the relationship you thought was impossible, the business they said would fail.  Or, perhaps it is the healing practice they said wasn’t valuable, or the art that nobody listened to, or the the silence you thought you needed to cover in order to be heard…

Go there.  Extend the instant.  Extend the interval.  That is where your real power lies – right there – in the center of your imagination.  That’s god power at work.  Don’t let it die.

What can you imagine into existence?

“BUT…” you say, “I’m not sure I deserve this.  I’m not sure it’s possible.  I won’t be supported.  What if I die?”

Imagine, just for this moment, that the universe loves you, that every single thing that has ever happened to you, is happening to you, or will ever happening to you, is perfectly aligned with your soul’s plan for itself and god’s plan for you.   Just let that in.  And, just for today, take another few steps into LIVING INTO the world you imagine.

Two(+) keys for today:

Give the world the benefit of the doubt. 

‘Notice whether you imagine (project) good intentions or negative intentions onto the actions or others.  Withdraw the judgement and simply imagine that that person or situation is doing it’s very very best to come to a higher order of resolution with challenge or change.  Notice how this is profoundly relieving for you, because then you are no longer carrying the weight of that judgement.  Repeat… notice.  Find a more charged situation.  Do it again.

Imagine new life where you currently perceive dysfunction or death.

We all have those things we look away from because they are unpleasant, or deadened places within our selves or our world.  Often, we don’t know what to do about them, so we ignore them, or simply cope with them.   Examples:  the knee issue you’ve been nursing for two years but “have just gotten used to living with,” the homeless person whose particular energy and presence speaks mysteriously to you, but who you’ve never said “hi” to, the bare rooftops I’m looking at right now, that I imagine everyday as gardens, solar catchers and water movers.  Every single thing you see that tugs at your body, heart and soul for an authentic response is an opportunity in latent form.  These things invite you to apply your imagination to co-create a higher octave of being, of response, of solution or resolution or connection in your own life and in the world.  Where in your life are you ignoring a potent opportunity to turn towards a challenge or a pain with creative openness to grow, to give and to be changed?  Where are you pushing something away because it doesn’t fit your preferences or fantasy image of your life?  Choose one thing or situation.  Imagine it as a part of the world you want to see – with your heart wide open – and see what new responses arise.

Bonus Key:

“Better Than Imagined”

For me, the most potent key (or prayer) is the one where I use my imagination to conjure and coalesce the most beautiful, elegant, lovingly created thing (like Dancing Freedom, for example, or the organic feast I cooked on Saturday night), then I GIVE IT UP TO GOD, trusting that’s the Greater Intelligence of creation is a more brilliant, diverse, genius co-creator than me alone.  This is where true magic happens.  All you need to do is to allow yourself to engage a dialogue, a conversation, with whatever you perceive that larger intelligence and love to be.  Just try it – dance it, talk it, meditate it, use your gratitude power to engage with it.  See what happens.

More on imagination, creativity and liberation next week…

I love you so much,

Samantha

What do you DO with your dreams?  Literally.  What is the first thing you DO upon waking?  The difference between really “inspired” people and other people is that inspired people DO something with their guidance.  Everyone gets inspiration.  But it takes focus to let that stream of big information flow through you into words and actions, blogs and art pieces, conversations and businesses.  It takes attention and diligence to repeatedly create a living bridge between your dreams and the behaviors and physical forms of your life.   But, it’s pretty much the only game worth playing while living a human life.  That is, if you want to know and feel and experience the crazy awesome pleasure that comes from creating in integrity with who you really ARE. So, you might as well get GOOD at it.

How do you wake yourself?  What thoughts are habitual at that tender moment of bridging this world and the other world of dreamtime?  Do you pause to receive your dreams?  And do you take the time to thank your life and pray your way into the day?

Here’s some tips from my own practice of navigating waking.

What do I do upon waking:

Listen.  Stay as still and as quiet as possible and listen to the tender bridge between my dreams and my waking.  Occasionally, I will write them down.

A yawning big-cat stretch.  Taking a few moments to feel the soft animal of my body.

Here’s what my inner self talk sounded like:

Long listening silence, simply feeling.

“Good morning beauty.  Good morning dreams.  Good morning breath.  (Big breath!)

Thank you for my life.”

Listening to my dreams:

What often comes for me, these days, is something like a directive.  This blog, for example.  This is what came through my dreams to DO, to SHARE, to co-create a more awesome and evolutionarily optimal conversation with my world.  But, sometimes, what comes is visions that aren’t so easily translated.  These are fun.  Other times, what comes is the need to feel into something disturbing, or to let myself thing and feel long and hard about some old unresolved loss.  It is always a healing opportunity.  And, if I am honest with myself (about my honest feelings, pleasant or not) and present with the dream images themselves, the healing bundle always reveals itself.  Dreams can be subconscious or superconscious, lucid or non-lucid.  All of them are valuable.  The more present you become to them, the more lucid and superconscious they often become, and the more powerfully they inform the living of your life.

Remember, even if you feel grumpy or stiff or a bit hung over, this is YOUR day:

All the world: the bird, the dawn, the smallest green thing, is saying to you, “LOVE YOUR LIFE.”  All that life wants from you is that you soften and open to living.

It’s up to you to listen and to STAY AWAKE.

What Do You Feed?

For years, I used to hear a little, quiet voice in my head saying,

Your life IS MAGIC.  It’s as magic as you think it is.  It’s as magic as you will let it be.

This little voice was telling me that it is up to me to allow and cultivate my true dreaming, my honest power and my real desires to be expressed and fulfilled as my life.  It was telling me that my beliefs yield real results.  It was telling me that I am, in fact, immeasurably powerful, and that if I focus my energy, attention and intention on co-creating through love, in alignment with the harmonics of the universe, unbelievably magic things will happen.  It was asking me to live the measure of my own faith and the full spectrum of feeling and wonder.

Finally… after falling down and getting up, after living and loving and loosing and realizing that my only true happiness resides in trusting soul and spirit’s path for me, after hedging my bets with God and discovering that God always wins… I surrendered.  I followed.  I CHOSE TO FEED THE MAGIC.  I CHOSE TO ATTEND TO SYNCHRONICITY, TO TAKE MY DREAMS SERIOUSLY (AND LIGHTLY!).  I DECIDED BOTH TO TAKE ROOT AND TO FLY.  In the a face of great loss and change… again and again… I chose love.

Everyday, I re-make this choice to receive my life.  Everyday, I ask to follow and receive God’s path FOR me.  I make the prayer.  Everyday, I practice meeting the pleasure and the pain, the shadow and the light, the grit and the grace, with curiosity and presence.  Everyday.

HERE’s THE DEAL:  we either embrace the whole ball of wax as the tapestry and opportunity of our lives, or we shut the magic out.  (Which also amounts to depression, despair, numbness, stress, anxiety and alienation.)

So, feed the willingness to meet what is and to co-create with the impeccable trajectory of your soul.

Let the beauty you love be what you do.

This is how Magic becomes a way of life.

Love,

~s.s.

In honor of magic, here’s one of my all time favorite pieces of wordspell from Leonard Cohen – for you, for me, for we:

GOD IS ALIVE

MAGIC IS AFOOT

God is alive, magic is afoot 
God is alive, magic is afoot 
God is alive, magic is afoot 
God is afoot, magic is alive 
Alive is afoot, magic never died 
God never sickened 
Many poor men lied 
Many sick men lied 
Magic never weakened 
Magic never hid 
Magic always ruled 
God is afoot, God never died 
God was ruler 
Though his funeral lengthened 
Though his mourners thickened 
Magic never fled 
Though his shrouds were hoisted 
The naked God did live 
Though his words were twisted 
The naked magic thrived 
Though his death was published 
Round and round the world 
The heart did not believe 

Many hurt men wondered 
Many struck men bled 
Magic never faltered 
Magic always lead 
Many stones were rolled 
But God would not lie down 
Many wild men lied 
Many fat men listened 
Though they offered stones 
Magic still was fed 
Though they locked their coffers 
God was always served 
Magic is afoot, God is alive 
Alive is afoot 

Alive is in command 
Many weak men hungered 
Many strong men thrived 
Though they boast of solitude 
God was at their side 
Nor the dreamer in his cell 
Nor the captain on the hill 
Magic is alive 
Though his death was pardoned 
Round and round the world 
The heart would not believe 

Though laws were carved in marble 
They could not shelter men 
Though altars built in parliaments 
They could not order men 
Police arrested magic and magic went with them 
Mmmmm…. for magic loves the hungry 
But magic would not tarry 
It moves from arm to arm 
It would not stay with them 
Magic is afoot 
It cannot come to harm 
It rests in an empty palm 
It spawns in an empty mind 
But magic is no instrument 
Magic is the end 
Many men drove magic 
But magic stayed behind 
Many strong men lied 
They only passed through magic 
And out the other side 
Many weak men lied 
They came to God in secret 
And though they left Him nourished 
They would not tell who healed 
Though mountains danced before them 
They said that God was dead 
Though his shrouds were hoisted 
The naked God did live 
This I mean to whisper to my mind 
This I mean to laugh within my mind 
This I mean my mind to serve 
Til’ service is but magic 
Moving through the world 
And mind itself is magic 
Coursing through the flesh 
And flesh itself is magic 
Dancing on a clock 
And time itself 
The magic length of God 

© 1966- Leonard Cohen.

Some thoughts on information overload and the path of non-violence.  

Lately, I’ve been present to how information overwhelm is a subtle form of violence – a stressor on the nervous system that prevents me from actually embodying peace. 

Have you noticed the way your body feels when you are working to take in all the information coming at you – to answer the phone, the SMS’s, the Skype, the IM’s, to read all the emails, to stay up to date on the latest breakthroughs, to track the emotions of your friends and partners, to maintain political participation, etc, etc, etc…???

There is a subtle and very important distinction between working in a curious and disciplined way to expand your capacity to assimilate new information, connections and experiences, and the place where it becomes an overwhelm to your system and thus inhibits optimal presence, assimilation, integration and action. 

PEACE means navigating a healthy boundary between expanding your capacity and weeding your garden.  It means breathing into the more to find flow.

Elegant, implicate presence and action arise in the space of “nothing extra” – a less-is-more simplicity that includes the full spectrum – from extreme momentum to doing nothing.  This supports an inner experience of non-violence that cannot arise from over-pushing; it can only arise in flow.  Listening for and acting from the “nothing extra” supports you to navigate this this post-2012, post-information, neo-time era, when the fields of time, space and information are nearing singularity, in a graceful way.  It supports you to BE the zero point in action and in essence.

Questions: 

• How can you ground your nervous system in the context of immense amounts of information while staying open, alert and curious to new and important information and patterns?
• How can pattern recognition create a filter for information?
• How can you be ok with what you can’t attend to while vibrantly offering your presence and attention to what you can?
• How are expansion and containment related?

“There will come a day when people of all races, colors, and creeds will put aside their differences. They will come together in love, joining hands in unification, to heal the Earth and all Her children. They will move over the Earth like a great Whirling Rainbow, bringing peace, understanding and healing everywhere they go. Many creatures thought to be extinct or mythical will resurface at this time; the great trees that perished will return almost overnight. All living things will flourish, drawing sustenance from the breast of our Mother, the Earth.

The great spiritual Teachers who walked the Earth and taught the basics of the truths of the Whirling Rainbow Prophecy will return and walk amongst us once more, sharing their power and understanding with all. We will learn how to see and hear in a sacred manner. Men and women will be equals in the way Creator intended them to be; all children will be safe anywhere they want to go. Elders will be respected and valued for their contributions to life. Their wisdom will be sought out. The whole Human race will be called The People and there will be no more war, sickness or hunger forever.”

– Navajo / Hopi Prophecy of the Whirling Rainbow    •       Quote and image respectfully gathered from SunNation.org

~•~
Thank you for your lives!
Thank you for the breadth of listening, the depth of action, and the devotion that has brought each of you to this present moment.
For, the end is the beginning, and here we are as we have always known we would be.
We are evolution.
We are here together.  We are fractals of the many.
We fly together in faith, in beauty and in unity.

It is grace to be here among US.
May we dance together SOON!

Our dancing represents a a conjoinment of the eagle and the condor.
May their wings carry us in grace.
May the hummingbird bring us joy.
And may the jaguars align us all with the true heart-pulse of life.

PRACTICE:
Whether you hold the prophesies of this time as truth or as fiction, I beg of you to LISTEN -Feel what evolution has planted in the memory of your cells -And, ACT.  Act for life… however that dances forth from the miracle that is YOU!  NOW IS THE TIME, AND WE’RE NOT WAITING ANYMORE.

In Beauty,
Samantha Sweetwater

Ok… so, I live inside a YES culture.  And, I love it.  I am ALL ABOUT the Big Yes to love, to life, to intimacy, to more life… I’m all about the delicious bio-chemistry of embracing my life.

But, really folks, have you taken a moment lately to celebrate NO?

NO it the other side of the big YES.  Without it… we’re just ceaseless, unbounded, amoebic blobs.  Without no, we can’t negotiate our time, energy attention, and intimacy.  Without no, we are unable to create healthy boundaries, to make coherent choices or to be effective in our leadership.

But, we are really afraid of the no. 

We are afraid we will disappoint, upset, off-put or loose out.  We are afraid to be perceived as negative.  We are afraid that NO will inhibit the yes.

We have equated no with negative.
What if no IS profoundly positive?
What if NO is the secret ingredient in a coherent system?
What if NO is the key to living a sane and healthy human life?
What if NO is also part of the BIG YES of oneness?

WHAT IF YOUR STRONG, CLEAR, NO FREES AND SUPPORTS THE BIGNESS OF YOUR YES?

Really… if I were a cell, and I only said YES, I would soon become a cancer.

• If I were a gardener, and I only said yes, I would only have a plot full of weeds.
• If I were a mother and I only said yes, I would exhaust myself, and my child would grow up without healthy boundaries or respect for others.
• If I were a woman, and I only said yes, I’d be recapitulating the same dysfunctional and abusive relationships I came here to heal this lifetime.
• If I were a leader and I only said yes, you would walk the other way….   Wouldn’t you?

I am here today to firmly and lovingly, joyfully and lightly, embrace NO.  Sometimes it takes a BIG NO to create an even bigger YES.

PRACTICE:

Take a few minutes today to contemplate where in your life you are AFRAID to say no?  Where are you withholding your truth in order to “keep the peace” or please another?  How are you overriding your no in order to please?  How are you holding on to more than you need to because you feel like you “should” be responsible or that you will hurt someone if you walk away?

How would your energy be freed up if you said no?  What would you really loose by saying no?  What might you gain?  And how would the whole situation be clarified and improved by your courage to set a clear boundary?  (Remember – sometimes there is no way to know the answer to this question in advance.)

NOW, pick up that phone, write that email, open that door, and say what needs to be said.  It is through this NO that we are able to create a BIGGER YES.

Who are your ancestors?
What future ancestors are already weaving your life?

Do you have kids?
Do you hang with your parents?
How many times have you and your family moved states, countries, counties, houses in your lifetime?

Does the word PLACE mean anything to you?

Who ARE you, anyway?

Never before have we woven lives in such a balance of immense personal sovereignty and such undeniable connectivity to the planetary web of life. Our identities are fluid and emergent. We live in a world in flux.

Our generation will be the weirdest grandparents.

Lessons In Unconditional Love:

Travelling is learning.  Whenever we venture into foreign lands, some part of us wants to grow.  We want to expand our horizons, test our edges, and experience greater unity with our global human family.  Sometimes this connection comes in obvious ways – in a smile, a kind gesture, in the convergence of a pod of people standing together in awe of a rainbow or a sunset or a soaring bird, in the laughter or tears of a child, in something given, in something received.

In my experience, this learning rarely comes in the ways I expect…  Human beings are preferential creatures.  I, like just about everyone, am a creature of habit.  We gravitate towards what is comfortable and easy.  But, travel can be testing.  It’s a shake-up of the norm.  Growth often comes when I don’t get what I thought I wanted or intended – when a bus gets delayed for 5 hours in the heat of an Indian afternoon, or the tickets to Machu Pichu are sold out, or I get stuck in the Brazilian jungle for an extra week with two strangers and a misanthropic Royal Parrot named Ed.  I find that, if I allow space in my heart for the bumps and the kinks, I always get what I need to soften and open more fully to love.

I’ve been travelling in South and Central America for two months, now.  I’m saturated in the colors, flavors, smells of this land of mysterious and diverse cultures and climes.  Like a stone in the river of life, my edges have been polished by the rolling, sometimes disjointed, rhythm of constant movement.  I started this trip in the windswept Sacred Valley of Vilabamba, Ecuador, then headed North up to the technicolor lakes, jungle volcanoes and tribal textiles of Guatemala, Belize and Southern Mexico for a 20 day tour of the Mayan Heartland and a week at Lago Atitlan.  Then, I flew back down to Peru, where I am now, high in the mountains above Cusco, at over 11,500 feet above sea level (wow!).  I’m travelling with a Peruvian friend and staying at the home of one of his mentors and teachers.  We are living life en Español… a language I’ve never studied and am only now beginning to stutter into.  What a challenge.  What an opportunity – an opportunity to let go of all my ideas about what I think love and loving is and to live more quietly and wholly into something real and practical and responsive – something I recognized this morning as unconditional love.  It’s really ridiculously simple… and very worth taking note.

Given that we are, by nature, preferential beings.  It seems to me that living unconditionally is about shaping my preferences according to the natural patterns of unconditionality.  God, I love paradox!

8 Keys to Living Unconditional Love:

1.) Love who you are with.

The person or people in front of you are your opportunity to love.  Period.  Right now, there is no one else with whom to give and receive that mysterious currency called love.  So, turn towards who ever you are with and give them your eyes, your awareness, your listening, your curiosity and compassion and see what happens.  You don’t always get to choose your company, but you always get to choose how you attend to and respond to them.

2.) Let love be it’s own language.

Giving and receiving requires no words.  Presence requires no language.  Gestures form a complete language.  And, in the absence of language, it is easy to feel the heart.  It’s as simple as a smile, a gaze, a giggle, an exhale in the face of stress.  Let it be light.  Let it flow.  It will grow!

3.) Learning is a way of loving.

Whether traveling internationally or connecting with a new friend or lover in your hometown… everyone has a different language of love.  We ALL want to connect, to share, to understand and be understood, and we all do this differently.  So, love motivates us to learn how to observe and to communicate.  It’s really helpful to learn the language and customs of our new friends so that we can more fully understand and be understood, give and receive.  And, regardless of shared language, we can observe the habits of another with curiosity and respect to discover the non-verbal and gestural language beneath language.  We can also ASK QUESTIONS.  With observation, communication and questions, we can respond more coherently to our friends day by day.  Love invites us to rest into observation and learning BEFORE imposing our own ideas, opinions and preferences on a person, a people and a place.

4.) Love is a stillness.

Sometimes there is nothing to do.  Have you ever noticed those old couples who sit together in easy silence?  Non-doing is a place where shared peace, contentment, presence and delight are available.  Chill out.  As an American, I can be rather obsessed with optimal experience, with getting somewhere and gettingh things done.  In these South American (and many indigenous cultures) the value of not doing is penultimate.  People value relaxation and enjoying the moment above achievement and efficiency.  This can really confront the ego program that says “I am valuable because I achieve.”  Yeah!  By sitting still… we simply are OK.  Tranquillo….

5.) Love waits. 

“Patience, my love.”  In the absence of shared language, we have to be patient with our selves and our companions.  Relaxed, patient presence is one of the greatest things we can give or receive.  It takes time to look up that one key word in the dictionary… it’s worth it.  The greatest suffering when travelling generally arises through our impatience, the frustration of not being able to communicate or immediately get what we want, and the shame that we don’t have all the answers.  Travelling sometimes implies the bumpy process of communicating at the level of a 5 year old.  It implies letting other people do things for you, which means not being in control.  It’s a fantastic opportunity for ego death – for letting go of more ideas, opinions and preferences and being grateful for what is available in the moment.  Patience then, becomes a foundation for peace and enjoyment.

6.) Love does not need to “be understood.” 

Words can really get in the way of loving.  Our obsession with understanding and being understood is often the biggest block to simply sharing love.  I’ve been recognizing that I generally enter into relating with a perceived need to “be understood” as a prerequisite to that relationship working.  And, that what I really mean by this is that I want to have my worldview and my private inner world affirmed.  I’m realizing that this perceived need is more a function of insecurity than of love and loving.  If I am secure and grounded in myself, sharing is easy.  And, I don’t project an imagined need to be affirmed into the space of the relationship.  I mean, really…. It’s not the responsibility of my friends to understand all my little distinctions and the specific details of my perceptions.  This is just a projection of my ego desire not to feel alone.  Understanding can come in the silence, in the patience and in the gestures.  It really isn’t necessary to “be understood” in order to love and be loved.

7.) Love acts/responds. 

It’s the little things.  Every mother in the world is overworked.  Everybody appreciates getting a little shoulder rub, or having a cup of coffee poured.  Every person in the world appreciates a humble bit of help.  Whether you speak the language or not, you can clean the kitchen, do the laundry, hold the baby, fold the towels or give an old man a ride down the hill.  Love is a poetry of action.

8.) Love let’s go. 

“If you love someone, set them free.”  When travelling, we often love more freely and fully when we know that the connection is temporary.  We’ve all had that experience – the fierce, beautiful and fleeting love that will not last but that fills us with memories to last a lifetime.  This, in and of itself, is delicious.  But, the grace here is the capacity to hold lightly and wholly the object of our love.  If I can translate this to ALL of my relationships – to hold and to let go, to pour myself into the precious moment and hold the outcomes loosely – then I can really love!

~s.s.  November, 2012

Written in the numinous space between Ecuador & Guatemala.

Feeling totally in flux today…  really deconstructed.

I am learning to ground in the mystery… which is completely beyond grounding.  It’s  about birthing myself into a human being-ness that is spirit, soul and body all together – integrated.

This time is going to be a wild ride for humanity.  We’ve created quite a crucible for ourselves.  Sometimes I worry about it.  But, what I’ve learned is that it’s my job to love and to be happy.  And that, if I have any influence at all over the future, it is by creating the most awesome, soulful, authentic NOW I possibly can.