Up Against the Wall

Dear Friends,

These are such turbulent times!

Can we embrace the uncertainty, the challenges and the changes without falling into the fear zone and then staying there? Life oftens gives us more than we expect. Much of what we thought was solid and supportive may fade or disappear. Then we look into our inner selves for the wisdom of creative solutions. Okay, I'll try to be creative even when it feels everything is falling down around me! The drama is so appealing, isn't it!

Breathe and breathe some more. Listen (and not to the fear!) These recent challenges are no more true than the best things that have ever happened to me. There are the drama of life distracting me from trusting what is real within me. Despite my occasional doubt, I know who I am and while what is happening right now is not easy, it also is not that difficult. I have so much- my unique life, my creativity, my friends, family and my community. What am I paying attention to, what is within me or what is without?

Today in a healing session I saw myself standing, banging my head against a wall that I know I have created. I saw how I started out when I was much younger standing up to what didn't serve me but then not being supported. So I acquised who I was for the support I needed and when I finally realized that didn't work anyway, I wanted back my life, my very own being. I wasn't even aware it was possible! Little by little, I started showing up, first in small ways, trying not to alienate the people who did love me but who I hadn't shown who I really was.
This sometimes meant leaving behind an old friend as I struggled toward finding my own voice.
I often pushed away many who would've given me support had I the courage to face and share who I was. The rejection, or the possiblity of it, stung too deeply. It was easier to walk away first than risk it.

So today I saw myself standing in front of a wall. It was the same wall as always, except today it was made of cotton and practically wispy!

The wall of my own disbelief in myself is fading to nothing. It has been alot of smoke and mirrors, tears and fighting for what has been real since the beginning of time. I can stop pushing back, protecting and hiding. I can now remember to listen carefully to the deep soul of my being and to the play of what's happening around me. I have learned to wait for what is real to show itself, which, with patience, it usually does.

It's a funny thing how everything is born out of an opposite and amazing otherness. We have a creation of challenges and connections that we couldn't or at least wouldn't want to live without. There is a play in front of us and within us that contains all we ever need to know about who we are and how we see the world. Can you see the facade of your own beliefs covering the world?

Can you trust who you are, even if you don't have all the answers just yet?
Can you watch your universe unfold in it's own unique birthing process, knowing that newness and birth come after what's called 'transition', not before it?
Can you give up the sense of entitlement enmeshed in the false, illusionary self and instead embrace a simpler,more grounded and more truthful self?

Can you dance with what comes to your door, trusting your realness and not that of the world?

Warmly,
Laurel

Trust the Truth of What You Feel

Dear Friends,

When the glamor fades and the complexity is dissolved, the true, the necessary and the important can come forth. We are all like crows, attracted to 'shiny', and like children, sometimes impressed by big words and bamboozled by complex ideas. Disasters often hide some essential truth in their complexity, yet can also bring to light a deeper truth, as in who your friends really are and what matters most. If we can look beyond, not under the rubble, there is some truth that is trying to be born.

It's more simple than the complexity that's trying to hide it. It's less glamorous than many solutions currently offered.

What lies deeper in our current crisis is how we've allowed others to make money off our needs and wants. Our eyes have been bigger than our stomachs, our wants larger than our pocketbooks. We have trusted in the glamor of credit cards and the complexity of loans to 'make' our lives better when they don't really work. We have believed in a system that says you can just borrow and pay it back later. We have done that and now truth comes, knocks on our door and says now we owe more than we ever realized we would.

We are in an energy crisis. We have been trying to get our energy from something outside of ourselves. We've all been taught this so it's not a crime, just something that maybe we're ready to be done with. Maybe it really is time for a change in how we see ourselves and how we can take responsibility for ourselves in a new world that's different than the old. We are trying to birth a new world and the old one is crumbling down around our ankles, catching many of us with our pants down.

All the energy you will ever need is inside you. We have been taught it's outside of us, in another country even, but it's not. It's in us, in you and in me. We are self generating energy machines and we can learn how to nourish ourselves and not feed off of others.

How to even begin? Trust is what can take us to the truth of what we believe. When we really feel into what we believe, we can parse out the falsities and discard the 'shiny' for a more real perspective. It can feel overwhelming and strange, to trust yourself. Each of us will never know everything, yet we can begin to feel what is right and what is true. I can feel what's right for me. You can feel what's true for you. We can respect our differences and our commonalities. We can come clean about our childish whims and act now with greater compassion and responsibility.

We can step into the now and feel out the truth of what's before us, step by step. There are big problems all around us and fear like a hungry wolf stalks us daily, especially if you listen to the news. Yet what lies deeper is a new world trying to be born in each and every one of us. You are the awakening consciousness of the new world. One breath at a time, one day at a time, one truth at a time. This is the only way it can happen. In you are the keys and the opportunity to be part of the present and thus a path to all our future. It's not going to come from outside of us (even if the aliens land!).
We can do this, I can do this, you can do this.

Listen, it's speaking now, like a whisper in the trees.

Blessings,

Laurel

Please Change Your World

What a bold title today!
The truth is, I can't change your world. My world is full of it's own challenges, it's ups and downs. I am engaged, present to my own process of acceptance or taking action or letting go, whatever is required in the moment.
I'm there with you, in this fullness of life. Yet what your experience is, is of your own making. I can stand beside you yet you are the only one present for your own journey, just as I am for mine.

You are the the process itself and only by your own consciousness can the world change. Something is not going to happen to enlighten you. It happens in you because you pay attention, because you care, because you understand that no one else can do this for you in the way and depth you can do it for yourself.

We have all wished otherwise. Please someone take care of us. Our parents, friends, relatives, state, government all turn out to be inadequate, it's true. It's a setup really. Unfair even.

In the end it's you. We grow up and begin to look within. We see how our beliefs and misunderstandings color what we see and feel. We struggle with the alluring demons in our heads that tell us falsehoods and we gather the courage to say no, not now and not ever. We come to terms with our imperfections so we are not just walled off from the truth of our humanness. We accept our dominion over our own lives, weeding out the falsehoods and opening to a deeper sense of our place in the world. We let go and begin to see a new truth, one that includes both our humanity and our innate spirituality.

I love myself so I can now love you. I used to think if I could just love and accept you then I would be alright, that my undisclosed pain would absolve. It didn't work that way for me (let me know if it did for you). My self hatred was so deep and pervasive. I was the one that left the garden of Eden, that left paradise and needed so desperately to go home. It was my fault, there was something wrong with me, driven out of the kingdom for unknown but suspected iniquities. The original sin deal. Sorry it's not true. That lie keeps you small so others can control you. That lie allows you to give your power to others. Either way it's not true. You are meant to have your own life, your own dominion over your world.

We don't know if we even want that. It means taking responsibility for whatever happens within us when it's so easy to blame anything and everything on the outside. Our excuses abound: I'm too busy, worried, broke, inadequate, whatever.
We have been trained to look outside ourselves and for someone else to fix things. Magical thinking. We think that we are powerless to change our world because we have been taught that it's outside ourselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let's choose to wake up now. "Be the Change". Who you are is your responsibility and your resonance sends a message to everything around you about what you think and feel is true about life. Then that's what you experience. No one else can free you from the lies. Breathe it in and then let it go.

It's all in you.
Inhale and breathe in all the gifts and possibilities of this moment. This is where it starts. Now. Now is here, feel it, embrace it. This is what we have. The fullness begins here, the acceptance starts here, the recognition begins here. Let the lies go and allow yourself to be present. Your life begins anew right now. This is your life, don't be afraid that there's nothing here for you. Allow it to unfold in it's depths and simplicity. Trust life and trust yourself, it's all in you.

Blessings,
Laurel

Forgiveness

The trees tell me they are in a constant state of total acceptance of all that is. From this place of awareness, forgiveness is unneccessary. Oh to be so free from judgement!
Life has it’s conditions, this is always the case. We have basic needs of survival, for food, shelter and protecting our children until they’re grown. We can offer a homeless person five dollars or even twenty, but we might not invite them home. Life is conditional. A mouse may choose to go on living, would rather not be a meal for someone else if he can help it, yet someday he might be that meal. We all make choices to continue living, just as what ate the mouse did. Our life is an amazing gift and we own the rights to care for it.
Acceptance takes us to another level of care. We can accept a homeless person’s right to be and choices she makes. We can offer compassion for those choices, out of respect, not guilt. We would not think of uprooting a tree growing on a windsweept cliff, judging it a poor choice of this tree. We might even admire it’s tenacity to handle such adversity. There is a randomness in nature that fits a perfect bell curve, we too are part of that.
Acceptance is a big goal. Most of the time we look at it as something we offer the external world, yet it truly begins in how we treat ourselves. Our humaness is not always easy to be with. An ideal is held in our minds eye and we strive to meet it. We fail, beat ourselves up and sometimes give up, locking into a pattern of stubborness that protects us but does not serve us. We hold up our imperfections to others and suggest that we can’t do anything about them. We wallow in being stuck, judge ourselves incapable, and deny responsiblity. We are more than this.
Today consider looking at some aspect of yourself that you don’t like. Maybe not the biggest, toughest thing. Pick something small and maybe concrete, a little habit of picking at your cuticles, or judging a particular type of person, anything really. Then hold that part of yourself as human, not perfect but okay. Hold yourself in compassion for this little fault, for this small imperfect part of you that is oh so human. Open your heart to forgiving yourself for this and allow your love to embrace it as you would a small immature child. This is a part of you, allow it. It’s okay to be an imperfect human. Allow your heart to nourish this part also, not just the parts you like.
This is how we begin to open to a new level of awareness, in just small steps as this. This is what is held in our ’shadow’ side; the parts of ourself we don’t want to see and face. You have probably tried the ‘all is love and light’ path and sensed that it’s not taking you where you want to go. Light does not exist without the darkness. They balance each other and teach humanity how to achieve balance also. Think of the darkness as moving the light forward. When we feel or see that disliked part of ourselves, we finally have the opportunity to take action.
We can choose to ignore it thus causing it to be projected outside of ourselves (hence our troubled relationships) or we can begin to befriend what we don’t like. In quantum physics the observer changes the observed. We can begin to heal ourselves by sitting in acceptance of what’s not so nice. This is challenging of course, yet now is a good time to start. In wanting our world to be filled with peace and light, we can create it by taking in vs projecting out what we don’t like. In loving what is, we absorb and transform our personal darkness into light and sadness into joy.
We have perfected the pushing away of what is not good and it hasn’t worked. Now we can begin to be present for ourselves in a new way that heals us. This builds trust and awareness, and awareness opens new dimensions of reality, allowing new depth and meaning to nourish our hearts.
Blessings,
Laurel

Opening a Heart Space

On the last post, I wrote about the heart and the mind and how their perceptions are very different. For most of us, getting out of our minds into our hearts is not easy. We are very used to living in our thoughts and only allow ourselves to feel something occasionally. A feeling may surprise us into tears or laughter. We may even daydream about feeling something strongly but don’t actually let ourselves go there, to feel it.

This was a long road home for me. My Mom was the overly emotional type who was always in tears about something. My Dad, being the practical and logical type, dealt with the world through his head. Being shamed for crying too much, I tried to be like my Dad. It looked easier. Don’t feel, don’t cry, don’t even talk about it. Zip it! Or at least hide until the crying stops.

Yet I was the super sensitive person who felt everything, especially with nature. So I spent alot of time outside, thank goodness, with the flowers, trees and animals. My healing process began when I allowed myself to feel, as scary and overwhelming as that was. There was no trust of what I felt and it was painful and scary to feel I was becoming my Mom. With people I trusted, I cried. I began to feel the dismissed hurts, the minimized needs and unmet wants I’d had as a child. It felt surreal at times and I questioned my sanity. Do I really have to do this? It was a way back, I’m sure not the only way, but because I sat with those who respected my tears and feelings, I began to do the same. I had spent most of my life discounting, minimizing or avoiding how I felt. Sounds familiar?

Culturally, we regard the mind and our thoughts as the supreme answer to eveything. Yet when it comes to some things, it falls so short. I have witnessed this especially in parenting. A 4 year old child asks a question and the parent tells her an answer that is just a mental explanation. Children under seven don’t understand the difference between fantasy and reality and are not cognitively very developed yet. The answer given doesn’t access the feeling level the child lives in so the child continues to ask the question or seek an answer. The parent gives a linear, logical answer to an emotionally based child. You can see the gears spinning in a child’s head as they try to understand what is being shared. You can feel the disappointment in the child’s heart. So a child is taught to process everything mentally (ie safely) as soon as they are able. Children don’t want their parents to feel uncomfortable and learn to suppress, parents want their children to be happy.

This is not an uncommon story, mine or the child’s. Yet nowdays we hear alot about emotional intelligence. How can we raise ourselves and our children to be astute emotionally? We begin by allowing ourselves to listen to what we feel right now.

Let yourself feel whatever you are feeling. This makes sense and sounds so easy, but try it when your mind comes storming in and says if you feel this, you’re going off the deep end, or making a mountain out of a molehill, or you just don’t have time for this right now. The minds’ job is to keep you safe so now it shames you just like your parents did. Intellectuallizing, explaining, shaming, whatever works to keep you safe from feeling that hurt like when you were a child. Now the mind runs riot over you and doesn’t allow you to feel any at all, or just the ‘good’ ones.
If we open our hearts to all of who we are, this is not some fantasy daydream world. This is deep dark soil where the loam of the new you can be born. Born out of the patience and persistence to own all of what’s in you, light and dark, up and down, you begin to piece together the fragmented emotional body. You begin to own a clearer sense of what works for you. You don’t feel everyone elses feelings and not your own. You live in you, not through others. You begin to know how to feed yourself because you know how you feel about what’s in front of you, or know to take the time to feel it out.

Here the mystery is regained; the fullness of trust in self. This is what it takes, step by step, allowing yourself the gift of this next feeling to grow compassion for yourself and thus for others. We all want to be compassionate people yet our minds are often not. Learning to live truthfully and listen to our emotions begins to bridge the way back to the heart. This is a feminine (not female) way. This honors the half of each of us that is now ready to come forward to take a place in the world. This is true intelligence, a clear heart supported by the subservient mind.

Blessings,

Laurel

The Call for Change- Monday, August 25, 2008

As the US political parties gear up for our Presidential elections and everyone is calling for change, I want to propose a call for change also. We’ve not just had 8 years of movement backwards, we’ve had lifetimes of it. It’s time to really move forward by staying in the same place and not doing anything! It’s time to take your life back.

For thousands of years we have left the garden believing we can use our minds to solve our problems. For lifetimes we have left behind the heart as our personal ruler, falsely believing it could not understand enough, fight the fear enough, to save us from the spin put on the world.

The heart is considered weak, ineffective, not really having the power to change our world.
The mind tells us it has the answers, it can solve the problems we face, yet it hasn’t and can’t. More information and more manipulation of information never solves anything. More details about our fears doesn’t change our fear. We’re given a false sense of security to having more and doing more and knowing more yet we are only really content and secure when we’re seeing the world through our hearts.

The mind has held dominion over our hearts and poisoned our view of what it is and the power it has. Maybe the fall of man is just this, the takeover of command by the mind, leading us to be puppets to information and fear. Our current world is all about fearmongering and scarcity. We no longer see the truth of the abundance of our planet and our lives and so this falsehood is perpetuated and we see our world destroying itself. Man can only solve the problems he has created, giving himself the illusion of control.

We attempt to remain mentally positive and generate some good feedback from that yet the foundation of that is not grounded. The heart’s view unfolds a true reality, the mind’s realities only appear real. We easily slip back into fear and trying and work even harder at believing that we can affirm our reality to be what we desire.

I’m not saying that postive thoughts aren’t beneficial, because we know they work alot of the time. Just not all the time. Why? Well because we’ve been taught that we are less than, not enough and weak, etc and the mind doesn’t want to lose control so it sabotoges the love we really are so we’re constantly working at our lives. Maybe you don’t believe that anymore so now it generates distrust of others or your safety in the world. It looks like a gerbil on a wheel and feels like it also. It’s time to get off the wheel dear ones.

“Consider the lillies of the fields, they toil not.” Why? They know they are love, as do the animals and the trees and the earth. Really. Honest. When you are in love, the whole world looks and feels very different. How about us? Who are we?

The trees teach us we are the masters and commanders of our lives, that we are LOVE incarnate. Through the love we hold for ourselves, our lives and our planet, we open to a higher understanding of what we are here for and how to live on this planet. Yet we don’t know how to do this because the mind, which is supposed to be our servant (a brilliant one at that) has become the master and commander. It lies to us about how ineffective the heart is to maintain control.

In the teaching from the Council of Trees, the heart is our center and holds seven levels of understanding and power. It is the key. It informs the foundation of who we are and how we are in the world. It provides us with safety and security because it connects us to the deeper rhythms of all of nature and the universe. When you are in your heart, you lead your life without judgment and you want what’s best for all, naturally. You sit in your heart, BEING all of who you are, having the natural intelligence of the universe creatively avaliable to you. The heart generates trust and the world responds in trust of you. As the heart is present in time, fears from the past and of the future are neutralized. You go home to Eden, to heaven on Earth. From this place you can respond to life with care and wisdom, drawing from a deeper intelligence, the one of your heart. The mind becomes a good servant, as it was originally intended to be, and relaxes, no longer spinning tales of doom and gloom.

This is a change I believe in. This is the only way that works in my life. A thousand years of peace begins in you and reverberates through your family and around the globe. We can do it, saving ourselves and our planet through our love and compassion.

Blessings,

Laurel

Healing the Past, Monday, August 18th, 2008 Being Present for Today

I’m allergic to cats, have been for years. The sneezing and runny nose are bearable but tearing, itchy eyes can really overwhelm me. So I’ve been here for two days with two lovely cats, and I’m going back and forth between the 2 parts of the house, getting things I need to be comfortable, feeding the animals, etc. I’m taking a homeopathic animal dander remedy and putting in eye drops but whoa, it flares up and I can’t stop tearing and it’s really uncomfortable. Saturday I go visit a friend who I didn’t know also had a cat and even though I spend most of the time outside, I’m pretty miserable. My other eye starts to react also. Sunday, I’m constantly putting drops in, remembering the last time when I ended up at the eye doctors in a toxic allergic state. I attend a healing group I belong to and plan to stop by my house after and pick up my air cleaner for the apartment here. I’m worried I won’t be able to stay here and I love it here.

Please know with every healer and modality I’ve done, I’ve brought up this allergy for treatment. Usually I feel better but it has never cleared completely. So in our group I put it on the list, open but not convinced it’ll help much. In our group everyone puts their stuff on a list and we all work the list. (We’re all in this together!) So I’m working on my allergy and receive this whole picture of a conversation on the phone a long time ago with my Mom where all she’s talking about are her cats. Here I see myself saddened one more time with my Mom’s self absorption and my neediness. It’s painful and the message is to forgive my Mom and embrace who I was back then. I do not allow my mind to recreate a story or attempt to ‘process’ this information. I stay with the sadness, accept what I feel and stay with what’s in my heart. In order to move forward, I need to embrace my past self with full acceptance and absolve my Mom of my self care now.

My eye starts to quiet immediately after the healing. I open up the whole house to the cool evening air as I have done each night here. The tearing lessens and I take particular care to avoid the main house and to trust my body to resolve this. Of course I take the remedy and the drops, but something feels very different. Today my right eye is fine and my left eye has a mild irritation, the tearing is minimal.

I am reminded once more that this life is deeper than what we think. Maybe I have never really been allergic to cats at all, just allergic to a hurtful experience in my past, my body graciously somaticizing it into a bearable problem. Today I have felt okay when I was in the ‘catful’ part of the house, as I am right now. My eye feels like it is healing and my soul feels it is opening to a new level of acceptance of myself.

I know my expansion comes out of the connection to my past. Some people feel that each of us cannot more forward without all of us moving forward together. I don’t know if this is true; I do know that I’m responsible for me and I can help myself. My job is to heal my life by total radical acceptance of all I’ve ever been. This is the biggest and most blessed challenge I’ve ever taken on, especially since the only way, after all these years of thinking through it all, is to feel, feel and keep feeling until I’m done. The mind can never heal a broken heart and the heart is the only place where truth and reality appear.

Long ago, one of my teachers said the first thing we feel when we begin to open the heart is sadness. Most people back away right then, moving up into their heads to explain it all away. But the illusionary cure is not real. The pain goes underground and often comes out in weird ways. I’m sure we’ve all experienced that; the surprise attack of an emotion out of the blue that seems overdone for whatever situation we’re facing.

Being with myself totally, with whatever I’m honestly experiencing, is not always easy. It doesn’t necessarily look spiritual. Yet it works and I’m a practical person, I want to do what works. Loving my Mom and loving myself doesn’t always feel like the shortest path to a resolution, or the easiest. I don’t know yet whether I am free of my cat allergy but I am loving all aspects of my life right now.

The feeling I had most of today was one of immersion. Immersion into the depths of life, opening to the unseen world that underlies everything, the sacred world that holds the fabric and the magic that goes beyond what we usually see and think. Loving all of who I have been and all of who I am right now heals me. Then life unfolds her aliveness out my back door and the earth sings it’s glory.

Blessings,

Laurel

A Noisy Quiet- Friday, August 15, 2008

I’m housesitting for the next few weeks way out in the country and down a long dirt road. The planes still zoom overhead but it’s minor compared to the deep stillness in the land. This is how I want to live; with stillness within my aliveness. It seems a contradiction yet it is so obvious out here. There’s a constant racket from the birds, hens, frogs and ducks, yet the tree life is immense and deep roots run under it all. The racket is really song and story and somehow adds vs. subtracts from my awareness of my center. They call me into my heartspace. Feel, feel says the world. Be attracted to who you really are. Sit in your animal being, let your mind take a back seat, give up control by the mind to the heart.

Yes, I have some ‘work’ to do. What value is work when it comes from a space ruled by the mind? How does it feel if my hearts not in it? In my heart lie realms of creativity, depth and shadow, austuteness all sure to be missed by a mind that is looking for safety and security. In my heart, I am allowed to be with all I’ve ever been and all I am now, bringing all these aspects of myself into a new resolution of healing. There is space and depth of being that the flatness and linearity of the mind can’t embrace. Like the crooks and curves of the tree’s roots and branches, it’s time to open to a new awareness of being. By living all of who we are and opening to the wholeness and creativity, we can heal our lives and our world.

Take a breath, feels how it nourishes your heart. You are divine, stop giving control of this precious life to the mind. It’s yours, take it back to your heart. Here your life begins anew each day, here true living has magic and mystery and meaning.

Blessings,

Laurel

Ideas of the Mind vs the Heart- Saturday, July 26, 2008

As usual, my mind always has it’s own ideas about what to write. It can run circles around me that are so impressive. Yet when I sit down at the computer, even though I may have believed that a certain idea would be great to write about, I can’t remember any of it! This is the blessing of my soul to be sure. Yes my mind is occcasionally brilliant but that’s not what I or probably you, what to hear.

Unless I ask for another part of me, I just hear the mind. This new journey calls me toward a resonance deeper in my body, where I sit in my heart and listen from there. This is the challenge, to do this every day, to begin to let another part of me be in charge. In longing for the musings of a deeper clearer part of me, the heart offers it’s own intelligence. Yet the mind says not to trust it, so it took alot of small steps to get here, where something else is leading me. Breathing, listening, following in trust even though results were not guaranteed. Well really, that’s what my mind says, it says the mind KNOWS, so I should trust it. Yeah right!

What I know is I am a lot more me, simpler and clearer, without the mind leading. Here is no fear, just embracing what is, being. Just see what happens when the mind gets to take the back seat. Every moment becomes fuller, more vibrant. Here, here, just here. Yes this is all there is. Here is where my heart sings and I can let go of looking for things to be other than they are. There is really no other truth than the present. This is freedom. Being here shapes my whole day, one moment at a time, breath by breath. In trust, I give up searching , I am all that is.

So sorry, the mind had some interesting things to talk about but really what is more important than learning how to BE. To be in love with my life, to feel all my cells sing, to feel so full it’s delicious. Maybe another time this will be more interesting for the mind. Today it’s an all Hearts day.
Blessings,
Laurel

Tools of the Trade-Saturday, July 19, 2008

So often when people show up for the free class overview they want to know what tools are going to be taught. There are quite a few tools- meditations, healing practices, working with sacred geometry for creating- taught in the whole series but the ground needs to be laid down before the tide comes in. They don’t work well without some basic principles being embraced.

Tools are useless for the unfound because life is so full of strong winds, it’s easy to lose ourselves. First we have to find ourselves. Until someone is ready to turn within, assuage their thoughts and listen to their bodies and hearts they can’t begin to feed themselves. If they don’t know how to feed themselves every day, throwing a few practices at them is like throwing sand at the wind.

This is a new skill for most of us and I still practice it every day. If I forget to orient myself first thing in the morning, I can find myself at midday feeling lost and uncentered. If I put my heart and breath first, the day can be absolutely magical or at least simple, a quality of being often grossly undervalued. When one doesn’t have this basic understanding it’s hard to teach them. They are not present so there is no foundation on which to lay down a path.

First I teach what the trees taught me; who we are and how to heal ourselves, how to feed ourselves so we are self generating, self filling. This is no small thing and to me, leaves a lot of spirtual practices in the dust. Most of us need the basics, every day, on how to live. Well at least I did and do! All the spirtual understandings then can land, then can be implemented, then can fulfill their promises.

I read recently that most spiritual paths are either about renunciation, transcendence or acceptance. This path is not about renunciation, unless you’re referring to the control of the little mind. It’s not about transcendence unless you’re referring to what’s not real. It is all about acceptance of who you really are and creating your life from your heart and compassion.

I am so honored to be sharing what the trees have taught me and most of all to be living in this grace, this presence of knowing who I am, of being the ‘I AM’.

Please consider joining me in September for the basics on how to live, how to love ourselves and how to bring peace into your life.

Blessings,

Laurel

Ripples from the Core of Being- Friday, July 18th, 2008

For days now I have been spinning, trying to avoid this writing, this channeling. I love this and yet there is a little hesitation as it comes from a deeper more expanded part of myself and being oh so human, some days I feel not quite ready. I love the way I feel when it comes on like this, this deep place of connection and love. Yet I resist it. For the last two days I have been trying to do some long distance healing work and when I ask permission to work I get a ‘no’. So I thought I wasn’t supposed to work on that person, but now I’m seeing that I’m not to be distracted from this writing anymore.

I think in my little mind it’s a little thing, not important, secondary. For the little mind that’s true but for the heart, this is the most important adventure of the day or week, to allow who I really am to come forward and be heard, especially by me.

This is what we are to do now, as we move into this new era of consciousness, this new territory. Listen to our hearts, connect to the soul level, the higher self, our innate divinity, whatever it’s called and move from here. Be here, live here, act from here. This place of ‘now’ unencumbered by the past or future, is the only real place to be.

This is the safe space. We think we’re in a safe space when we’re in charge, in control, yet it doesn’t work that way. There is no controlling the flow of life (hence my spinning), there is only letting go and trusting. Oh we want to believe that what has worked before will work now but then we only get what we’ve got before, the same old same old, imbued with fear. Where is the heart? That deep heart knowing place which opens to new potentials of being, which offers a new perspective in an old world that is rapidly fading away.

It’s normal to cling to what we’ve known before, letting the mind run things, as if it knows. It knows nothing real, nothing. There is a material world and then there’s this sacred world that overides it all. Have you seen that? Matter is subject to consciousness says quantum physics. Yet we stand in our little minds and pretend it’s all matter, but really it’s all consciousness. The old rules don’t work and don’t apply. We don’t want what we’ve had before so why do we look to the old ways of being? It’s time to step up to the next level of being, a being with a melded divinity and humanity. A creator, a master of living from the now.

It’s all about trust. You may think you don’t know the place I’m talking about but you do, you always have. It’s always been inside you, trying to wake you up, trying to have a say once in a while when you’ll listen, like when nothing else is working and you let go. An answer appears, the perfect solution to your problem, voila!

When you let go to the big you and stop listening to the small mind, life gets easier. You do not know all the answers yet, but you don’t need all that information and understanding at once, really! What you need is given. You stand in trust and your divine wholeness and listen to your heart. In the sacred space of the heart is the wisdom and compassion for your human self and all the companions who walk beside you. All your answers are within you. The veil is lifting and truth is coming to you. Listen closely and trust your inner wisdom. This is going to be great fun!!

Blessings,

Laurel

Great Quote- Sunday, July 13, 2008

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
-- Albert Einstein

Time for the Poetry of Life- Friday, July 11, 2008

Amidst the intensity of the last month there is an underlying knowing that this will pass and what will come forward will not be more chaos and separation but more truth. What is truth? I’m not sure but it feels right deep in my body and soul…I know it when I find it. There is something beyond the external illusion of what seems soooo important which can feel like matter conjured up for drama and posturing.

I know my truth lies deeper and in more stillness and that’s where I often go, especially when people and situations throw up big dramas and long treatises on “what’s important to understand”, that is full of shadow and emptiness. My heart is made up, it doesn’t want to act out others dramas, be in someone else’s truth, go along on someone else’s ride unless it’s headed in the right direction. When my own dramas show up they are big enough for me and they are my responsibility. That’s my job now, to heal what comes for me. I don’t/can’t go looking for others to fix anymore, that’s just the distractions talking, pulling me away from the true work. I used to think I would be okay if I healed/helped others. The answers for others are quick, easy and all in my head. So codependent, so encouraged by the dogmas of churches and consensus.
My own answers are deep, wrenching at times, real and nourishing if I take that ride to it’s finish, telling my truth and asking myself to step up to only what’s real in life, to the trust and love that’s behind it all. This is self-full love. This is the bottom line of what works. Yes, let’s be as kind as possible to our mirrors and our companions. They are doing their jobs too.

Every day in my work I am confronted with disconnection, separation and disassociation in others bodies and minds. I love my work, I am truly grateful that I can be present to shine a light on what hurts and encourage what heals to come forth. I see how hard it is for us to love ourselves, how difficult to see who we really are and to accept fully our bodies and our lives. My clients have taught me so much about myself and about healing. Mostly, how layered, tender and complex we are and how powerfully gentleness and presence works. This world takes us on the ride of a lifetime literally, and to find our ground, our light and true direction is the miracle, but hopefully not the exception.

The universe is conspiring to help us see the truth, to guide us back to ourselves, to throw up so much chaos in our faces, we have to surrender to the truth inside ourselves, to take refuge from the storm of the unreal to the holy temple within, to the heart. The mind will never stop wanting unending answers to it’s unending questions. The story has to stop somewhere so reality can have a chance to grow and bloom.

If it doesn’t feel real, it may not be or at least not for you. Please trust yourself. Let’s go back to something simpler. Forget the story, feel what is real, rest in your breath and body. Walk in nature. You may not know all the ‘answers’ but you will rarely come out confused.

Biggest blessings,

Laurel and the Trees

Comments:
I went to Rockport, MA this weekend, and talked to the sea for the first time. On the pure shores, rocky and stark, the land is just teeming with life. The sea, she has her own way, a mother that knows what’s best for you whether you like it or not. At her edge, I filled myself with the energy of her winds and waves, but she just as readily, she took all that away, leaving me a clean, empty vessel. It was a humbling experience, for one who spends so much time in their divinity. russen

Direct from The Council of Trees- Friday, June 20, 2008

Looking at the evolutionary history on our Gaia, we see that many species of plants and animals have come and then gone extinct. You may be glad there are no dinosaurs nowadays yet reasonably concerned with the rumors that the bees are beginning to leave.

Please understand that every plant and animal here carries a vibrational frequency that benefits the whole. We said ‘Benefits the Whole’. Let’s leave the subject of humans until later, for as you can imagine, this is questionable.

So each polar bear, each honey bee, every plant and tree carries a frequency that allows the whole planet to stay in balance. As the planet evolved, some animals and plants left, some evolved into more complex species and some stayed the same. There is no coincidence here and there have been no mistakes. All the animals and the plants on the Earth hold the frequency of renewal and rejuvenation for each other. There is an unseen cooperative system here that happens on all levels of being: physical and energetic.

Humans have come to think of themselves as being beyond their bodies and separate from nature and their Mother. Nothing is further from the truth. Even with all the knowledge of ecology, humans tend to ‘think’ themselves separate, literally! Thinking has been very beneficial for humans for planning and executing complex tasks and creations, yet it has become the dominant way of being. Humans stay in their heads and forget their bodies and senses, distancing themselves from the very help they desperately need for health on all levels.
When birds sing creation awake in the morning, they are literally doing just that! When animals buzz, caw, huff, mew and bark they are singing their species and a frequency and partnership that all participate in. Even animals that don’t make noises that humans hear are in constant communication through the wavelength they resonate on.

Humans have stopped listening and few are resonating in partnership to benefit the whole. It’s not only that we don’t hear nature around us, it’s that we don’t hear OURSELVES. We are at war with ourselves and therefore with the whole planet. We can try to ’save’ the planet but the planet will die without us! We are inheriting the dominion of the earth now and we are to be responsible for carrying the frequency of health and cooperation for the whole planet. Let me repeat that:

We are inheriting the dominion of the earth now and we are to be responsible for carrying the frequency of health and cooperation for the whole planet.

We tend to see nature as self-regenerating and self-sufficient and come up with simple (or complex) solutions to save the planet. Yet we are the ones who are lost and we are the ones that need saving!! Denying our bodies, our feelings and our senses; the frequency we put out to the rest of the planet doesn’t support life. Sending out a meditative wave once a month or even every morning doesn’t make up for living in your mental body all day long. Thinking needs to begin to take a back seat to feeling (which can be accessed through breathing) and being present to nature’s resonance.

We know this is not easy. It is an unused skill and can seem unnecessary even. Yet the only real way to save the planet is to take this all very, very personally. Fight the war within yourself, otherwise it is projected outside of you. Be present with yourself so that nature can speak to you, commune with you and heal you. Yes, there will be painful and sad times. Take responsibility for healing yourself by being present to what is yours. Learn to love yourself and to have compassion for yourself. This simple act will do more for the total health of the planet than you can ever imagine!

Wash the thousands of lifetimes of each human on this sacred planet with forgiveness and compassion. Begin with your own. This is what will ’save’ our Mother, this is what will save us.

Blessings,

The Council

Comments:

What exactly does this mean? We are inheriting the dominion of the earth? ruling power, authority, control? This is a huge responsibility, and true. We all need to hear this and respond with gratitude, strength and the ability to persevere with great determination in all our thoughts and actions. We do need to come from our hearts in all our daily tasks and choices to give this earth a beautiful and healthy future now. Thank you for the reminder, let us wake up and shape up!!
Asia
Hi Asia,
I felt overwhelmed after this message came through. I knew there was a part of me that wanted to see the Earth as just doing fine without me so I could think I wasn’t responsible. But that’s the point of this message..it’s important to be part of the Earth, to heal ourselves and allow that new level of connection to guide us in our ecological efforts. We can’t control the Earth any more than we can control each other. We can foster health and strength through understanding and respect. We are part of the ecology of the Earth and our planet will represent our health and wisdom or our dis-ease. We choose with every conscious breath we take. Laurel

I Know Nothing- Monday, June 2, 2008

Today my mind is searching for something which I know is not there. This is what the mind does when it is distressed, it goes on and on looking for answers and explanations. They are not there and whatever I find still doesn’t allow me to sit deep within myself in contentment.

When I am sitting deep within me, holding on to the only thing that is real: the life within me, the soul or spirit or whatever it is; then I need no answers. There are no questions as Being is the answer to everything. The answer comes out of being in an easy and creative flow. There is no striving.

I am human, imperfect and I get distracted from me, from the core of my being. It’s okay if I don’t stay too long and begin to forget who I really am. I am compassionate toward my humaness and to yours also. We have been so drowned in ideas since we’ve been here that it’s hard to find reality, to feel the truth within us. We think time is in short supply and that we can’t Be now, since we have to do now. But the doing is empty of our life, shallow and meaningless. Being is always full.

I am so grateful that I took myself here today. Being with me is always the answer and is the freedom I cherish.

Gratitude to The Council of Trees,

Laurel

Comments:

Just last week, in the middle of a night of celebration with my friends, I heard myself say “We can’t know all the answers right now.” It made me think for a second, and then I realized that this statement is always true. Like you said, it’s all about loving your human-ness.
Russen

Great comment! If we knew the answers, then would we be right? The answers need to come out of our present and our presence in the now. What is presented has many layers to be read and felt. Sitting in the present is the best way to begin to access our inner knowing, to begin to approach our truth. Laurel

Being Whole- Monday, May 12, 2008

Today I allow myself to live inside me, to be my own witness of my thoughts, feelings and sensations. There is a whole universe in here if I am willing to sit with it. This life is big enough for one person. It is multidimensional, varied and full of so much potential I am just beginning to see. In paying attention (such a small cost!) I open to what is there, which is much more than I ever thought even existed.

In another lifetime(it feels like that) I didn’t know what to do with all I felt and all I thought and was often scoulded for what was true for me. Don’t think that! Don’t feel that! I didn’t understand what I thought and especially felt were my keys, were my salvation to a deeper experience of life. I no longer dismiss myself and bow to others truths.

The beauty of the world is best seen from deep inside me. This is the attention I used to desire from others that I now am able to give to myself. Now I can be with others wanting nothing from them, able to listen and witness without judgement, able to love my neighbor as myself. In owning my own self, my fears, misunderstandings and doubts, I see with my heart, with compassion. Gratitude reigns supreme as I bow to the wholeness within me. It is in every breath.

Today this is the invitation from The Council of Trees to me and to you. Breathe and feel, breathe and feel.

Blessings,
Laurel

Triggered- Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Oh so human I am, forever will be and that’s okay. Not easy but okay. A few days ago I found myself in a situation where I felt an agreement was not kept. Lots of anger and tears came amidst remembering to breathe. My reactions were strong even though one part of me seemed to be watching it all in disgust and saying ‘this is not very spiritual!’. But I have given up trying to be spiritual and am committed to feeling it and healing it.

I want a win-win solution. My mind says it doesn’t look like there is one. Now I need to let go and listen at the heart level. I have done a good job of feeling all this but not such a good job of not blaming others for my pain and I know deep down that this is my pain and the same pain of all humanity and this part is mine to feel and heal. My little human self feels very threatened, hence the big reaction and just because I’m beginning to see the bigger picture, doesn’t mean that I just give up or acquiesce what I want instantly. I have done that plenty in the past and it leads to resentment. It’s not about givng in or up, it’s about understanding what is behind such a strong reaction. It’s not about them, it’s about me.

I need to take it home within me otherwise it is just denial. I do want to honor myself and not go invisible when I feel threatened. I know there is a need in me to know and understand something and part of this process is to find out what this is. Then there will be healing. So far there are no quick answers that take away the uncomfortable feeling that I have been disrespected in ways that could affect me a lot.

I know that the solution is not in my mind, that a resolution comes from the formless through the heart. I spend alot of time sitting with myself and breathing, watching my thoughts and feelings.

Claiming my pain, I can see another layer of disrespect I have for myself. See it really is all in me! My human self wants the world outside to change but I truly know that this only follows the inside. I’m the one that doesn’t love herself and there are layers from many lifetimes waiting to manifest and be healed. This lifetime I’m not running away or blaming someone else. Oh those things are so much easier!!

Blessings,

Laurel

Comments:
2008-4-22 Helen
Good for you!!! I can definitely relate. You are certainly something special, Laurel.


Thanks, Mom! I love you!
Russen

WOW!
I recognize you!
You are very brave, Laural. and Thank you.
Jenny

Thank you Helen, Jenny and Russen for your kindness. We are never alone:) Laurel

Moving Inside-Sunday, March 30, 2008

A few weeks back a good friend of mine, Moe, was in town with the Family Systems Research Group which grew out of the Gentle Wind Project. They make these hand held ‘healing instruments’ that work to strengthen and clear a persons energetic system. I am very grateful for all they have created and amazed at what the next step they offer is. They are now using the I Ching and Uranian astrology to create pathways for growth and clear obstacles to wholeness. They had done some of this work on me about 2 months before my encounter with the Council of Trees and I wonder now if that wasn’t what finally opened me to embrace a more expanded reality.

At this seminar, Moe talked again of the victim, rescuer and perpetrator cycle and how if we think we can help someone else, they become the victim. We act as the rescuer and they are ‘one-down’ and that opens them up to becoming a perpetrator of us or others. It creates a one-up or one-down perspective on life that is very unhealthy and breeds anger and mistrust.
What I began to understand was this as an internal cycle and how it is acted out by the different aspects of myself. The internalized critical parent used to beat me up and then I would feel like a victim and try to fix myself. The fixes were mostly external: food, sex, talk, entertainment, distractions, etc and they didn’t really work. They just appeased the dragon of discontent. Even meditation only shut up the critique for a short time. In not recognizing my wholeness, I was a victim of this life, disconnected from others and angry about it all. I was open to the perpetrators and attracted many wolves in sheep’s clothing. My anger came out in situations with other victims and I became the ‘perp’ also. So the vicious cycle can continue and is evident daily around us.

I wasn’t sure where I was going with this today but it is coming to me that so much of what is offered up right now in a spiritual way suggests that the ego is bad and we need to surrender. This comes out of the eastern traditions where there may be little of this victim, rescuer, perpetrator cycle, where there is a basic respect and acknowledgement of a persons worth. Their culture is different and I question whether what they offer will work easily for most westerners. (Maybe it is even beyond that and has more to do with the fear of the rise of the feminine in the wake of the downfall or re-balancing of the masculine. It’s as if the patriarchy has not worked so in the rise of the feminine, let’s reject the ego, because the feminine principles won’t work either.)

So many of the people I see in my work are stuck in this internal critical cycle and when they approach a spiritual path, I feel they are trying to give up what they don’t have: a strong sense of self, an ego. They try to put the cart before the horse. The goal is not to be humble, it is to be whole and feel humility in amazement of the everything that is.

Trying to be humble is not the same as knowing who you really are and having humility happen to you as an extension of that experience. Humility comes from knowing that you are the master and creator of your life and so is everyone else. You are unique but equal and an intelligence beyond this form. This is not an intellectual understanding, it is an experience that you live. Trying to be humble is a waste of time and energy. Forgiving yourself for the misperceptions you hold of who you are is valid. Taking responsibility for your thoughts, feelings and judgements helps a lot. Opening to your own wholeness and worth extracts you from the victim cycle and heads you in the right direction.
What is surrendered to when you are not experiencing wholeness? Dogma. Just a bunch of ideas like these, not the breathing in and out of a divine being living in a human body on this planet.
Blessings on this holy day,
Laurel
Comments:

Asia Guyer
I loved this insight, mostly the realization of the difference between being humble and having humility. Self worth (ego) is all too often frowned upon while on our spiritual quest, where I feel many people in this hectic day and age need to remind themselves often, how precious their individual life is to all of creation. We in our tiny parts and only all of us together make the whole. Laurel : Thank you, Asia

Time to Not Think- Sunday, March 16, 2008

Mercury is in Pisces right now, the same place as when I was born. This lends itself to a mercurial space where thoughts are hard to pin down. It’s a blessing really. When I was younger, I would get lost here and commune with other seemingly unseen aspects of life. As adulthood approached, I attempted to grow up, ie; stay in my thinking self and avoid this more fluid place. It is not an easy place to accomplish much.

Now I enjoy the ease of letting go of all that thinking and allow myself to drift around, all the while tuning into my breath, my true ground. As always the breath and my body are my anchors; the feet that sustain me so I can let go into my imagination and daydreams.
Listening from this place to the deeper rhythms of nature and life gives us all a break from the overfocused and linear reality that we too often call home. That is not reality, it’s just a construct to help us feel safe and in control. Reality is something deeper and contains both the form and the formless. Out of the formless all creation is born. This is a great time to tune into the unknown and allow our creativity to bloom by allowing what is to be mercurial and not so pinned down.

Let’s relax the mind and sit in our beingness and call this home. Loving what is, being present in acceptance and appreciation calls us to a new home. Today is a great day to be alive:)

Blessings,

Laurel

Loving Self and Loving Others-Sunday, March 2, 2008

We are taught that it is important to love and be kind to others. Yet real love is not a thought or mental exercise so much as it’s a feeling. There is a big difference here. To be authentic it must come from our love of self, overflowing from the cup that is full. Here is the paradox. If we focus on ‘loving’ others, there is no real love to be found. When we focus on loving ourselves, it can feel selfish at first but then our cup begins to be full and our hearts overflow toward others. The recipient of this love knows that it is unconditional and real, knows that their true self is being seen. Our oneness is being acknowledged.

Sometimes the recipient can’t feel it because they don’t love themselves yet. We all want to be loved and the love we need comes from within, breath by breath, heartbeat by heartbeat, from the wellspring of who we really are and the gift of being present with ourselves. It can feel so uncomfortable to focus on one’s self that most of us have to be gently talked into it. It takes a little time and perseverance because the mind says it’s wrong and throws old wounds in our face, saying that’s why we don’t go there. Yet there is the way through. The way around is not working, really. This is the hardest yet most important thing we can ever learn and do. It doesn’t have anything to do with accomplishments, our weight, intelligence or degrees. oday consider the gift of loving yourself by paying attention, being present, appreciating who you really are. Breathe into the present and allow yourself to be okay right now. This is all there is.

Blessings,

Laurel and The Trees

Knowing- Wednesday, February, 22, 2008

The more I live in awareness of my body and breath, the more I realize how much I’ve been missing. This feels real and grounded and though I don’t know much here, what I do know is okay and plenty. The rest I trust will be shown if and when needed.

This is the difference between living in your body and living in your mind. The mind always wants more. Only when you have more, can you maybe feel safe. It’s so hard to let go and trust when the mind’s in charge. There is such an undercurrent of lack and fear and the need for more and more data. When does the mind feel safe, especially since it takes what we’ve previously learned and says, oh no, this is never going to to be okay? The mind wants to know things but that knowing is not grounded in reality, so there is this false sense of understanding that is not based on experience. The mind specializes in the past. My past is not clean and clear, how about yours?

Living in my body and breath, I live here, in the present, with the trees and all the animals and the living earth all around me and I am aware of it! I am present to this fullness that is this miracle every moment. Please join me, this is so much fun!

Blessings,
Laurel

Haiku and other Musings- Monday, February 18, 2008

Today I fill up
with a deep delicious breath
No need to eat more
(C) Laurel 2008

I am so loving my life.

Saturday I went to the woods with a friend and after walking a few miles, we heard a hawk calling. We followed the sound down a overgrown path and there, right in front of us, was a hawk sitting in a tree branch at about 20 feet. This hawk was facing away from us but kept turning it’s head to look back at us and sat there for about 10-15 minutes while I took pictures. There is something precious about standing in a hawks world, allowing the layers of it’s being to inform my world, that was so exquisite.

The day before, driving into the countryside, I saw a hawk spreadeagled in front of the car in front of me. Later, when I asked the meaning, asked if it meant if I needed to slow down, the message was no, other people need to slow down and listen. I am to keep going, listening, writing, playing and feeling this big world.

Life is a precious surprise and some days it feels that even my breath is so deep that I need nothing else. I am beginning to see how being present allows deeper layers of everything to open before me and how much trust and love that really does take.

It takes everything. I have a photo poster on my office wall that says “Only those who can see the Invisible, can do the Impossible”, and another that says “An open heart is a condition of simplicity…costing not less than everything” (Osho).

Love your life and everything in it and see it bloom before you in joyful radiance. It is yours, your treasure, your hope.
Blessings,
Laurel
PS: I redid the haiku since I didn’t quite have the syllables right per line…

The Mind, Guilt and Shame- Sunday, Febraury 17, 2008

It’s okay to be who and what you are. Do you believe this?

When we were younger we felt if we could just do everything right then all our doubts about ourselves would be untrue. Where does this doubt come from anyway? For some of us, it was passed down from our parents, but many had no such parental inscriptions. I don’t even know how prevalent this is in other cultures but this lack of basic esteem and striving for perfection is rampant here in the US. It is evident in our drinking and addiction rates and even the massive amount of people who have safeguarded themselves in the box of a fundamental religion. We don’t feel good about ourselves and need a way out of this pain.

Many try to use mind control but some of us find this a futile struggle. The constant retraining of thoughts and beliefs is tiring and does it ever end? It seems something is wrong at a core level or something is right at the core level that isn’t being recognized. What if all you understand about who you are is not quite true? If real growth and learning come from what we do NOT know, then we somehow need to open to a new way of seeing ourselves and our world.

The trees say we are the creators and masters of our own lives. I squirmed at this for a long time when I first heard it. It felt way too big and the opposite of everything I’d been taught. How can I have power over my own life when I feel so buffeted by everything around me? How can I control what I feel and think? Won’t I just turn into an obnoxious egotistic brat? Well it really is a step by step process of understanding something new and the tools to implement it. A new way to be with the guilt, shame and disbelief of the mind is taught. The way out of pain (and out of trying to control everything so that you are not in pain) is elucidated step by step. It did not happen overnight for me, even though I had the trees talking in my ears most nights; it took months. I love this because I am not trying to control my thinking, which seemed like an impossible thing to do anyway.

Deep in my being there is a feeling of wholeness and deep joy. There is freedom and gratitude for this deep gift from The Council of Trees. The teachings come at our understanding of who and what we are from other ways besides the intellect. We are much much bigger than what we can grasp in our minds. We love our imperfections, our humanness and our lives. We stop running away from ourselves and embrace our lives and the fullness within.
Blessings,
Laurel

The Veil- Saturday February 2, 2008

One of the concepts that I’ve looked at in spiritual and religious teachings over the years has been the idea of a veil of separation between us and “God” that is supposedly an illusion. This illusion then has to be my illusion as I now claim everything to be my creation in order to see more clearly what I believe in. If I believe the veil to be an illusion then it can be my choice to see through that veil or not.

This is what I have done in my relationship with nature. A few years back in a stroll with a friend around a lake, in desperation to get out of the over focus on mental ramblings and be present with myself and nature, I decided to drop the veil. Of course, I didn’t know it would work. Immediately everything seemed to come alive. The birds came out of the background and the trees felt as present with me as the other people walking by. After a while the effect faded, but now I’m understanding that it was my focus and presence that left.

A few days ago, a simlar thing happened. I was working/playing outside around my house, emptying rain barrels, hauling water from the back barrel to the front trees, refilling bird feeders, etc. I had heard a few birds around the back early on but as I was taking my last trip to the back patio, I asked the birds if they were OK with the food I’d been putting out. There began a symphony of sound, loud and a bit overwhelming really. I drank in the love nature has for me and then said “OK, Ok, I will keep putting out the bird seed!” The cacophony died down.

I know that all of nature is alive and yet, like most of us, I walk around thinking I am separate from it, that it isn’t really real but as a backdrop for my real life, which is what anyway? My arrogance is huge when it comes to nature. I assume that what I do, what I eat, etc is a small matter, yet I can look at what’s happening ecologically and understand that it really is each and every thing I do that matters. If I believe in that veil of separation then I can drive a gas guzzler, import my food from South America and ignore all those pesky recyling fanantics. I can separate cause from effect because I don’t live in the present where everything is sacred and everything does matter. Matter is what we have been given to play with and energy is our tool. If we are not present, we can’t see it, we can’t feel it so we are dissociated from our lives. We can’t feel the answer because we are not accessing a creative solution from the depths of our inner knowing, which is connected to all things. We don’t care. We have left HOME and are living in an illusion.

Time to come back to a real life. Time to breathe and love again. Drop the veil. All of nature is waiting for you, ready to love you. Ready to see how you define love and accepting everything you give her with a full embrace.

Blessings from The Council of Trees,

Laurel

Comments:

Asia Guyer
I love that you shared this experience.We all need to be reminded of how lifes interconnections are subtle but very present in every moment, and can be felt and yes- sometimes heard, if we just slow down and pay attention. Nature is constantly communicating and we need to listen.

Being Present- Monday, January 21, 2008

Dear Friends,
Today is a good day to spend a little time with yourself. Today is a new beginning, a day like no others. Give yourself this gift of today. Take a few deep breaths and settle into your body. What cozyness is there? Are there any places of tension? Breath into the tension and let it go now. Today is your day so take with you just what you want and let anything else go. ( I drop my shoulders ) Listen carefully to the magic in you, the wondrous workings of your physical body and the subtle feelings that move through it. Wiggle a little, access the little child in you who wiggled alot all day long. Maybe wiggle a lot if it feels good:)

I want to share a story that helped me understand the wealth of depth and memory of what’s in our bodies. Quite a few years ago in a CranioSacral Therapy class for treating children, I had an unusual experience. In order to teach us about the birth process, we were lead back through our own birth. We did this a few times, starting at conception and feeling and moving with the process as it flowed. We were working in groups of two and I had teamed up with a kind gentle man that I felt I could trust to let go deeply. It was instructive to feel so much of what was going on with my parents and feel the whole journey from start to finish.

As I came out the birth canal, the whole room reaked of cigarettes. I kept asking my partner if he smoked and he didn’t at all, never had. Where was the smell coming from? It was coming from me, from my memory, from my cells memory! I knew my Mom smoked during the pregnancy, but this was NOT from my thoughts, this was from me. It took me awhile to really understand that it’s all in us, really it’s ALL in us. Every memory, every smell, taste, touch, sound is planted in you way before your cognitive processes develop and function well. This may be forgotten as we grow into our minds and we start allowing our thoughts to rule what we attune to each day.

So today take back your body, it’s not just something your mind drags around to do what it wants. It’s you, an important part of you and keeper of so many feelings and understandings. It is your master puzzle. Pick up a piece now and take it in, fully allowing yourself to be with it. You can accept it now, you have the maturity and insight to know it doesn’t have to run you anymore. Breathe it in and then let it go. Your life now is what you choose and all the memories can be opened gently so their weight doesn’t hold you back anymore. Now you belong here, now you are free.
Blessings,
Laurel

The Patriarchy- Sunday, January 13, 2008

Have you ever read Deborah Tanner’s “You Just Don’t Understand”? I remember what a profound impact it had on me. The book outlines how males and females in our society are socialized, perceived and supported differently. I realized that my perceptions of the inequality of how male and female children are raised are true and go beyond my own family. I have a great brother who was born 2 years before me. In our family, he could do no wrong and when he did “it was just because he’s all boy”, which meant there was something golden about him and whatever he did.

Despite all the efforts to the contrary, the equality in the way males and females are treated in our society, and often our world, has a long way to go. It feels like this disparity is in the air, so ingrained in our cultures that we don’t even see it except when it’s most glaring and then we shrug our shoulders and feel that that’s just the way things are. Is there some unwritten agreement at a cellular level that has been passed down for eons of time?

There is a rise of the feminine coming, we feel it and it may feel uncomfortable to both men and women. It’s interesting to me that many of the TV shows recently portray men to be such boobs (boy look at the use of this word!) and jerks. Is this self-effacing behavior or a carrot from the dominant paradigm? It’s all so obvious and yet insidious. The big question is: How do we heal it? What really needs to be healed?

What needs to be healed is within us. There is an imbalance of the masculine and feminine is us that is projected out into all we see and feel. This is the only place of true healing because if it’s healed within us then we won’t feel it out in the world either. First, we can hold 100% acceptance that this is our perception (those of us who have it). It’s necessary to feel the inequality within us, in our bodies and feelings. If we deny this then how can we heal it? Next we can forgive ourselves. This doesn’t mean we were responsible for creating it, but that we hold 100% responsibility for it’s truth in us. Forgiving ourselves and our perception, we bless it and let it go. Now we imagine a world of equality of value. There is a premium importance here of not making this just a mental exercise yet staying out of the drama or victim modes. Maybe you can identify a situation in your own life where this was evident and feel how you felt then and now about what happened.

This is a big gift because the imbalance of the masculine and feminine within all of us is deep and historical. Practicing this healing whenever we identify these old feelings of imbalance can begin to ameliorate the depth of this and begin to free us from roles that we never wanted in the first place.
Blessings,
Laurel

Committment- Sunday, January 6, 2008

Dear Friends,
Who is charge of our lives? It feels like a vicious circle. We stay in our heads so we are out in time(past or future), so we are not present. The past or future rules our thoughts and needs, we try to control what’s happening to us with careful planning and goal setting. Yet the present is the only place where we can be full, where we can really take care of ourselves. Not being present we search outside of ourselves for recognition and validation and distraction. We go around in a circle of neediness and unfullfillment, we are really going nowhere.

Let’s stop and take a few deep breaths and reach into our feeling bodies, into our physical bodies. We all have so much unresolved stuff that staying here is a challenge and this is where most people are, so that’s normal, right? Not knowing a way out we tell ourselves that we’re doing pretty good.

Is there something more? Yes, say the Trees. We can learn how to be with ourselves, how to be present in our lives. Yes we will forget who we are and be pulled out into time.The trees teaching gives us bridges into our present. Learning to listen to ourselves, we heal our old wounds and nourish ourselves. The present is timeless and full, here there is deep joy, simplicity and laughter. It is a committment to a new reality and the freedom we deserve.
Blessings on the New Year,

Laurel and the Trees

Making Ourselves Ready for the New Year- Wednesday, Decemeber 26, 2007

Dearest Friends,
It’s almost the New Year and instead of resolutions, let’s just let go. Let go of our old ideas, thoughts, belief systems and old choices. So much of what happens around us feels like it’s happening to us, not from us. If we didn’t create it we are not responsible, right? Yet we can create our lives if we give up the idea that we are small and ineffectual. We are not!

It feels a little scary to imagine a bigger future and begin to feel what we want in life. We don’t want to fail or do something to hurt others. If we hold a belief that if we have something then someone else must be lacking, it makes us hesitant. Is that true? No! Our success doesn’t equate to anothers failure, yet these old beliefs we were taught as children haunt us in moving forward in our lives.

Life is about making choices, conscious choices. When we choose, we can’t make a mistake. Maybe we learn something wasn’t the best choice for us, so we choose again. Still this is much better than living out others choices, riding along drenched in the ideas of the masses.
Every day we can choose to be present, to listen to ourselves, to express our biggest hopes and dreams. We can chose kindness and love, to accept our creation and make choices to create a better world.

Today, let’s let go of everything and start fresh, breathing in the potentials of our chosing, breathing new life into the world.

Happy New Year !
Laurel

Detachment- Monday, December 24, 2007

Happy holydays!
I was struck by something yesterday morning and so here I am sharing instead of working on dinner:). My son called Sunday at 8am and said the airline was offering $300 if he would take a later flight, getting here at 1:30pm. I immediately said great, take it. He called back 15 minutes later and said they didn’t need him so he’d be in at 10:15am. I had climbed back in bed between the first and second calls and just felt happy. I was going to see my son today and we’d have a week to be together.

I realized that I had no attachment to when he came in, didn’t even give it a thought (thanks to the trees). In the moment, everything is good. In my past, I would’ve been up checking the weather, which I’d heard had been bad the day before. I would’ve been sad about losing 3 hours and how that affected our plans for the day, which I would’ve made. But I hadn’t made any plans and wasn’t worried. Hallelujeh!

It is such an amazing feat to realize I am living my life from a different deeper perspective. This feels easier, lighter and more respectful of who I am. I am not trying, grasping, worried or planning. I am here, present, open to what comes, yet feeling all as an expression of me at the soul level. I am chosing my life from each breath, grounded in my earth home, and connected to my divine self too. My mind is there, in the background, churning away, part of it all. As part of my whole it has it’s place, as does my body, my heart and my divinity. In this place there is a wonder and awe at the present, which is a Present and tears come from deep gratitude for the simplicity and beauty. This is a holy day, a holy moment. Take it!

Blessings,

Laurel and The Council of Trees

Balance- Sunday, December 16, 2007

Achieving balance in our lives can certainly be a challenge, especially if we live outside of ourselves. What does that mean? Living outside of ourselves means we are looking outside for our energy, our truth and what we should do. It’s training from when we were little to keep us safe and conforming. It’s a natural thing really.

Yet now we are not little anymore and we are still looking outward. Sourcing from within takes a little practice, we do it all the time but we may not stay there, especially in the presence of others. We want to be present for others in our lives, a very nice thing indeed. But where are we present for others if we are not there for ourselves? When sourced from within our lives are grounded and can contain all the wisdom from our bodies, our feelings, our intuition and our minds.

Here is balance, here we are staying in our home, here we are already full. Being clear in taking care of ourselves, we are not looking for nourishment from others, or from the drama of everyday life. Everything we need is within us and isn’t it a relief to get off the rollercoaster.
Yes, do go out and enjoy yourself! Have fun with friends and family! Just live from the inside out.
Blessings,

Laurel and the Trees

No Time- Monday, December 3, 2007

It really doesn’t exist, this time, so we’re told. Yet we live in it, in the past or the future, occasionally in the present. When we are totally in the Present we feel out of time, which we are.

Whisperings from The Council last night were about the fallacy of time. The Trees don’t live in time, they are always present. The animals don’t live in time, they too are present. They are always breathing, supposedly they don’t hold their breath like humans do. Maybe this is a clue!

Often when we get upset, we hold our breath, trying to suppress our feelings. I often encourage my clients to breathe in their feelings and tears and anger. Breathe it in, it’s yours. We are mature enough now, we can claim what we feel, hold ourselves in kindness and compassion. We can move from reactive to responsive behavior, treating ourselves as we would have others treat us. The ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ thing again. No love for self, no love for others. We all want to love others and especially to be loved by others so much. Somehow it’s backwards. We think it’s selfish, but it is self-FULL and necessary to clear the traumas of the past and come back into the present. So many tears are based on the beliefs formed by what happened in the past. We wish someone could make it right for us. Someone can- it’s US. Now we can learn to go forward, into the present. We stop manifesting outer dramas when we give ourselves the attention and acceptance that we need.

There is a magic that happens when we get out of time and come into our present. We can stay there when we feel safe and safety comes from being willing to be with ourselves as stuff comes up. No it’s not easy! But it works.

The Trees say get out of time, it’s an illusion. Come into YOUR LIFE, breathe in the presence of who you are.

Blessings,

Laurel

Loving Yourself Part 2- Saturday, December 1, 2007

I was sick for a few days, the typical runny nose, stuffy head, sneezy thing. In the last few weeks I have received many messages from the Council of Trees, seen a Bald Eagle and felt like I was at school all night while I was supposedly sleeping. So at a deeper level I feel I am shifting again to a deeper understanding. This is not the easiest path. Learning to love and trust yourself is the hardest thing we can ever do. But it’s the only thing we ever need to do and that we can do.

It’s so easy to focus on the little things and forget who you are. Last night my mind’s going on about what I hadn’t done because I was sick and how I shouldn’t go to the party tonight. I was also lazy and fat and whatever! I hadn’t really been paying attention until it hit me with that one, then I’d had enough lies. So I took a deep breath and focused on that place of knowing and truth within me. It was there, in the background, waiting for me. It is always there when you look for it, just beyond the minds ramblings. The mind always has a story for you to live. You have your LIFE to live. Don’t be fooled, breathe and pay attention.

It’s normal to get emotionally attached to the story. It’s what you’ve used for so long to get by and it’s filled with history and memories, some good and some not so good. Most people are just going for a bigger, better and more expanded story. Your stories are also a weight that slow you down in your expansion process, keeping you safe. They are the framework you live by so you may not want to let them all go at once. But little by little you will come to see that alot of them aren’t so true and are just fed to us to keep us small and safe. Many are overlays of mass consciousness, ie women are less than men, we are here to suffer, you have to work hard to make it, etc, etc. There are so many you are not even conscious of! Stop believing someone elses truth. What is yours?

You are the master and creator of your life. Choose your truth!

Blessings,

Laurel

Hugging a Tree- Sunday, November 25, 2007

One of the best things about a tree is when you hug it, it pulls you into itself, which by the way is part of yourself. Your body is so very special and like the earth itself, it needs to be respected and taken care of. This is a deep ecology that has always been here. The earth takes care of us and we take care of our home.

The trees are speaking out now because we may be ignoring our home, the place where our bodies live. The Judeo-Christian theology says the mind and spirit are good and the body and emotions are bad, thus continuing a split that happened so long ago. Your body is great and so is the earth that nourishes it every day, through water, food, and shelter. Take back your body and your earth. Breathe in and connect to the crystalline core of this amazing planet. Feel at home. You are at home.

If you wander around only in your head, it’s easy to forget why you are here. Having a glorious body allows you to be a creator, to manifest your soul dreams here. No body, no manifesting. The mind traps you in fear and doubt about who you are and why you are here. You spend your time and energy outside of your self, away in your mind or paying attention to everyone else’s wants and loose your SELF. Breathe. Breathe in the truth of you, whatever that may be. Only you know your truth; how you feel and what your experience is. Be there, relearn to trust yourself; to listen to you. So much trust has been lost or forgotten between your body and your emotions and your self. Time to get it back!

When you have a chance, hug a tree and allow it to remind you who you are. And always breathe and listen to you:)
Blessings,

Laurel

Love Yourself First and Completely- Saturday, Novemebr 17, 2007

Dear Friends,
This is part of the 1st draft of a chapter in my book..Enjoy!

Love yourself first and completely.

This is the hardest yet most powerful thing you can ever do. You are so boxed in by your minds inherited view of who you are and what you are supposed to be that it’s very difficult to see clearly. So first I’ll talk about why, then how it’s done, because it took me a long time to really figure this one out, even though I’d heard it a number of times, as you may have also. Becoming whole means all of our parts, the ones I talked about before, have to become integrated. This is NOT something that your mind can do. The mind thinks that this is its job; to figure out what belongs where and to organize and classify everything. Trust me; this is beyond its capability because it also needs to become integrated. Our minds have taken on superior status for eons and learned to wield a lot of power on our world and personal view of life. It likes being in control and thinks it has the righteous view on everything about you. Sorry, not true. You will begin to bring back a sensitive body, emotions that are fluid and a clearer spiritual part of you that has a broader view.

The key to this comes from Aikido plus an understanding of the new physics. What you push away pushes back. What you resist persists. So in order to carry out this function of integration, you need to begin inside, by offering compassion and kindness to yourself. Take a deep breath right now and imagine whatever it is that you may be glaring at in disgust, whatever you don’t like, imagine that as a small defenseless child who needs a little love and tenderness. Sometimes you see or do something ugly that you can’t imagine loving. You are HUMAN. It’s OK.

You are a learning being. Instead of berating yourself, offer a small hug and maybe even a little laughter of compassion. You are here learning what works, and sometimes you try out things that have been done to you. If you didn’t like them, they don’t work. Maybe you loved the person that did that thing to you, so you try it anyway, trying to understand. When you’ve grown up into adults, you think you’re supposed to leave the learning process behind. Don’t we wish! You also probably think that if you punish the unwelcome parts of yourself that they will go away, that you can keep control of all the badness inside you through the unproven method of beating yourself up regularly. It doesn’t work and it makes things worse.You are too valuable and important to treat that way, no matter how anyone else has treated you in your life, no matter what society tells you of your smallness. Not true. You are the only one you really have and you will attract a life that reflects how you value yourself. This is important. No matter what you think of yourself, it’s time to stop the negativity. Now. Take a deep breath again and imagine holding yourself in a gentle embrace. You are everything and by the end of this book, I hope you’ll understand why. Love is the most powerful force in the universe and it is the sweetness that begins to stick the disjointed parts of yourself back together. You may think that if I only love the good parts of myself then the rest will go away. It doesn’t work; the mind has a hard time forgetting that punishment isn’t the cure and truthfully what is pushed away or denied only goes underground or maybe even into a parallel dimension, eager to haunt you when you feel vulnerable.

In order to become whole, you will need to begin developing a safe space, where all of you is allowed, where no part of you, no matter what you ‘think’, is pushed away. Remember thinking doesn’t hurt and you have had a trillion thoughts you’ve never acted on. Thought are just thoughts, allow yourself to be amused by the ones you may not approve of. Say “look at that thought, it’s like a silly child who may not yet know better”.Feel who you are, bigger than a thought, a feeling, an idea. You really are bigger and you can develop a safe space within yourself to be. Breathe. If you only do this one step, you will give yourself the most important gift anyone could ever give you. You will also become the most generous person to others, because you have given yourself the love that you need and therefore don’t need to figure out how to be OK to anyone else. Of course this takes time, to retrain the mind out of constant judgment and really start listening to you so you can nourish yourself. I was taught that this is selfish and self-centered and it does feel like that at first. Soon you realize you feel better and then you feel kinder toward others also. Love your neighbor as yourself. If you do not love yourself, where does the neighborly love come from? Yes, you are worth it and yes, it feels awkward to focus inward in this outwardly focused world.
Step One is the biggest, hardest and most important. Breathe.
Blessings,

Laurel

Sacred Breath- Thursday, November 13, 2007

Awareness of the breath allows you to come back into your body. There are some schools of therapy that want you to breathe perfectly, not too shallow, not too deep. But if you allow the breath it’s own course and not control it with your mind, something deeper begins to happen. The focus allows us to get into a state where we are more in touch with ourselves, we relax and the body enters a state of self-regulated homeostasis.

It’s about trust. You loosen up the control of your head and trust your body, which, by the way, has been doing a great job all these years. Trust your breath and allow it to take it’s natural course. Allow your focus to bring you deeper into yourself with respect and care. Where has all that mental control taken you? Usually it’s more things to control and more thinking and less being. Let’s begin each day in love with our bodies, in love with our breath and in gratitude for the sacredness of being here. Allow your awareness to ripen your being to the fullness of your experience. Be conscious and allow yourself to just be. This is enough because it’s all in you, remember?
Blessings on this rainy day:)

Laurel

Death- Sunday, November 11, 2007

I woke this morning with whispers in my ears about death. Here in the piedmont of North Carolina we are in a severe drought. The weather forecast shows a possibility of rain about 2 weeks from now. My shrubs and trees need water and I need more buckets to catch shower water. But the death of something deeper is happening.

As we walk through our life we are constantly breathing in the new and being given an opportunity to leave behind what no longer works. If we breathe in the truth from the core of our being, our inner wisdom, we access a layer of knowing about who we are and what we are here for. As we stand in the knowing of our infiniteness, we walk through the pain and letting go into a new life each day. This is the life we are meant to live, a life full from the breath of divinity. We don’t have all the answers but the presence of knowing we can trust ourselves in the moment we are in. Walk through fear and doubt. Take it to the other side. Breathe in all of you.

Today allow all the little deaths that are necesary for you to step into more of who you really are. Embrace them, breathe into them, then let them go. The trees slow their growth during a drought and need less water, you also can adapt to lifes changes, breathing in and letting go of anything you may not need anymore, especially those doubts!
Blessings,

Laurel

It's All in You- Saturday,November, 10, 2007

What’s missing in a tree? Nothing. What’s missing in you? Nothing.
This is one of the most important things we can learn from the trees. You are whole within yourself, period. It seems we are so trained from an early age to focus on the external world and often raised to value what’s outside of ourselves more than what’s inside. It’s great to pay attention but let’s do it from deep within our own being, from our center. Let’s find that first so you know where you’re coming from!

As you breathe in your world today, breathe in you, listen to you, feel you. This may seem self centered at first. Let’s just say it’s self-full. It is from a full self that you know what’s real and true for you.

Listen to your body, listen to your mind, listen to your inner wisdom. It’s all there in you. What you feel and know inform how you see the world today, so start there. Is there something bugging you? Can you hold a space for it to be instead of running away? Breathe into whatever is coming up and allow it a safe space to exist. It does exist, might as well welcome it as your teacher and friend. Whatever you can allow won’t go hide and bite you later! As you are truthful with yourself, more truth can come in, so you will find yourself more aware. Give yourself the truth of you today. Allow a safe space for all of you. All feelings, all thoughts, all wisdom happen within you. Begin to make friends with yourself today. Show your human self a little kindness and compassion, you’d easily do that for others. We are all human, it’s okay:)
Blessings,

Laurel