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.