HSPs in Alignment: “When You’re Here, You’re Home Now.” While this might be true in the physical world, it's even more valid spiritually.

There was a giant sign at the end of a major thoroughfare in Boston where I grew up, that said, “If you lived here, you’d be home now.” The sign was advertising a high-rise building of expensive condominiums. As one writer ("Chad") opined online, "These signs were placed strategically, almost sadistically, on Storrow Drive where they were seen every day by the thousands of motorists trapped in rush hour gridlock." It's true. You'd just spent however much time crawling inch by inch just in time to think, Wow. If I lived here . . . "

Still, I loved that sign. For some reason, I always felt as if it held some great meaning, some message for me, even though I never knew exactly what that was.

Then, as I came out of my meditation this morning, just a few moments ago, and found myself thinking about what I might talk about in today’s post, I heard, “When you’re here, you’re home.” Which happens to be exactly the way I truly feel about so many aspects of being—and knowing—that I’m an HSP, a highly sensitive person.

Here’s the way I see it after a lifetime of HSP-ness. In other words, the progression of how my awareness around my own high sensitivity has grown, and how I have grown because of it, through the years.

1. Over time, I learned to recognize the trait in myself and others.
2. I learned that the more we understand the trait of HSP-ness, the more likely we are to celebrate it, as opposed to berating ourselves for it, especially when we can tie it to our best qualities, like creativity and spirituality.
3. I learned that the more open we are to embracing the trait of our own HSP-ness, the more we recognize that looking for support from like-hearted people is necessary, valuable the community it provides to sustain us and help us gain perspective if/when we feel we might be faltering.
4. I also learned that the more consciously aware we become about who we really are, the more in alignment we feel, the more at home we feel in our bodies, minds, and spirits.

When we truly feel “at home” in ourselves, whatever happens out in the world takes second place. That’s not to say it doesn’t matter, in the sense that we want and need a certain level and amount of connection and interaction to survive and thrive in the world. But being solidly at home in your own energetic field of vibration, in your own Unique Energetic Signature, offers you a self-perpetuating model for moving through life. No matter where you are or what you are doing.

• I’m at my desk: I’m home.
• I’m at the local café having coffee with a friend: I’m home.
• I’m on the phone with my mother: I’m home.
• I’m working with a client: I’m home.
• I’m hearing from a loved one on the Other Side: I’m home.

When you’re home versus when part of you has flown the coop

1. You may find yourself speaking more slowly, consciously, and conscientiously when you’re “home.”
2. You may find yourself listening longer, with a greater interest, curiosity, and less judgment when you’re “home.”
3. You may find yourself less emotionally and physically tired or stressed after your experiences, whatever they are, when you’re “home.”

Home: It’s where the mind-body-spirit connection is tied up with a bow and where you live, breathe, create, and thrive.
 

I love the analogy of the Psychic Sponge because it’s so easy to visualize and understand. Particularly for all of us good ol’ HSPs looking for transformative tools and techniques. No! Not to transform into someone different. To transform into who we really are!
You’ve got to start somewhere, right? Well, the psychic sponge is the perfect place.
As you know, being an HSP makes you seem/feel different from a lot of other people. At least that’s what they’d like you to think. More people are highly sensitive than anyone realizes because so many of us try—and often manage—to hide it so well behind their shields of logic. We hide our fears, our loneliness, our anxiety, our worry, our feelings of overwhelm, and our generalized belief that we’re simultaneously too much and not enough, whatever the context. In my world, even scientists, statisticians, and engineers, and those who stress objectivity and facts are not capable of separating out their human natures from their work. In fact, from what I’ve seen, these people are often on the HSP spectrum . . . big time!
Ever notice their tendency toward antisocial behavior, bluntness, abruptness, isolation, lack of empathy? It may not look like our own specific HSP-isms, but they are just as powerful in the effect they have. Because the more discomfort experienced, the more shutting down occurs. Work in the lab alone all day instead of visiting with friends? Easy choice! Focus on what I do best rather than feel constantly out of place? Why bother asking!
No matter who you are or what you do, your level of discomfort starts and ends with the level of discomfort or comfort you have within yourself. But it also has to do with the discomfort that comes from being a psychic sponge.
I know, I know. If you’re an engineer or a scientist, you’re not gonna like my use of the word “psychic.” Maybe even if you admit to sensitivity, you’re squirming in your seat at the use of a word that yells out “Whacko, occult, stop now!” So, for now, let’s just call it an Energetic Sponge instead.
Which simply means that, again, no matter who you are or what you do, you pick up signals from the world around you. You can try to ignore them, resist them, shut them out, but you still have to engage with them, whether you’re in traffic or on the telephone ordering a pizza. Your experience will always include the outpouring of energetic data supplied by whatever and whoever is in your field of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. And there’s nothing you can do about it.
My suggestion? Stop trying. Instead, work it. Play with it. Use it to create a whole new range of colors on your palette of life. Just as you might have played with Play-Doh when you were in nursery school. (I know, awesome stuff, smelled crazy good.)
Here’s what you do.

1. Step 1. First, go get a dry sponge and put it down in front of you. (Note: you probably want to do this by the sink.) Notice how dry it is, how hard it might be around the edges, perhaps how it’s shrunken a bit because it’s so dry. This sponge can be any kind, shape, any size. The only thing that matters is that it’s dry.
2. Step 2. Next, get a bowl of water. Drop the sponge in the water. Watch  as it slowly comes alive. How it soaks up the water in the bowl, grows bigger with the moisture, and bigger still, until it can’t absorb any more because it’s so full.
3. Step 3. Take the sponge out of the water. It’s dripping, right? It can’t hold all that water so, now that it’s out of the bowl, it’s dripping everywhere. (Hence, standing over your sink, as advised.)
4. Step 4. Now, slowly wring out the sponge. Wring it and wring it until you’ve gotten as much moisture as possible out of it. The sponge is still damp, right? It’s still the size it always is when wet, a noticeably  different size from when it’s dry.
5. Step 5. This is the really important one. See yourself as the sponge. A sponge that was all nice and comfy sitting alone with your book and waiting for your pizza to arrive. And then, suddenly, 20 people burst into the room with beer and pizza and noise and confusion and laughter and…and…and….

Not helpful. Your sponge-body has now gone from damply comfortable to miserable flooded by all the energies that have entered your space. You panic. You leave. Without your beer, without your pizza, but hoping you’ve escaped with your sanity somewhat intact.
TO BE CONTINUED
Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you hanging (well, too much). In our next installment, I’ll be talking about how fantastic it is to know you’re an Energetic Sponge and that there’s something you can do about it. Something that will inevitably change the way you see yourself and handle your interaction with the world.

     Pretty early on in my life I discovered there was pill for anxiety. Everyone knew such pills were only for housewives trying to numb out their lives (think Jacqueline Suzann and Valley of the Dolls). I never knew anyone who took them or where to get them had I wanted them. Still, I wished there were something to take away the pain. You know, a magic pill that would cure me. An “anti-me” pill: anti-anxiety, anti-depression, anti-everything.
     ​I was living in married students’ housing in Ann Arbor, MI when I met Beth and her husband. She was another musician and he was a scientist in the field of pharmaceuticals. Beth and I hung out a lot. Seems we could commiserate on a lot of things. Having babies and raising kids while our husbands were busy working and going to school; being super-sensitive and hyperaware every moment of the day; feeling overwhelmed by it all, as well as being two wonderfully loving, if self-deprecating, women.
     One day Beth told me her husband and his team had developed this new drug called Prozac, which was supposed to help relieve the symptoms of depression. Well, count me in, right?
     Wrong.
     Drugs? Me? Never! I should be able to deal with my own issues (from the panic attacks to the generalized fear to the postpartum depression) by myself. Otherwise, I was weak and unworthy.
Okay, so now it’s 15 years later. I’ve been divorced from that husband and remarried to a wonderful man who was at least as sensitive as I was. Incredible! He wasn’t scared off by my intensity or my tears. In fact, he could go there as fast as I could. It was a marriage made in heaven.
     And yet . . .
     I still suffered internally. I was afraid of being a bad mother and a bad partner. Afraid of not doing or being enough. And on and on and on. There was no stopping me. Just think of all the energy I used being so anxious that could have been put to another use. By then, Prozac had been on the market all that time and, in the back of my mind, I really, really wanted to see if it could help me. Still, “taking drugs” was a Very Bad Thing To Do. It meant you were really all those things people said you were. And none of them were good.
     Finally, though, at some point, I realized I had reached a point that no matter what my external circumstances, my internal voice was struggling to stay sane. So, yeah, I went to the shrink and got myself some good old-fashioned Prozac. The incredible thing was that within days I was getting out of bed in the morning for the first time in my life that I could recall with actual enthusiasm. Gone was the “Omigod, another day, groan” thing. GONE.
     My husband was horrified. I’d been so good at keeping my depression secret that he could not believe I “needed something like that” to fix me. Wasn’t I happy with him? Didn’t we have a good life?
     I tried to explain my situation in terms of science. “You see,” I told him, “it’s just that it’s a chemical thing and there’s’ really nothing I can do about it. I was born that way. It’s not psychological, it’s chemical, and I need help to be okay.”
     He was not happy. He felt he wasn’t enough.
     I wasn’t happy. I felt I wasn’t enough. Plus, I knew now that I was truly broken.
     I kept the fact that I was “taking drugs” secret, much as I’d kept my state of being secret. Inside I felt ashamed and guilty even though I’d never felt so free from the weight that had kept me down all those years.
     ​In a twist of fate worthy of a fairy tale, it wasn’t until the death of my husband Randy that everything became clear.
     
To Be Continued . . . .
Read Part 2 of HSPs and Anti-Everything Drugs in an upcoming post.

  2012
    “I ordered the pepperoni and onion pizza,” said my husband a few weeks prior to his passing and after one of his longer and longer rests in his big armchair. “I saw myself at this place called the Gateway Café. I was told that it’s the place where all beings hang out to choose where they’re going to go and who they’re going to be their next time around as humans. You get to decide your next lifetime just like ordering off a menu.”
     “Wow,” I said. “But I’m thinking coming back might not be a choice I’d make. I mean, it’s been pretty rocky this time.”
     “Exactly,” he said. “They told me we’re really all vacationing angels—spirit that wants to experience being human. As energetic beings, the idea of being human, mortal beings in biodegradable human suits with all the magnificent senses we enjoy, it feels like a vacation.”
     I thought about it. Here my husband is dying and talking about how being human is supposed to feel like a vacation. Although I dutifully jotted down a few notes in the notebook we were keeping of his ideas, the only thing I heard in my head was, “If this were really a vacation, we’d both be having a lot more fun—and, oh, BTW, you wouldn’t be dying.”
     I kept that part to myself.

12 Years Later
     There was a lot of grieving from then to now. A lot of life and living packed into what felt like at first more like an endlessly scorched spiritual terrain until the rains came and there was verdant abundance once again. I’ve learned about living alone and living without a partner. I’ve experienced the massive benefits of self-discovery through meditation. But most importantly, I’ve learned what it truly means to live as a “vacationing angel.”
     This philosophy has stood by me through thick and thin since Randy’s passing. Sure, it took a while. “Vacation” isn’t usually the first word you think of when someone dies and you can barely climb out of bed every day. Yet, with his ongoing prodding and poking, and my continued efforts at listening to him from the other side of the veil, the message began to make more and more sense.
     Here’s the way my reasoning went.
     For many years the only real thoughts swimming around in my head sounded like this: “What’s the point? What’s the purpose of being human?  What’s MY purpose for being here?” Not reassured by the obvious dearth of answers, I continued along a path where nothing--nothing—made any sense. It wasn’t until I began reading books like Conversations with God that my eyes opened. Suddenly, there was another option for looking at life, death, and being-ness. Another option for living with purpose that included more than a decision about which career path to follow.
Embracing (remembering, one might say) the idea that we have all made our contracts before we live our first, second, or thousandth human lifetime opened the door to a whole new world. If I agreed to the contracts with my mother, my father, my sisters, my friends, then how could I be angry at them or disappointed in them or blame them for anything?
     My contract = My responsibility. It’s as simple as that. Navigating that lifetime’s contract, however, can be pretty darn challenging because we tend to get stuck in the “why” of it all.
     If I accept that we are all one energetically, which I do, then when we “die,” we simply take on a different energetic frequency and state, the way heated water turns to steam. We’re still here, but in a different form. I have always believed that when we’re in that different form—in the non-physical—so, why not imagine we’re somewhere like the Gateway Café? Some place where we have and hold an awareness that goes beyond the physical and yet offers us an outline for the physical world we choose? Some place where we have and hold a sense of selflessness along with self-full-ness that propels us to enter the physical realm for another lifetime?
     “I am a Vacationing Angel, spirit in human form.
     I chose to be here.
     ​I will make the most of it while I’m here.”
 

It’s important what we name things, how we label them. Whenever we use a prefix such as “over,” for example, it’s to imply that something is too much. Relative to so-called “high sensitivity,” we’re saying simply that we are too much of whatever it is. In this case, emotion, sensitivity, intensity, fear, anxiety, depression . . . basically, too much of everything.

SPS Sensory Processing Sensitivity (What makes an HSP an HSP?)

​Although Sensory Processing Sensitivity, or SPS, as coined in the mid-1990s by psychologists Elaine Aron and her husband Arthur Aron, who developed the Highly Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS) questionnaire by which SPS is measured, does not in and of itself imply that if you meet certain standards you’re “too much,” it does directly speak to the idea of sensory overload. The idea that because high-sensitives habitually live in a state of overwhelm, we are equally “too much” and “less than” in comparison with others. Sadly, HSPs like myself have spent a lifetime trying to believe that we’re not too much and refuting that we are too much when really all we want to be is appreciated for who we are and what we bring to the table. By others, but more importantly, by our own definition and standards.

Labeling us doesn’t help…or does it?

Now that the label of HSP is fairly au courante, the conversation has been expanded. Which is awesome, don’t get me wrong. But once again, though I myself readily admit to using the term as an identifier, most people who hear it are afraid of using it. The word sensitivity alone is enough to make them run in the other direction. As if sensitivity is something you could catch, something to be ashamed of, something unlikeable, unmanageable, and above all, undesirable. Admitting to high sensitivity is like wearing a sign around your neck that says, “Hello. My name is Heidi and I cannot cope with much of anything in the world. Please like me anyway. (But, if you don’t like me, maybe you could put up with me?)”

Switching the paradigm of how we talk about and perceive “sensitivity”

Once again, it’s time to flip it. Flip the language, the paradigm, the perspective. How about instead of “over” everything, we’re “under” all of it. We underscore the necessity of community; we understand—and want to understand—other people’s lens for experiencing life. Essentially, we are under it all in the most literal sense of the word. We are humanity’s foundation. We are the limbs people cling to in times of dire need. We are the baseline for love on a grand scale. We are holding up the world, and have done so for such a long time and to such a degree, that we are often, and our efforts are often, invisible and, without which, there would be no humanity. We support compassionate yet strong and direct leadership. We promote self-confidence and self-esteem because we have been through the wringer ourselves.

HSPs are humanity’s foundation

Recognizing that we are the foundation as opposed to the fault line, the brilliant as opposed to the bewildered, means that we have become aware that it is now the time to leave “too much” behind and step forward into “too amazing to believe.”

HSPs are the saviors of humanity—past, present, and future

It’s time to stop apologizing for who we are when who we are: uniquely adept, dexterous, thoughtful, insightful, and yes, sensitive, individuals that bring balance to the world. As we talked about in yesterday’s posting, we, HSPs, sensitives, peacemakers, caregivers, artists, we are not the bane of society, but the saviors of humankind.

As long as we are clear that this is true, we will never feel that we are too much to handle ever again.
 

You have manifested in physical form for a reason.
It’s my hope that these posts encourage you to step into who you really are — a Vacationing Angel. Spirit that has made the choice to manifest in physical form to have the human experience. How? By establishing your Unique Energetic Signature (UES), opening your heart, reeling in your psychic octopuses, and establishing a relationship with your inner guidance. Why? Because the great choices we made in Spirit form don’t always seem to translate into our experience as humans. We need connection, love, support — we need help sometimes to understand what we’re capable of as spirit in human form, to appreciate who we really are, to take advantage of life in human form with all its complexities and possibilities and opportunities.
As Gregg Braden says,
“If the particles that we’re made of can be in instantaneous communication with one another be in two places at once,
and even change the past through choices made in the present, then we can as well.”

The Law of Cause & Effect, karma, and cocreation.One of the earliest teachings of the Buddha (2600 years ago) is known as the Law of Karma, or the Law of Cause & Effect. This universal law has existed for tens of thousands of years in the most ancient African societies, Native American & First Nation cultures, and on the Indian subcontinent. This divine principle teaches us that we are co-creators of every moment, working hand-in-hand with the Divine. Which means we are never alone, never really on our own, never succeeding in isolation, and never separate. Every moment, we are partnering with the universe to get something done, to evolve.

The “reality” of Covid.In a recent post we talked about living life with an open heart, and what difference that makes to how we perceive “reality” and how we manifest our experiences in human form. We’ve explored how it doesn’t have to be a risk to open our hearts because what it does it create a sense of ultimate freedom and engagement with self, others, and spirit. Today we’re focusing on the real meaning of CO-VID. What’s really fascinating is that I can pretty much guarantee that the person or people who came up with that name for this virus were only thinking of its so-called scientific application, when you break it down something incredible happens. We see it for what it is.

Here’s how it works: The Sanskrit word for knowledge is vidya. The English word wisdom comes from its root — vid. The prefix “co,” from the Latin, means “together, mutually, in common.” In this case it’s easy to see how, if every moment is a co-creation, Covid is nothing more — and nothing less — than a shared wisdom, a shared knowing . . .
A Shared Awakening!

Add to this the fact that the number 19–1 for beginning and 9 for endings — well, it seems the message is that this is a critical time in all our lives and it’s up to us what we do with it.

“We are pushed by pain until we are pulled by a vision.” Michael Beckwith

When the scary world of Covid turns into “a shared awakening,” nothing looks or feels the same.
​
The questions Highly Sensitive People need to ask ourselves right now:What are we learning about ourselves to promote self-awareness and self-acceptance?
How are we growing — and in which direction?
Are we taking the time to reflect upon our next step along the path to our greatness?
Are we being kind in the process?

Are we practicing in whatever ways that feel comfortable to share a greater awakening with the world at large?
Learning how to survive and thrive in a times of stress is even more important for high sensitives! To take our “anxiety” and transmute it into incredible. Transmute our “depression” into deepened awareness. And our “ailments” into ease. It’s up to us, all the HSPs of the world, to lead the way with the gifts — the heightened sensitivities — with which we have been blessed.

***Listen to my recording of “Healing from the Symptoms of Covid” music on youtube!***

For many years I've thought about the way we all talk about "work." What kind of work do you do? Today I'm working on.... Do you enjoy your work? I have to work today. I wish I didn't have to work. Work sucks. Even in positive terms, like I got a lot of work done today and I like my work.  It's always bothered me--well, ever since I started to really groove on the work I was doing. That's when it all started to feel awkward. How could I call the work I was doing "work" when work had so many, and mostly, negative connotations? 

Last month, as I was being interviewed by Jill Lebeau and Amit West on their amazing Spiritual Sandbox podcast, we were discussing the "problem," the inherent limitations, with such a word.  It simply did not describe in any way, shape, or form what we were doing and how we were living what we were doing. In the old vernacular, "what we were working on." Because the reality is that we all love our work and do not consider it work at all. 

You'll probably agree when I say there's no really awesome way to combine the words "work" and "play." But let's put that aside to look at the bigger picture. 

Frankly, the world needs a new word. The world needs to recognize that enjoying your "work" does not equate to living a miserable life of poverty, that to love your "work" does not mean you're doing something unacceptable or less than. When the world can agree that imbuing what you do with love energy only manifests positivity, freedom, prosperity, and ease, the world will be able to naturally release into that timeless truth.

I can almost hear the arguments now! "What do you mean, that cleaning bathrooms is plork?" Okay, maybe not. And yet, just as the Eskimos have many words for "snow," we also need a word that more accurately describes, underlines, underscores, and represents how we feel about what we do.

So...are you ready to PLORK?

All it takes is a little practice. What kind of plork do you do? Today I plorked hard! Today I plorked so easily that things got done in record time! Today is a plork day. Are you plorking today? When you plork with me, I have so much fun and we achieve so much, Let's plork together. I really put my head down and plorked today. 

Let's face it. When you first hear words like woot or swole or chill or ghosting or phishing, or hangry or salty​, did you immediately think, "Wow, that'll be a hit!" Maybe, maybe not. What I'm suggesting is that we put plorking on our playlist. Add it to the dictionary. Make it a THING. A REAL THING. Because creating a word that describes what we do and how we do it inevitably takes it into a whole new realm of energetic frequency. Says to the universe, "What I do, in whatever form it takes, is sent out with the energy of love and play and work and all the other things that I choose for my life and want to offer to everyone I come in contact with."

Share it. Use it. Speak it. Offer it. Love it. Roll it around in your mouth until it spills out easily. 
In other words, plork with it.

It took me quite a while to get up my nerve. Truthfully? I was almost afraid to ask what it meant, why he’d stuck it there. I mean, who tapes a piece of paper that says “RA YA KOO MA YEE” on it to his back car window?

Randy, that’s who.

The only thing he’d tell me—my husband who passed in 2012—and only after many months of asking, was that it was the only written bit of “his language,” the one he was born with and had never shared with anyone, the one he’d never heard anywhere else from anyone else. He called it the “Language of the Emotions.” As our relationship grew, Randy used to speak words of this language to me, mostly during intimate moments, but also when verbalizing during times of extreme emotion, as if there were no other way to articulate what he was feeling without its use. Looking back, it doesn’t really surprise me that English was actually his second language, given his dyslexia and problems with spelling and grammar.

The other thing Randy always did that left me wondering who exactly this brilliant guy was that I’d fallen in love with who held a steady job, but was also one of the weirdest people I’d ever met, was to sign his name with little superscripts at the end, like this: Randy Connolly*” Again, I had to be content with the non-answer I usually got until, one day, he admitted that the asterisk and quotation mark were his way of nodding his thanks to the Great Mother and the Great Father of the Great Oneness.

Several amazing events have taken place over time that have revealed just how these things are connected, and just how deep their meaning goes. A few weeks ago, I was listening to a chakra meditation my good friend and author Sherri Cortland has on her website in which she takes you through a chakra clearing and balancing that incorporates chanting syllables that relate to each chakra’s energy. I responded strongly to the meditation, but the real kick came when I asked myself What if….? What if the single-syllabic tonal chakra chants were similar to Randy’s language? What if the syllables of “Ra,” “Ya,” “Koo,” “Ma,” and “Yee” each had a meaning beyond an emotional communication?  And why the heck hadn’t I ever thought of asking that before?

Flashback to about 12 years ago, as Randy made his transition and spoke his language for the last time. Only a few words, but words that would matter more than I can say. I felt the circumstances even more painfully because, as he lay dying, he also kept pushing me away. Literally pushing away the love of his life. His wife. His partner. I was pretty hysterical at that point. Let’s face it, who wants to be rejected at a time like that by the one you love? And so I sat and cried a couple of feet away, not knowing what to do, afraid to watch as he took his last breaths.

Not only didn’t I realize what I was doing with my hands, which, it turns out, were, of their own volition, fiddling with a tape recorder on the table, but, because I couldn’t see through my tears, I wasn’t aware that I’d pressed the PLAY button. In fact, it wasn’t until months later when I turned the recorder back on that I heard the few precious syllables of Randy as he spoke his final words…in “his language.” And it wasn’t until a couple of years after that, at one of the recording sessions for my audiobook of Crossing the Rubicon, the producer said, “Gee, it’s too bad we don’t have any audio of Randy. It would be a perfect way to incorporate his energy into the book since he wrote it with you after he died, right?”

Right.

Which is when I shared the recording with a medium I knew who was able to translate the words for me: “Goodbye, my love…I’m coming home.”

This message was exactly what I needed. The one that would, at long last, shift the energy of shame I had been carrying since Randy’s death.

Randy always said he (we) came from another planet. That his real name was Two Lakes of the Star Clan. When he napped, I found myself imploring him to remember to come back to me because he always seemed to go so far away when he slept. Now I had my answer. He was not pushing me away because he didn’t want my love. He was pushing me away so he could “come home.” Apparently, the more I held onto him, the less his spirit and his body could do what they had to do—leave the physical realm.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. As I said, I’d meditated to Sherri’s guided chakra meditation and suddenly got it in my head to research each of the syllables of “Ra,” “Ya,” “Koo,” “Ma,” and “Yee.” What I found, if revelations are ever really “found,” was both obvious and mind blowing. (Bear in mind that Randy misspelled everything, so I had to be generous with my own spelling as I researched.)
RA: Egyptian sun god, the creator of the universe and the giver of life.
YA(H): One name for God; YA(A): goddess of fertility and love.
KOO (KU; also known as Akua): God of war, fishing, farming, with supernatural powers. (And now I appreciate why Randy called himself a “frequency farmer.”)
MA: Moon goddess; Mother goddess; warrior goddess.
YEE: As in John 10:34, “As ye are gods.”

To me, and I know to Randy who felt strongly on the matter, one finds the kingdom of God within. So if “ye” is the plural of “you,” we are all Gods…God is within each one of us. We are all God and everything is included in that oneness.

Is the trajectory of these events and discoveries beginning to come together for you as it did for me? Because between the gods and the goddesses and the oneness, we’ve pretty much covered the territory of Randy’s daily reminders: the way to consistently express his powerful belief that he was a spiritual being having a human experience—and was grateful for that opportunity.

Every time he signed his name. Every time he climbed into his car. His way to give a nod of thanks to the Universe.

I keep Randy’s original printed 4” x 11” “RA YA KOO MA YEE” sign on my desk. Over the years it’s been on a shelf, in a filing cabinet, packed away, and misplaced. Since chanting the tonalities of the chakras and feeling the frequency of the sounds, however, it has taken on a whole new meaning and will continue to sit front and center in my life.

We are the sun. We are the moon. We are warriors. We are lovers. We are frequency farmers. We are all God.

​We are all one.

This morning I had a lengthy conversation with a fellow gym rat. Not that I’m much of a rat…more of a mouse, really. But still. Anyway, seems a dear friend of his from the past, someone he’d lost touch with the last few years yet someone he’d appreciated and revered, had died. This guy at the gym, let’s call him Stew, was obviously experiencing sadness, and disappointment in himself for not having stayed in contact because “now it’s too late.”

As an intuitive medium, I was already connecting with Stew’s friend “Jim,” seeing him in my mind’s eye as the powerfully built former linebacker I would soon discover he was (from Stew’s later description), and a man with a heart of gold. Although Stew knows that I “talk to dead people,” we’d never gotten into it before during our brief convos passing from Stairmaster to elliptical. You know, friendly at the gym, but not that friendly. His discomfort (okay, fine, skepticism), apparent by the immediate sliding away of the eyes whenever the topic of my “work” came up, was clear enough. And, since I wasn’t there to disturb his chi or anything, I’d always let it go. But now, Stew had tears in his eyes and I wanted to help. Jim was asking me to help.

I figured, well, what the heck. Spirit never steers me wrong. I had nothing to lose. Oh so gently I posited to Stew that it might help to know that Jim was feeling pretty good on the Other Side, at ease. That he knows his family misses him, but his death was in perfect timing and easier for everyone than it would have been had he hung around any longer. That his soul had agreed to this journey. That Stew might want to think about writing a note to Jim’s wife to express his love for this kind-hearted man who thought as highly of Stew as Stew did of him.

This afternoon as I sat at my desk waiting for a client to arrive, I kept thinking about Stew and Jim and about the delicate space that exists around sharing when you aren’t at all sure how your sharing will be received. When my phone pinged I was only a little surprised to see a text from Stew, although we aren’t texting buddies, and in fact had never exchanged more than phone numbers. Still, I felt as if I’d been waiting for the message. Attached were two images, one of Jim as a young sportsman and one of him a couple of years prior to his recent passing. Stew, without admitting to any kind of belief around Spirit, had found a way to let me know, and let Jim know, that connecting with me had connected him to Jim…and that the connection had transmuted some of the ache he’d been holding due to his own guilt over letting the friendship fall by the wayside into a less troubled space. And Spirit, in this case Jim, was assuring me I’d done the right thing by speaking up with love in my heart.

I call this a mini-miracle. I know, I know. Many might, even reasonably, disagree. I mean, what’s so miraculous about someone who absolutely positively doesn’t believe in “stuff like that” feeling potentially comforted by something someone like me or you says? Someone who, just perhaps, understands loss, death, dying, and matters of Spirit and is willing to express that in a moment of need. I’ll tell you. But in order to do that, I first need to humbly offer my own take on miracles after years of thinking there could not possibly be such a thing because my life was such a mess.

Turns out that, like everything else, it’s all a matter of perspective. I never saw miracles because I didn’t believe in them. I didn’t believe in them because I had a definition of what they were that couldn’t possibly be supported by “real life.” The definition went something like this: According to some hazy world view, miracles were things that couldn’t possibly happen to me, but have happened to others—especially in religious contexts, like fleeing Egypt and surviving in the desert or seeing a statue bleed. When I was pregnant, I felt the closest I’d ever gotten to a miracle when I felt life stirring in my womb. Thing is, you don’t get too much slack for calling these kinds of things miracles. It’s all the other stuff that gets you into trouble. You know, when so many things in your life feel like a miracle that, well, your whole life feels like one giant miracle. When even the “bad” stuff feels like miraculous opportunities to practice conscious awareness. To the point where people around you get tired of hearing about it.
It really started for me when my life did a one-eighty after my husband died. It took a while (understatement of the century) before I realized what a miracle it was that I’d actually gone on living. Then, when he started talking to me from the Other Side, the miracle was the gift of communication with my deceased soul mate—and soon after, many other spirits. When I started playing flute again after many years of silence based on his (loud) edict to “buy a new flute and play spirit-guided music,” it was the miracle of joy I felt that I thought I’d never feel again.

What I’m trying to say is that miracles are in the eye of the beholder—or the definition of the beholder. Which is why talking to Stew and Jim felt like such a miracle to me.

This morning, two days after our first conversation about Jim, Stew put down the weights in his hands to talk to me, to tell me how much better he was feeling after our talk, and that he’d found Jim’s address. He was writing a letter to Jim’s wife to express not only sympathy, but to share his love for his old friend. So, yes, I’d call it miraculous.
Because where there was grief, there was now loving acceptance. Where there was a lack of resolution, there was now comfort. Where there was guilt, there was now a sense of life’s precarious nature and an appreciation to live life to its fullest. Where there was tightness, an opening of the heart had appeared.

Do you agree that a miracle by any other name is still a miracle? Or is a cigar just a cigar?

You tell me.


This article is also posted on MEDIUM.COM and EDENMAGAZINE.COM and in Sherri Cortland's WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITY NEWSLETTER--all fantastic resources!