Why Wait?

Thursday, April 19 ~ Santa Fe, New Mexico

When I was a boy growing up in Canada in the 1960s, a cute, animated beaver starred in a series of government-sponsored TV commercials every winter. In each episode, the industrious beaver would work on his dam without waiting for spring thaw.

The message, brought home in the catchy jingle Why wait for spring? Do it now!, was to encourage Canadians to think about launching home improvements during the winter.

Why wait for what appear to be perfect conditions?

Why, indeed?

An inner beaver of my own has been singing his version of that jingle to me for weeks now. It's not about home improvement, and his lyrics don't scan nearly as well as those written by George G. Blackburn for the Canadian Dept. of Labor 40 years ago.

"Why wait for someone else to do it for you?" he sings. "Do it yourself!"

For me, my beaver song has been about The MoonQuest, a profoundly spiritual fantasy novel I began writing 13 years ago. (If truth be told, it began writing me 13 years ago and hasn't let up on me since!)

Now, countless revisions, one screenplay adaptation, one award, one agent, numerous attempts to find publishers, and many close calls (including one involving Conversations with God's Neal Donald Walsh) later, I have heeded my inner beaver and am doing it myself.

The MoonQuest will be in physical, printed and published form later this spring!

Of course, as I pointed out earlier this month in Body Talk II, I'm not doing it myself at all. I have had lots of help: my spirit beavers and other energies/critters, as well as many of you, who have lovingly supported and encouraged me in this process.

And what a process it has been! Through it, I have discovered deep layers of fear I thought had been put to rest long ago. I rediscovered how easily I get overwhelmed. And I am still discovering how empowering it is to take a project to completion myself and not abdicate the final stages to an outside entity.

How often in our lives do we do just that? How often to we abdicate our power to others? How often do we remove ourselves from critical decisions that, truly, are ours to make? How often do we refuse to acknowledge our highest dreams and desires? How often do we walk away from them when they seem impossible?

The old New Age paradigm would have us sit in silent meditation until our dreams were realized. The old human paradigm would have us push, push, push, regardless of any inner imperative.

The new paradigm for this new age is a new balance of inner and outer, of the human and the divine. It calls on us to go within to connect with our highest dreams and desires (not those we think we want but those our soul yearns for (see Manifestation Beyond "The Secret"). Then it calls for us to surrender to the divine imperative that tells us when to wait and when to act.

And when, in timing that can only be divine, it is time to act, we don't wait for spring. We don't wait for someone else to pick up the slack. We don't wait for someone else to do it for us.

We empower ourselves to take responsibility for our own dreams and, with the assistance of all the energies and entities (embodied and disembodied) that want nothing more than for us than to succeed, we take one step, then another, then another and then another...conscious of the ultimate dream but focused on the moment.

That is the only way I'm getting through this publishing adventure: One day at a time. One task at a time. One moment at a time.

It shouldn't surprise me that that's how I'm being guided to proceed. After all, that's one of the many spiritual lessons of The MoonQuest. Apparently, it's one I'm still learning!

~ Listen to a free audio excerpt of The MoonQuest, read live on my 4-16-07 teleconference

The MoonQuest will be available on or before 7-7-07. Reserve your copy today* (why wait!?) and get free shipping** (U.S. only)! Plus I'll autograph the book to you or to whomever you're gifting it. (Advance orders paid by credit card will not be charged until the book goes to the printer in May.)

* If I have your credit information on file, feel free to reserve your copy via e-mail.
** This is a prepublication offer. Normal shipping charges will apply once the book is out.

Body Talk II

Sunday, April 1 ~ Santa Fe, New Mexico

As I lie in bed this morning nursing a cold that I know to be fear-induced, I recall words that first came through me four years ago in the Melchizedek-inspired Book of Messages:

Self-consciousness is your ego mind’s protection against the very force and beauty of your power. So look at those areas in your life where you carry self-consciousness and know that in those areas have you the greatest power.

I think of this as I ponder Batman Begins, the movie I watched last night. In the 2005 film we discover the caped crusader's origins and learn how Bruce Wayne's greatest fear -- of bats -- becomes his greatest strength.

I think too of the unconscious truth I uttered a few days ago when describing my cold to a friend: "It's all in my head," I declared, then laughed, realizing what I'd said.

Both the cold and the fear underlying it are, truly, in my head. As uncomfortably real as the symptoms feel in this moment, they're manifestations of my reluctance to fully embrace my greatest strength and power.

And my greatest desire.

You see, the symptoms kicked in pretty much the moment I arrived back in Santa Fe Wednesday for a projected ten-week stay. The purpose of this sojourn? To launch LightLines Media, my vehicle for publishing and marketing my novel, The MoonQuest (see my 3/27/07 newsletter, Manifestation: Beyond "The Secret").

Yet I don't think I realized just how scared I was until Friday, when it was time to e-mail the manuscript to the designers who will be creating the cover and laying out the book's interior.

In that moment, I knew that however overwhelmed I might feel at the prospect of launching this publishing enterprise alone, the true source of my fear was the same as that of the The MoonQuest's main character.

"It is time," Toshar is told in the book's opening lines, "to set The MoonQuest on parchment...to fix it in ink, to set the truth down for all to read.”

It's funny. Over the years I've sent versions of the manuscript to agents and publishers. I even had an agent for a time who pitched it relentlessly. For a while, I excerpted it for free on my web site and made it available for sale as an eBook. So why be so fearful now?

Two reasons:

• Every other version was subject to change. Revisions were always possible. I could always go back and make it better. Now, as was Toshar, I'm being called to fix it in ink and type, to stop it in time, to say, "This is The MoonQuest in its final form," to give up the illusory goal of making it perfect, to open myself to the judgment (and praise) of the world.

• Every other version was untold steps away from my greatest desire: a final, printed book with the potential to reach, touch and transform many. This process of self-publishing is the closest I have ever come to realizing that goal.

And so the parts of me that fear my power, that fear others' judgment, that are deeply self-conscious of the story that birthed through me and of the particular words that now form that story, is crying out to be noticed, to be reassured, to be loved...and is doing so through yet more body talk.

My call is to not let myself be paralyzed by fear or its physical manifestations. My call is to push ahead despite the doubts and second-guessing, to love all parts of myself through this initiation and to assure them that they are safe, secure and protected.

There is no safety in hiding. There is no security in turning down the wattage of my power and light. There is no protection in the kind of armoring that conceals my truth.

Walk the earth naked, clothed only in your truth.

Those words came to me a decade ago on the rocky shores of Lake Huron's Georgian Bay. Three thousand miles and many lifetimes later, they are as valid here in Santa Fe (a city whose name means Holy Faith), as I launch Lightlines and The MoonQuest.

One final note: When I complained about how overwhelming it felt to be putting The MoonQuest out by myself, a wise friend reminded me that there's no such thing as self-publishing.

"You're co-creating with Spirit all the time!" she rightly insisted.

So I'm dropping the term self-publishing from my vocabulary. The correct term is now Higher Self-Publishing!

And the journey continues.