We are all creative. It’s in our spiritual DNA. So why do so many of us feel creatively anorexic? Why do we deny ourselves that which truly fills us?

When we feel empty–less-than, depleted, not-enough–our true selves go underground. We bury our light deep in a shanty-town of denial, contraction and fear. We barter our sacred creativity for things we hope will make us feel safe, loved, and full, but which never do.

Things like relationships in which we wear false faces. Or jobs which require us to leave our souls outside the door.

We adorn our bodies and ignore the pain they are in. We muffle the cries of our hearts with iPhones and busyness.

We do our best to serve, to love, to create, to give, because this is our true nature, and it won’t be denied.

But we can only give what’s within us. If we’re empty, our giving will be empty too. Or it will be transactional—I will give you x if you will give me y–because our own needs have not been met first.

It takes spiritual maturity to ask for what we need, and to receive it with humility and gratitude. Yet unconditional service always begins with receiving.

When we fill our emptiness with those qualities that support our creative hearts, we enter life’s natural flow of receiving and giving.

The pain of feeling isolated–separate from the world–dissolves as we fill our first chakras from the infinite flow of abundance that circulates throughout the universe.

And once our own first chakras are full, we naturally overflow with generosity. We offer the gift of ourselves–our power, radiance, love, wisdom, support, and yes, creativity—to a hungry, thirsty world.

We become living springs of sweet nourishment. The creative spirit in all of life supports our own creative being, and we in turn nurture life with the flow of our creative hearts.

Every creation exists first in the spiritual and subtle energy realms, which hold the pattern for its perfect unfolding. As we partner with the creative forces of the universe, we become pattern makers.

We help mold and shape the patterns that become visible as the landscapes, cities and homes in which we live; the economies and political systems we are part of; the education and health care we provide; the ways in which we treat our most vulnerable and precious citizens—our elders, our children, our wise and holy fools.

As pattern makers, we are the Sacred at play in the world. Pattern making is an activity as absorbing as the play of a child, who learns about herself and her world through free play.

So much of what I do—in the classes and programs I teach, in private sessions, in writing and thinking about our relationship with the Sacred and with the world around us—is help people create playpens for themselves. To establish boundaries and containers within which it’s safe to play.

Playpens are safe places to explore. To follow your curiosity, wherever it may lead you. To find out what’s on the other side of that horizon. Make messes, have fun, splash around without fear of breaking something, banging into sharp corners or choking on tiny objects.

Playpens can be as big as your heart or your business. They can be as small as the miraculous tip of your little finger.

Playpens house pattern makers. All the most creative pattern-makers I know also create playpens for their clients and students.

My brilliant friend Havi, who teaches Dance of Shiva, the yoga of pattern-making, in her Pirate Playground.

Pam, who helps people escape the cubicles that confine them and weave new patterns for their work and livelihood.

Jen, who offers comfort and creative shelter in her retreats, workshops, books and Comfort Café.

Danielle, whose Fire Starter Sessions are a playpen disguised as a rocket ship.

Jonathan and Mark, Michele and so many other powerful, playful, heartful men and women who serve as agents of love, truth and transformation.

We are all pattern makers. And we each play our part in weaving the larger pattern of freedom and creativity, wholeness and truth, play and prosperity.

Next Tuesday, August 24th, I’m offering a no-cost teleclass about Sovereignty, as a preview of my Become Your Own Business Adviser program, which starts on September 15th.

You can register for the call here and listen to the audio even if you aren’t able to make it to the teleclass.

We’ll talk about the relationship between Sovereignty and fullness, Sovereignty as the foundation for creative freedom in your life and in your business.

I’ll also answer questions about the Fall session of Become Your Own Business Adviser.

Please join us. Together, we’ll create a playpen in which we can explore, create, and be part of the evolving pattern of sovereignty and freedom that is changing the shape of life and business, and opening new possibilities for everyone.

If this post spoke to you, you might like these as well:

• This business of chakras…
• Happy Birthday, Havi’s Playground!
• Laps, Sailboats, Surfboards and Tides…

This Sovereign Self Space celebrates their gifts and talents, their quirks and foibles, their accomplishments, heart and love.

Then, they are to spend some time with this space each day, developing and growing it, if they wish, or just hanging out in it and taking in the fullness of who they are.

Lindsay sent me photos of a giant collage she’d made for her Sovereign Self Space. Her accompanying email was so insightful and filled with realizations about her patterns, that I asked her if she would be willing to share it with you. She very graciously agreed. So here is her lovely email, along with my response to her.

You may relate to many of the things she talks about here.

I did my homework! But I’m shy about showing it to everyone so I’m just sending it to you. 
   
It was interesting because in the beginning there was a lot of resistance but then I just hit this flow. And I liked it. I liked the feeling about not thinking about how it had to be and just making/creating/writing without a voice editing it. 
   
And it ended up being a circle. Which was not the plan. 
   
It started very literally, then became more abstract, then ended very poetically.
   
I made note of various monsters that came up, like my “there’s no time monster” and my “seriously, you think you can solve your problems by sitting around doing arts and crafts” monster, and my “you aren’t doing it right! Go review EXACTLY what Hiro said so you FOLLOW THE RULES” monster, and my “what is the point” monster. 

But now I like it. Although part of me wants to go back and ‘fix’ parts of it. Which I’m trying not to do. 

Which makes me realize how careful I am to edit myself before I go into public (by public I mean be in front of anyone who is not a close friend – and that group is small). How cautious I am of what I say and how I say it. 

So that being in public can be really stressful for me if I’m not on a stage (like at the front of the classroom), or in charge (as in the head of the group), because then I’m not in a position to craft the image of myself as I want people to see me. And I don’t think that constant desire to present only a portion of myself is very sovereign . . . 

Of course, I’m willing to have you look at it because I know you’re here to help. I thought maybe in looking it over you might be able to observe some things about me that I can’t see through the haze of all my need to construct a narrative about who I am, even to myself. 

Lindsay, this is wonderful–an intriguing mix of inner and outer qualities and accomplishments, and the underlying patterns that they reveal.
 
Thank you for taking the risk to explore all of the feelings that this exercise stirred up in you. It’s great that you met those parts of yourself that want to be right, follow the rules, feel not-good-enough and need to have their story straight before showing it to the world.
 
We all have these selves within our ego-structure. And, since everything including the ego is made of the same soul-essence, each of these parts of your self holds, in its heart, a spiritual truth.

The need to please or to be seen in a certain light is, in its essence, the need to belong, to be loved, to take your place in the circle of life, and to contribute to your world.

The expression of these needs becomes distorted through fear and misunderstanding about your own nature and your place in the world, but the needs themselves are universal, and fundamentally human.
 
We’re not here to do away with the urge to present a certain image of ourselves or construct a narrative about ourselves for the world. Rather, we are here to meet that urge with love and curiosity, and to discover the jewel hidden within it.

That willingness to explore, to be curious and open to whatever you find in yourself, brings you into your sovereignty.
 
The voices within you that say: Who do you think you are? What makes you think any of this is interesting? You didn’t do it right!  and so on, are fragments of your wholeness. So they have the memory of wholeness within them.

As their sovereign leader, you can help them feel safe and heard–first, by inviting them to tell you their stories and listening for the underlying fears in which those narratives are embedded; and then by holding up a mirror so they can see their own essence.

When you help these fragments of your selves reconnect with their wholeness, they lend the power of their gifts to the shaping of your life.
 
This is one of the main tasks of sovereignty–bringing the inner selves that live in your kingdom into harmonious relationship with each other, and making your kingdom a place where all of your selves are liberated to grow into their full potentials.
 
These feelings are so universal, yet we’re shy about talking about them, because that exposes the most vulnerable parts of our selves. We feel ashamed, tender, afraid of judgment or criticism, so we all walk around hiding our feelings under masks that stifle our power and creativity.

You’re brave for having done the homework with such clarity and determination to seek out the truth about your self and your patterns.

Your willingness to share this publicly is both an act of courage and of great generosity. We learn from each other. And in sharing our most vulnerable selves, we make the world safer and kinder for everyone. Thank you so much!

If you feel like playing kindergarten with us, go ahead and create your own Sovereign Self Space. A sacred space that celebrates you. Come back and share photos and stories, if you feel moved to.

I’d love to hear what comes up for you when you share your self more fully and honestly with your world.

Each time we risk being ourselves, we open up a channel for greater intimacy, closeness and connection. Our world needs you–your particular, unique, quirky, wonderful self.

If this post spoke to you, you might like these as well:

• Can you wear your crown when you’re ill or in pain?
• Who or what calls your name?
• Who’s wearing your crown?

This is a time when we are being called upon to become more fully our selves, to bring our genius and power to the task of creating a world that works for all of us.

So where does sovereignty fit into this task of self-making and world-making?

Spiritually, sovereignty is one of the capacities and qualities of your soul. So it is inherent within you—it’s an aspect of your being.

Each of us is a spiritual being. We exist not as a point in space and time, but along a continuum that includes space and time at one end, and the subtle realms of formlessness—no-space, no-time—at the other. At one end of this continuum is your incarnation—your particular, unique self—that which makes you who you are, as unique as your own fingerprint.

At the other end of the continuum of your being, you are a fractal of all that is—you live within the whole, you are not separate from anything that exists, either in form or in formlessness. This is the realm of oneness and unity.

The quality of Sovereignty is yours along the whole of the continuum of your being, but it looks different depending on where you’re standing in that continuum.

In terms of your incarnation, your own unique and particular selfhood, you have sovereignty over your own life. This means that everything within your own energy field is your kingdom, and you are the queen or the king of it. You have responsibility for your own life, and you have the freedom to choose how you will live.

This doesn’t mean that you can have anything you want. We live in the world of form, and form necessarily implies limits. We also live in nested ecologies. There’s the ecology of your personal life, which includes your relationships, your work, your health, your environment, your neighborhood, your country.

There’s the ecology of the world, which affects every being that lives on this earth. There are subtle ecologies in which our extended soul is embedded.

Each of these affects you in different ways, just as you affect all of these ecologies as well.

So sovereignty is not an Alice In Wonderland world in which you can say “Off with their heads!” anytime something doesn’t go your way. It’s a quality of being, it emerges from your relationship to wholeness, and it carries with it both the responsibility to govern your inner kingdom wisely, and to contribute your gifts and talents to the creation of the world in which you want to live.

So if you want to live in a world filled with kindness, love, safety, respect, creativity and compassion, then cultivate those qualities in your inner kingdom first. As you embody them in your own life, you change your personal ecology, which then changes the world around you.

Sovereignty isn’t some magical kingdom in which we are enthroned forever. Cultivating this quality requires a continual engagement with the day-to-day stuff that shows up in our lives. Sovereignty brings a stronger, clearer vibration into that stuff, so that when you’re sitting in the middle of your own particular crises, small or large, you can still be sovereign.

You can have a day when everything goes wrong, and still be sovereign. You can create the kind of energy and experience you want to have—not by changing what’s happening out there, because you have no control over external events—but by resting in the qualities you want inside yourself. You can meet outer circumstances with equanimity, humor, peacefulness, delight.

…………………………………….

There’s still time to join us for six weeks of Sovereignty Kindergarten, starting July 14. Learn what sovereignty is–and isn’t–why you need it, and how it can transform your life.

If this post spoke to you, you might like these as well:

• Happy Thanksgiving, Baby
• Elegy
• In the Center of My Ribs…

I am not someone who has a career (I’m a full time mom and wife). It’s always been my dream to have a creative way of helping support my family…. something that’s in spiritual alignment with myself and the greater good of the earth and humanity.

From the time I was a child I’ve wanted to know my calling, so I could know which direction to proceed. I know I have a gift to share with the world in there somewhere. Do you think you could help me find it? I just don’t even know where to begin….

Stephanie, your calling arises from the whole of yourself…from your gifts and talents, your love, your sense of rightness, from that which brings you joy.

Start with a spirit of exploration and curiosity, and look at your life as it is right now. What brings you into that feeling of rightness, of flow and love and joy? When do you feel most fully alive? What challenges you? What returns you to yourself?

You may want to make a list of the things you loved to do when you were a child, and build on that. Often, in childhood, we’re in closer touch with our inner beings, our genius. As grownups, we may find ourselves drifting away from center and then it’s more difficult to know whether what you do arises from love or responsibility or something else altogether.

Next, consider how your gifts and talents, your love and joy, intersect with the needs of the world. What do people need, that links you to them, and that lets you serve in a joyful, heart-full way? What can you offer, that you love to do, that would meet the needs in your world?

These are places to begin to explore what calls to you.

Consider, too, what matters most to you right now, what fits into the flow of your life. If you’ve always wanted to sing opera, and you have young children at home, you may not want to choose a career as an opera singer just yet. But you may choose to pursue that passion in other ways, until the timing is right for a fuller engagement with it.

Set a clear intention, and ask for what you want. Ask the Universe, or the Sacred, or whatever you call that spirit that holds all creation in wholeness, for insight and guidance about your calling. Then pay attention to whatever crosses your path, and consider all of it to be a response to your prayer.

Find ways to step into the flow of your creative genius each day. Through writing, art, dance, song, cooking, gardening, washing the dishes–whatever brings you to a state of presence, love, joy and grace.

Your calling lives in the same realm as these qualities, so invoking and cultivating them will take you to the heart of what you’re here to do.

If you’d like to learn more about sovereignty–what it is, and how to practice it–please join us for Sovereignty Kindergarten. Starting July 14th, we’ll spend six weeks together learning skills to help you discover your inner sovereignty and apply it in your daily life. Early bird discount of $100 until July 7th.

If this post spoke to you, you might like these as well:

• There’s Wholeness in Holes
• Who’s wearing your crown?
• Can you wear your crown when you’re ill or in pain?

My question relates to sovereignty and physical ill-health / incapacity.

On one hand I have a sense of being placed in a physical prison, and having my choices limited.

But I also have other conflicting feelings about it. Some days I feel angry because no-one in my kingdom (my body) is obeying my commands. But then I feel sad and guilty because I think that I must be a very poor Queen for my kingdom to be in such disrepair. It hurts.

How can you live as the Queen or King, when it feels like the whole kingdom is rebelling?

Bec, I’m so sorry you’re feeling ill, angry, sad and guilty in your relationship with your body and your health.

The thing is, the sovereign is the leader who serves, rather than She Who Must Be Obeyed. Your inner selves won’t take kindly to being ordered around. Why would they?

Sovereignty brings all of your selves into right relationship with each other, and restores the inner order and pattern of your wholeness.

Its function is not to command your body to do what you want, but rather to create safety and support for all of your selves–to create an inner kingdom in which each self can flourish. Sovereignty means that you provide wise leadership, draw the very best out of your selves, and bring them together as a family to create the life that’s in harmony with your soul’s purposes.

A kingdom rebels because the needs of its members aren’t being heard and met.

We are not a singular self, but a collection of selves. And each of our selves is sovereign too; each one has the capacity for wholeness. Each of our selves emerges from the same Sacred source.

Our selves may become distorted and disconnected from their inner essence, but at the heart of every aspect of our selves is wholeness.

At the heart of pain, physical illness, incapacity, there is still wholeness. This is not just a nice idea, but a very real vibrational field which you can experience. It can be harder to access in the midst of physical pain, illness and disability, but we are fundamentally whole, even when we don’t feel that way.

This doesn’t mean that the physical disability is necessarily healed. There may be karmic or genetic reasons for it. But it does mean that you can know yourself as whole even though your body is disabled.

When you stand in your wholeness–when you identify yourself as whole, rather than identifying yourself as ill or disabled–then you can meet your illness, pain and disability with respect, love, delight and compassion. Remembering always that each of your selves has at its heart a truth and a gift that you need, in order to grow into your full potential.

You can talk with yourselves, especially the ones that carry illness and pain, and ask them to tell you about the spiritual truths at their hearts. Let them know how much you need their gifts, to create the life that’s yours to live. Listen to how they feel and what they need. Not with impatience or condescension, guilt or blame, but simply because they have wisdom and strength that are essential for your well-being.

Honor their sovereignty, and they’ll help you create a healthy personal ecology.

How do you handle illness, vulnerability, and pain? I’d love to hear your insights and comments, as well as your questions about Sovereignty.

If you’d like to learn more about sovereignty–what it is, and how to practice it–please join us for Sovereignty Kindergarten, starting July 14.

If this post spoke to you, you might like these as well:

• There’s Wholeness in Holes
• Who’s wearing your crown?
• Who or what calls your name?

And yet, the distinctions aren’t that neatly drawn. I write to find the radiance of truth, in myself as much as in whatever I’m writing about. I write to discover wholeness.

I may have to wriggle into the house of wholeness through a half-opened window. Or climb a nearby tree, crawl out on a limb, and fall through a hole in the roof.

Writing, for me, is exploration, curiosity and adventure. And sometimes, writing is breaking and entering, in pursuit of what I truly know but have yet to discover, or rediscover.

I burrow into my body for the stories in my blood and bones. And follow my breath to the threshold of my soul’s engagement with the world. Love connects me with all beings–with realities as distant as galaxies and as close as the pupil of my eye.

Writing is a place where my inner being breathes in and out with the rhythm of my world. It’s an encounter with self and otherness, and with the ever-evolving relationship between these two.

When I first sat down to write today, I felt that familiar longing to cross the bright courtyard of everyday reality; to emerge into the more complex radiance of the house of wholeness. There, in its darkened ballroom, truth revolves like a mirror ball, offering reflected shards of light to the walls, to the ceiling, to the corners of the dance-floor. Illuminating faces, bodies, hands, feet, hair. A musical chiaroscuro.

And now a memory blinks in and out. Fragments.

December 2004. I was visiting my sister in Bombay. The day after Christmas, while we were still asleep, a tsunami roared across the Indian Ocean devastating everything in its path.

Why this story? Why now, so many years later?

No matter. This is the story that wants to be told. I follow it through hallways and up winding staircases in the house of wholeness, and each sentence I write reveals only a sliver of it. In the next sentence, a different fragment flashes into view. The mirror ball turns and turns again. Offering a glimpse of this. A glimmer of that.

Experience only becomes coherent–a story, a narrative–in hindsight, when I’m sitting safely in my chair, choosing which story to tell. All the other stories–those that crowd around, clamoring to be heard, those that hover shyly in the shadows–are repressed, set adrift, until eventually they are lost or forgotten. So many stories forgotten.

What I understand now, nearly six years after the tsunami washed away all those lives, is this: The tsunami was an event, a violent, tragic event that took place primarily over the course of several hours on Boxing Day, 2004. But my experience of it unfolded over a much longer period of time; a slow, gradual understanding that could only emerge as my heart expanded and crumpled and bloomed open in a dance that continues today.

Here are some scenes that flash in the mirror ball of memory:

I had just come out of the shower and was towel-drying my hair at my sister Parvana’s home in Bombay. My scalp felt cool and tingly in the flow of air from the juddering air-conditioner.

Parvana hurried into my room with her quick, impatient stride. Without looking at me, she blurted: “Have you heard? There was a terrible earthquake in Indonesia this morning. A tsunami drowned hundreds of towns and villages. In South India too. No-one knows how many people died. It’s on the news. I’m going to phone my friends in the Maldives to see if they’re okay.”

Turning to go, she stumbled, and grabbed the door-frame to keep from falling.

Later that evening Parvana’s friends, Tanny and Nilu, came for dinner. Tanny was then an admiral in the Indian navy. He was in charge of naval rescue operations for South India and the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

All evening, while the rest of us picked at our food, and talked, and worried about what was happening out there in the tsunami-ravaged countries that ringed the Indian Ocean, Tanny was on his cell phone. Organizing relief supplies. Deploying rescue ships. And fielding phone calls from frantic parents.

Cabinet ministers, diplomats, billionaire businessmen–those who knew Tanny well enough to have his cell phone number–called and demanded that the navy send out ships to collect their children and bring them home. These young men and women had been vacationing at beach resorts, which may or may not have vanished under the sea.

Over the clink of silverware on dinner plates, we heard Tanny explain, over and over again, that the navy was needed elsewhere; that the young people would be rescued by plane and helicopter; that he would call the parents back as soon as he had any news. His voice was soft and deep, coaxing, reassuring.

Hours later he dropped into his seat at the dinner table, exhausted. His dinner, congealed on its plate, remained uneaten. Wrinkled eggplant slices. Grains of rice stiff and bristling. Wilted romaine lettuce.

Later still, that night, on the TV screen, the same few images played over and over. Great swells of brown and grey sea. Bits of timber and unidentifiable flotsam bobbing on the waves. People running, crying. Frantic men and women looking for family members.

And the death toll, printed on a banner that scrolled across the bottom of the screen. 2,500. 12,000. 45,000.

I didn’t sleep that night. Or for many nights after. And by then I was too exhausted to know what day it was. But I didn’t cry; I couldn’t take in a tragedy on this scale. My heart felt numb.

The Tuesday after Boxing Day, I took my sister, Nivi, and my 90-year-old aunt out for lunch at a Chinese restaurant in South Bombay. Halfway through lunch, Nivi looked worriedly at her watch. “I have to get home by two o’clock,” she said. “I have to change for a funeral at three.” She sighed. “If it were just a one-person funeral, I could wear what I’m wearing now. But it’s a five-person funeral so I have to change into a funeral sari.”

“Yes,” my aunt said. “Nivi’s poor neighbour. His brother and sister-in-law, and one of their twin boys, and his mother and sister–they all drowned in the tsunami. They brought the bodies home from Sri Lanka this morning. The other boy is still in hospital in a coma.”

I went into the Ladies’ Room, which smelled of disinfectant. No tears, but I retched up a mouthful of bile, and washed my face. This was closer to home; but still not close enough to break through the mushy crust of snow in my heart.

On the plane home from Hong Kong to Vancouver on New Year’s eve, an entire section of the South China Morning Post was devoted to the tsunami–one page per country. The death toll had risen to 160,000. More photos and stories. Interviews with survivors.

I tried to sleep on the plane, but my mind kept watch while my heart pounded painfully in my chest. I wondered if I was having a heart attack.

At last, at last I was home. Exhausted, wired, grateful, tremulous, I hugged my son James tightly. So tightly, for so long, that he finally kissed me on the top of my head and said, “It’s okay; I’m here.”

I thought: When did he become a man?

Days later, a wild, January snowstorm hit the west coast. The wind howled and rattled the windowpanes. The power went out. And stayed out for the next fourteen hours. The house grew bitterly cold.

Sick with the flu, I huddled under my down quilt. I couldn’t feel my nose or face. My ears burned. My head felt as though it needed to split open to relieve the roaring behind my eyes.

I phoned James at his dad’s house. Just to hear his voice. To reassure myself that he was still there, still okay. He was patient with me. I hung up the phone.

Then I curled into a ball on the couch and cried. For a long time, I cried. Snot ran down my nose. My heart was a hundred shards of glass.

I cried for children and men and women who were cold and hungry, homeless and terrified. For all those parents who didn’t know where their sons and daughters were. For our fragile, fragile lives.

It’s now a day and a night since I wrote this. And the question still hovers by my shoulder, insisting: Why this story? Why now, nearly six years later?

I don’t know. So I take the question by the hand, and together we set off to explore the house of wholeness.

The mirror ball in the ballroom is still turning, flashing its beacon through the house.

In its light, I see: Today’s tsunami is the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I’m not there, on those beaches, in those ocean currents, choking with the fish, drowning in oil with the sea-birds. I’m not there.

But that seascape is in me.

The Gulf, the pelicans, the dying fish live in the house of wholeness too.

This time, I’ve been given the gift of geography. This time, I sit here in my living room, feeling the salty breath of Nanoose Bay on my cheek through the open window.

And my living room, Nanoose Bay, the ocean breeze on my face–these are in the house of wholeness too.

Attuning to the Deva of the Bay of Mexico, I find myself in a great meeting room, where beings from many dimensions have gathered. There are Devas of healing here, and Devas of pelicans, seagulls, fishes and oceans. The Soul of Humanity strolls through the room, offering around a platter of food. It stops to hug a woman here, a fish-child there–to reassure the souls of those who are giving their love to heal and restore this wounded landscape, this bleeding, blackened sea.

The Sacred holds this gathering in the heart of the house of wholeness. It feels like we’re sitting in a giant lap–soft, deep, safe.

So much of my life, I have felt helpless before the tsunamis of trauma, pain and suffering in this world. Growing up in India, and being named for the first city on earth to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, I absorbed the suffering of the world into the cells of my body when I was just a baby.

My heart has been wounded and wounded again, until it’s learned the wisdom of sitting like a child in the lap of love, here in the house of wholeness.

When pain sears my heart, the fragrance of the Sacred fills my nostrils. In despair and in gratitude, my prayer remains the same: for blessing and healing for the earth, for love and wholeness for all beings everywhere.

That beautiful sea and coastline, black as a bruise. Those magnificent birds, built for air and flight, trapped by the gravity of oil on their wings. I’ve cried, and raged, and mourned their ravaging.

But each bead of blood in my heart knows wholeness too. I can no longer gather up the pain of the world and hold it inside my belly. It cannot be healed there–it can only damage that inner shoreline, bring death to that living sea. I am responsible for keeping my inner world healthy and whole. The quality of my presence–the peace or conflict in my heart–is what I bring to this gathering. How can I live outside the house of wholeness and join in the work of blessing?

It’s an exquisitely delicate relationship, this response of my heart to the need of the world. Because the moment I forget that the Sacred is in the world as well as in me, my little self sinks under the impossible weight of a million toxic oil spills.

Then I am no longer part of this gathering, a source of blessing and radiance, of healing and love. Instead, I stagger around blindly, stunned, bruised and bleeding. A casualty of violence, adding to the fear, the chaos and confusion around me.

The question that has me by the hand leads me to a quiet window seat overlooking the garden. Here in the house of wholeness, we curl up with our arms around each other, and turn our faces to the sun.

How about you? I’d love to hear about the different ways in which you explore your self and your relationship with the world. How do you enter the house of wholeness? Why do you write, or paint, or bake bread? What do you know?

Susan Piver, Mahala Mazerov and Jen Louden are writing on this topic too. Visit their blogs to join in the extended conversation.

If this post spoke to you, you might like these as well:

• Going Away
• Life Unfolding
• The Gifts of Retreat, the Comforts of Home

What I didn’t do: Spend a lot of time on Twitter, email, the internet, or the computer.

What I did do: Slept in. Read books. Had long, rambling, wildly interesting conversations on everything from the nest-building habits of ground-dwelling birds, to the bizarre and wonderful antics of families.

What else we did: Laughed. A lot. Ate good food. Did healing and energy work on the things we’re each creating in our businesses.

Went for walks–on the beach; alongside a marsh; in the woods. Had lunch at an English country pub.

Mmmmmm…

My friends are returning home this afternoon. And I’m back at work. Feeling creatively inspired, and with a new teleclass that I’m delighted to launch today.

A class that emerged out of the rich, rambling conversations we’ve had these past few days.

A class on how to deal with Internet Hangover.

It’s that stunned feeling you get when you’ve been on the computer for too long. Only to emerge into the three-dimensional world hours later, blinking and disoriented, wondering what happened to your day.

These are the energy tools I teach my clients–and that I use every day–to stay present and connected while I’m on the computer.

Our computers are incredibly valuable tools. So is the internet. It gives us access to each other across great divides of time, space, geography, culture, history and language.

And it presents problems, if we don’t understand the kinds of pressures it exerts on us, physically and energetically.

It helps to have a tool-kit of practical techniques before you enter the gates of Internet-Land.

So you can choose the quality of your experience once you’re there, instead of being swept down the rabbit-hole.

It helps to be able to recognize the first signs of overwhelm, and have ways to address them before they cascade into a full-blown hangover.

I hope you’ll join us for this three-part teleclass, May 12, 19 and June 2nd. The early registration price is $48, until May 1. After that, it goes up to $100.

You’ll find details and registration here.

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I’m moving house again.

And even though the move is still a couple of months away, I’ve begun the process of withdrawing my energy from this place that’s been the home of my heart for the past three years.

My ancestors made the perilous journey across the Arabian Sea from Persia to India nearly 1300 years ago. Something of their peregrine spirit must live in me, because I’ve moved so many times during my life.

First, from India to North America, when I was just 21 years old.

The shadow of that first leave-taking is imprinted in my body. These past few weeks, I’ve dreamed repeatedly of my childhood home. And woken confused by the chitter-chrreee of eagles instead of the caw-caw-caww of crows.

The spirit of transformation is my guiding star.

This means that I choose life at the tideline. Right there, on the shifting shore. Welcoming the incoming waves. Knowing I’ll soon wave goodbye to the outgoing ones.

A rhythm as constant as my breath.

There’s a reassuring constancy to the rhythms of change. And an art to living improvisationally, responding to the tides without being swept away.

Surfers know this in their bodies.

For me, transformation happens most effortlessly, with the least amount of resistance, when I give myself safety, stability and support.

This is not the safety of a battleship or an aircraft carrier. It’s the safety of a sail boat. Or a surfboard. Something small and light and responsive enough to ride the waves without capsizing. Something as fragile as the coracles in which my ancestors sailed east, to India and freedom.

My sail boat is made of sturdy, durable materials. Daily rituals and routines that sustain me.

Lighting a candle each morning to welcome the spirit of my home. Invoking the spirit of grace. Invoking the qualities that add buoyancy to my life.

Paying attention to my feelings.

Eating consciously. Going to bed early.

Choosing presence and nourishment. Choosing connection, soul, heart.

Choosing what I truly love.

These practices are a boat when I’m on the sea. And when I return to shore, they form a lap.

A lap formed by the simple act of sitting cross-legged on the sand.

A lap that is an invitation to be held for a while, in safety and comfort. A lap doesn’t impose or insist–it’s just there, an available and loving support.

The cat or child who visits a lap curls up in it easily, with no thought of “should” or “ought”. The familiar warmth of the lap offers comfort, a place where we’re loved, accepted, restored to our selves.

It is, by its very nature, a temporary resting place, not a permanent dwelling.

When the refuge of the lap has worked its magic, the cat stalks off to chase seagulls across the beach; the child runs out to play in the shallows.

The lap reminds us that we are held; we are loved; we are safe. Visiting a lap restores us to the essential friendliness of our world.

So I’ve been contemplating laps. And turbulent tides. And how I can–simply by sitting with conscious intent–make a lap. Right here on the shore of the restless sea.

A lap for each of you to visit for a while. To restore yourself to your Self, whenever you choose.

How about you? What are some of the ways you make a lap for others? What are the laps that shelter you?

If this post spoke to you, you might like these as well:

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Her blog, White Hot Truth, is provocative, interesting, opinionated, brilliant.

Her business strategy sessions–the eponymous Fire Starter sessions–will change the way you think about your business.

Listen in on our conversation, as Danielle riffs about creativity, money, business, focus and technology.

And then click the link below to check out her practical magic.

If you’re reading this via RSS, click through to hear the audio.

If this post spoke to you, you might like these as well:

• Pattern Makers and Playpens
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Here is a recap of that talk–an offering to Spring, to all that is struggling to be born within us.

The Sacred is the ground of our being, so how do we open to that which is not separate from our selves? The Sacred is not remote from us–out there, in some transcendent realm. The Sacred is my own heartbeat, and yours, and yours. We are fractals of the One Source. It is the essence of who we are, the Void out of which all of creation emerges.

Many religious and spiritual teachings emphasize the need to destroy or transcend the ego in order to be one with All That Is.

Yet the ego–that which makes up our personalities, our uniqueness–is essential to our incarnation. And it too is sacred. This is the Tantric view, that all of life is a hologram of Source. Anything and anyone, including our own bodies and our imperfect selves, can be a portal to the Sacred because everything is made of Sacredness.

We are incarnate beings. One way of thinking about our relationship with the Sacred is that Source expresses Itself in each of us along an arc or continuum.

At one end of this continuum we are a unified field of one-ness. Here, there is no differentiation between you and me, between you and the most distant stars, between me and the earth, between tree, rock, rain and ocean. This is the realm of formlessness, which precedes even the Divine matrix in which all forms first come into being. Everything in this realm is pure potential.

At the other end of this continuum of being is your particular, unique incarnation. This is your self-hood, that which makes you unlike anyone else who has ever lived before. No-one else can be or will ever be YOUR expression of the Sacred–as distinctive as your voice or your fingerprint.

To change a pattern or to create a new one, we must begin where we are. So, to be receptive to the Sacred, we begin by being receptive to ourselves. To our bodies, our minds and hearts, our emotions, our personhood.

Each of these elements that make up the totality of our being is the Sacred incarnate within us.

The week before I was to teach at Jen’s Virtual Retreat, I was sick with the flu. My voice, when it finally returned, sounded like a cranky frog. So I worried: How will I teach if I have no voice? My head feels like jello–how will I remember what to say?

And then the cosmic joke finally landed through the fog in my head, and I laughed out loud.

Of course! The light of the Sacred doesn’t disappear with my voice! It’s always there–in sickness and in health. It’s always there.

So let’s explore opening to the Sacred in our frog-throated, splay-footed, warts-and-all selves. Let’s explore the Sacred in a spirit of play and curiosity.

Close your eyes and bring your awareness behind your eyes and up a bit, into the area of your mid-brain, between your pineal gland near the back and your pituitary gland in front. This, along with the center of your heart, is the seat of your incarnate soul in your body.

Feel the radiance of your soul, here in the center of your head. From here, connect with the light of your personhood — of everything that makes you who you are. Let this light fill your whole brain and radiate out into your body, into the center of your heart, into the center of your belly. Let it continue to radiate out through your cells, into your energy field all around you.

Feel the boundary of your personal energy field–the place where you end and the rest of the world begins–like a great circle all around you. You can mark this boundary with a hedge of roses, or a picket fence. A stone wall, or a mantra or a sound. Anything that gives you a clear sense of where your personal energy ends and the rest of the world begins.

Now fill everything within this boundary–fill your whole energy field–with the light of your self; that aspect of your soul that is in incarnation right now. This is different from the light of your soul, which encompasses more multidimensional realities, but it is equally Sacred. It exists along a continuum with all Light everywhere.

So attune to this light within you, the light of your personhood.

Your precious miracle of a body, which performs dozens of highly complex processes effortlessly every day to keep you alive.

Your ancestry, the gifts of your biology and history, the gifts of your lineage. The gifts of your home and country as they are woven into your incarnation.

Your mind and imagination, which enable you to travel with me on this journey without ever leaving your chair or your bed.

Your genius, your skills and talents. Your friendships and loves, your creations, the things that bring you joy. Each of your accomplishments.

Your qualities of kindness and friendship, of generosity, creativity and playfulness.

The light of your self does not ignore that which is ill or angry; painful, wounded, or fragmented in you. It doesn’t shut out whatever still needs love and integration. It embraces and enfolds all aspects of your self within its warmth.

So take a moment to feel these parts of yourself as a play of shadows and patterns within the light. Bring them into your inner wholeness, which holds all of your inner selves in love.

As you do this, notice what happens to your fragmented selves–notice the relationship between them and your wholeness.

You, yourself, are a source of Sacredness in the world. You are not just a consumer of spiritual stuff. You are a source of love and light and blessing.

So, from the center of your head, experience the light of your sacred self radiating out into your energy field, filling it until it resonates with the vibration of your personhood.

Now feel into the boundary of your energy field behind you, behind your heart. Feel where the light of the Sacred in you meets and blends with the light of the Sacred in your extended soul–that vast, multidimensional being that contains all of your incarnations. That extends into dimensions of soul and spirit that are not in incarnation.

Experience the Sacred in the vibration and qualities of your extended soul, behind you. This, too, is your singular vibration, but it’s more closely attuned to other resonances of the Sacred, more fluid than your personhood.

Take this further–extend the light of your personhood out to the boundary of your energy field in front of you.

Experience the boundary where your Sacredness meets the Sacred in the world.

Open your eyes and look at the objects in the room around you. Feel the Sacred within these objects. Choose one of them, and feel its presence, its essence, which is also the essence of the Sacred.

Close your eyes again, and extend your awareness outward to the edge of your boundary. This time, invite someone you love to connect with you at the boundary of your energy field. Feel their essence, the Sacred within this other person.

Next, invite someone–or a situation–with whom you have a difficult relationship, to connect with you at the boundary of your energy field. Experience the essence of this person or situation, the Sacred within them, met by the Sacred within you. Be aware of what happens when you do this.

Finally, bring your awareness back to the center of your head, to the center of your heart. Feel the light of the Sacred within you resonating at your own particular vibration, attuned to the Sacred in all dimensions, in all creation.

May the Great Pattern of your life unfold this Spring as gently as new leaves unfold on this cherry tree outside my window.

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