A Weekend with Anita

Greetings in Gratitude!

Having just spent a weekend with my cousin, Anita, I am freshly aware of our humanity, the ways we differ and the ways we are all the same.

'Nita was born oxygen-deprived, so has lived with labels all of her 67 years. First she was "retarded," now "developmentally disabled." And in between she has seen a variety of institutions and homes, depending on where the state considered she belonged. Some of her history is painful, some of it she reflects on with nostalgia, and always she is accepting. At this time she lives with her mother in a suburb just north of Minneapolis.

She teaches me so much. And this weekend we learned even more about one another. A publicly-funded program provides for two weekends of respite care with 'Nita in our homes to give my aunt some change of pace; one weekend with me and one with her brother. I spent quite a bit of time with 'Nita when we were kids, and we always got along.

She needs meals prepared and her bed arranged. She helps with simple kitchen chores and needs some direction when out and about. She keeps herself groomed and loves people. She works in a part-time job with others like herself, earns a little money is very proud of this independence. She talks to herself quite a bit, and so do I.

And she is so psychic at times that she knocks my socks off! She knows what will happen next in a TV show, and she bounces off thoughts in my head and fills in the blanks. And, as natural as the Earth, she is always accepting.

What do we show the world and how are we labeled? Would we know ourselves through the eyes of others? Are we obvious and natural or are we pretenders? What kind of person is easier to know? And with what kind of person are we most at ease?

The complexities of this Earth are of no concern to Anita. She feels the pain of those in crisis around the planet, but a Polar Shift does not come into her purview. The question of service does not enter her thoughts, but faith in God is unquestioned.

Who we are the world is not as important as that we are. We might agree that the more aware we are, the more responsibility we have to shape our thoughts intentionally and to do service as we are equipped. And I celebrate that having no awareness is simply the assignment we have accepted. And we are created in that Plan that serves us best.

Comparing oneself with any other is an exercise in exhaustion. Honoring each other as perfect, on a path as flawless as our own, we can remain focused on our personal assignment. Promoting ourselves requires that we remain focused. And that we are is all that counts. More about this another time. Big subject, affecting every relationship and situation in our lives.

Until next time,

Phyllis

There Are Days.....

Greetings in Gratitude!

Are there days in your life when you're simply not motivated to insert yourself into process to promote your life? Days when you just want to rest on your laurels and forget you ever heard the word "spiritual?" Well, you are not alone.

Do you have this feeling that not wanting to be involved means you are lazy or, worse, that you have lost your way? Some input about this seems timely.

Reading this blog probably means you are already on a path of discovery, at least curious, and perhaps investing intentionally in personal growth. And, without realizing it, you may also be fulfilling a role for the planet that means a significant investment of your energy.

Is it any wonder that from time to time you need a breather? Nature illustrates the need for our resting time. Plants do not grow at the same rate year around, bears usually hibernate, and butterflies only become because the caterpillar goes into the chrysalis stage. The butterfly is a great example, for while the chrysalis disguises the transformation, still it occurs while seemingly in stasis.

Growth does not stop because we give ourselves time to breathe. Your consciousness is a living, vibrant Mind that is in constant motion. Evolution is inevitable. We need not feel self-conscious because from time to time we take a break from applying ourselves consciously to our personal growth. In fact, intentional growth vacations can renew and invigorate your life.

And in that renewal time your Spirit does not rest. On the contrary, we all need time to integrate what we have learned; to reflect on and celebrate what we have achieved. We are conditioned to this fear that a down time is detrimental. Summer school vacation is accompanied by admonitions from teachers and parents that we might fall behind unless we practice our skills over the summer. What is true of the brain - information accumulation - is not true of the Mind. The expansion of Mind never takes a vacation.

And even as the brain takes a vacation, Mind stores everything brain has ever explored. It's all in there, folks! We truly lose nothing.

We can become very immeshed in our personal growth, striving for more and yet more wisdom, at the same time coping with the pressures of the planet. As we move through this accelerated period of evolution and the planet increasingly shows us the evidence of pressures beyond our understanding, we really need time relieve the stress. We need, more than ever, to simply attend to the other aspects our lives; to have fun, recreate, breathe, ask what our system needs and indulge ourselves.

I am grateful to those of you who are very good at this already and teach me a better balance. Thank you for your example. Earth breathes more easily as we do. And we breathe with greater ease as we tend to all parts of system. We will not fail. The Plan is perfect. And each of us is a perfect part it. Recreate to Breathe and Grow. Breathe and Know.

Until next time,

Phyllis

Unfinished Business

Greetings in Gratitude!

A conversation with my paternal grandfather last night triggered talks with Judith and Nancy this morning that all support my process of grieving; grieving necessary to move forward. No dodging or weaving, just breathing and singing and crying.

Perhaps like some of you I have not given myself time and energy to fully grieve all of those who have moved on from this life. And as my mother ages, inevitably to leave us one day, I am grateful to my grandfather for telling me to grieve her leaving before she passes. And so I will, breathing to create space for this process before the end of this day.

This seems a great time to review what we've been told about the courageous journey we take in this experience called human.

Many years ago, a group calling themselves Zarathustrians arrived at a workshop I was leading in Hayward, Wisconsin. They were wearing hooded robes and did not reveal their faces. They said we were a curiosity to them. Their messages came as if from computers, without emotion. And as they walked around the room, they peered in to our faces and observed closely.

They said Earth is a grand experiment in the Cosmos; a gathering of elements from many cosmic locations to combine physical, mental - and for the first time - emotional qualities in one species. Like courageous explorers we accepted this assignment to learn and expand consciousness with all three elements combined. These Zarathustrians are composed of the physical and mental, but without the emotional. And they observe our experience with much fascination and respect.

Is it any wonder that we feel often that we are in a foreign land without a language when delving into our feelings? Like Lewis and Clark we approach a new landscape and hesitate, or dodge and weave, before proceeding into unknown territory. And yet the dimensions of discovery are of a magnitude we can hardly grasp. We grow immensely as we dare to step forward and feel everything our emotional system has to reveal about us.

Breathing and Exploring with all of you, until next time,

Phyllis

Dodging and Weaving

Greetings in Gratitude!

Whether you are a sports fan or could not care less, bear with me here. Our lives are often mirrored in the games people play, and my entry today reflects one of those times.

Watching the Vikings game on Sunday and now reviewing the plays, I am struck by the dodging and weaving so many of us do without realizing that our best play may be missed in a reaction to our past. Our best play may come from the "hit" we are so adeptly dodging, if only for the moment.

If you didn't see the game, I'll just review that near the end of a tied game, the Vikings quarterback, Brett Favre, threw a pass that went off target and subsequently led the Saints (!) to win in overtime - and to clinch their first trip to the Super Bowl.

Favre had a choice. The choice he did not make - to run and make some yardage - some said, was a reaction to his age, knowing that keeping the ball and moving forward would result in his 40-year-old body taking the 13th hard hit of the game. This may or may not be true, but we could understand if it was the reason he did not make the play that would have given the team safe field goal range - and a probable win.

Favre had suffered such brutal punishment in the game that I was amazed that he was still standing and playing in championship style. I am amazed at so many people I know who remain on their feet despite the punishing blows life can throw at us. We have courage. The question is, how do we face the repetition of life's challenges?

We all make choices, often reactions based on experience that says, "Dodge and weave and avoid the impact." The trouble is, we have to live with the choice. Even though we dodge and weave repeatedly in similar situations, we may actually gain some perspective. We give ourselves the chance to change the reaction (default) into an intentional action that moves us forward to a win. We get to see the situation through new eyes if we breathe when we find ourselves in a situation we realize we really want to change. And, thankfully, we are not usually under the pressure Favre was on Sunday. Usually, we do have time to breathe.

Living in a default energy causes us symptoms of anxiety. We know that anxiety is always the result of giving our power away to some person, condition or situation. Wisdom says this is true, and my experience affirms it. We can change the condition by paying attention to instances of anxiety and breathing to reveal our own Wisdom. The Truth may be revealed in a position similar to Favre's on Sunday. The choice may be difficult, but the payoff is huge. The payoff is a life free of looking back and wishing it were different; a life moving forward to the win.

As we Breathe, we Know. I am breathing with you as we all move forward to a life of ease and joy, and I celebrate our courage to stand and breathe. The wisdom will always serve us well.

Until next time,

Phyllis

Spirit in the Sky

Greetings in Gratitude!

What a trip I've been taking the past 48 hours, and I have many lovely folks to thank for it.

First, let me give thanks and credit to my clients, friends and to my unique mother, sisters and brothers. When my System reveals a new thought, a boost to my vibration or a revelation it often comes because that person triggers my process, allowing or inviting me into their personal stream of consciousness. What a blessings this is to me and to the planet because whenever we learn something new, we expand Cosmic Consciousness (the Mind of God) and everyone benefits by osmosis. Wow!

Special credit and thanks go to my bio sister, friend and partner, Judith, whose insights and support led me to embrace a personal friendship with Christ that is not traditionally Christian. By her own unassuming quiet strength, she has always led the way and opened doors for me. What an amazing person!

My long-time friend, Nancy, inviting me along for her wild ride through the Cosmos, has opened doors I would never have considered. Our braided streams of Consciousness reveal energy and revelations I stretch to consider and, often, adopt. Thank you, Nancy.

Nancy helped me realize some time ago that waking to music in my head is a message from some part of my System revealing themselves and sending me a message. Clients also report music that, "I can't get out of my head!" This leads us into amazing and sweet messages. And it happened for me this morning when I woke with a phrase from Spirit in the Sky, the music I love from Norman Greenbaum. (To access the music, type "Spirit in the Sky" into your search engine. You can play several versions by scrolling down and selecting one of the album covers.)

The phrase is, "I'm not a sinner; I never sinned..." which Greenbaum apparently uses to reflect his rejection of Christianity. Well, I've grown out of my animosity toward any Christian teachings that once gave me heartburn, so that's not my message or my point. What it did was bring up my cellular belief that we are infected with sinful behaviors. I'd thought that I had put this to rest when I rejected the concept of Original Sin many years ago.

But here I am revealing to myself that an old belief, deeply buried, still influences the way I feel about myself sometimes. And now is the time for revealing old thought forms, considering them, and gratefully, intentionally releasing them. And for me the process it to feel the belief - as it is, not as I would like it to be - breathe deeply, thank it for its service and release it. For some beliefs many breaths are necessary to do the job. Ha!

Have you realized that when you breathe, thought and emotion, for the moment, disappear.

You cannot breathe and think or feel at the same time. Spirit is Breath, Breath is Spirit. So breath is the means to break up any disturbing pattern you find in your System.

Of course, you are entitled to hold onto any feeling or thought that is teaching you something, no matter how painful it is. But once you decide you've had enough of it, you can use your breath as the very best therapy I've ever found. Breathing repeatedly while intentionally reviewing an old thought form or stored emotion can entirely release it. Ta-Dah!

Happily breathing, until next time!

Phyllis

Greetings in Gratitude!

Yesterday the message was about how we can contribute. We are well-schooled in giving. Our society, our communities, our families give us so much training in doing service for others. The sketchier training is in how to receive; how we renew ourselves. It seems we need prompting often to recreate self. This has been my primary life lesson: how to receive without guilt; how to receive without limit from The All That Is.

In May of last year I gave myself H1N1 and collapsed, flat on my back with fever for a few days. Unable to do anything except drink water and eliminate, I faced The All That Is with no choice but to open gratefully to receive. Energy moved through me, effectively renewing me and, perfectly, teaching me that receiving to this degree requires total surrender.

Total surrender?! I've been practicing all these years and still had so much to learn.

Acceptance does not come easily to those of us who have learned that survival means struggle.

For months before the flu drama, my heavy cotton lace drapes had been turned inward, time and again, during the night. What was my first reaction (after thinking I must be sleepwalking)? I thought, what have I done wrong? Certainly, if it was important for my guides to be contacting me, I must need correction.

Then, as I processed further, and the drapes continued to turn in the night, I realized I was getting no correction. One morning after straightening the drapes and going to the shower I suddenly realized I was learning how to receive without self-consciousness, without limitations. I knew that receiving was mine, not by earning or deserving but simply by being. The "drape messengers" turned the drape while I was in the shower, and I could "see" them applauding!

But it wasn't until I gave myself the flu that I realized how far I had yet to travel in this new Wisdom.

And breathing is the practice to achieve surrender. Whether we are receiving insights or new cars, breathing is the key. Breath is the key to open ourselves to The All That Is. With each deliberate breath we remember we are Spirit, thought falls away and we enter that stream of consciousness through which all things are made possible.

As we enter that stream of consciousness we reveal Self, the Master Self, which is all wisdom.

In that Wisdom we know - not the future necessarily - we know who and what we are. We have certainty that reaches beyond the physical and gives us ultimate Peace. This Wisdom is Peace.

This is the ultimate surrender; the surrender that releases us from the struggle we once learned so well. Survival is not the objective. Life with ease, life with Peace, life in the Wisdom of Master Self is the objective, and we are achieving it!

With Breath, we are achieving it.

Until next time,

Phyllis

Pressures and Perfection

Greetings in Gratitude this Jan. 19th!

For at least three decades wise voices have been preparing us for the coming polar/axis shift and the experiences we could expect leading up to this natural evolutionary event. Even before the discovery and exploration of tectonic plates and expected volcanic and earthquake activity, channels reported an expectation of a polar/axis shift to occur early in the new century.

In addition to scientific projections, Spirit has prepared us for the correlating pressures in our human experience. And we are seeing the evidence mount with each passing year - terrorist activity, hurricanes and tsunami activity reflecting pressures in Earth and our consciousness. Our current evidence in Haiti will most certainly be followed by additional global crisis. The pressures mount as we grow closer to the time of the shift. The next activity may well be located again in China and in Mongolia.

Now is the perfect time to ask how we might make a difference. Some of us will volunteer at a critical site; some will send funds to support the rescue efforts; some will pray and meditate to support those in crisis. Some will breathe with Earth to assist the mother in her birthing.

We can all make a difference.

We can certainly contribute by standing back in empathic observation. For if we insert ourselves sympathetically, losing our balance, we contribute to the pressure. We have an obligation related to our heightened awareness to maintain personal balance while attuning ourselves to what it means to us individually to make an inspired contribution.

The Consciousness is a single, living and vibrant entity. Each of us is born with a part to play in it, a Plan that works best as we are attuned to it. To realize that personal Truth, breath is essential. Breathe and Know. Perhaps not immediately, but given time and surrender, breath will lead us to knowing and knowing will guide us to right action. It will be different from that of your neighbor or friend. And it will be perfect.

Until next we meet, Breathe!

Tune-In and Tune-Up

Greetings in Gratitude to all of you.

During this unprecedented era of personal and planetary changes, I could not offer guidance more important than this: Breathe. Especially when it feels most difficult to do so. Breathing moves us from one experience to the next, thus facilitating change. And each of us is carrying a unique Plan, so your change will be significant to the planet in a way different from mine and different from your best friend. Comparing will serve no purpose except to illustrate the pain in it.

Two things come to me today that I share with you. Reading a site authored by Tom Kenyon,

I recalled counsel I took to heart many years ago. He recommends paying attention to your pineal gland to accommodate current changes. His therapy includes a vibrational stimulation through sound. You can read in detail his recommendations on his site, which can be accessed by simply typing his name into your search engine.

The counsel I received was from a valuable mentor, Rev. William Buehler, who taught a meditation technique called Synergy. At the beginning of each mediation we breathed deeply and brought breath as light into the center of the brain, particularly to the hypothalamus, the pituitary and the pineal glands. Some weeks ago I was reminded in personal meditation to reinstate this process and the effect was immediate and compelling. I was filled with a sense of focus and purpose, and the character of my day changed.

My process is to focus on this area of the brain, and breathing deeply the glands reveal themselves. Each seems to take the energy in its own unique pattern. You don't need to know what the glands look like or how they work to enjoy this effect, but any focused intention magnifies the benefit.

As we are evolving in our personal lives, I am grateful to know that the Earth benefits - from each breath and from each intention we initiate. No one serves better than or in the same way that you do. Breathe! And Celebrate with Gratitude.