The Power of Being

Friday, Oct. 24 ~ Surprise, Arizona

I'm sitting on the patio of the Olive Garden restaurant here in Surprise, Arizona. Dinner is done and I'm waiting (and waiting and waiting) for my check.

Frustrated, I set down my book and am immediately aware of a vortex of energy spiraling out of me and around the patio, touching everyone and everything in its path.

As I focus my attention on the swirl of light I seem to be radiating, the young man sitting by my left shoulder darts a quick, wary glance at me, as though I had tapped his arm. Just as quickly, he looks away. 

I've been on the road nearly 30 days now, a tiny fraction of the 30-month duration of my previous road odyssey. In both instances I've sensed, without objective proof, that part of the purpose of the journey is as an activational presence -- in effect, doing energy work on everyone and everything I encounter, including the land I drive or walk across. 

In 1997, just before my first such journey, my then-Reiki Master likened all who are initiated into the Reiki energy to crystals. Without making any conscious effort, she said, we would be radiating healing energy -- just as a crystal does. There was nothing we needed to do but be the energy.

In the years since, I've come to expand her dictum in the realization that we are all energy vehicles and that our energetic presence -- our beingness -- is always a crystal-like presence in the world. 

It can be a presence for en-light-enment or not. That is our choice and it depends on the resonance or vibration we are holding at any given moment.

If we are in fear, mistrust, anger or hatred, then those are the energies we project around us and those are the energies with which we affect others. 

If we are loving, compassionate, grateful and forgiving, if we are walking in the path of our highest calling and potential, we can be a powerful force for healing and transformation.

"Be the change you want to see in the world," Gandhi said. He didn't say "make the change." He said be the change.

When we live from our hearts, practice compassion and surrender to the highest imperative we can access and touch in any given moment, we are agents of change, angels of light and healers of the highest order -- without having to do anything.

It's happening through us, whether we're aware of it or not, regardless of what we're doing. Of course, our actions are important. But they will flow naturally from this place of beingness and will be the most appropriate actions possible, even if they don't seem that way in the moment.

I understand this. I know it. And I believe that this journey I'm now called to is powerful work -- in my life and in the life of the planet. Yet my doubting mind still seeks proof at times, still seeks validation, still yearns for confirmation...even as I know that none of these are objectively necessary.

My Olive Garden experience -- though not as dramatic as parts of me would have preferred -- offered a hint of what's really going on in my life and reminded me that all I need to do is open my awareness and I will get all the "proof" I need.

Yes, I still wonder some days why I'm not doing more. I wonder why I'm doing so few sound-healing events and sessions, why I'm not promoting my books as aggressively as I was a few months back. 

I'm open to doing all these things and do them when called or when the moment feels right. But I'm learning to accept that my beingness will always be a more powerful and effective tool of healing and transformation than any doingness I can muster up.

When we hold the resonance of trust, faith and love out in the world, that's the highest work we can be doing -- regardless of external circumstances. We can't always see the impact of that "work" (and might, in my experience, not always prefer to see it), but it's happening. 

By being all we can be, by surrendering to our highest imperative, by living from our hearts, we not only transform ourselves and model that transformation for others, we activate everyone and everything into that same force field of change. 

One final note: There are many days, here on the road, when I wonder how just "being" will pay my bills when there's little that I'm consciously doing to bring in money. 

Then I remember the many miracles that have turned up for me over the years -- just when I've needed them. I remember, too, that God, however you define it (God Self, Higher Self, Spirit, Universal Mind, etc.) is the true source of my support and supply -- not my books, not my clients, not an employer.

My only job is to be -- open, receptive and surrendering -- and to let that beingness define and determine what I do. From that place, I trust that I will be supported, not because of what I do because of what I am. I trust, too, that all will be well...as it always is.

Art by Mark David Gerson: "Heart of Fire (#403)" -- As you look into this drawing, hold your hand to your heart and become aware of the fire within it. Feel the passion that burns in the center of your beingness, a fire that burns eternally yet destroys nothing but your own sense of your own limitations.

Rebirthed from the Earth

Thursday, Oct. 2 ~ Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Whites City, New Mexico

It's an hour's hike down 755 feet of spirals and switchbacks to the floor of Carlsbad Caverns in southeastern New Mexico. My knees protest the unrelenting steepness of the trail and my emotions protest the loss of light, the descent into darkness.

This journey into the womb of the earth scares me, which surprises me. I recall neither physical nor emotional intensity during my last visit here, in 2005. I remember only the sculptural beauty of the calcite formations and the ghostly otherworldliness of this underground realm.

This time, though, the trek has me close to tears at times, and I'm embarrassingly relieved when I complete the mile-long circuit of the 8.2-acre Big Room and find myself waiting for the elevator to whisk me back to the surface.

As I return to the light, I'm suddenly aware of the powerful metaphor I have just experienced. On this day before my birthday, I have had my own rebirth: into the womb, which, however embracing, is still dark and confining for a spirit accustomed to infinite light and space...up through the birth canal with remarkable speed and ease...and into a new day, a new life, a new outlook and a renewed purpose.

Tomorrow, on my birthday, I expect to ascend to the heavens and touch the stars -- with a visit to the McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains of west Texas.

The rebirthing continues...

Carlsbad Caverns NPS photos by Peter Jones: #1 Cavern entrance; #2 Big Room formations