Saturday, February 24, 2007

God's GPS

Saturday, February 24 ~ Santa Fe, New Mexico

For a few weeks now and for no discernible reason, Texas (not Carolina) has been on my mind.

It's as though my inner GPS - my God Positioning System - is pointing me, without explanation, to the Lone Star State.

Frankly, I'm a bit resistant. I've crossed Texas a number of times over my two years of full-time travel - the short way along I-40 and the long way along I-20. But I've never felt any call to stop, never felt any pull to explore. And only a handful of the barely two dozen Texans on my mailing list do I know as more than an anonymous e-mail address.

Yet that GPS keeps on beeping.

I think about all that on my day-long drive to Santa Fe earlier this week.

"Why would I want to go to Texas?" I ask the Divine Void.

No answer. Maybe that's why they call it a void.

"Okay," I say. "If Texas is to be my next stop, I want a sign. Make the next license plate I see be from Texas."

It isn't.

"Ha!" I exclaim.

Then I pass a truck. The car now in front of me sports - you guessed it - Texas plates.

"Oh," I say.


It doesn't stop there. The very next vehicle also bears Texas plates, as do many of the vehicles along this stretch of I-40.

Does that convince me? For the moment.

The moment has a short shelf life.

Two nights ago, I contact my Texas Two Dozen to gauge interest in group activations or private sessions. The results (to date) have not been completely persuasive, even as I know that there could be myriad other reasons for my foray deep into the heart of Texas.

This morning, apparently still unconvinced, I leave my hotel to meet a friend for coffee.

The car next to mine is from Texas.

Fifteen minutes later, as I maneuver into the cafe's tight parking lot, I squeeze in next to a jeep.

From Texas.

I get it.

I'm going.

Heart Open Wide

Friday, February 16 ~ Sedona, Arizona

I drop my daughter, Guinevere, back at my ex-wife's house after an afternoon's outing. My ex-wife is pale, coughing and struggling through flu-like symptoms that have been plaguing her for several weeks.

"Do you think you could do a session for me?" she asks.

We're on good terms, she and I. Still, it was probably difficult for her to ask. It's even more difficult for me to answer.

The split second between her question and my answer feels as though it lasts a lifetime as a rush of thoughts, memories and emotions cascade through me.

My first thought, even as I know I will agree to work on her, is a screaming I don't want to do it!!

Concurrent with that are two memories.

The first stretches back eight years to a sound activation I did for her on the lava rocks of the Big Island, when she was still pregnant with Guinevere. We had been married about a year and were deeply in love.

The second is barely two weeks old. A friend, visiting me in Ojai, intuits that another level of that marriage, which ended more than two years ago, is ready to be healed.

In that moment, I understand my resistance, even as I still feel the pain of it: In order to do any kind of session for anyone, my heart must be open....wide open....to the client.

In that moment, I realize that my heart is not wide open to my ex-wife. Parts of me don't want to open it, are still afraid of being hurt.

In that moment, I reassure all my fearful selves and say yes...to her and to my heart.

When I'm done, I know that whatever healing this session has provided her, it has provided at least as much for me, forcing me to new levels of love, compassion and openness.

I don't know about her, but I'm not the same. My heart is open.

Photo: Sedona Sunset by Mark David Gerson

Focused Expansion

Sunday, February 11 ~ Ojai, California

You have to imagine this drawing in motion, rotating on its various axes, creating overlapping vortexes of energy through its multiple spins. That’s how I first saw it in my inner vision as I sat on a stone bench at Meditation Mount, just outside Ojai, where I've been since the end of December.

Was it the sacredness of the land? The energy work a friend was doing on me in that moment? More than likely, it was a combination of those and other factors that imprinted this image in my mind’s eye.

The moment I saw the interlocking Vs, I recognized the one that opens upward as expansion and its mate as focus. I say “upward,” but of course there is no fixed orientation here. Only motion. Energy. And focused expansion.

Drawing by Mark David Gerson: "Focused Expansion"