As the presidential election and it’s years’- long build-up has made so clear, there is a storm raging in the hearts of Americans. Hurricane Sandy churning up the East Coast of the Country, and the ensuing blizzard follow-up, mirrored the antagonism, violence and cold hearted ruthlessness that has left a wake of devastation and disbelief inside and out as we, in Hurricane Alley look on, helpless, wishing we could do more and could have cast our vote and, at the same time, grateful to have been spared, this time around, and grateful that Obama is once again our president.

And, as always, in the midst of what looks for some like Armageddon, there is that light that shines so brilliantly as neighborhoods band together to care for each other, keep hot food cooking on camp fires in the Rockaways, pump gas by hand so people can power up their generators and keep warm in New Jersey, help each other out in myriad ways big and smalls and get to know the person down the hallway for the first time, maybe ever. We here in the territories know this phenomena all too well – how disasters are great equalizers that have no regard for color , economic or educational status, age, religion or political persuasion. They say that, in the trenches, no one is an atheist and everyone is a brother/sister. Our common humanity trumps our differences which turn out to be surface illusions anyway once we have our vision checked – and corrected.

One of the last political slurs that I saw on the excessive amount of TV that has kept me and a case of dengue company said “The future is getting worse under President Obama.” I laughed. “What a crock ,” I thought  (not that everyone isn’t entitled to his or her opinion)  but the future’s not the problem and why spend so much energy creating a picture of one that is colored doom and gloom when we could be focusing on fleshing out the dream of what we really long for – a present that is rich in love and full of hope, full, meaningful employment, inner and outer peace,  equal rights, affordable quality education, nourishing, unadulterated food, health care for all and the dawning of the Age of Acquarius where “peace will guide the planets and Love will steer the stars!!!” How could you not want to get on board that train and leave the projected ‘worse future’ to the annals of TV history that will be looked at by future generations as an archaic and dysfunctional way of honoring the gift of life that we’ve been given on this our most amazing mother planet earth.

The Law of Attraction demonstrates over and over again that what we focus on expands and we’ve been doing a lot of focusing on the bad stuff and on what we don’t like instead of putting on our truth telling glasses (and yes I do like a little rose coloring in mine thank you very much) so that we develop a compassionate x-ray vision that allows us to see that we are all facets of the same precious gem, that we can’t reject or neglect anyone without rejecting or neglecting ourselves and that the reason we are supposed to feed the hungry and clothe the naked is not just that we’d better if we want to get to heaven but because they are us. Underneath the trappings of what we may disdain, dislike and be afraid of – Bob Marley had it right – One Love, let’s get together an let’s get it together once and for all.

Like the storms that swirl around and within the weather is constantly changing and finding a center that holds is our work and our joy – first and foremost. Then we can get out there and splash in puddles and revel in the ripples.

Abigail Disney, a film-maker who visited St Thomas several years ago and shared her powerful film  “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” about the transformation of Liberia by it’s women, posted the following poem on Facebook and I just have to share it. I am a poetry lover and Rainer Maria Rilke is one of my favorites. It says more and echos further than my words and I hope it speaks to you to:

The Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XII

Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself out like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.

I had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with a friend who was visiting from Oregon. Our plan was to watch a streaming on-line webinar, ‘streaming’ in on-line speak meant we’d be watching an event taking place somewhere else in the world ‘live’ in real time.  The only problem was that we had to keep moving around the large house with the computer chasing an elusive wi-fi hot spot which kept fading in and out turning our live streaming into a live sputtering narrated in staccato robot speak – very distracting and not at all in keeping with the flowing meditative event we were watching.

Just as we were about to pick up and move again in search of a better connection,  I noticed that my friend had an iphone so I asked if she had a personal hotspot set up on her iphone.  When she drew a blank, I explained that I can turn my iphone into a hot spot or hub by going into the settings menu on the phone and clicking here and there and connecting to Anne Nayer’s iphone. This means that I can get online on my computer anywhere that I have a phone connection.

She promptly called AT&T to find out how and how much and in less than 5 minutes had added the feature to her menu of services. She was delighted that for the rest of her visit she’d be able to get on-line and live stream the events she watches daily.  We said thank you to the technology gods and settled in to an amazing live streaming event.

My friend is a teacher of a spiritual process called The Oneness Blessing  An essential part of the process involves establishing a connection with your divine (your inner guidance system, source energy or God)  This connection is a prerequisite for moving forward with the meditation. Cultivating the ability to make this connection easily, anywhere and anytime is what nourishes and opens the channels  to experience the full benefits of the meditation, to tap into the answers to our questions and get a glimpse of who we really are in our hearts.

I couldn’t help smiling as I connected with my divine and realized that not only do I have a personal hot spot on my iphone but I have a personal hotspot in my heart.

In order to connect with your divine (your own personal hot spot) you need to know where to look.  On the  iphone, the on/off button is under settings.  For us it’s in our sacred heart which they say is located right behind our physical heart.

In order to know what to look for it helps to picture our divine.  For some this may be easy– if you’re  Christian it’s probably Jesus, a Buddhist, Buddha, muslim, Mohammed and so on or perhaps there is someone in your life who inspires holiness and divinity – the Dalai Llam, Mother Theresa, the Virgin Mary, Quan Yin or a version of the divine that is unique just to you –

This is the part that the ATT support person takes care of for the iphone and the part that you take care of for yourself – naming and locating your personal hot spot so that it is always there on your menu waiting for you close your eyes, activate the connection with your divine and experience the benefits of deep meditation,  a help line for all the ails you, confuses you and causes you to suffer.

The iphone connection is a sure thing once the agent has done her thing and billed you an additional $20.

The personal hot spot connection, while just as reliable, may require some practice.  As with all relationships, true intimacy is a work in progress as we get to know one another, establish trust and tap into the wellspring of wisdom and love that is ours for the asking. We may need to figure out what works to get us connected, into the zone, the matrix, the sacred space.  It might be closing our eyes, kneeling in prayer, listening to music, deep breathing, putting our hand on our heart, sounding a gong or, as my sister does, sinking into a bath tub of warm water.

Back to the live streaming event, we got connected via the iphone hotspot to our event and then got connected via our personal divine hot spot to the live streaming energy that gently led us to a place of deep meditation and joy.

My friend said that her boyfriend calls her his personal hot spot, proving that hot spots exist to connect us to both the worldly and the sublime which is what became clear to me that afternoon –  it’s all about the connection, the world is our mirror and hot spots are the way in to where we all long to be –  on our phones and in our hearts.

Wishing you all a robust connection always.

“You are the only one who creates in your experience—no one else. Everything that comes to you comes by the power of your thought. If there are changes you would like to make, it will be of great value to begin telling a different story—not only about your body, but about all subjects that have been troubling to you. As you begin to positively focus, getting to feel so good about so many subjects, you will begin to feel the power that creates worlds flowing through you.” – Abraham

I try to remember this with each challenge I face when I I don’t like some aspect of my life.   I can either blame ‘him or them’, feel angry and powerless, rant and rave and/or get depressed or create new worlds  by thinking different thoughts, telling a different story, focusing positively, feeling good and acting accordingly.

I had the perfect opportunity to put this principle into practice when I lost my Iphone last week.  After combing the territory between the Blessing of the Animals service and the beach, in my mind and and on ground , that evening and early the next morning I ordered a replacement with ETA of 3-5 days. Today is day 4. 

Life is very different without my Iphone.  Everything is so quiet, I feel like I am on a silent retreat. There are no beeps, flashing lights or charging requirements.  I am more relaxed and less distracted and even though I miss the phone, I’m enjoying the respite from it’s demands and I’ve learned a few lessons  about cell phones and just about anything:

1. Be Prepared – It’s the girl scout motto and it’s where the squirrel comes in,  squirreling away nuts for the long winter, sometimes even stuffing them into her cheeks – very practical, cute, forward thinking and prudent.

A.  Back it Up –  this time around I’m synching to Itunes, connecting to the cloud, time machine – and asking for help.

B.  Have a Plan B –  have other ways of connecting with people, have a land-line, back off and be less dependent on outside stuff  including phones, computers and pass-times other than fiddling with your phone.

3. Be Playful –  In addition to being prepared  squirrels leap, swing and frolic noisily while swishing their bushy tails   as they go about their business.  This is the time to tell a new story, try on a new perspective and lighten up.

3. Be Present – Spend as much time as possible in the immediacy of the here and now and less time in the recesses of the past       and future in your mind.   Since mindfulness has it’s practical applications, along with peaceful mind, there may                                   be fewer lost phones.

I’d be lying if I said I’m not eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new phone.  Taking my own best advice I’m going to:  Be Prepared, Back it up, Have a Plan B, Be Playful and Be Present.  Everything is better when you find something to love about what every is going on: blessing the thorn, compassion for the repeated dysfunction, the clumsiness, the challenges, the lost Iphone and everything else.

I much prefer this to the sob story version I was on the verge of telling,  just as I prefer the state of being a curious creator to a disgruntled victim.   I also like lemonade.  🙂

As the creator of my experience, I’m glad to report back that this one hasn’t been half bad so I must be telling a happier story.

I hope that you will follow suit and do the same.

For the past month, I’ve been playing The Prosperity Game with three women mastermind partners. Since we live in far flung places, we  gather via email to support each other and raise our prosperity vibrations.

The Prosperity game is designed to expand your ability to receive and spend money in joyful ways; to improve your relationship with the energy of money and to become a vibrational match for prosperity by feeling like someone who is already prosperous.

Rules of the Game: On day one you receive $1000(virtual money), spend it all and account for it. On day 2 you receive $2000 and do the same and so on for 30 days when you receive $30,000. Over the course of the month you receive and spend $465,000. Our group emailed daily expenditures. When I do it on my own I have a chart to keep track of money in and money out.

It’s been fun and very enlightening.  It might be too woo woo for some and a bit weird like playing with an imaginary friend, but I keep learning and I feel more and more how it actually works.  I can see my money patterns and am  healing some of my dysfunctional relationship with money and widening the channels to to whole-hearted giving and receiving.

We all tithe right off the top and by now, have set up foundations and trusts to help others and then we veer off and do our own thing, expressing ourselves by how we spend our money. The choices range from swing sets, skydiving, custom made shoes, spas and cruises to paying bills, buying new horses, plane tickets, massages, gifts to family, house repairs, travel, education, limos, gardeners and on and on and then, for me anyway, I started to run out of stuff to want. I had a top of the line vitamix blender and a new paddle board and, to be honest, because I’d been emailing my accounting of how I’d spent my money so I couldn’t always remember if I’d already bought one of those…. Like in my real life where I unearthed 4 digital recorders – none of which I had ever successfully mastered.

I don’t long for a yacht, a private jet or a mansion, preferring simple, low maintenance and charming. I spend my money fixing up my house, building an apartment, helping family, starting a puppet theater, new paddle board, travel, gardening, treating people, paying all my bills for years, a sailing dinghy and much more until  it become a chore  I decided (virtually) to hire a like minded financial adviser who would invest it in businesses with integrity, that I believe in and that make money – to support me and more to allow me to make a difference in the lives of others and of the earth.  My underlying goal was to be financially free and not to have to think about money while always have it available for my relatively simple lifestyle.

One of the mastermind partners said the game made her feel uncomfortable – it was just too much money to deal with so she was going to play another game where the money was more what she was used and she could get back to feeling good while spending and receiving (the point of the game).

Another achieved her initial goal of finding a job – for real. Another found that the game was raising her prosperity consciousness and she was reaping the rewards in her non virtual life and feeling good about giving and receiving on a bigger scale and in ways other than money.  I’m in the middle aiming for the expanded version and getting closer each day.

Where are you? Are you a vibrational match for prosperity?

Money Talks.

When a friend asked if I was going to take over both of my cottages when my tenant moves out  I answered with a resounding YES. Individually the cottages make two good-sized studio’s – one with kitchen and one without. Together they constitute a lovely two pod home.

I have never occupied the entire ‘house’ (i.e. both cottages) in the 6 years I’ve lived here.  My daughter  lived in one of them for the first couple of years and it stayed her space as she came and went from school until I went sailing and sublet the whole house,

I smiled as I pictured expanding into the additional space and wondered if I’d grow bigger as I transitioned to a bigger tank, or, in this case, a bigger living space..

Not only would my ‘stuff’ ooze from one cottage to the other, but I myself might grow into my larger, more elegant, villa and expand into the kind of person who lives in a wonderfully magical, spacious, colorful, well equipped, comfortable, artfully decorated tropical home; the kind of person who grows into her new queen sized bed, leaving her day bed for lounging and guests. Like Alice in Wonderland, I might go to sleep at 5’ tall and 92 pounds and wake up 5’8 and 160!

Something was stuck in my mind about aquarium fish that get bigger if they are put in a bigger tank so I did some research and discovered that the size of the tank the fish is kept in is a determining factor on whether it grows to its full potential size or is somewhat smaller. It’s not that that fish will keep growing past their genetic program,  just that if you keep it in a too small space it will fail to reach it’s full size – or full potential.

In an average 10 gallon tank, if well cared for and not crowded, goldfish can grow up to about 4 inches (10 cm), while in a larger uncrowded tank they can grow larger, generally reaching about 7 or 8 inches (17.78 – 20.32 cm). If kept in a spacious pond they can reach over 12 inches (30+ cm), with some hobbyist reporting their common goldfish reaching up to a whopping 18″ (45+ cm)!

I wouldn’t want to be a goldfish in a 10 gallon tank, condemned to a stunted half size when I could be reaching my full gold-fish potential in a pond.

Here was a new perspective on expanding into my cottages or maybe into your getting a promotion at work, moving into a bigger office because you’re straining at the walls your cubicle, outgrowing your current job description at home and or/at work and it made me think about when I was a kid  allowed to range further and further from our apartment.  Like a goldfish, I kept getting bigger as the tank of my world expanded,  literally and in confidence, in new experiences and a bigger vision as I ventured forth from my housing project into the new, bigger space of the city.

My mother bought clothes for me with ‘room to grow” and I did  the same for my daughter.  As adults we may keep our skinny clothes and our bigger jeans, but we tend to arrive at a size when we reach our full genetically programed, environmentally nourished physical stature.  We continue growing so many other respects: our minds,  emotional lives,  knowledge,  skills, spirituality and so much more. If we get stuck in a too small tank we stop growing and and risk staying “too small” ourselves.

I thought that gold fish were supposed to be small and live in a small tank. I wonder if I think the same about people – accept their stunted states for full grown. Maybe they could be so much more – swishing their tails in big ponds, double the size.

What about you?  Are you in a too tight space in some area of your life?  How might you expand into a bigger picture, rise to the occasion, move outside of the box, take off a too tight shoe? What clothes have been in closet of your imagination that are waiting for you to grow into them – whether it’s the business suit, the wedding gown, the judges gown, the slinky dance outfit or the beach bum cut-offs?

Here’s to expanding into uncharted territory inside and out.  See you in the pond.