Mark David Gerson's New Earth Chronicles

A New Era

2009-11-13T17:55:00.003-07:00

If you also read or subscribe to my other blog (formerly The Voice of Your Muse, now simply Mark David Gerson's Blog), you'll know that change is in the air on the blogging front: I've decided to take my philosophy that life, creativity and spirituality are all intrinsically linked and apply it to my blogs.

In effect, I've suspended posts to this New Earth Chronicles blog and am consolidating all my blogging efforts on Mark David Gerson's Blog. The result will be a more dynamic blog, still focused on creativity but with a more eclectic and broadly spiritual flavor that should appeal to writers and nonwriters alike.

If you were already a subscriber to The Voice of Your Muse, nothing will change for you. If you subscribe only to New Earth Chronicles, you will eventually be auto-subscribed to the other blog once Feedblitz merges the lists. If you'd rather not miss out on content in the meantime, simply use the subscription blank here, on my web site or on Mark David Gerson's Blog. Any of those will make sure you get on the mailing list right away.

I hope you'll continue to enjoy my musings on life and creativity on the other blog, and I encourage you to continue to share yours there, too -- with me and with each other.

One more change: I've revamped and redesigned my web site. Please have a look.

The Colors of Enchantment

2009-08-12T17:44:00.000-06:00

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I don't know what it's like now, but when Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall opened in 1982, its architects were loudly criticized for the auditorium, which, to many, was bland and colorless -- a stark contrast to its bold exterior.

The designers countered that its neutral shades were to be a backdrop for the audience.

And it's true. Before the lights dim, the concert hall is itself a symphony of color, with those filling its seats the star attraction.

I thought of this this morning while out for my morning walk in the high-desert foothills behind my house. And I remembered the first time, in 2005, that I drove into New Mexico.

Until that point, the only other place I'd lived in the Southwest had been Sedona, with its thick stands of juniper always green against striking crimson cliffs. When on the wintry January day I first crossed the state line from Arizona, I was shocked by New Mexico's unrelenting dun. "Where's the color?" I cried, determined to hate this place that had pulled me into it so magnetically.

Turns out, they don't call this the Land of Enchantment for nothing. During my next two years of full-time travel, New Mexico was where I spent most of my off-road time. Yes, it was a comfortable driving distance from my daughter, still in Sedona. But there was more: a numinous quality that transcends logic or explanation, a magic that speaks to the soul of anyone open to it.

Today during my walk, yellows, fuschias, magentas, violets and whites spring from the colorless soil, all the more brilliant because of their neutral backdrop. It's as though the land, in a life-imitates-art version of Roy Thomson Hall, has muted itself in order to give its flowers top billing.

I love this place, especially the granite-studded Sandia Mountains that rise up behind my home.

New Mexico lacks the obvious beauty of other places I've lived -- Nova Scotia, Hawaii, Sedona. But, no less than those, it has seduced my spirit and will, no doubt, keep me here until it has had its way with me. And for now, walking among the flowers that always seem such a miracle here in the desert, I pay tribute to the generosity of a land that steps back to allow all that thrives in its dusty soil to be its star attractions.

Photos #1, #3, #4, #5 (c) 2009 Mark David Gerson: Desert flowers, Sandia foothills, Albuquerque, NM; Photo #2 Roy Thomson Hall interior, by Roy Thomson Hall

Be Inspired!

2009-08-12T17:33:00.000-06:00

Tuesday, August 11 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I'm excited and gratified to announce that the response to my 9/11/08 appearance as featured Inspirational Luminary on InspireMeToday.com was so successful and popular that they're repeating it this Friday, August 14.

Once a for-pay site, Inspire Me Today is now free, offering you features that will inspire you not only on August 14, but every day. So when you visit to read my inspirational offerings, I hope you you'll also sign up for the free daily inspiration email and free 44 page eBook Secrets to Soaring.

The site is awesome and I'm proud to now be able to call the woman who created it, Gail Lynne Goodwin, a friend. Please check it out on Friday...and beyond!

Snap a Pic for Me and Promote Yourself - Part II

2009-08-12T17:22:00.000-06:00

Monday, August 10, 2009 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

This is a repeat of a piece I posted on my The Voice of Your Muse blog last month, but featuring a whole new gallery of readers! I hope you'll join the fun. Read on to find out how....

Do you have a copy of either of my books? If so, I'd love to include a pic of you reading either The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, The MoonQuest, or both in my Rogues Gallery of Readers Photo Album on Facebook.

And to help you promote your book and/or web site, I'll include in the photo caption not only your name but your promotional info/link. I'll also post a selection of reader pics here in a future blog post.

If you have my email address, simply email me your pic and caption information. If you don't have my email address, contact me via Facebook, Twitter or my web site once you have the photo, and I'll tell you where to send it.

Thanks to Lynn Higgin (top pic, above), Dave Rhodes, Cristina M.R. Norcross, Laurent Delpit, Irene Brodsky and Joanne Allgoewer for their reader pics. I'm looking forward to getting yours!

How Great Thou Art

2009-07-14T17:50:00.010-06:00

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I originally wrote this piece for a May 2005 issue of my then e-newsletter. But with so many people facing so many doubts about so many things in these so-turbulent times, it felt time to offer this reminder of the fundamental truth of our infinite potential and innate greatness.

May 16, 2005 ~ Victor, New York

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
~ traditional hymn

There's an old hymn you might know titled How Great Thou Art. I discovered it about a decade ago on a country gospel compilation and have loved it ever since. Through that time and until a few weeks ago as I was walking through a riverside park in suburban Detroit, I gave little thought to the words or their current relevance.

Then as I strolled among the emergent greens of an Eastern spring, something shifted and suddenly I got it.

All those church-goers through the hymn's century-long history who assumed they were singing to someone else, to the God-on-high that's outside of themselves, were missing the deeper truth behind the words.

All this time, they and I have been singing to ourselves!

How Great Thou Art is a declaration addressed not to some white-bearded deity, but to the singer. To me and to you: How great thou art.

For you are the God That You Are. And how great thou art!

The God That You Are is mighty. The God That You Are is strong. The God That You Are is fearless. The God That You Are knows only effortless, easy abundance.

The God That You Are is love.

We hear variations of this so often: You are love...God is love...Love is everything...Love is all that is...Love is all there is...

All these are true, even if they have been tritened in the over- and superficial use of those phrases.

But the basic truth is that the energy of love suffuses all. The energy of love fills all. And the energy of love is all there is.

And if that's so, then you are that energy. You are love.

How can something that is love be less than? How can something that is love be not good enough? How can something that is love be not valuable?

You are all these things. And from that place, it's time to step into an appreciation, acceptance and embrace of what you are.

For once you recognize, truly and viscerally, that there is nothing but love and that that's what you are, you can no longer hold yourself down. You can no longer diminish and demean who and what you are.

All you can do is acknowledge how great thou art. How great thou art.

There is a God Presence within and around you that in this moment is expressing itself in human form. It has the eyes the allow you read this. It has the ears that allow you to hear this. More than anything else, it has the heart that allows you to know this.

So stop for a moment. Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath and breathe in the truth. And that truth is the underlying greatness of the love that defines who and what you are.

Yes, the word the love has been cheapened through misuse. But in our human language that we now share as a means of communication, love really is the only word we have.

It's time to reclaim. It's time to re-energize it. It's time to open to the truth of it, which is that love is more than a romantic, red-trimmed valentine that makes you feel good on February 14.

Love is an energy.

It's the energy that created the Universe. It's the energy that created you. It's what holds you together in this body. It's what stitches the Universe together. It's what holds the stars together in their constellations. It's what creates the healthy, healing and whole-making patterns of our lives.

It's a frequency and vibration that sets no conditions for its expression, its giving or its receiving. It simply is. Ever-present, it always surrounds you in its embrace.

Take a moment to feel yourself embraced by that energy.

Close your eyes and think back to a time and place, where you felt fully nurtured, loved, embraced, present and in remembrance of all that you are. And if you cannot now recall such a moment, simply allow these words to create one for you, as you remember how great thou art.

Wherever you do not feel love in your life, wherever you do not feel that nurturing, nourishing, all-embracing, all-accepting energy of creation, breathe it in. Allow your breath, your connection with the Divine Being that you are, to embrace you, to nourish you, to nurture you...to love you

You are the God That You Are, and that God, all triteness aside, is love...the infinite and ultimate expression of love.

There is much baggage around the word God. Yet it is simply a three-letter word we have chosen to describe an energy that our minds cannot, at this time, comprehend.

How can your mind comprehend the infinite nature of all that is? How can your mind comprehend love as that infinite expression?

So we create words like God -- or Universal Spirit, Great Spirit, Goddess or All That Is. The words aren't important. What's important is that you attune yourself to what that energy represents, an energy that is beyond your mind's grasp.

Your mind is an important part of you. But it is only one part of you. Honor your mind and the roles it plays in your life. Don't allow your mind to be your life.

Your life is the energy represented by the concept of God. Your life is the energy represented by the concept of love. Your life is the frequency of your highest potential, a potential that your mind cannot begin to grasp.

So step out of your own way and into the God That You Are. Or better put: Get out of your own way and allow the God That You Are the freedom to step into your life.

Many evangelical Christian religions talk about accepting Jesus, which can sometimes, in some situations, be off-putting.

Yet if we take that call as a metaphor for opening your heart to let the love that Christ represents flow through you, then we're essentially talking about the same thing.

We're talking about opening our hearts to allow the highest energy to express itself through us, not only in Sunday church, not only in meditation, not only in the midst of some other experience of touching the Divine.

We're talking about being that Christ Light. It's being the Jesus within you, the Mother Mary within you, the Buddha within you, the Moses within you, the Allah within you, the Great Spirit within you. It's in being those energies in every moment.

Too easily and too often, we disempower ourselves by seeing those God energies as separate from ourselves. We sing How Great Thou Art to the outer God.

We do that, in part, because our minds cannot grasp that these energies reside within us and are part of us. We also do it because our minds, or some fearful parts of our beingness, cannot accept that we are that love, that we are that greatness.

So your assignment for this moment is to surrender to the concept that you are great, that you are love, that you are God.

Your assignment is to read or sing the words how great thou art and apply them to you. Your assignment is to see every expression of the word God as an extension of who you are.

The Divine God of your beingness is you. Not your human body or personality mind but the God That You Are, which encompasses everything -- all that is, was or ever could be -- and brings it together in a greatness that longs to express itself through you.

So open your heart, mind and soul to the greatness that you are, to the God That You Are. And in doing that make the choices for that higher resonance. In every moment.

When you stand at the crossroads of any choice, notice which fork in the road carries the higher resonance, which choice is the God choice.

Do your best in that moment to take that path, the God path, the Jesus path, the Allah path. Take that path as the Divine-in-human form that you are, and move forward in that energy, spreading the love and greatness that you are through each word, thought and action, in each moment.

You are the God That You Are. Repeat that:

I am the God That I Am.
I choose the God That I Am.
I surrender to the God That I Am, and I allow that highest potential, that highest presence, that highest expression of who I am, to live through me, to love through me, to act through me, to speak through me, to breathe through me.

I am the God That I Am.
I am the God That I Am.
I am the God That I Am.

Bless yourself with that energy in every moment of doubt, uncertainty or fear: I am the God That I Am.

The word namaste means I greet the divine in you, I greet the God in you, I greet the God That You Are.

And so I complete this by blessing you, by honoring you and by acknowledging how great thou art, by acknowledging the God That You Are.

I know who you are. I know the Divine Presence and God Potential you are. I know the miracles you are capable of. I know the love that you are. I know how great thou art. And I believe in you.

Namaste.

Photos by Mark David Gerson: #1 Albuquerque sky; #2 Yucca in bloom, Sandia Mountains; #3 "Bridge to Your Potential," Albuquerque sunset; #4 "Rough Crossing," Brookfield, WI; #5 Stone cairn, Meditation Mount, Ojai, CA

Upcoming Writing Workshops in Albuquerque

2009-07-14T17:45:00.003-06:00

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Dear Friends,

I'd forgotten how much I loved sharing my passion for writing with other writers until last month's workshop here in Albuquerque. You see, it had been a couple of years since I'd offered a full-fledged writing class or workshop -- partly because of my travels and partly because I'd been so focused on getting my own books out that there'd been little time to teach.

But June's event was so fulfilling, for myself and the participants, that I've decided to do it again.

More to the point, I've decided to make Albuquerque -- and New Mexico -- the hub of a new series of classes, workshop and, ultimately, retreats.

It wasn't easy to declare any place as "home" after my 30 months of full-time travel. But two years after having landed here at the end of those travels, Albuquerque has finally come to occupy that place in my heart. I'm home. And I want to do as much of my work here as possible.

For now, I have two Albuquerque workshops coming up:

• Birthing Your Book...Even If You Don't Know What It's About ~ July 18
So many of us know we have a book inside us but either aren't clear what it is or don't know how to start. Through a series of powerful exercises, I'll help connect you with the book that's been inside you all along and show you how to use that connection to get your book written.As well I'll offer you practical tools to get going and keep going...through to completion.

• The Call to Write: Answering the Voice of Your Muse ~ August 8
Bring your questions, issues and concerns about writing. And prepare to write -- naturally, spontaneously and from that deep place within you where your muse resides, waiting for her call to be answered. (By popular demand, this offering of The Call to Write will involve more hands-on writing than any previous version.) I've offered versions of this workshop over the years and it's always more about the people who turn up than any fixed curriculum -- which means that every Call to Write is different from its predecessors.

It doesn't matter what your genre or experience level is, these workshops will transform your creative process and revolutionize your creative life. You'll never feel the same about writing again!

Both Saturday workshops take place from 1-5pm in the Tramway/Candelaria area of Albuquerque's Northeast Heights.

And if you sign up for both by July 14, you'll pay only $99, a savings of up to 34%! July 14 is also your deadline to get into the Birthing Your Book workshop for $55, instead of the regular $75. (PayPal and all credit cards accepted.)

But call soon: Space is very limited and my June 20 Call to Write was sold out!

If you feel any pull toward joining us, I encourage you to honor it. So often, the call to participate only makes logical sense once you're in the midst of the experience. And each workshop will be a powerful, supportive, nurturing and accelerating experience. I hope to see you there.

Remember, space is limited. So register today.

Warm regards,
Mark David

P.S. My calendar of upcoming book-signings, classes, workshops and other events is always posted on my page at booktour.com.

Leaps of Faith

2009-05-11T16:11:00.006-06:00

Monday, May 11 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

"You enter into this lifetime in the leap of faith your soul takes into the being in your mother’s womb. You take that one huge leap only to discover that such leaps never cease being demanded of you."
~ from "Leaps of Faith," The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write

As a writer, mentor/coach and teacher, I never seem to be entirely done with the words that move out into the world through me. I always have an ear cocked to my own issues when I counsel a client or teach a class. And although my books are snapshots in time, reflecting who I was the moment final corrections were appended to the final galley, they, too, contain messages for me long after I've moved on to other projects.

I pulled the "leaps of faith" quote from The Voice of the Muse a few days ago to include with the dolphin image in a friend's e-birthday card. In the end, I used neither the image nor the quote on his card, because I realized the message was more for me than for him.

Like many of you, I am moving through one of the most challenging times in my life. Whatever their outward appearances, those challenges have nothing to do with finances, employment or the economy. They're all about my determination to shed all that stands in the way -- all that I have placed in the way -- of a free-flowing life...a life of profound passion, joy and fulfillment...a life open to love in all its forms.

Having called that in, I'm now in the midst of an alchemical process that is, at times, terrifying and emotionally painful, an alchemical process that requires all the faith I can muster.

The dolphin image, by the artist Apollo, was one reminder of that. I experienced another yesterday while visiting the studios of photographer David Cramer. One of the photos on display was of a cougar caught in midair as it leapt from one cliff to another, with nothing supporting it other than the faith -- the knowingness -- that it would safely reach the other side.

We, too, are being called to leap off the cliff of our certainty and into the void through which will birth the magnificence our souls are yearning for. Like that cougar, we are caught in the space between breaths, living our faith as best we can, allowing the alchemical fires to purify, lighten and transform us into a more perfect physical expression of our divinity.

It's not an easy journey, nor is it one for the faint-of-heart. But it helps to know that it's one we all travel together.

Even if, in this moment, you don't believe in yourself, I believe in you -- in all that you are and in all that you are becoming. And I know you possess the courage, wisdom and inner strength to land, firmly and joyfully, on solid ground.

I wish you a wondrous journey, filled with the miracle that is your flowering spirit, expressing soul and opening heart. Thanks for being part of mine.

The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write just won its first award, an IPPY Silver Medal, from the Independent Publishers Book Awards. Click here to order a copy or for more information, including excerpts.

You'll also find audio clips from my 2-CD set, The Voice of the Muse Companion: Guided Meditations for Writers, on the same site.

Image credits:
• Dolphin: "Leaps of Faith" by Apollo
• Cougar: "Leap of Faith" (c) David Cramer 2007

Love Changes Everything

2009-03-28T11:22:00.001-06:00

"I am here to remind you that without love, your MoonQuest cannot succeed."
~ The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy

Love will turn your world around, and that world will last forever / Yes, love, love changes everything ... Nothing in the world will ever be the same.
~ from Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Aspects of Love"

Saturday, March 21 ~ Gallup, New Mexico

The black jeep drives out of Denny's parking lot, my daughter Guinevere waving from the back seat. It turns south on Muñoz Drive, then west on I-40 on its way back to Sedona, Arizona.

For ten minutes, I sit numbly in my car, unable to turn the key in the ignition and follow Muñoz to I-40's eastbound ramp, for the two-and-a-half-hour trip home to Albuquerque. When I do, it's a long time before I can turn on the radio or call a friend, the two distractions that often ease long drives for me.

Today, I need silence.

I've experienced many versions of this sadness since December 2004, when I drove out of Sedona in the wake of a marriage breakup and launched the odyssey that ultimately landed me here in New Mexico. But this is one of the most intense, and it takes me several days to figure out why.

Over the next two days, Guinevere emails me a half-dozen YouTube video clips from Easter Parade, Meet Me in St. Louis and Singin' in the Rain, the three classic movie musicals I introduced her to during our March Break visit, each accompanied by a love note. But, unusually, I don't hear from her at bedtime.

On the third night, I call. Her mom explains: Guinevere was more distraught than usual at leaving me and was afraid that talking to me would make her even more upset.

I understand. In those early months after I first left Sedona, I too hesitated to call Guinevere some nights for the same reason.

The next night, I have a seemingly unrelated experience: Someone I would never have considered pursuing romantically because of the yawning gap in our ages, pushes many of my buttons by flirting with me.

My first instinct is to recoil. Then I remember both the counsel I've given friends on that same topic in recent months and words I wrote just two weeks earlier in an online discussion thread on the subject. I was writing about two men. But the words apply to any two potential mates, regardless of gender or orientation:

"It's not age difference by itself that presents the potential problem," I wrote. "It's differences in maturity, psychology, life experience, goals, energy levels and interests that can get in the way. Sure, age differences can exacerbate those issues. But the same issues can easily arise between two men who are the same age.

"Dating someone young enough to be my son would push all sorts of buttons for me. But I wouldn't walk away from the potential for a deep, abiding love based on numbers alone. Love is too rare and special to make up artificial rules that ignore the mystical, magical illogic of the human heart.

"When love comes calling, I'm not going to ask for a birth certificate. I'm going to explore the heart connections that make love so wondrous."

When love comes calling....

Suddenly, I realize that what I've been experiencing is isn't only about me and Guinevere. Nor does it really have anything to do with this guy, who for reasons other than age may not be mate material. It's about how open I truly am to love -- however it chooses to come calling, whatever form it takes.

Back in January, I overcame some of my antipathy to The Secret movie and watched it again. The most profound thing it left me with was a call to write out all the things I was grateful for -- both those already visible in my life and those I desired but had yet to see or experience. The result was a comprehensive, four-page, ever-evolving list of statements related to every aspect of my personal, professional, creative and financial life.

I've been reading it aloud daily ever since.

When, Tuesday night, I get off the phone first with Guinevere and then with this young guy, I run to the computer and add this gratitude/joy statement to the others:

"I am so happy, joyous and grateful, now that I fully embrace and am unconditionally open to all the love directed toward me and flowing to me -- now and in all dimensions of time and space."

At first I think it's only about allowing myself to feel the fullness of my daughter's love and allowing myself to let in the kind of "loving, physically intimate and committed relationship" I've described in one of my other gratitude/joy statements. Then I realize that, as the Beatles so simply put it, "love is all there is."

Love is the energy that fuels everything and is the true source of every item on my four-page list. The only way to achieve my personal, professional, creative and financial goals is to keep opening my heart wider and wider to receive that love, however it comes calling.

The more open-hearted and vulnerable I can become, the more I can allow love in all its forms to touch and transform me. These forms can include the words of my next novel as much as the success of this one. They can include financial freedom as much as loving relationships.

They can also include pain.

The love from an unexpected source that led to my marriage became the pain of its dissolution. The joy of a week with my daughter is also the heartache of our parting.

What last week reminded me was that love can bring pain as well as joy, and that unless I'm open to a full experience of love's pain, I will never experience the heights of its joy and passion.

It also reminded me that the best inner and outer work I can be doing in these times of intense upheaval involves not only keeping my heart open but doing everything in my power to open it yet more...and more...and more -- to myself, to everyone else and to all the ways love presents itself, even if they're potentially painful to me or to someone else.

When love comes calling, whatever form it takes, I choose to be the open vessel that welcomes it and allows it to fill me with all my heart desires -- the four pages' worth that I know about as well as the infinite realms of desire I cannot yet begin to imagine.

Love does change everything. Everything.

I'm now ready to embrace it. Unconditionally.

Are you?

Please share your thoughts here.

Our Inauguration Day

2009-01-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

Monday, January 19 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Tuesday at noon ET, when Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president of the United States of America, it will not only be his inauguration but ours. It will be an inauguration for each of us willing to step into a new world with him.

If only 10 percent of us -- in this country and around the world -- leap across the threshold today into that new beginning saying "Yes, I can. Yes, we can," and if we not only believe it but act on it and live it, this country and this planet will be changed forever.

Are you part of that 10 percent? Are you ready to turn your back on fear? Are you ready to embrace all parts of you and of each other in love and respect? Are you ready to embrace possibility, hope and potential?

What can you do in your life today -- right now -- to anchor this new beginning? How can you embody your possibility and your potential?

Share it here. Then be it. Now.

Coming Out (Again) for Christmas

2009-01-03T06:08:00.011-07:00

Friday, January 2 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

It's December 14 and I'm at the New Mexico Gay Men's Chorus's "Come Out for Christmas" concert with my friend Kathleen. It's our second year attending this event together and although this year's show is not nearly as good as last year's, there's something about being here this time that feels inexplicably right.

After the concert, Kathleen and I are chatting about this and that at a nearby Starbucks when I ask her, "Have I ever told you my 'gay story'?"

If you've been following this blog for a few years, you'll have read various versions of the story. What I told Kathleen was this:

For the first 20 years of my adult life, I lived as a gay man. Yet, as I awakened to my spirituality, I felt called to stop identifying myself as gay -- or straight. Rather, I began to see myself as a sexual being open to all possibilities. Still, I was somewhat surprised when, a few years later in Sedona, AZ, I fell in love with a woman.

When I told my gay friends that I was getting married (a sort of reverse coming-out), I explained that I had fallen in love with a wonderful spirit who just happened to occupy a female physique. From that place of love and passion, I said, gender and orientation were irrelevant and anything was possible. And it was.

Yet as profound, intimate and wonderful as our relationship was, it ended six and half years later, for reasons unrelated to sexuality.

In the four years since, I've often revisited the sexual orientation question. "Am I gay again?" I would ask in meditation. The answer was always, "Nothing has changed. Don't label yourself. Be open to all possibilities." Even though my primary physical attraction remained toward men, I honored that counsel and refused to categorize myself.

Something changed when I returned to Albuquerque in November after 40 days on the road. It was as though after 15 years of traveling in the spiritual realms, I had crash-landed back on earth and was reconnecting with the 38-year-old I had been before my spiritual awakening.

Suddenly, people from my past resurfaced, as did work opportunities disturbingly similar to those I hadn't pursued in 16 years. And at the very physical (read "earthly") job my financial situation pushed me into last month, I have been "Mark." Only friends and family from years back know me as Mark. To most everyone else I'm "Mark David."

I was starting to believe that I was living my own version of the infamous dream season of the 1980s Dallas TV series and that I would wake up and discover that nothing of the past decade and a half had really occurred.

Of course it all did, and I have a beautiful nine-year-old daughter (and all of you) as proof. What I have been experiencing, rather, is a giant turn of the spiral I wrote about in Everything Old Is New Again, a "full circle" far more comprehensive than any I remember having lived.

In spiritual terms, it's time to take all I have experienced on my spiritual journey and bring it down to earth -- into the practical, into the physical...to reconnect who I was with who I am now.

"Perhaps," as I wrote so presciently in The MoonQuest, "it is time...to allow the boy I was to touch the man I have become..."

When I leave Starbucks that Sunday evening, having shared my story with Kathleen, I feel the same kind of rush I felt 24 years earlier when I began coming out as a gay man to straight friends. I feel as though a tremendous burden has been lifted from me. I feel lighter.

Four days later, I go to see Milk, the film story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the US, who was assassinated in 1978 by a fellow San Francisco city supervisor.

The movie is brilliant, compelling and moving (as is Sean Penn's portrayal of the title role) and I find myself wiping away tears at frequent intervals.

It's compelling for another, more personal reason: the film's time frame covers the period of my coming out, and the gay activism it portrays is a bolder version of my activism in the Montreal of the mid- to late '70s. It's like watching my own life play out before me.

I leave the theater in an altered state and when I got into the car, I begin to sob uncontrollably. I sit there -- crying, heaving, releasing -- for 20 minutes. And when the tears stop I see that I have come full circle, that I have allowed the Mark I was to touch the Mark David I have become, that as open as I remain to the infinite realm of possibilities in life, I am a gay man. Again.

Even as I share this story with close friends in the days that follow, I'm not sure what to do with this realization. Is it appropriate to come out a third time? Is it necessary to be as openly gay at 54 as I was at 24 and 34? Does it even matter anymore to anyone but me?

This morning, in the midst of an interview with Joan Sotkin on her Prosperity Place radio show, I realize that it does matter. And I realize why.

During the show, Joan shares her spiritual coming out story and reveals how difficult it had been to let her spirituality have a place in her coaching work. And I note how vulnerable I felt putting out my most recent blog post, All That Matters Is That I'm Writing.

As we're talking, I remember how important it is to be vulnerable, how healing it is to share our truth and our stories out into the world. I remember, too, how much of my work is about helping give people permission to do those very things by doing them myself.

That's largely what this blog has been about. That's largely what Harvey Milk's message was about. He insisted that we must be who we are out in the world, and it's a message that's as valid today as it was 30 years ago -- whoever we are, whatever our orientation.

I realize, too, this morning that like Joan we all have many parts to ourselves and that each of these is more potent and transformational when operating as part of a oneness. When we fragment ourselves -- being spiritual only with our spiritual friends, gay only with our gay friends, Jewish only with our Jewish friends, vegetarian only with our vegetarian friends, Democrats only with our Democrat friends -- we cheat the world and ourselves of the strength, power and paradox of the human soul.

Each of us is a unit within which lives unparalleled diversity. Only when we can be at peace with that diversity within ourselves will we be at peace with that same diversity in others. And only then will we see peace in the world.

That peace begins in me. That peace begins in you. And it begins with me honoring all of who I am by integrating all of who I am into all that I do. One of the ways I achieve that integration is by being open and vulnerable with you, by letting you see more of me than I might always prefer you to see in the hopes that you will be inspired to share all of you with others.

Tikkun olam is a phrase in the Jewish tradition that translates from the Hebrew as "healing the world." That healing begins when I open my heart to myself so that I can see who I am. It grows when I open my heart to you and let you see who I am. It grows further when you do the same.

Won't you open your heart and share your light -- all of it -- with a world so desperate for healing? Won't you come out of hiding and be?

What parts of yourself are you hiding from yourself?

What parts of yourself have you hidden from the world?

Where can you integrate more of who you are into what you do?

Where can you be more open to others' diversity?

Where can you be more open to your own?

Won't you share some of who you are here?

Photos: #1 Gay Santa from The Austin Chronicle; #2 me and my daughter, Guinevere; #3 Book cover for The MoonQuest, designed by Angela Farley; #3 Poster for the movie Milk, starring Sean Penn; #4 Hebrew lettering for "tikkun olam"

All That Matters Is That I'm Writing

2008-12-26T05:55:00.006-07:00

Friday, December 26 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

What does this Muse want of you? Why won’t it go away?
It won’t because it can’t. It can’t any more than you can ignore it.
As long as that siren sings to you, neither you nor it can rest until you answer...
~ The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write

All that matters is that I'm writing... I repeat this phrase, mantra-like, in the hours before dawn -- in the hour before my alarm goes off -- trying to drown out the fear and anxiety rattling around in my head. All that matters is that I'm writing...

Like many, these days, I find myself in the throes of financial uncertainty, not sure how I'm going to stay afloat...not sure if I'll stay afloat.

After four years of financial miracles -- miracles that got two books completed and published, miracles that allowed me to travel this country countless times, miracles that freed me to bring the gift of my voice and my words to many of you -- it has been feeling as though the well of miracles has run dry. With money seemingly running out and bills appearing unpayable, I'm now completing my fourth week as a retail stockman in a seasonal job that will likely stretch beyond the holiday season.

It's a relentlessly physical job with long hours and with a paycheck that only begins to cover my expenses at a time when more remunerative coaching, editing and speaking gigs are not showing up. And I've spent most of these past weeks more resentful than grateful, more worried than trusting, more afraid than alive.

I realized on Christmas Day, though, that the well of miracles never runs dry. It just takes on different forms for different times and different needs.

Among those miracles is the job itself, one that fell into my lap with no interview (when other applications went unacknowledged, when interviews elsewhere reaped no offers) and one that pays more to start than similar positions in town. Another is one of my co-workers, who always makes me laugh, even when all I want to do is cry. A third is my ability, surprising even to me, to manage the job's physical rigors without ill effect.

Then there are my close friends, whose combination of loving support and tough-love pep talks have kept me going through these challenging times.

One of those friends sent me an email earlier this week in which he repeatedly reminded me to "write, write, write." "It is your soul work," he wrote. "It is your gift."

I read his words and, sobbing, remembered a revelation I had last month as I was heading back toward Albuquerque after six weeks on the road. I knew that after a decade of fits and starts, it was time to complete The StarQuest, one of two projected sequels to my novel, The MoonQuest. "Regardless of what it takes and what is required of me," I remembered saying, "I commit to getting it done. It's time, and I'm ready."

That realization receded somewhat in my early days back in town, preoccupied as I was with home-hunting, job-hunting and a Thanksgiving visit from my daughter. It pushed back to the surface with my friend's email, which made me teary not only every time I reread it (which I did often) but every time I talked about it.

A few years ago, when I was still traveling and offering regular inspirational and sound-healing teleconferences, one of my talks was about passion, heart's desire and purpose. We must follow our passion and heart's desire, regardless of cost and consequence, I said at the time. More recently, in The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, I quoted Abraham Lincoln as saying, "Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way."

What I've come to realize is that it's now time for me to live those words. All of them. More fully than I ever have before.

I have to write. I have to complete The StarQuest.

Yes, my Muse demands it of me. But, more importantly, my soul demands it of me.

If I've such a powerfully emotional response to this renewed call to write, then it's a call I must answer -- regardless of cost or consequence. I cannot write, speak and teach what I write, speak and teach without honoring that soul imperative, without surrendering to this profound yearning.

I love inspiring you to follow your soul's call in all the ways I have done over the years -- through coaching (writing, life and spiritual), through sound healings and activations and through transformational art and energy portraits. As well, I love sharing my life with you through these newsletters and blog posts. And I will continue to do all these things as opportunities arise. (I'd much rather generate income from these avenues than from my current job!)

But I cannot inspire you to follow your soul's call unless I'm following my own. And I cannot follow mine if I keep worrying about how I'm going to live and what I may have to give up to do it. All I can do is do it.

If doing it means working as a stockman, then that's what I must do. If doing it means I have to move or do without, then that, too, is what must be done. Whatever it takes is whatever it takes.

Another gift of my current retail stint is the discipline it is teaching me. Not the "hard discipline" of having to write a certain amount or for a certain period each day. But the "soft discipline" of being a disciple to my writing, of recognizing that if this call is so important to me, I have no choice but to follow my own advice in The Voice of the Muse and carve out whatever time I can, recognizing that I have no greater priority in my life right now.

The rest is up to God, however you define it. There is no other way. Because, in the end, all that matters is that I'm writing.

What is your soul calling you to as you launch into 2009?
What sings to your heart?
What are you not doing that would feed your essence?
How is your fear holding you back?
How are you allowing your light to be dimmed and your life to be diminished?
What are you afraid of losing?
What are you afraid of gaining?

Please share your thoughts and comments, your fears and desires, here.

May the new year bless you as you open to the yearning of your soul. And may you recognize your innate strength and limitless courage as you answer its call.

• If writing is your passion and you're having a difficult time acknowledging it and/or acting on it, this guided meditation -- an audio excerpt from The Voice of the Muse Companion: Guided Meditations for Writers and my holiday gift to you -- may help...

Image of The Muse by Richard Crookes from the cover of The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write (LightLines Media, 2008)

Mark David Gerson Wins 2008 New Mexico Book Award for The MoonQuest

2008-11-22T09:55:00.001-07:00

Friday, November 21, 2008 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Mark David Gerson’s win, for The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy, was announced on November 21 at an Albuquerque awards banquet designed to honor authors in more than 30 categories from New Mexico and beyond.

His award, in the statewide contest, was in the Fantasy/Science Fiction category.

The MoonQuest, Gerson’s first novel, is part of a fantasy pantheon that includes The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia.

It’s the compelling tale of a young bard’s quest to restore vision and imagination to a mythical land where stories have been banned and storytellers put to death.

This is The MoonQuest’s fifth award and its second this year. In March, it won a Gold Medal for Visionary Fiction in the Independent Book Publisher Awards.

The fantasy, popular with adults and young adults alike, has also been recognized in the USA Best Book Awards (visionary fiction), the Reader Views Awards (young adult fiction) and the New Mexico Discovery Awards (unpublished fiction). This is its first fantasy/science fiction prize.

As well, The MoonQuest has been lauded by U.S. critics as “an evocative and emotionally moving tale of adventure” (Midwest Book Review) and “an exceptional, timeless novel” (The Mindquest Review of Books). Library Journal praised it as an “emotionally solid tale” whose “songlike prose [offers] a match for its ethereal characters and allegorical message of inner truth.”

For Gerson, who moved to New Mexico in 2005, this award carries particular significance. “This is where I finally finished The MoonQuest,” he says. “It’s also where I finished my second book, and hope to complete my third!”

Gerson is also author of The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write (LightLines Media 2008), based on his 15-plus years of teaching creative writing in the U.S. and Canada. He is now seeking a producer for his screenplay adaptation of The MoonQuest and is working on a sequel to the novel.

This is the second year for the New Mexico Book Awards, established to acknowledge the best in New Mexico books. Over the next year, The MoonQuest will be featured, along with other winners, in special displays in bookstores and libraries across the state, including in all New Mexico Borders outlets.

Both Gerson’s books are available from Amazon.com and other online retailers, from the publisher at www.lightlinesmedia.com and at selected U.S. retailers coast-to-coast.

Everything Old Is New Again

2008-11-19T20:22:00.006-07:00

Wednesday, November 19 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Everything old is new again, as the Peter Allen lyric suggests. Here I am, back in Albuquerque, my unexpectedly brief journeying complete. And I move into a new rental here on Monday.

When I left town on September 30, I didn't know if I'd ever be back. All I knew was the call to the open road, a call I (once again) had no choice but to obey.

Through 40 days of driving, I traveled south and east into Texas, then back north into Louisiana, crossing it and the Mississippi before veering up through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado. After a pit stop in Albuquerque, I continued west into Arizona, then south toward San Diego and north to Sacramento.

That rainy night in Sacramento, dining with a minister friend and her husband (who, themselves, are planning a move to Albuquerque), I knew that Albuquerque was calling me home.

As if to emphasize the point -- and to remind me that I wasn't going back, I was moving forward -- I woke up two mornings later with "everything old is new again" playing in my head. (And in case I missed the message, the song reprised itself for me the following morning.)

I don't like the expression "coming full circle" because it suggests that we're returning to a place we've already been, having learned nothing and grown not at all. My preferred image is that of a spiral, where we return to a place along the same axis, but at a higher level of consciousness and understanding.

As I wrote in The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, "Each cycle’s completion returns you not to where you began but to a higher level of awareness, mastery, openness and trust." I wrote that about the creative process, but isn't life the ultimate creative process?

So here I am, ready to embark on my own version of the Peter Allen song. Everything old is new again.

For a start, I'm committed to returning to The StarQuest, the first of two projected sequels to my novel, The MoonQuest.

The StarQuest has been in my life for more than a decade, having begun to work its way out of me before The MoonQuest was finished (even if, at the time, I thought it was finished). I've worked on it in fits and starts since then and have yet to complete a first draft.

This week, I began reading through its 200-odd manuscript pages. The book is far from complete. But it is ready to be birthed, and I'm ready to be its midwife. Everything old is new again.

Another renewal is my relationship with the Sandia Mountains. This magical range, which marks the eastern boundary of Albuquerque, is a large part of what keeps calling me back to this place.

Like my previous home here, my new condo is in the Sandia foothills. As wonderful as my last location was (half a mile from a trailhead), the new one's is even better: nothing across from it but open land and mountain trails. Everything old is new again.

This past Sunday while at church, the passenger-side rear-view mirror assembly vanished from my car. I don't know whether it was an accident, vandalism or theft, but a way of looking back -- into the past -- was taken from me. A new mirror was installed yesterday. Everything old is new again.

As I was wondering this afternoon, in the midst of writing this piece, how I would be supported in this re-newed Albuquerque life, I received a phone call from a local magazine that is seeking an editor, its content similar to one I worked on in Toronto more than 15 years ago.

I don't know whether I'll get the job -- or will even want it if it's offered -- but it, too, suggests that everything old is new again.

The turn of the spiral is complete, and here I stand at the threshold of a new life that resembles the old one in surface details only. Where do I go from here? Across the threshold and into a beginning still veiled but replete with the promise that all new beginnings offer.

Once again, from The Voice of the Muse: "From silence to silence, word to word, trust to trust -- the spiral is an infinite one, carrying you from one beginning to the next and one ending to the next on a journey with no beginning or ending."

The spiral is an infinite one... How perfect that through my 40 days of travel I, somehow, unconsciously, drove an infinity symbol through those 10 states, with Albuquerque as its center point.

Photos (c) 2008 by Mark David Gerson: #1 Sandia foothills, Albuquerque, NM; #2 Myriad Gardens, Oklahoma City, OK; #3 Stone cairn, Meditation Mount, Ojai, CA; #4 Sandia foothills, Albuquerque, NM; #5 Winterville Mounds, near Greenville, MS.

More photos from the journey at "Forty Days on the Road."

Forty Days on the Road

2008-11-19T20:11:00.009-07:00

Tuesday, November 18 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

A selection of photos from my recent journey.

Photos (c) 2008 by Mark David Gerson: #1 Salida River, Salida, CO; #2 Downtown water towers, Pratt, KS; #3 Sunset near Marfa, TX; #4 Hot Springs Mtn., Hot Springs, AR; #5 Hwy 49, near Bear Valley, CA; #6 Stupa of Enlightenment, Crestone, CO.

A Prayer for Prosperity

2008-11-11T20:11:00.004-07:00

Friday, November 7 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Geri O'Hare and her husband, Art, have been dear friends and great supporters of my work and my writing for quite some time now.

When I visited them in California last month, Geri handed me this Science of Mind treatment for prosperity she had written some years back as a Religious Science Practitioner. It's been such a powerful inspiration for me that I asked her if I could share it with you here. It feels particularly relevant in these times.

After you read it, use it or meditate with it, please return here and share your thoughts, comments and experiences. Our shared stories are always part of the healing and transformation.

A Guest Post by Geri O'Hare, R.Sc.P.

Prosperity Treatment

I know that within me there is a Universal Power which is God.

It is Infinite Spirit and I am one with this Spirit. It is Universal Mind, Intelligence and Love operating through me at all times. It guides me into Right Action, prosperity, greater abundance, peace and harmony. It knows no limitations and recognizes no lack. It knows exactly what I need and when I need it. I only have to believe, and I do this ardently.

With childlike faith I now state that all my affairs are in order. No longer do I harbor fears for my future. Instead, my heart is filled with confidence and certainty.

I am aware that Divine Intelligence is my partner and we are never separated. Together we accomplish everything, and my todays and tomorrows are assured.

Every move I make is for the best. I always have an abundance of money or whatever it is that I need to make my life happy and complete. The supply is constantly moving towards me because my Divine Partner knows exactly what to do.

All my anxieties and fears have evaporated. I see that I have everything and that I am lovingly protected at all times.

Thank you, Infinite Spirit, for the tremendous changes in both my life and in my thinking.

I now enjoy perfect abundance and perfect prosperity. All the good in the Universe is my good now and there is no limit to it.

It is my birthright because God and I are united in Spirit and I am deeply grateful.

I know, I believe and it is so!

Lovingly,
Geri O’Hare, R.Sc.P.

Photo of Geri O'Hare by Mark David Gerson

TGIM

2008-11-11T20:08:00.002-07:00

Monday, November 10 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

TGIM? Don't you mean TGIF?

Well, my colleague Scott Stratten would like you to start thinking about why we bless Fridays and curse Mondays. More importantly, he'd like to help us bless all days and to praise Mondays with the same passion we now praise Fridays.

Check out Scott's message, "Thank Goodness It's Monday" and be part of the paradigm shift.

Yes, You Can!

2008-11-05T00:22:00.001-07:00

I think I can
I think I can
I think I can
I know I can
~ The Little Engine That Could

Tuesday, Nov. 4 ~ Needles, California

On this historic night in the United States, it's important to remember that whatever our dreams, whatever our challenges, whatever our hopes, whatever our fears, yes we can!

Yes, I can.

Yes, you can.

Whatever it is, however unlikely it seems, it is possible. For you...for me...for all of us.

Believe it.

Know it.

Embody it.

Be it.

The Power of Being

2008-10-28T16:44:00.003-06:00

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

2008-10-02T18:31:00.010-06:00

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

Reach for the Stars...and Touch Them

2008-09-25T09:26:00.012-06:00

With all there is
Why settle for just a piece of sky?
~ from the score of Yentl, Lyrics by Alan & Marilyn Bergman

Thursday, Sept. 25 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I'm walking on a nature trail in Albuquerque's Sandia Mountain foothills, the late-day sun gilding the granite outcroppings and illuminating the sage, cactus and juniper.

This is one of my final farewell walks in a landscape that has so nurtured and inspired me.

You see, in five days I will be gone from here, launched yet again on an open-ended, Spirit-directed odyssey into the unknown and unimagined -- my third such journey of faith in the past 11 years.

My first, in 1997, opened me to marriage, parenthood and life in a new country. The second, which spanned 30 months and was sparked by the end of that marriage, led to my two books and CD and kindled for me a more empowered professionalism. Both journeys pushed and expanded me, challenging me to surrender more fully to the divine imperative that directs and prospers me -- when I let it.

In each case, I knew nothing of what lay head. I simply stepped off the cliff of my certainty and into the void from which all creation emerges.

Was I afraid? Sometimes.

Did I allow that fear to stand in my way? Rarely, and never for long.

As I think ahead to what's next, this lyric from Osibisa's song "Woyaya" plays in my head:

We are going
Heaven knows where we are going
We'll know we're there
We will get there
Heaven knows how we will get there
We know we will

I'm also reminded of the scene in The MoonQuest where Toshar and his three companions must step through an opening that will carry them "beyond the end of the known world."

Dense smoke chokes them where they stand as the jungle through which they have trekked burns up. There is no way back.

The only way is forward -- into the unknown, with its challenges and opportunities. With its secrets and mysteries. With gifts more wondrous and miracle-filled than any they could imagine.

When I left Toronto in 1997, the only direction I had from my GPS (God Positioning System) was to head west. Ultimately, it landed me in a new life in Sedona, Arizona.

When I left Sedona seven years and a Hawaii sojourn later, my GPS also sent me west -- at first. In the many months of cross-country travel that followed, I always managed to find my way back to the New Mexico that has been my full-time home for the past year.

Now, as I prepare to leave Albuquerque, my divine compass points eastward, directing me to the McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Texas.

I've felt pulled toward the home of National Public Radio's StarDate since August, when I knew I would be returning to the road.

It was a mystifying pull because, as stunning as is the observatory's setting and as fascinating as is its planetarium show, I've been there -- twice -- and never experienced any life-altering epiphanies.

At a conscious level, at least, it was a fun place to visit. Nothing more.

Yet if I've learned anything through my years of personal and spiritual growth, it's the importance of surrendering to the highest imperative I can access in any given moment. (There's a reason why the word "surrender" appears 67 times in The Voice of the Muse!) Like Toshar and his friends, I too must surrender to whatever lies beyond the end of my known world and be open to all the wonders that await me on the other side.

And so, if that highest imperative is sending me back to southwest Texas, I'll go -- whatever it means.

I've asked what it means countless times in recent weeks. Today, on my Sandia walk, I ask again.

For the first time, I hear an answer: "To remind you to reach for the stars."

Now, as I write these words, that same inner voice adds: "Reach for the stars...and touch them."

We all need reminders to reach for the stars, that potent metaphor for our highest, most divine potential. In these challenging, turbulent times, we also need to be reminded that those stars are not beyond our grasp. We can touch them. All it takes is a hand, outstretched to the infinite...the infinite we already are.

Photos by Mark David Gerson: #1 Sandia Foothills, Albuquerque, NM; #2 From the McDonald Observatory, near Fort Davis, TX

Getting the (Common) Sense Knocked Out of Me

2008-09-11T00:11:00.005-06:00

Tuesday, Sept. 9 ~ Sedona, Arizona

I'm walking along Hwy. 179 in Sedona's Village of Oak Creek, nursing a bashed nose that's still tender and a bit bloody after its run-in this morning with a plate-glass slider.

Sedona, which has always been good to me through the two times I've lived here and through countless visits since, seems to have taken on a Mommie Dearest persona on this trip.

Although Saturday's talk and book-signing at The Well Red Coyote went wonderfully, I've had no end of challenges with my hotel: locks and keys that don't work, a mattress that leaves my back aching each morning, rowdy guests who wake me in the wee hours and, of course, the glass slider in the breakfast room.

If this is a dress rehearsal for a return to on-the-road living, it's not going well.

You see, when I get back to Albuquerque on Friday, I'll be packing up and preparing to return to some version of the road odyssey that I've written about so often on this site.

Meantime, in true Sedona style, I'm sort of stuck here. That's because my daughter's ninth birthday is the main reason I'm in town, and that's not until Thursday. I suppose I could change hotels, but it doesn't feel as though this particular hotel is the real issue.

As I continue my walk, trying to clear the fuzziness from my head, my cell phone rings. It's a dear friend who has been experiencing challenges of her own. Her call is not about challenges, though. It's about the angel who volunteered to help her out over the weekend and then gifted her with a massage.

I don't often get direct messages for people when I'm not in session mode. But in this moment, a powerful inner/higher voice urges me to say to her, "Don't doubt that you're being taken care of."

As I speak the words, my voice catches and I feel a surge of emotion. These words are also for me.

I realize in that moment that all the mishaps that have been feeding my anxiety about going back on the road are because of my anxiety about going back on the road.

Why am I anxious? Because I'm afraid I won't be supported.

Of course, there's no reason to feel that. Through 30 months of full-time travel I was always supported. Miracle after wondrous miracle kept me going, and never did I feel abandoned.

Yet I fear abandonment now because this journey isn't like the last one. How could it be? Why would I repeat something I've already mastered?

No, this is a new level -- of something. And not knowing what kind of void I'm about to drive into leaves me feeling fearful.

Conventional thinking and common sense support my fear. But conventional thinking and common sense also argue against the way I live my life: leaping off cliffs and trusting that I'll sprout wings on the way down...stepping into one void after another in the certainty that I'll be supported...surrendering unconditionally to the highest, most divine nature I can access in any moment.

It's no accident that my friend's call came after I bashed my head. Perhaps I needed common sense knocked out of me to make room for the higher, divine sense that generally directs my life. Perhaps I needed to be reminded what is true (my faith) and what is illusion (my fear).

Twenty-four hours have passed since I walked into the glass slider. I'm sitting in the same hotel breakfast room wearing the same Voice of the Muse t-shirt I wore yesterday.

Today, though, a fellow hotel guest notices my shirt, asks me about it and, ultimately, buys a copy of the book. Ten minutes later, I've sold a second book. Within an hour, I've sold a third.

All three sales occur right by the plate-glass slider that knocked common sense out of me yesterday -- to remind me that I'm always supported on this uncommon journey of faith.

As I travel east this fall, I'll be looking for opportunities to present talks and sound activations, offer classes and workshops, and do book-signings. If you have any thoughts, ideas or suggestions or are open to hosting an event, please drop me a line.

Photos #1 & 3 by Mark David Gerson: #1 Sedona Red Rocks; #3 Hwy 167 near Mono Lake, California. Photo #2: The patio by my hotel's breakfast room.

Be Inspired Today

2008-09-11T00:09:00.004-06:00

Tuesday, Sept. 9 ~ Sedona, Arizona

Just in case you missed my newsletter invitation, I'm repeating it here: Please join me online on Thursday, Sept. 11 when I'm the featured Inspirational Luminary on InspireMeToday.com.

The site's basic inspirational features, including mine, are free. But you can also sign up for an enhanced membership that will continue to inspire you every day.

It's easy, whichever level you choose. Just click on this link on 9/11, register (using this code: IVYIBTZCXT) and be inspired! (When you click on the "View Luminary Profile" link, it will take you to my inspirational resources.)

Thanks for joining me, and be sure to come back here to leave your comments!

Recognizing Blog Brilliance

2008-09-11T00:01:00.001-06:00

Tuesday, Sept. 9 ~ Sedona, Arizona

My fellow author and blogger Marvin D. Wilson has had his Free Spirit blog nominated for the web's Brilliant Blog Appreciation Awards, a singular recognition.

Marvin's blog focuses on both spiritual evolvement and good writing and is certainly worth checking out. If you do, please add your vote to push him over the top in the award competition's "Best Christian/Inspirational" category.

You can vote using this link. Just be sure to cast yours before the midnight (PT) deadline Friday night, Sept. 12.

By the way, I'll be featured on Marvin's blog in a Sept. 11 post. Please check it out!

Vehicle of Faith

2008-09-04T04:44:00.000-06:00

Saturday, August 30 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I'm sitting in the showroom of a local car dealership. It's been a long day of car buying. Nearly eight hours long.

Although the quintessential auto-purchase experience in terms of time spent (why does it have to take so long!?), my day here belies all stereotypes about car salesmen. Brad and Kelly, my salesman and his sales-manager boss, have been warm, engaging and genuine.

Still, I'm exhausted and stressed.

After two failed attempts at car-buying in recent months, I was reluctant to give it a third try, even as I knew it was time for a new vehicle.

Then, seemingly from nowhere, I got an e-mail and follow-up call from this particular dealership. They claimed they were responding to an internet request for information -- a request I have no memory of having made.

I put them off for several weeks, somewhat gun-shy after my previous experiences. Finally, today, I relented, no longer able to ignore the many synchronicities of the situation (not to mention the end-of-season discounts).

Now, the test drives are done, the credit apps have been processed, we've negotiated back and forth on terms and down payments and I'm staring at final figures -- the figures I said I would need to see in order to make a decision today.

When I drove in this morning, I asked Spirit for a sense of what a new monthly car payment would look like. Not surprisingly, the resulting figure pushed my financial comfort-zone buttons...just as a comparable figure had three years ago under similar circumstances. Yet I knew that if I acted today from a place of trust, centeredness and integrity I would be taken care of, as I always have been.

The "final figure" now before me is uncomfortably higher than the one I sensed this morning. Yet despite my fears, I know I must say yes. Not because I've been worn down after eight hours in this shabby showroom. But because all my higher senses tell me to.

I say yes.

When I get home, I’m so fearful and frazzled I can't get out of the garage and away from the new car quickly enough.

I spend a restless evening and sleepless night mired in doubt and distress and wake up exhausted and barely functional. Fortunately, pep talks from a couple of friends give me the courage to begin to take ownership of the vehicle. I browse through the manual, marveling at all the gadgetry, and call my insurance company to switch my coverage.

And then the phone rings. It's Dana, the dealership's finance manager. My heart sinks.

Eight years ago in Hawaii, I drove a new car home from the lot only to get a call the next day from the dealership, sorrowfully advising me that I would need to kick in more money or the deal was dead.

I had warned the Albuquerque dealership that if that were to happen here, I would return the car.

"Yes?" I answer tentatively.

"Could you come down to the dealership this afternoon?"

Oh, God, I gasp silently. "Why?" ask hesitantly.

"We'd like to lower your monthly payment."

"What?"

"We’d like to lower your monthly payment."

A few hours later, I’m back at the dealership, signing a new set papers. My interest rate has dropped by a third, my payment has dropped 14 percent, and my new monthly payment is within the range I had (erroneously, I thought) predicted.

As I drive home, considerably lighter-feeling than during the same drive yesterday, I think of the journey of trust the biblical Abraham went through when God asked him to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

A man of infinite faith, Abraham began to prepare for the unthinkable and unconscionable. Only when his knife was a whisper away from Isaac’s throat did an angel appear, praising Abraham for his faith and releasing him from his vow.

I feel like Abraham right now.

During the past 24 hours, my faith has also been stretched beyond all reasonable limits. Like Abraham, the only thing I have been asked to give up is my fear.

Now, having let it go, I have been rewarded for my trust and am free to move forward on the next leg of my journey -- in my vehicle of faith.

Art by Marc Chagall: "Sacrifice of Isaac," Musée Marc Chagall, Nice, France

Stepping into the Void...Again

2008-09-02T18:33:00.001-06:00

Friday, August 22 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

O'ric raised his hands over my head in benediction. "Ride north one league at a time. Aris will guide you at night. A path between the suns will guide you in the day. Your heart will guide you always."
~ The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy

I knew it could happen any time. I knew my days in this house were numbered. But when I listen to the woman who owns the house I’m renting, I'm numb with shock.

"This isn't working," she says of her attempts to sell the house with a tenant (me) in it. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you notice."

This isn't how it was supposed to be. I expected to stay in the house until it sold, which in this market could have taken months. Meantime, I've been scouring Craig's List for suitable alternatives.

Now...what?

It takes me a few hours to settle into an emotional state conducive to meditative activity. Once there, I feel out the energy of my known options:

1) Find another Albuquerque rental
2) Find a rental somewhere else, in or out of state
3) Hit the road for some indefinite, transitional period

If you've followed these Chronicles for any length of time, you know that the last time I did #3, I ended up on the road for 30 months!

Although I'm not keen to embark on another open-ended odyssey, the romance of the road still carries a certain appeal. Still, my first choice is #1...though it’s proving hard to find anything that measures up to where I now live. As for #2, I'm open, but nothing solid has presented itself.

Frankly, I'm open to all options, despite my conscious preference. I’m particularly open to the options I can’t yet see or imagine.

That's just as well because whatever inner/higher/heart intelligence is guiding this human journey, it keeps urging me to "expect the unexpected" and to pack in a way that offers me the most flexibility (#3).

Like Toshar, the questing protagonist of my novel The MoonQuest, all I can do is follow the path that presents itself in each moment -- wherever it carries me, whatever the consequences.

If there's one thing I've learned through my years of personal and spiritual growth (and writing The MoonQuest was a potent teacher in that regard), it's that the unimagined and unimaginable is nearly always far more wondrous than the known and predictable.

Travel beyond the end of the known world, Toshar and his companions are told. A similar voice constantly offers me the same counsel.

Not for the first time in my life (and, undoubtedly, not for the last), what's ahead is beyond my ability to predict or project. Not only is there a catalog of options betyond nos. 1, 2 and 3, there are variations -- 1a, 2c, 3f -- that my mind can't yet figure out because it can't yet see them as possibilities. They lie beyond the end of my known world.

Living in this place of unlimited openness isn't without its stresses. Not knowing whether I'm moving or roving, not knowing which contingency to pack and prepare for -- these information voids catapult me well beyond what's left of my comfort zone.

Yet through it all, I have an abiding knowingness that when I trust and surrender, when I let go and leap, I end up somewhere magnificent, somewhere I could never have imagined, predicted or chosen.

For today, all I can do is to start packing and let tomorrow take care of itself...and me. It always has.

Art by Mark David Gerson: "Surrendering to the Mystery, Surrendering to the Void (#34)"

Freedom's Dream

2008-08-20T09:44:00.010-06:00

Wednesday, August 20 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

"To the Vilda'aa it marked The End of the Known World. To me it promised a new beginning."
— The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy

I had a dream last night.

I dreamed I was on a large prison campus, large enough that it seemed like a small city.

As I stood there, watching prisoners and guards and at least one politician walk by, all dressed in civilian clothes, I knew something that none of them did: This prison campus had no walls, fences or gates. Anyone could leave at any time if they opened their eyes to the truth and made that choice.

In the dream, a friend and I had made that choice.

I remember kneeling on the lawn in front of some official building, going through the contents of my backpack as I decided what to take with me and what to leave behind. I remember now only what didn't make the cut: a variety of maps, articles and documents that linked me with my past.

When I woke up soon after, I was both exhilarated and disconcerted.

Absolute freedom does that. We both long for it and are disoriented when we get it.

The irony is that, as my dream demonstrated, we all have it. All of us. Always.

But it's our choice whether we claim it, whether we act on it...whether we open our eyes and heart to a truth that has always been present, to a choice we have thus far declined to make.

As my dream also demonstrated, our past is often a big part of that prison.

How often do we view and thus limit our choices through a prism of the past? How often do we assume that the way something has always been done proves that it's the best way, or the only way? How often do we let the burden of our past slow our awareness of the present and hinder our walk into the future?

For me, one of the most powerful scenes in my novel The MoonQuest remains the coronation, where Crown Prince Kyri is directed to throw all the jeweled accoutrements of the old king's regalia into the fire as he and his subjects-to-be chant, "The past is passed. We let it go."

Only when all that has encumbered Kyri to the old reign is consumed in the ceremonial flame is he ready to chart his own course as monarch.

Later, King Kyri honors his father, now a simple subject, by kneeling before him. His father pulls Kyri to his feet.

"Do not bow to me, my son. I stand here as the past, and you must never worship the past. ... Set your sights on the future by seeing to the present. Don't, I beg, let your vision linger longingly on the past. Let it go, my son. Let it all go. ... Let me go."

Of course, the past is not without value. It's one of our greatest teachers.

Yet we not only condemn ourselves to repeating our mistakes by ignoring the past, we condemn ourselves to paralysis by residing there, by refusing to recognize each new moment as its own life with its own imperatives — imperatives that must be informed by the past but not directed by it.

Of my Ten Rules for Living, the first two speak powerfully to that concept.

Rule #1: There are no rules
Rule #2: What works today may not work tomorrow

Only by stepping away from the limitations of "how things have to be" and "how things have always been" can we free ourselves to step beyond our known world and into the limitlessness of our infinite potential.

Only be seeing the prisons we have created for ourselves can we recognize that nothing but our own choices keeps us locked within them.

Only by daring to see the truth of our innate freedom, can we live all the wondrous, as-yet undreamed-of gifts that our freedom has already granted us.

In my dream, I tell my prisoner friend that he, too, can be free, that there is nothing to keep him locked away. I then invite him to leave with me, to walk out of the prison city and be free.

Won't you be that friend? Won't you leave with me? Won't you walk with me into the freedom that's already yours?

Photo by Mark David Gerson: "Flying Free," Mission Beach, San Diego, California

Song & Spirit of Liberty

2008-08-20T09:33:00.001-06:00

Wednesday, August 20 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

The United States was founded on a break with the past, on the notion that a fresh start could be the spark that ignites a new world of liberty and freedom.

That America hasn't always lived up to that ideal doesn't diminish freedom's call. Nor does it diminish the powerful symbols of liberty and of America's potential that continue to move and inspire freedom-seekers around the world.

As you meditate on this image, inspired by the Statue of Liberty, the Declaration of Independence and the Liberty Bell and by my 2005 "Freedom Trail" travels and writings, remember that freedom is your choice, that liberty is your birthright and that the prisons you have built for yourself have no walls, fences or gates.

In this moment, you are as free as you allow yourself to be.

Art by Mark David Gerson: "Song & Spirit of Liberty (#62)"

Trust. Now.

2008-08-08T20:18:00.010-06:00

Friday, August 8 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Mistrust has deformed this land,
twisting it until lies are truth and truth is a lie,
embedding it with layers of fear so thick
even the brightest light can't pierce through. ...
It has spread so subtly we don’t even see it.
Yet it's there. And it must be stopped.
We must stop it and begin again.
~ The MoonQuest

How do we begin again? By trusting ourselves.

From there, we regain trust in our highest God selves. Then we regain trust in each other.

We trust what we know. We trust what we see. We trust in the possibility of the impossible. We trust in love.

"You either trust or you do not," M’nor stated. "There is no halfway in between."
~ The MoonQuest

Where do you still not trust yourself? Where do you still not trust others? Where do you doubt that you're capable of miracles?

How can you more fully surrender to your highest God self and trust your alchemical power to bring Heaven on Earth into your life? Beginning today.

The MoonQuest is available at selected retailers across the U.S. and through various online sites, including Amazon.com and LightLines Media.

The Art of Creative Living...and of a Creative Life

2008-08-08T20:08:00.000-06:00

Wednesday, August 6 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

If you've read my words or heard me speak, you'll know that how passionately I believe that life and creativity are one, that there's little difference between the principles and precepts that foster success in one or the other.

In fact, the 10 Rules for Living you'll find on my web site and in an earlier post on this blog were adapted -- with little effort -- from the 13 Rules for Writing that appear both in my book, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, and its companion CD.

Twice this week, I was given an opportunity to share my thoughts about creative living and living your creativity. And although my talk at Saturday's Albuquerque meeting of Southwest Writers wasn't recorded, this afternoon's radio conversation with Rev. Jamie Sanders of Unity of Pensacola was.

During our hour together on Jamie's Spirituality Today book club show on the Unity.fm radio network, we talked about life, spirituality, creativity and all that link them together.

To hear the interview, click on the player icon below. If the icon doesn't show up, use this link.

How do life, creativity and spirituality come together for you?

Art by Mark David Gerson: Portal to Your Passion (#117)

Let the Abundance Flow!

2008-08-08T20:06:00.000-06:00

Wednesday, July 30 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

The image in my mind’s eye, as I began this drawing, was of a waterfall. I saw an infinite free flow of abundance that would bless all it touched.

Once on the page, though, my waterfall looked more to me like an angel wing, a symbol of lightness, protection and grace.

When I showed the drawing to a friend, she saw neither wing nor waterfall. To her, the image was of a dolphin, the embodiment of playfulness and joy.

In the competed drawing, the three energies merge -- an angel of abundance, joyfully blessing all who are open to receiving its gifts.

As you meditate on this image, ask yourself if you're open to receiving the gifts that now wait for you. Acknowledge all the ways your heart is already open. Then ask yourself where your heart is still closed.

We all have those places. Don't judge them. Simply reassure all parts of yourself, lovingly, that they are safe, that growth and change are not dangerous, that an open heart is your passport to an abundant life. And let the abundance flow!

Art by Mark David Gerson: Angel of Abundance (#402)

A Leap into the Unknown

2008-08-08T20:02:00.000-06:00

Saturday, July 26 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Most of my previous drawings have been linked to sacred Earth sites or to a predetermined topic. When I sat down to draw today, though (for the first time in over a year), I had no sense at all of what this drawing would be about or where it would take me.

As first one purple arc and then another formed on the blank page, all I could do was surrender -- fully and unconditionally -- to something that dwelt beyond all imagining, something that could only emerge as I abandoned all control, something I could not know until I stepped away from all expectations.

The Cities of Light incubating within us and the New Earth we are now birthing require this same willingness to leap into the unknown, to step beyond the familiar world of our experience and imagination and into a Heaven on Earth that will create itself...to the extent that we let it.

Are you ready to birth Heaven on Earth in your life? In what ways are you open? In what ways are you blocked? As you meditate on this drawing, let yourself leap beyond your known world and into the wonder and joy of all you cannot yet imagine.

Art by Mark David Gerson: City of Light (#401)

The Best of...

2008-07-26T04:48:00.004-06:00

Saturday, July 26 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

It’s hard to believe that these New Earth Chronicles have been around for 30 months and that this is the 148th post.

I was mighty resistant in January 2006 when I first felt the call to blog. At the time, I knew nothing about blogs. Didn’t much want to know, either.

But 14 months into a full-time road odyssey that had already twice carried me coast-to-coast, I felt as though a blog would be the perfect way to share my journeying -- using a medium that was more personal and immediate than the newsletter it would supplement.

My remaining doubts dissolved a few days later, when I learned that the next meeting of the Albuquerque-based Southwest Writers group would offer an introduction to blogging. Talk about perfect timing. I drove down from Santa Fe for the meeting and a few days later, this New Earth Chronicles blog was born.

Since then, this blog has followed me across the U.S. and into Canada as I've chronicled my experiences of this New Earth we're all birthing -- each in our own way, each in our own lives.

Although my chronicles of the road ended in August when I dropped anchor here in Albuquerque, my New Earth experiences have continued, as have these chronicles.

Here are a few highlights...

• February 2006 ~ Santa Fe, NM -- Love Beyond Love...from a Place Beyond all Understanding

• June 2006 ~ Palm Desert CA --What's It All About, Alfie?

• October 2006 ~ Hillside, VA -- D(r)ving into Different States

• November 2006 ~ Dalton, GA -- Family Lies, Family Ties

• December 2006 ~ Ojai, CA -- Aligned with the Flow That only Passion Can Activate

• January 2007 ~ Thousand Oaks, CA -- An Eye for the Right Life

• May 2007 ~ Santa Fe, NM -- A Horse (or Two) of a Different Color

• July 2007 ~ Sedona, AZ -- Use Me

• October 2007 ~ Santa Fe, NM -- Deeper Levels of Trust

• January 2008 ~ Albuquerque, NM -- Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?

• February 2008 ~ Albuquerque, NM -- The Alchemy of Creation

• March 2008 ~ Albuquerque, NM -- Don't Fence Me In

• May 2008 ~ Albuquerque, NM -- It Only Takes a Moment

I also now have a second blog, The Voice of Your Muse, a source of tools, tips and inspiration for writers. If you haven't already, please check it out.

Photos by Mark David Gerson: #1, from The Heart of Texas (August 2007); #2, from Desert Spring (June 2007)

Metamorphosis, or Cosmic Puberty Strikes Again

2008-07-22T09:09:00.003-06:00

Monday, July 14 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

5 a.m. -- I wake up from a restless night's sleep with lower-back pain that shows up in my left buttock and upper leg. I try to find a pain-free position. No luck. I get up.

9 a.m. -- "I need a chiropractor," I say to myself. "No," an inner voice insists. "But I'm in pain!" I argue. I then flash on a memory from a few years ago when a series of chiropractic adjustments did little to ease a similar problem. A week after canceling my remaining appointments, the pain was gone. "Let it be," I hear. "You'll be fine."

10 a.m. -- I'm not fine. I take two Advil, do my best to buffer my stomach and spend the day moving between bathtub and soft-seated easy chair.

Wednesday, July 16

8 a.m. -- Another Advil/easy-chair/bath day. I grumble about my inner guidance but surrender to it. No chiropractor.

Thursday, July 17

9 a.m. -- With even the toilet seat barely manageable, I abandon inner guidance and scan the phone book for a holistic-sounding chiropractor. The first one can't see me until Monday. The second greets me with voice mail. I know I shouldn't make a third call, but I do. I get an 11:30 appointment.

11:30 a.m. -- The chiropractor's office is empty and dark. I wait a bit, then leave. "Hang in there," my inner voice says.

11:45 a.m. -- On the drive home, my July 7 blog post echoes in my head: "We are morphing into a new species," I wrote. "We are stepping into our Divine Selves, into the Gods we have always been." I also wrote about "strange physical symptoms" that "kick in for no conventionally explainable reason."

Noon -- Suddenly, this thought: What if my body is trying to adjust to that very morphing I wrote about? What if I don't need a chiropractor to adjust my spine back to its old alignment but need to give my body the time and space to adjust itself to a new alignment? This explanation feels right -- to part of me. To another part, it sounds crazy. I resolve the dilemma by taking a nap.

Friday, July 18

6 a.m. -- I'm still in pain. "Damn!" I mutter. I can't get back to sleep, so I give myself a mini sound-healing session. This is my second early morning self-treatment this week and the second time a spine-shaped DNA strand appears in my mind's eye. I fall asleep.

8 a.m. -- I wake up. The pain is nearly gone.

Tuesday, July 22

The pain didn't stay gone. Instead, it ebbed and returned over the next days, each return less intense than the last. Today, I feel pretty good, if still just a little bit achey.

Why am I sharing this story? Not to prove what a wonderful self-healer I am, nor to show off my fearless, resistance-free existence. We all have the former capacity but, like most people, I don't always trust mine. As for the latter, it's not as constant as I would like it to be.

Rather, I share my story to remind you -- and me -- to listen to the voice of your deepest heart, to discern what is truth and trust it, to honor not only the demands of your body but also the call of your highest self. I share it, not for you to avoid necessary treatment, but to be open to the wisdom and healing power that is your birthright.

I share it, too, as a personal example of that Cosmic Puberty experience many of us are living. I share it because I know that many of you are experiencing your own strange symptoms -- either new ones or a recurrence of old ones.

For me, the past week involved more than back pain. I was lethargic, slept poorly and had little appetite. I also experienced a catalog of other physical and emotional oddities. Even my computer was affected: On Tuesday, my laptop's trackpad died. On Wednesday, its battery followed suit.

Today, after eight days of listless emptiness, I feel energized and transformed. It's as though I went through a physical and emotional retooling and now stand at the threshold of something new. Even my computing life has had an overhaul -- new keyboard, trackpad, battery and printer.

Perhaps I should have seen this metamorphosis coming. At the end of my talk at a local library a few weeks ago, the librarian gave me a gift: a thermal mug emblazoned with the theme of the summer's teen reading program -- Metamorphosis.

That mug has been sitting on my kitchen counter ever since, refusing to be hidden in a cupboard, its transformative message staring me down multiple times a day.

I can't tell you where this metamorphosis is taking me or what its next stage will look like. Nor can I tell you how it will manifest in my life.

The only certainty for me is that metamorphosis is an ongoing journey, one that continues to call on me to surrender to it. Unconditionally.

The only certainty for us all is that we are all evolving, that we're all engaged in the kind of r-evolution (radical evolution) I often write about. At least, we're engaged to the extent that we allow it to be so.

How engaged are you? Are you allowing metamorphosis or resisting it? How is it playing out in your life? Where is it uncomfortable? Painful? Where is it joyful? Transcendent? How can you surrender more fully to it and flow more easily along your journey to the Divine? How can you move through the human stress and confusion of these times while acknowledging the God you already are? How can you help others on that same journey?

I know you can do it. I know you can, because I believe in you.

Art: "Remembering the God That You Are" (#12) by Mark David Gerson. Graphic: Logo for the Rio Rancho Library's "Metamorphosis" summer teen program

25 Words of Living

2008-07-22T09:08:00.001-06:00

Sunday, July 20 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

It wasn't until today that I got around to responding to the 25 Words of Work / Life Wisdom challenge put forward by fellow blogger Liz Strauss earlier this month -- only to discover that I'd missed the deadline!

Still, it's such a good exercise that I did it anyhow. Now, I want to share it and invite you to try it.

Here's Liz's idea (slightly modified):

1) Look for something you see too much or too little of, something you're feeling right now or someone/something you would like to describe.
2) Without thinking too much as you do it, write a sentence or two about it.
3) Count the words you have written.
4) Trim the sentence until you have 25 words -- no more, no less. Notice how your idea changes as you distill it and how your feelings change with each rewrite.
5) For a little extra fun, create a Wordle word cloud with your 25 words at www.wordle.net.

Because it's too late to be part of Liz's project, I invite you to post your sentence here -- or to post it on your own blog and include a link to your blog in the comments here. Include a link to your Wordle word cloud, too.

I'll be reposting this invitation on my blog about writing, The Voice of Your Muse in a couple of days.

It's a great writing exercise, but it's also a great experience in both distilling and discovering what you think and what you believe.

Here's mine: Today I remember that surrender is the key to writing and life: trusting that all is in divine order in every moment, in every breath.

You'll find more examples on Liz's site as well as at the Remarkable Parents blog.

Give it a try. It's both fun and enlightening!

Follow the Voice of Your Muse

2008-07-22T09:01:00.002-06:00

Saturday, July 19 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Just a quick note to remind you to visit The Voice of Your Muse, my blog of tools, tips and inspiration about writing.

Since I launched it this past spring, the blog has expanded to more than 50 posts on a wide range of practical and motivational topics -- many with relevance beyond the realm of creativity.

There are a couple of ways to make sure you keep up with the new posts:

• E-mail subscription -- Use this link and be sure to respond to the confirmation e-mail. (A Voice of the Muse subscription is separate from the one that brings New Earth Chronicles posts and my newsletters to some of you via e-mail.) You can use this same link to receive new posts via Twitter or IM.

• Use a blog reader like Bloglines or Google Reader.

Whether you subscribe or not, please visit the blog and add your comments and suggestions.

Cosmic Puberty, or Living Radical Evolution

2008-07-07T07:17:00.007-06:00

Monday, July 7 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

A version of this article first appeared in the July 4, 2006 issue of my inspirational newsletter.

You're not going crazy.

I know it feels that way sometimes. It certainly does to me.

One moment you feel fine, on top of the world. The next, something pushes you into a depression or despair it's difficult to pull out of. Or you feel yourself sinking into a morass of apparent meaninglessness and purposelessness.

Old patterns -- addictions, even -- poke and prod at you, demanding to be satisfied.

Intense fatigue or other strange physical symptoms kick in, for no conventionally explainable reason.

You feel as though you're going crazy.

You're not.

Then what the @#$&%!?# is going on?

It's what I call R-evolution, short for Radical Evolution.

Our humanoid ancestors had the luxury of millennia to evolve from cave to condo, from simplicity to sophistication. Even for our grandparents, evolution was a subtle process, barely discernible within a generation, let alone a lifetime.

All that has changed.

We are experiencing, in this lifetime, a revolutionary overhaul that is unprecedented in human history.

We are morphing into a new species.

You could call it the New Human, although that's not truly accurate, because where we're going transcends much of we have come to know as human.

In effect, we are stepping into our Divine Selves, into the Gods we have always been, but only as a potential.

That potential is now being realized. Not for everyone, perhaps. But for those who have made that choice, however unconsciously, that's what's going on.

Exciting? Yes.

Miraculous? Absolutely.

Fear-provokingly uncomfortable? Without a doubt.

We stand in a place of transition.

Increasingly, our old ways of living, coping and feeling secure are not working. Even many of the New Age paradigms we have grown into in recent years seem out of place, dysfunctional, wrong-minded.

We are, as Gregg Braden put it a decade ago, walking between the worlds.

Who we were is outmoded. Yet who we are becoming is not yet ready.

Remember that awkward period in early adolescence? You were no longer a child, yet seemingly far from adulthood. On top of that, your physical and emotional bodies were doing all kinds of weird and wacky things.

Welcome back to puberty. Cosmic puberty.

You're experiencing peculiar symptoms and your emotions are volatile. You're beginning to think and act in ways that are foreign to you and others. Your likes and dislikes are shifting, as are your passions and priorities.

Even the face staring back at you from the mirror seems disconcertingly unfamiliar.

In this twilight zone we now occupy between our human and divine selves, cognitive disconnect is the norm.

Our human minds struggle to control our lives in ways that our divine intelligence considers unnecessary.

Our human mind has expectations. Our divine intelligence has none.

Our human mind tries to figure out and understand, functions our divine intelligence regards as irrelevant.

Radical Evolution, or "ascension" as some would term it, is not about moving into deeper understanding. It's about moving away from understanding. It's about abandoning any need to understand and moving into a place of permanent mystery...divine mystery.

Yet we're still wired to function in human ways. Or, rather, our divine electrician has begun the rewiring, but it's a massive job. And the transition is as weird and wacky as was puberty.

That's not reassuring to the human self, which feels as though everything familiar is breaking apart.

It is. One glance at the headlines is all it take to see that. Plummeting real estate prices. Soaring gas prices. Crises in the credit world. Floods, fires and financial failure.

Our minds and bodies are doing their own version of that same dance. Sometimes, the dance isn't graceful or pretty. Sometimes, it looks more like struggle.

Think of the biblical Jacob wrestling with the angel.

That's the essence of what's going on for us: our human wrestling with our divine. The human seeks to hold onto the perceived control of knowingness. The angel, on the other hand, represents all that is free, and therefore free of control.

All that is free is the mystery. For, along with its other implications, freedom frees us from having to know, to understand, to place in context.

As we move to this next level -- a step that is gargantuan in its steepness and implications -- we are leaving behind more than we can begin to imagine. Not in the physical sense. Not even in the emotional sense. In the human sense.

Much that has defined you as human is being squeezed out of you -- in that spin cycle I wrote about some time back or, perhaps better put, in an old-fashioned wringer-washer. And as each new space is freed up, more of the divine that you already are is entering in to fill that newly created emptiness.

Put another way, it's like the child (Peter Pan) who resists growing up, leaving childish (but not childlike) things behind to make way for the adult. In this case, it's not the human adult but the divine adult that is coming through...sometimes, or so it feels, like a steamroller.

No wonder you're in emotional crisis at times. No wonder you feel as though you are dying. No wonder signs and apparent synchronicities refuse to be interpreted.

Nothing is the way it was or ever will be again. Nothing can be understood in the old ways. Nothing can be fixed in the old ways. Nothing can be controlled. Period.

There is only one magic pill, and it can be a tough one to swallow.

It's called surrender.

Yet it's the only way.

All we can do is move through our cosmic puberty with as much grace as we can muster.

All we can do is surrender...to the mystery, to the freedom, to the divine that is taking over our lives, our will and our beingness and launching us into an era we cannot predict, anticipate or understand.

See yourself as a baby bird pushing through its shell. The shell is your human construct. You are breaking through that now. It is breaking down now. The bird is emerging, regardless. And it will fly. You will fly. And life on the other side of that shell is nothing you have ever known before.

You are stressed by all this. This is natural. Your human self is in panic. This is natural.

Know that you are neither dying nor going crazy, though that is what it feels like. Rather, you are experiencing radical evolution. You are becoming the divine.

Stop wrestling the angel and, instead, step into the angel. Become the angel. Become the god, your god, the god that you are.

~ For tips on how to use writing to help you move through these r-evolutionary times, visit my other blog, The Voice of Your Muse or check out The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write and/or The Voice of the Muse Companion: Guided Meditations for Writers.

Image: "Wrestling the Light" by Ivan Chan

Don't Worry, Be Happy

2008-07-07T07:07:00.003-06:00

Sunday, July 6 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

What would happen if one million people experienced and expressed happiness on the same day? You'll have a really good chance of finding out on July 10, which has been designated International Happiness Day.

Initiated by Barcelona's Liberto Pereda Romera, International Happiness Day is a day in which people from all over the world are asked to intentionally choose to be happy while inspiring the happiness of others through simple acts of kindness, expressions of joy, gratitude, optimism, and forgiveness.

"We know that intention creates outcome," says Eva Gregory, who is one of the two US Ambassadors for International Happiness Day, with Jeanna Gabellini. So, if a million people from all over the planet celebrated happiness on the same day, we’re convinced that it would have a powerful, positive impact on the world."

To participate July 10 in International Happiness Day, says Gregory, all you need to do is set the intention to choose happiness on that day.

For more information, visit the International Happiness Day web site, watch the International Happiness Day video or join the International Happiness Day Group on Facebook.

On the Air with Mark David

2008-07-07T07:05:00.000-06:00

Thursday, July 3 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

"I passionately believe that we are called to love, honor and respect all aspects of our beingness, not just the ones that behave in right/light ways."
~ Mark David Gerson

Tune into the audio archive of "Loving Your Ego While Surrendering to Your Highest Self," an engaging conversation on a wide range of spiritual/personal growth topics, including how to love your ego and my 10 Rules for Living, with Powerfull Living Radio host Lorraine Cohen.

You Can Now Subscribe to "The Voice of Your Muse"

2008-06-18T23:12:00.003-06:00

Tuesday, June 17 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Back on May 19, I introduced you to my then-new blog of tools, tips and inspiration for writers: The Voice of Your Muse.

Since then, the new blog has expanded to nearly three dozen posts, and I've expanded posting frequency to four or more posts per week.

Many of you have responded by adding your comments and asking how to receive those posts by e-mail -- the same way some of you receive posts from this blog.

At the time, I said that I wouldn't be including The Voice of Your Muse as part of any existing subscriptions to my e-mail list to avoid overloading your inbox. Now, I have a way to make it possible for those of you who want to subscribe to the new blog to get it.

Either use this link or the subscription blank in the sidebar at The Voice of Your Muse (immediately underneath my profile on The Voice of Your Muse blog, not this one). Once you sign up and respond to the confirmation e-mail, you'll receive the newest additions to The Voice of Your Muse blog within 24 hours of their appearance on the web site.

Whether you subscribe or not, please visit the blog and add your comments.

I'm looking forward to helping you hear the voice of your muse!

On the Air with Mark David

2008-06-18T23:11:00.000-06:00

Thursday, June 12 ~ Santa Fe, New Mexico

Hear me speaking about writing and about my two books on the Santa Fe Radio Café, a Santa Fe public radio interview that first aired earlier today on KSFR.

~ For a schedule of my upcoming interviews and other events and appearances, please check out the events widget in the sidebar.

~ For audio archives of other interview and links to audio excerpts and reviews/news stories, click here.

Larger than Life

2008-06-18T17:33:00.000-06:00

A version of this article first appeared in the June 3, 2007 issue of my inspirational newsletter.

Wednesday, June 18 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Back in October 2006 when I was visiting Toronto, a friend treated me to a ticket to Barbra Streisand's first-ever concert performance in that city. Although we were sitting high in the rafters in a hockey arena that was anything but intimate, I was startled by how fully and personally her energy filled every corner of that venue.

"She's larger than life," I remember gushing to my friend at intermission.

I recalled that experience the first time I listened to the CD recording of the concert tour, some months after my return from Toronto. "That's what I want," I heard myself say at the time and was so startled by what seemed such a profoundly ego-driven thought that I was almost embarrassed.

But it wasn't until some months later that I fully understood both the Streisand experience and my inner voice. What I realized was that "larger than life" isn't about being famous. It simply means living larger than the restrictions and limitations we all carry so willingly through life. I also realized that access to that energy is not limited to the Barbra Streisands of the world, unless we choose for that to be so.

Even as our souls yearn for us to "play big," to discover our passion and live it to the fullest, our fearful self continues to seek out ways to hide and play small.

"Our deepest fear," writes Marianne Williamson in A Return to Love, "is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

Perhaps even deeper than the fear she describes is the fear of experiencing and expressing our power out in the world, of being larger than life, of living beyond the self-imposed walls and barriers we create in the mistaken belief they will keep us safe.

They can't and they won't.

Our only safety resides in living our largest life to its fullest potential, in living our truth...in living our passion. In walking through life as though we are safe...as though nothing can stop, limit or restrict us.

As I write this, an old Cole Porter lyric keeps running through my head:

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above,
Don't fence me in

At a literal level, the song is sung by a cowboy who longs for the endless space of the open range.

Yet it's also the song of every soul deprived of its fullest expression by the fences of a fearful mind, a soul that seeks only the limitlessness of its natural state.

Whatever you think of Barbra Streisand's talent or personality, when you are in her energy field, you touch that limitlessness and your soul cries out, "Me too! That's who I am, too!!"

Here in the Western world, where we have been taught to play small, we transfer all of our natural desire for the fenceless world of a life lived large to our movie stars and sports heroes.

If we can't play out our own passion and power, we play it out through a celebrity cult that's no healthier than any other cult, one we also find in countries with charismatic leaders/dictators, in religions with unapproachable gods and in all situations where we abdicate the expression of our infinite nature to someone or something outside of ourselves.

In my novel, The MoonQuest, very much a metaphor for all our journeys, the main character is destined for a greatness he continues to resist. Yet destiny, as he is constantly reminded, is not cast in stone. There is always a choice.

"Every choice you have ever made, has led to this moment. Your moment. Still, the power to make a different choice remains yours."

The power to choose is always ours. In every moment and through every situation, we're offered the opportunity to choose our greatness, our passion, our light.

It's what we do with each moment and situation that governs our destiny, that decides whether we live in our greatness or in the shadow of someone else's, that determines whether we build fences or tear them down.

In this moment, what do you choose?

A version of this article first appeared in the June 3, 2007 issue of my inspirational newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter (which also gets you e-mail versions of these blog posts), visit my web site or use the subscription blank in the sidebar.

Win a Free Signed Copy of The Voice of the Muse!

2008-06-08T09:32:00.003-06:00

Congrats to Dave Rhodes (aka the Rhodester) who won first prize...and a signed copy of The Voice of the Muse!

Sunday, June 8 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

A signed copy of The Voice of the Muse, my critically acclaimed book of tools, tips and inspiration for writers (from novices to published writers) is one of the prizes in a nifty "twitlit" contest just announced on the Smithereens blog.

To be precise, and concise, you need to write your best example of witty wordplay in 140 characters or less and post it on Twitter to enter.

Which means, of course, you'll have to join Twitter if you're not a member (but it's pretty painless and, hey, the chance of winning my book -- and others’ -- should make it worth the effort). Once you do join Twitter, be sure to look me up and add me to the list of folks you're following.

Remember: 140 witty characters could make you a winner! Enter today!! Click here for instructions.

Only Now

2008-06-01T00:12:00.000-06:00

Sunday, June 1 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

"God works in moments."
— old French saying

"If you feel yourself pulled out of the present moment, stop — to write, to meditate, to reconnect with the earth and the heavens, to find your grounding and centering. Stop to remember who you are. Stop to listen to the voice of your muse, your soul, your heart. In that moment of cease, you reconnect with the inner and again find your flow, again find your way."
— adapted from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write

You know how some events stick in your mind so clearly that, even years after the fact, you can easily re-insert yourself into the scene? I'm not talking about the obviously dramatic ones. Rather, I'm referring to ones whose significance is invisible in the moment.

I had one of those in 1996 when I was living in Penetanguishene on the Lake Huron shore, about 90 miles north of Toronto. It was during one of those periods of personal retreat that seem to turn up in my life at regular intervals. It was also during a period of stress-induced digestive disorders that, in turn, induced yet more stress around mealtime.

Each morning before breakfast back then, I would go for a long walk in the extensive woodlands that stretched up into the hills behind my house. And each morning as I walked, my mind would leap ahead to breakfast, trying to figure out what I could eat that wouldn't upset my stomach.

As I walked and stressed, I was so focused on how to avoid being stressed that I was blind and deaf to the resplendent glories of a Georgian Bay fall. The irony was that none of my stressing reduced the ultimate stress of breakfast.

One day, after weeks of this, it struck me that this was not a healthy way to live. It struck me, too, that this was not an isolated pattern. In effect, I had spent most of my life avoiding the moment I was in in favor of some future worry.

From that moment on, my walks became an exercise in pulling myself back to the present moment. Each time my mind wandered forward, I would refocus on some gift of the walk. "Now, I hear the leaves crunching under my feet," I would say. Or, "Now, I feel the texture of the tree bark." Or, "Now, I see the bay sparkling through the trees."

It was (and remains) a powerful exercise, not least because it demonstrated just how future-directed I had been.

One of life's gifts and challenges is how old issues resurface, not because we haven't mastered them but because it's time to graduate to the next level of our mastery.

For me, a new level of that particular mastery kicked in eight years later, not long after I had left Sedona, Arizona on what would turn out to be a 30-month road odyssey.

It was a journey of faith, one very similar to that embarked upon by Toshar and his questing companions in my novel, The MoonQuest, one very similar to the writing journey that produced the book. During much of that time, I didn't know where I would go from day to day...or why. All I could do was trust that each moment would lead to the next and that, one day, all those moments would add up to something meaningful.

Yet, what challenged me more than not knowing where I was going or why, in those early months, was not knowing how I would manage financially — with only the proceeds from my leave-taking garage sale to get me going and spotty income from teleconferences and telephone clients to keep me going.

Just as I had done eight years earlier on my woodland walks, my road travels were frequently punctuated with anxiety — this time about how I would pay my bills.

I wrote about this in my March newsletter (Infinite Possibility, Infinite Flow):

"In those moments [of high anxiety], that still, small voice we can all access would ask, Are all today's needs taken care of? Food? Gas? Accommodation? My answers were always 'yes.'

"Then let tomorrow and tomorrow's bills take care of themselves, the voice would say."

It was not always easy to focus only on the needs of the moment. The future-directed part of me often wanted to take over. Yet, the exercise worked. Somehow, the next day's needs were always covered and the next day inevitably took care of itself.

The memory of that experience still sustains me on days when financial anxieties feel overwhelming. In the moment, I remind myself, I'm always fine.

In recent weeks, a new level of now-moment mastery has been imposing itself on me. Instead of discrete aspects of my life, like food or finances, pulling me back into the now, it feels as though every aspect of my life is alerting me to the fact that nothing truly matters — or, perhaps, exists— beyond the present moment.

As I've written recently here, the house I'm renting in Albuquerque is up for sale, and I've been questioning whether it's time to go back on the road and, if I do, whether I should store or sell my belongings. Tied to these questions are others: Should I arrange for my daughter to visit this summer (not knowing if I'll even be here)? If I'm not here this summer, where should I go? If I'm not on the road, where should I move? Should I plan a book tour this fall? Should I plan the Nova Scotia trip I wrote about recently?

The absurdity of my situation was made clear to me the other day when a guy from a local moving and storage company came by the house to give me an estimate.

"What will you be moving and storing?" he asked. "I don't know," I replied.

"When do you need it moved?" "I don't know."

"How long will you need it stored?" "I don't know."

"Where will you want us to take it afterward?" "I don't know."

These and other questions have rattled around in my head incessantly and none of my usually reliable meditative activities (nature walks, long bathtub soaks, writing) have offered what seem like concrete answers...other than another round of I don't know's.

Even feeling out the energy of my various options isn't working. These days no option has a stronger charge than any other.

Over and over, to any friend who would listen, I have been repeating, "I have all these decisions to make and no information on which to base them."

And then I realized that none of the decisions I was stressing about actually had to be made. Not in the moment.

Unquestionably, the insecure, fearful and, thus, controlling parts of me yearned for an end to the uncertainty, longed to be doing something — anything — that would contribute to a sense of order, that would anchor my present to some future event, that would show me the next chapter of the story.

But as the mystical O'ric tells Toshar in The MoonQuest (and as I teach my writing students), "It is best not to know too much too soon. It is best to know only that the story continues and to follow where it takes you."

In the end, the mover and I settled on one possible scenario and that's how he calculated his estimate.

It's all an estimate. Like the weather, the farther we move out from the present moment, the less reliable the forecast. This is increasingly true in all aspects of life, including the weather.

Of course, there are decisions that have to decided, choices that must be chosen. But more often than not, the decisions and choices of the moment are the clearest and easiest.

If, as I felt the other day, my life seems to consist of a floor-scattering of jigsaw puzzle pieces with each piece from a different puzzle, it's just that in the moment I can't and don't need to see the bigger picture.

That doesn't mean I can't make choices and decisions. This isn't about paralysis.

It does mean that I'm coming to believe that, having already made the bigger decision of surrendering to my passion, the smaller decisions don't matter as much.

Perhaps they don't matter at all, and that's why they all carry equally neutral energy. Perhaps, again, having surrendered to my passion, it doesn't matter how I get there. Perhaps, as I've noted in my 10 Rules for Living and my 13 Rules for Writing, there really are no rules...just this moment...and now this one...and now this one...each lived as joyfully as I'm able, with as little focus on "getting it right" as I can muster.

Many spiritual traditions speak of the "now moment" as the only reality. And books like Ekhart Tolle's The Power of Now offer potent teachings on the subject. For me, though, there's a difference between getting it and living it, and a difference between getting it in several aspects of my life and feeling it permeate all of them.

As profound as these recent experiences have been and as firmly as they have held me in the divine embrace of the now, I know that this mastery is not complete.

In this as in all aspects of my personal and spiritual growth, the spiral continues to turn, my mastery continues to develop and my joyful surrender to the infinite nature of each moment continues to deepen.

What about you? Where in your life are you future-directed?

How, in this moment, are you focused away from this moment? What can you do now to gently, lovingly, compassionately and courageously draw your focus back to the present, remembering that even the fearful parts of you deserve your respect even as they cannot be in charge?

Whatever it is, do it, and feel your powerful presence expressed fully and joy-fully in this present moment.

Art by Mark David Gerson: #99 Medicine Wheel, Inspired by Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark, Medicine Mountain, Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming

It Only Takes a Moment

2008-05-20T18:11:00.002-06:00

Tuesday, May 20 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

As I drive home from a lunch date with someone I haven't seen in a decade, a song from the musical Hello, Dolly! insinuates itself into my mind. The song, "It Only Takes a Moment," is a paean to love at first sight, but it reminds me how a single instant can precipitate an earth-quaking, life-shaking change in direction.

One of the most profound examples of that in my life occurred ten years ago, just before my last encounter with today's lunch partner. It was May 1, at a Beltane bonfire in Sedona, Arizona.

It was at that bonfire that I met my former wife, a meet-up whose sparks rivaled those that leapt up from the fire pit that night. A week later, we moved in together; six weeks after that we were married. The six-plus years that followed were filled with love, joy and a cornucopia of unexpected miracles, not the least of which was my daughter, who made her own spark-filled appearance at 9:11 a.m. on 9/11/99.

It only takes a moment...

The song and the accompanying memory take on particular significance for me today, during a period in my life filled with uncertainty and flux, a time when doubts about my path creep into any opening they can find, a period of fear, anger and confusion, a time when inner guidance is unclear and seems to shift from moment to moment.

There are energetic reasons for these experiences, experiences that I know are not unique to me at this time. But, for me, the reasons are less important than how I choose to respond to all that they have set in motion in my life in recent weeks.

When I woke up on that life-changing May morning ten years ago, I was angry and frustrated. Little that I had felt guided to expect had come to pass. Here I was in a new country, uncertain why I was here, unclear about how to proceed, unnerved by the seeming disconnect between inner knowingness and outer manifestation.

In a single instant 12 hours later, my life was thrust into a new direction and nothing was ever the same again. It was as though I had been reborn into a new world that bore only a passing resemblance to my old one.

It only takes a moment...

Today, I remember that instant and others like it and I know that one moment -- one breath -- is all it takes for the miracle that changes everything to appear unannounced.

I remember, too, that the key to receiving that miracle is to stay present in each moment, moment-by-moment. For unless I'm present in the moment, I may not notice the miracle that is its fruit. If I'm locked in worry and anxiety about the future -- and even the moment after this one is part of that future -- I may not be available to the angel who delivers the miracle.

Not every life-changing moment is a happy one. The human journey is filled with miracle-filled moments masquerading as bad news. The instant when my marriage ended was one of those, as was the moment I learned that my mother had cancer.

Yet even those moments brought with them wondrous gifts that I could never have predicted, like flowers blooming among the desert cactus.

And so as I move through the challenges of these times, I try to stay present in each moment, remembering that a moment is all it takes -- for worlds to topple, new life to birth and miracles to bloom.

It only takes a moment.

Photos by Mark David Gerson: Sandia cactus flower, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Your Voice, Your Muse

2008-05-20T18:10:00.001-06:00

Monday, May 19 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Apparently, one blog in my life (this one) isn't enough. A few weeks ago, to help support all you writers (and aspiring writers) out there, I felt moved to create The Voice of Your Muse, a new blog filled with tools, tips and inspiration designed to help get you writing and, more importantly, keep you writing.

Posts include tips for staying in the flow while writing on the computer, for birthing your book and for staying in the moment (and out of judgment). You'll also find inspirational quotes from other writers and a handy list of writing do's and don't's. As well, news from Canada about a self-published author who won the country's most prestigious (and lucrative) literary humor award is guaranteed to encourage all you DIY folks out there.

The blog already has more than two dozen posts and I'm committing to updating at least weekly (generally Sundays), so be sure to check in regularly or add the blog to your blog newsreader.

If you're a subscriber who gets these posts and my newsletters via e-mail, you won't automatically be getting posts from this additional blog. I don't want to overwhelm you with extra e-mail. (If you're not a subscriber, you can subscribe here).

However, I'm considering sending out an e-mail notification when new Voice of Your Muse posts are added. If you'd like to be on that separate list, drop me an e-mail or contact me using this link and I'll add you to this new list.

Although some posts will be adapted from my book, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, many will offer new or updated information. So don't ignore this new source of inspiration just because you have the book.

But if you do have the book, please check out the new Voice of Your Muse Google Group I've set up to help you connect with others working with The Voice of the Muse book or CD.

Regardless, please visit the new blog and add your comments!

Holy Faith II

2008-05-15T20:22:00.001-06:00

Saturday, May 10 ~ Santa Fe, New Mexico

It's 2 pm. I'm sitting at my table in The Village at Eldorado shops just outside Santa Fe, exchanging sadly sympathetic glances with my fellow authors and publishers at this day-before-Mother's Day book fair, wondering, as are they, why I'm here.

Billed as a great opportunity to sell books to last-minute gift-givers, this event has been a bust, with few browsers and even fewer buyers.

Although the fair ends in an hour, I'm already starting to pack up. I'm not the only one.

I mutter under my breath as I refill my boxes and bins and load the car. After a week of financial setbacks, I had hoped for a breakthrough day. It's not even a break-even day.

A few hours and several errands later, I'm back on the freeway, heading home and still decidedly cranky. Then I see it: a sign for Santa Fe.

I don't believe in tests and I avoid describing any aspect of my experience here on earth as a "school." Tests can be failed and schools can be filled with bullies. For me (most days), there are no failing grades and no one trying to trip me up. I prefer, instead, to see life as a series of portals and initiations, each leading to higher levels of awareness and consciousness.

I realize as I see the highway sign that it's no accident that this particular initiation has taken place for me in Santa Fe, a city whose name translates as "holy faith."

My journey through this lifetime has largely been about trust -- trust that I'm on the right path...trust that my inner guidance is authentic...trust that, as I write, the next word will come...trust that as I surrender more completely to the highest imperative, I'm always taken care of.

Yet, each time I reach a plateau of trust, it doesn't take long before I'm thrust into a situation that calls on me on to trust more fully still.

That renewed call to trust always comes just as I'm about to step up into a new level of mastery and empowerment. And it nearly always challenges me to transcend my fear and continue to live a life wholly in faith.

In my novel, The MoonQuest, such a mirror for my own journey of trust, the main characters are reminded at a moment of great risk that there is no partial trust. "You either trust or you do not. There is no halfway in between," they're told.

I, too, need that message repeated. Frequently.

I, too, need to be reminded that each call to trust is a divine call, a call to deepen my faith in the power, passion and potential that is the Divine living in, as and through me.

I, too, need to remember the holy faith that guides, supports and prospers me. Always.

On a side note -- and in another reminder of the spirals of life that continue to carry us to higher levels of mastery -- I just discovered that I wrote the blog post titled Holy Faith I a year ago, almost to the day...also in Santa Fe.

Art by Mark David Gerson: #77 The Cathedral of St. Francis, Santa Fe, New Mexico

She's Called Nova Scotia

2008-05-05T19:55:00.000-06:00

Saturday, April 26 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

She's called Nova Scotia
And she so makes you feel
You've discovered a treasure
No other has seen
- Rita MacNeil

It's late Friday night. I'm on the phone with a close friend in Toronto, talking about my projected road trip east this fall.

"It would be great to go all the way to Nova Scotia," I say, "but it's so far. It just doesn't make any sense."

A point of clarification: I lived in Nova Scotia on Canada's Atlantic coast for fourteen months in 1994-95. That's where I wrote most of the first two drafts of my novel The MoonQuest, and it's one of those places I've lived (along with Hawaii, New Mexico and Sedona, Arizona) that has lodged permanently in my heart. I've only been back once, in 1996, and often dream of returning for a visit.

My friend hesitates and his late-night, fatigue-slurred words suddenly become clear and precise.

"Maybe," he says, "you need to go back because of The MoonQuest. Maybe you need to go back to trigger something that will take you and The MoonQuest to the next level."

I jerk up in my seat. I had never considered the MoonQuest connection when thinking about going back to Nova Scotia. It feels right, but...

An hour later, I'm lying in bed. With so much in my life in flux these days, I decide to ask for guidance -- about Nova Scotia and other aspects of my road trip, about the relationship that is still too distant to touch even as I feel it edging closer, about whether the house I'm renting will sell before my lease is up, about whether to store or sell my furniture... In short, I ask for guidance about everything, hoping my nighttime dreams will offer some clarity.

I toss and turn all night, never sleeping longer than an hour at a stretch, and wake up frustrated and exhausted, no wiser than I was at bedtime.

By the time I'm done with breakfast, I can barely keep my eyes open and so return to bed for a nap. Two hours later, I wake up from the kind of illuminating dream I had been seeking.

In the dream, I'm telling my ex about the phone conversation with my Toronto friend. As I recount the story, I get emotional and begin to sob.

I don't feel the same emotional charge when I wake up, but I have learned over the years that my conscious self is not always as open as it could be, that I sometimes require dreams and others signs to tell me what my heart desires. It's clear in this moment that, whatever the reason, my heart desires to re-experience Nova Scotia and the places there that so deeply fed me and The MoonQuest.

Whatever else this journey east from New Mexico is about, it's clear in this moment that Nova Scotia is part of it. As for the rest, all I can do -- yet again -- is trust and surrender to the higher wisdom that guides me...in every moment that I'm open to it.

A Child of These Roads II

2008-04-26T18:55:00.006-06:00

Saturday, April 19 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

The doorbell rings. It's Stephanie, the woman who owns the house I rent here in Albuquerque.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" she asks.

"Of course," I say.

"We're thinking of selling the house. If we worked with you, would you be open to leaving before your lease is up?"

Before I can stop my mouth, it says, "Sure."

If you read my most recent newsletter, you know that I had already felt called to leave at the end of the lease -- putting everything in storage and hitting the road...again, on an extended book tour into the midwest and east. (You also know from the newsletter that I only just landed here in late August after 30 months of full-time road travel.)

I hadn't planned to be gone from Albuquerque before summer's end. Frankly, I hadn't planned to resume my road odyssey. But that's the thing about plans. All we can do at the human level is make them, using the limited information available to us. Once we turn those plans over to a higher power (God, Spirit, the Universe, our Higher/God Self), anything can happen...and generally does.

When Stephanie leaves, I start to cry. Not because anything has changed. After all, this only advances my departure by, at most, a few months. No, I'm crying because everything has changed. A vague notion (my eastbound journey) has been validated, solidified and accelerated. Suddenly, it feels real, and a stew of conflicting emotions begins to roil up inside me.

A few hours later, as if to further consolidate the morning's revelations, I surrender to the possibility of (yet again) selling rather than storing many of my belongings.

Will this journey last only the few months I now foresee? Perhaps.

Will it be focused solely on talks, workshops, book-signings and book sales? Probably not.

Will it end, as I've intuited, in southern California? Maybe.

If there's one thing I've learned on my spiritual journey of surrender, it's that the reasons I intuit or make up for why I feel guided to do something rarely cover more than the tiniest surface of an ineffable complexity.

Put another way, my perception is limited to what I can figure out or imagine. Divine design is infinite in its scope and unknowable in its entirety. All I can do is the best I can do with the little I know and trust in the wondrous nature of the invisible.

Some days, that "all" feels like more than I can handle. On those days, I'm grateful for the granite solidity of the Sandia Mountains, which, since my first day in Albuquerque, have always helped ground me through the r-evolutionary changes of these r-evolutionary times.

I close my day with a walk in the Sandia foothills and, once again, know that through all that's asked of me, I'm always loved, protected and supported.

And all is well.

As for my fall tour of classes, workshops, talks and book-signings, I'm open to going anywhere east, north and/or south of here -- in the U.S. and into Canada. I'm also open to traveling into California later this summer. If you have any ideas or suggestions, or if you'd be interested in helping me organize and/or promote something in your area, I'd love to hear from you.

Photos by Mark David Gerson: #1 California SR-167 near Mono Lake; #2-4 Sandia foothills, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Death to the Ego? Not.

2008-04-14T01:33:00.000-06:00

Monday, April 14 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

"Despise Fvorag and you despise a part of yourself. For we are all One in Prithi."
— The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy

"Death to the Ego!" I've heard that war cry, so common in personal-growth circles, several times in recent days. And each time, it left me profoundly saddened.

You see, the oft-demonized ego doesn't deserve to die. No part of us deserves to die.

No part of us deserves to be dismissed...or dissed. All parts of us have value. All parts of us have worth. All parts of us are capable of growth and transformation. Of redemption.

Many writers and therapists would have you believe that the ego is some inner evil that must be cut off, stamped out and killed before we can move forward.

"Ego," I read the other day, "is the biggest — and perhaps the only — obstacle to true enlightenment. If we want to be free, if we want to be enlightened, we have to pay the price: death of the ego."

Not only is that view wrong-headed, it is damaging.

Certainly, the ego or "small self" can stand in the way of our evolution. Yet whatever else it is or does, it is still a part of our greater self, of our oneness. Of God.

God, however you define it, is made up of all the pieces of us — dark and light, evolved and not. God is not just the pieces we like or would prefer.

When we use phrases like "death of the ego," we're advocating an act of self-hatred and self-destruction that is not at all godlike.

How can we call for oneness in one breath and the destruction of a part of ourselves in the next? How can we preach love as the energy that creates and heals all when, in the same sentence, we preach hatred toward parts of ourselves?

If your arm is broken, do you cut it off because it's now a useless appendage? Or do you allow it to heal, lavishing extra love and energy upon it because of its weakened condition?

The ego is no less deserving of care and no less capable of healing and transformation.

I passionately believe that we are called to love, honor and respect all aspects of our beingness, not just the ones that behave in right/light ways.

We live in a throwaway culture, tossing out anything that's broken, a culture where imperfection is punished and misbehavior condemned. What have we become we that we're now throwing away bits of ourselves?

The ego is nothing more than a terrified, lesser-developed aspect of ourselves, a child-aspect that feels threatened by change it does not understand and so resists, often disruptively.

In many ways, it's like a fearful child. We don't kill our children when they don't act in a divine manner, when they're frightened and act out. We reassure them, we hold them, we love them. We make sure they know that they're safe.

Through these compassionate, godlike acts, we gently correct their failings and contribute to their growth and evolution, and to our own.

Our call is to do the same with the ego. Speaking of killing, expelling, conquering or controlling it is the antithesis of the Christed energy we claim we are seeking to embody.

Some might respond by saying that these are only words, that nothing is really being killed.

Perhaps. But language is not random. We choose our words, and these words reveal more about what we think and feel than we often realize. If we use words like "death" and "killing," than that truly is the consciousness we are projecting.

Oneness, too, is a consciousness, one that cannot thrive outside of us if it doesn't first thrive within. And it cannot thrive within if we reject even a single part of ourselves.

Oneness is an act of integration. Preaching death to the ego is the opposite: dis-integration.

The only path to enlightenment is the path of love. And the only path of love that has any value is the path that begins with self-love, with the love of our entire self — the wounded as well as the healed, the frightened as well as the fearless, the dark as well as the light.

Loving it doesn't free it to be in charge or hold us back. It does free it to have a voice, to express its fears, to cry for help in the only ways it knows how.

That same love frees you to embrace every part of you, to welcome home the ugly, wounded, frightened prodigal-child/ego and to live the fullness of a divinity and godliness that includes all aspects of your beingness.

I believe in you, in every part of you, and I love your darkness as well as your light. Won't you do the same for yourself?

This piece originally appeared in Mark David's newsletter. Read the full newsletter in its original format

Art by Mark David Gerson: Quantum Oneness (#112)

Spring Thaw

2008-04-06T17:55:00.000-06:00

Tuesday, April 1 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I open my eyes as the sun crests the Sandia Mountains and know that, whatever else I do today, I must drive to the summit.

I don't know how I know it. I don't know why I have to do it. I only know that I must.

It's 3 p.m. before I leave the house, and as I drive down Tramway Boulevard to I-40, I wonder if I've waited too long. You see, it's been three years since the only other time I've driven to the top and I can't remember how long it takes to get over to the east side of the mountain and make the 5,000-foot climb.

In fact, all I remember about that February drive is that it was winter, the snow was thick and heavy on the roadside slopes, and the wind at the summit was so cold and bitter that all I could do was run out for a lightning-quick glimpse at the view from 10,000+ feet and dash back into the car.

Albuquerque was one of my earliest stops three years ago when I left Sedona in the wake of my marriage break-up. And my summit drive was one of the first things I did when I got here.

As I drive the winding road today, past the rocky bluffs and sentinal stands of pine, the first thing that strikes me is the lack of snow. "Of course," I say, "it's April. Most of the snow has melted."

And then I get it. On my first drive up here, I was as frozen as the landscape, numb from the pain of a broken relationship.

Today, the spring thaw is mine as well. No longer locked in the icy stasis of winter, my heart has melted into openness, its soil as soft, yielding and ready for new growth as the thousands of acres that surround me here.

The summit, too, is more welcoming than it was three years ago. And as I gaze east toward my origins and west toward what I sense awaits me next, I know that I'm readier to move forward than ever before, whatever that means -- in work, in love and in life.

Sandia photos by Mark David Gerson

Red Rock Resurrection

2008-04-06T17:44:00.000-06:00

Sunday, March 23 ~ Sedona, Arizona

It's noon on Easter and well past time to leave Sedona and begin the six-and-a-half-hour drive back to Albuquerque.

As I pull out of Ravenheart Coffee's parking lot from a dizzying meeting with my tax person, part of me really wants to drive up to the lookout atop Airport Mesa and take in the city that was twice my home. But it's late, there's a long journey ahead and I need to get going. So I do.

An hour passes. I'm on I-40 east of Flagstaff when I suddenly realize that I've left a sweater in my Sedona hotel room.

Not a big deal. Someone can pick it up for me and I'll retrieve it when I'm in Sedona again in September.

I call the hotel, only to be told that I've left not only the sweater but also a garment bag.

In nearly three years of full-time travel and hotel living, I never left clothes behind. How did I forget half of them today!?

I shrug, turn around at the next exit and head back.

Ninety minutes later, I'm in the hotel parking lot, all my missing pieces retrieved and accounted for.

All but one.

The still-missing piece is Sedona itself.

Forty months ago, when my marriage ended suddenly, so did my relationship with this amazingly beautiful and powerfully transformative place.

Although I returned frequently to visit my daughter, the profound feelings of connectedness that twice drew me here to live did not. Each return visit carried an emotional charge as weighted as Sedona's signature red rocks. Each departure, more bitter than sweet.

As I sit in the parking lot, I realize that it was Sedona, not forgotten luggage, that called me back...called me back to reclaim a part of myself that never left.

Perhaps had I listened to Sedona's noontime call, I wouldn't have had to turn around. No matter. I'm here now and I resolve to stay until she's done with me.

She's not asking much, just a short drive to revisit a few favorite spots and vistas...just a brief circuit to reconnect her energy with mine.

And so I drive up through Soldiers Pass, past Thunder Mountain and, finally, to the majestic view from the Airport Mesa lookout. As I do, the part of my heart that shut Sedona out 40 months ago begins to crack open again.

Sedona is where my heart opened to let in one relationship, then shuttered when that relationship ended. Today, as I look down over the jewel of a city where so much of my emotional life has played out, an unexpected healing occurs. In this moment, I sense a new chapter beginning and feel the freeing up that will allow another intimate relationship into my life.

There are so many other places to revisit -- Cathedral Rock and Courthouse Butte, Long Canyon and Red Rock Crossing. But it's 4 p.m. already and I'll lose another hour with the time change back into New Mexico.

Besides, Sedona is done with me...for today. As she did once before, she has prepared me for love.

This departure is all sweet. The "forgotten" items that drew me back have triggered an Easter resurrection that I won't soon forget.

Sedona photos by Mark David Gerson

Don't Fence Me In

2008-03-31T12:55:00.007-06:00

Wednesday, March 19 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above,
Don't fence me in...
~ Cole Porter

My e-mail program pings and I glance at my inbox. It's a message from Samantha, a woman on this new social network I was invited to join: ShoutLife.com.

Always happy to meet new people and eager to find new promotional outlets for my work and my books, I had accepted the invitation after a cursory glance at the web site. Within minutes, I was deluged by welcoming notes.

This morning's note from Samantha, however, stands out. After telling me how intrigued she is by my books, she wonders: "Are you a Christian?"

ShoutLife, you see, is a largely Christian social network, a detail I hadn't noticed when signing on.

I have no problem with that. My books -- and the ways I live my life -- are profoundly spiritual, and there's nothing about either that should offend anyone with a spiritual bent, Christian or otherwise.

But Samantha's question gives me pause, and it takes 24 hours before I know how to reply. In the end, I tell her that I try to avoid attaching labels to myself and that, rather than answer her question with a simple "yes" or "no," I would prefer that she check out my web site and blog and decide for herself whether my words and life resonate with her.

And then I let it go.

A day passes. I'm playing Life with my eight-year-old daughter, who's visiting here for her March break. About 10 minutes into the game, I land on the big red stop sign that tells me to get married.

"Let's see," I say to Guinevere. "I could get a husband or a wife. Which should I get?" She looks at me funny, but doesn't answer.

When I land on the same square again soon after, I ask the question again. This time, in that matter-of-fact tone that only kids have, she asks, "Are you gay?"

"You know," I say after I regain my composure, "it doesn't have to be an either/or sort of thing." I then offer up the eight-year-old gay/straight version of my Christian/non-Christian note to Samantha.

"Anyone can love anyone," I say, "and it's okay. It's okay for a man to fall in love with a woman and for that same man to later fall in love with a man. The other way is fine, too."

Guinevere is more interested in her game of Life than my game of life, so I let the matter drop.

Yet I find it interesting that within 24 hours, two people have tried to categorize and classify my spirituality and my sexuality -- two of the cornerstones of many an awakened life.

Our human minds love to organize things -- and people.

We've all got a built-in version of the Hogwarts Sorting Hat, filing our experiences into recognizable folders that make it easier to know how to respond.

Our Sorting Hat is far more sophisticated than J.K. Rowling's, though, for it must take billions of stimuli and organize them into many more than four categories.

It's a powerful neural mechanism that has been a necessary survival tool throughout human history.

Yet it's a mechanism that now lags behind the demands of the lives we are evolving into. It's as though we're trying to import data into a computer program that was never set up to recognize, let alone organize that data.

It's as though we're trying to "catch a cloud and pin it down," as Oscar Hammerstein wrote of Maria in The Sound of Music, or capture a rainbow in a jar.

We are the Marias of the 21st century, the rainbows whose infinite qualities and potential can no longer be summed up by a single word, can no longer be stuffed into a convenient file folder.

I don't know about you, but I can no longer live within the restriction and constriction of easy labels. I can no longer slot myself into some file folder marked gay or straight, Christian or Jewish, black or white, Republican or Democrat.

For me, it's about being human and about being open to discovering the infinite breadth of all that that could potentially encompass.

As I've written here before (Free to Love, Free to Be), I spent the first 20 years of my adult life describing myself as a gay man.

As I evolved spiritually, though, I began to feel that I could no longer limit myself to what I thought I wanted but, rather, had to open myself up to a more expansive view of myself, my potential and my life.

Within five years of that realization, I was (to my surprise) married to an amazing woman and the was father of a radiant child.

Was I still gay? Not exactly. Was I straight? Not really. Was I bisexual? Not entirely.

Today, three and half years after my marriage ended, the same questions arise.

Am I gay? Not exactly. Am I straight? Not really. Am I bisexual? Not entirely.

On MySpace, my profile is deliberately vague on the orientation question. Yet I have enough gay friends there that I'm inevitably asked the same question my daughter asked me: "Are you gay?"

In a world still defined by rigid categories, I never quite know how to answer. Yes, I'm physically attracted to men. And, yes, I know that that by itself means little. My next intimate relationship could as easily be with a woman as with a man. It doesn't and can't matter.

It's funny. I was a gay activist in the '70s and '80s, fighting hard for the right to be be unashamedly gay in a world that was still pretty iffy about homosexuality.

Today, though no longer fighting, I'm equally passionate -- this time about the right to be unashamedly infinite in a world that would limit me with labels.

Labels, categories and classifications keep us in tight boxes, bind us in rigid straitjackets, prevent us from stepping beyond what, in The MoonQuest, I call The End of the Known World -- that place of magic, miracles, wonder and discovery. That scary place filled with promise. That place where we begin to touch the infinite, the divine, the numinous. That place where everything is possible. That place where we touch the hand of God...and realize the hand we're touching is our own.

Photo: Calling in the Buffalo, Custer State Park, Black Hills of South Dakota (c)2008 Mark David Gerson.

Infinite Possibility, Infinite Flow

2008-03-13T17:55:00.007-06:00

Thursday, March 13 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

"You enter into this lifetime in the leap of faith your soul takes into the being in your mother’s womb. You take that one huge leap only to discover that such leaps never cease being demanded of you."
— The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write

In recent weeks, several friends who are experiencing financial challenges have posed this question to me:

Why is that so many aspects of my life seem to be flowing, but when it comes to money, I feel so stuck?

Or, Why is it that when I’m meditating, channeling, creating, writing or doing energy work, I feel alive and vibrant, as though I’m living at the highest of frequencies, but when it comes to finances, I come crashing back to earth?

These are important questions and the answers are both simple and complex.

They remind me of a time in my life of profound financial struggle, a time when both these questions were constantly on my mind.

We were living on Maui then, in the coastal community of Kihei. Here, in this amazing Pacific paradise, money was a constant challenge. And despite my two jobs and our weekends selling crystals at the island's flea market, there was never enough to cover all our bills.

Kihei was supposed to have been a landing place, we thought, our first stop on the climb to prosperity. Our desired destination was the tourist-free — and pricier — uplands of Kula.

Every couple of weeks we'd drive up the mountain, often to the lush hills of Olinda, where we'd gaze admiringly at the handsome homes and go walking in Olinda's serene experimental forest.

While strolling among the stately pines, anything seemed possible: infinite abundance, an Olinda mansion, work that impassioned us... It all felt within our grasp. Easily.

And then we'd drive back down the mountain to Kihei, down to our tiny condo with its overdue rent and overdue bills, back to the jobs I hated, back to a life that wasn't in flow.

By the time we reached sea level, the "Olinda Effect," as we'd dubbed it, had fully kicked in: We were anxious, fearful and no longer in that anything-is-possible Olinda resonance.

I’ve thought about that story a lot as I’ve reflected on my friends' questions and on my time both on Maui and now in Albuquerque.

It's said that if you do what you love, the money will follow. But money follows, when it does, not because we're doing what we love. It follows because in living our passion we are living at a vibration where lack cannot exist, where flow is infinite.

But — and it's a big "but" — unless we can hold that resonance when the bills come in, we crash back down into a consciousness of scarcity.

That's what happened on Maui. That's what's happening to one of my friends. Let's call her Julie, even though she's a composite of several people.

Julie loves her work. When she's in the midst of it — and in much of her life beyond it — she's one of the most powerful, conscious and aware people I know. Through most of her days, she breathes light and enlightenment.

Then rent day approaches. Or the car payment. Or some other bill that she doesn't, in the moment, know how she'll cover.

Fear and anxiety roll in like a heavy fog, casting a pall over the passions of moments earlier. Like I did on Maui, she comes down from the mountaintop of infinite possibility and finds herself in a swamp of doubt and apprehension.

For as long as she lives in that place of doubt and apprehension, it will be harder for the money to flow.

I'm speaking here about money. But I could be speaking about love or peace or health or any other aspect of our life that doesn't seem to be working.

Whatever it is, the more anxiety we attach to it, the more our fear keeps us from living in the fullness of our highest potential around it.

Our fear will always keep us from living that potential.

Some of you know that I left Sedona 39 months ago on what would ultimately become an open-ended road trip. I left with limited funds and no idea how I would be supported.

In those early months, I was very much like Julie, dropping into a state of panic whenever my car payment — then, my largest singly monthly outlay — was near due.

In those moments, that still, small voice we can all access would ask, Are all today's needs taken care of? Food? Gas? Accommodation? My answers were always "yes."

Then let tomorrow and tomorrow's bills take care of themselves, the voice would say.

Somehow, through more miracles than I could possibly list, tomorrow and tomorrow's bills always did take care of themselves. Not always in my preferred timing. Not always in my preferred manner. But in holding myself to the present moment and in knowing that I would be taken care, I always was.

Today, my life is infinitely more complex — and expensive. Yet the basis for how I live it has not changed.

Even as I still don't know how I'll be supported from day to day, I live each moment (to the best of my limited human ability) knowing that by holding the resonance of my passion, I will always be in the resonance of flow.

Many of us maintain a meditation practice of some sort. We carve ten or twenty minutes from our day to spend in the higher realms.

But meditation can be like Olinda. Sure, it can carry us into a place where everything is possible because in that frequency everything is possible. Yet when our moments of altered beingness come to an end, we can find ourselves back in our wordly life of bills, traffic and conflict, and the Olinda Effect can kick in.

We're called to do more than meditate our way into higher modes of being. We're called to reside there. Full-time. Even in the midst of all that life would throw at us. (See Rule #6 in "Mark David's 10 Rules for Living, below.)

Today, I live in the Albuquerque equivalent of Olinda — in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, 1,000 feet above the city's lowest elevation. And in many ways, it feels as though I've achieved at least some of what I thought I was seeking as I gazed longingly toward the Kula uplands from Kihei.

What I've achieved, though, has nothing to do with money. What I've achieved, most days, is an ability to live in infinite possibility full-time and to know that by living my passion, living in the moment and not freaking out at the latest stack of bills, the Olinda resonance lives within me wherever I am.

Ironically, the Hawaiian word kihei means "shawl" or "cape." Even in the midst of that Kihei energy that felt so constricting and impoverishing, I was always embraced in a protective blanket of divine love.

Regardless of life's externals, that kihei is always and ever present for us. The more we acknowledge it, know it and live it, the more we will experience it in all aspects of our life, including the financial. And the more that the Olinda resonance will show up — and remain present and alive — in our lives.

Originally published as part of my March 13 newsletter. To read the newsletter in its entirety, click here. Photo: view from Olinda; photographer unknown.

On the Air with Mark David

2008-02-26T17:55:00.004-07:00

Saturday, March 1 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Please tune into my March 1 radio conversation with Rebecca Jernigan of Journeys with Rebecca. It's an hour-long exploration of creativity, spirituality and life that will entertain, uplift and inspire you.

You'll find the audio archive here.

Living from the Heart

2008-02-26T17:50:00.004-07:00

Friday, February 15 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I'm still in bed when the phone rings. It's my daughter's mother, calling to say that winter storms in Northern Arizona have rendered the roads so snow- and ice-bound that the drive through Flagstaff, AZ to Gallup, NM is too dangerous to make.

Normally, when my eight-year-old daughter comes to visit me from Sedona, AZ, we all meet in Gallup. That was to have been today's plan, with Guinevere spending the President's Day holiday weekend with me.

I hang up the phone and begin to cry and then cry even more because I'm so surprised to find myself crying.

Sure, I'm disappointed. But that disappointed? After all, I just saw Guinevere five weeks ago and will see her in Sedona in two weeks.

And yet the tears continue to flow.

So often as we move through our days and weeks, doing what we do and being what we be, we're unaware of the sea of emotions that ebbs and flows far beneath the hard surface of life's routine.

It's easy for our major triumphs and tragedies to pierce that surface. We expect tears of joy and sadness when something life-changing occurs.

Yet as we open more fully to our emotional subtleties and as we surrender more completely to feelings we have hidden, even from ourselves, it takes much less to trigger those tears.

It's a cliche to say that it's important to "get in touch with our feelings."

We do it, though, not by dropping a probe into that sea of emotions and poking about. We do it through a moment-to-moment practice of opening our hearts more and more fully -- not to anyone or anything in particular, but to everyone and everything in general. We do it through a moment-to-moment practice of surrendering to the call of our heart, by answering that call, by living that call.

Living from the heart means being open to all that the heart would reveal to us -- and to all the ways we have hidden from it.

Living from the heart means that both the sea of emotions and the tears that flow from it are closer to the surface than at any time since childhood (when our defenses were not so impenetrable).

Living from the heart means surrendering to those emotions -- and to those tears -- as we allow all that we feel to move through us.

As I dry my eyes and begin to move through my day, I'm grateful for the phone call, grateful even for the disappointment, grateful for the deeper opening to my daughter...and to my heart.

Trust. Let Go. Leap.

2008-02-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

Sunday, February 10 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I'm fond of saying that there's no difference between creativity and life, that the precepts of one apply equally to the other, that the first rule of both is that there are no rules.

Yet I've discovered that once you commit to the highest possible path and purpose, there's a trinity of principles that's always at play:

1) Trust
2) Let Go
3) Leap

First, you trust the voice of your deepest heart, which is also the voice of your divinity, your god-self, your muse, your highest imperative. Next, you let go of all resistance, clinging and clutching (which doesn't mean you're not afraid). Finally, you leap into the void -- just like the Fool in the tarot.

Legendary sci-fi author Ray Bradbury says about writing that you must leap off cliffs and trust that you'll sprout wings on the way down.

Not only do I do my best to write that way, I do my best to live that way. It's scary, but ultimately satisfying. And even though it means living and writing without a net, those wings Bradbury talks about have never failed to appear.

I think about all that today, nine days after a shipment of Voice of the Muse books and meditation CD sets arrive on my doorstep.

It's six months to the day since a voice interrupted my on-the-road reveries to urge me to refresh, revise and overhaul my modest Voice of the Muse eBook into an expanded and published form. "You want me to do what!?" I exclaimed.

Yet once the initial shock dissipated (The MoonQuest had been out barely a month at that point), I surrendered to the higher imperative.

I trusted, let go and leapt...and watched all the requisite resources begin to fall into place, often miraculously.

Now, not only have my wings sprouted, they're lifting me higher and higher and higher. In just over a week and after a single book-signing, library authors' event and announcement at a meeting of Southwest Writers, sales of The Voice of the Muse have surpassed The MoonQuest's first full month.

Trust. Let Go. Leap. It's a chapter in The Voice of the Muse. It's the only way I know how to live.

In writing as in life, it always works.

Read/hear excerpts from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, and hear a guided meditation for writers from The Voice of the Muse Companion 2-CD set, here.

Order your copy of The Voice of the Muse book and/or CD here.

The Alchemy of Creation

2008-02-10T19:33:00.000-07:00

Thursday, January 24 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I said it wouldn't happen.

I said I had a much bigger emotional investment in my novel, The MoonQuest.

I said I wouldn't cry.

But as I rip open the FedEx envelope and pull out one of the two advance copies of my new book, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, the tears begin to flow.

In a way, these tears -- like those I shed when I held my first copy of The MoonQuest -- are identical to the ones I shed when my daughter was born.

A book -- any artistic creation of the heart -- is like a child. It births from the deepest core of your beingness. It carries parts of you but isn't you. It emerges from a co-creative act that is an expression of your passion.

I've heard other authors claim one of their book as a favorite. But I could no more choose one of mine over the other than I could with my children, if I had more than one.

The call, in art as in life, is to love all our creations -- to love them fully, unconditionally and without judgment, even as we acknowledge their inevitable faults and flaws.

Neither The Voice of the Muse nor The MoonQuest is perfect. Neither is my daughter, though I love her beyond love itself.

Yet I can love my books and my child not despite their imperfection but because of it. Because of it it, they will grow. Because of it, I will grow. Because of it, all those whose lives they touch will also grow.

That's part of the miracle of creation, and that's why I'm crying. It's a miracle that takes something insubstantial and etheric -- an idea, a soul -- and, through the perfect imperfection of human creatorship, moves it from the realm of the heart into the physical world, where it can touch and be touched.

Creation in all its forms is the ultimate act of alchemy -- giving substance to what has none, revealing meaning where none was apparent, allowing love to create form that is now free to transfigure its creator...and the world.

That's why I dedicated The Voice of the Muse not to any individual, but to the creator alchemist in us all.

Writing is alchemy...truly a tool of wizards, witches and sorcerers. It’s the magic wand, the incantation, the wave of the hand that transforms all...
~ The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write

Art by Mark David Gerson: Genesis #115

Words (and Everything Else) Made Manifest

2008-01-22T06:24:00.000-07:00

Sunday, January 20 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I'm sitting in my living room, my laptop on my lap-top and a thick, manuscript-filled binder on the sofa next to me. On my screen is a document last viewed in March 2006, while the binder is open at a page created in January 1999.

Both represent uncompleted drafts of The StarQuest, my unfinished sequel to The MoonQuest.

I stare from page to screen and back again and wonder why it has been so difficult for me to write this story. (It's been so difficult that, in 2003, I suspended my first draft after 200-some pages and started all over.)

For a while, I had thought that the story was so far ahead of me, creatively and spiritually, that I needed to live a whole bunch of life to catch up with it. (I had a similar, if much briefer experience with The MoonQuest.)

I still believe that to be true...up to a point. And while I can't know yet whether I'm fully caught up, I know I'm caught up enough to return to work on it.

And so here I sit, the easy flow of words still eluding me.

It's a tired truism that we teach what we need most to learn, and I think of that as I recall these words from my new book on writing, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, from a chapter titled "Creating Perfection":

"Are you frustrated? Do you struggle to find the perfect words that consummately evoke the depth of your passion or flawlessly paint the fullness of your vision? Are you frustrated because the words you have chosen seem inadequate, their ordering unsatisfactory?...

"It’s a futile frustration, for language is an approximation. It’s a powerful but often inadequate device for translating experience and emotion into a form others can share. ..."

The fact is, everything we choose to create in our lives -- be it books, wealth, relationships, a better job, better health -- already exists in the electromagnetic field around us. Whatever we desire is already present -- whole and unedited -- just beyond the tip of our nose.

The key -- and it's key to all manifestation work -- is in the translation. How do we take what already exists in one form (etheric energy) and translate it into another (physical energy)? How do we real-ize? How do we make it real in our day-to-day lives?

There are many tools and techniques out there involving things like affirmation, intention, visualization, reprogramming, acting-as-though and feeling/sensing/emotion. And they all have validity and potential, depending on the individual and his or her path, readiness and vibrational level.

What's rarely discussed, though, is that there is no universal alchemical formula that will take what is innately nonphysical and flawlessly translate it into the physical.

Once you remove "meta" from "metaphysical," the infinite energies in question have to shift to fit into the more finite box of our physical world, as it is now organized.

I'm reminded of a drawing I did a few years back. Normally when I draw, I set my palette of colors in front of me and intuitively sense which to use when. On this day, I sensed a color that didn't seem to exist. Not one pencil from my extensive array felt right.

Then it struck me that the color I sought wasn't visible to the human eye, which can only discern colors in a fixed spectrum. What I sensed could not translate into the physical (as we now experience it), and I was forced to choose the closest possible approximation.

With The StarQuest, I see and know the story. I feel it and sense it. And yet as magnificent as the English language is, it's not up to the task. No language is or could be.

That's not a bad thing. It forces me to let go of my perfectionist tendencies. It forces me to recognize that it's not my inadequacy that's holding me back. It forces me to empower my readers by creating Impressionist moments instead of Kodak moments. And it frees me to create not copy.

Whether in writing, art or life, creation is an act of doing the best we can with the materials at hand. It's recognizing that even our imperfect tools are life-changingly powerful. It's being open to the journey, not merely to the destination.

That's something that I as the teacher continue to learn in all aspects of my life, something I will do my best to remember when I next sit down to The StarQuest.

"Creating Perfection" ends this way:

"All you can do is translate your experience as heartfully as you’re able into little squiggles on a page. Begin by recognizing that most of the time you’re only going to come close. Continue by knowing that it remains within your power to have your words incite revolution, topple dynasties, overthrow 'reality.'

"That’s perfect enough for me. How about you?"

Read more excerpts from The Voice of the Muse, and hear a guided meditation for writers from The Voice of the Muse Companion 2-CD set, here.

Order your copy of The Voice of the Muse book and/or CD here.

The MoonQuest Oracle?

2008-01-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, January 15 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I'm sitting at my computer, staring at a blank screen.

I know it says in The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write that writer's block is a myth, but it's time to send out a new issue of my inspirational newsletter and I have no idea what to write.

Yet, I know today's the day.

As I look around my office for inspiration, my eyes light on a copy of my novel, The MoonQuest, and I remember two of the book's reader reviews, one each on Amazon and GoodReads.

In both instances, the readers had been using The MoonQuest as an oracle or divination tool, opening the book at random when they needed guidance or reassurance.

Could it work for me?

I pick up the book, which falls open to page 168. As my eyes scan down the page, they stop abruptly at this: "Their time had come to an end. Yours is beginning."

It's what O'ric tells Toshar after Toshar has had a vision of the slaying of loved ones from his past, and it seems an oddly harsh theme for a newsletter. My eyes continues to scan but keep returning to those ten words.

Suddenly, I'm cold, and I realize it's not a chill in the room, because I'm only cold when rereading those two sentences. It's a truth shiver -- what we called "chicken skin" when I lived in Hawaii -- and it's telling me to trust what I'm reading.

With a certain skepticism, I copy the words onto my screen. Before I know it, my fingers are dancing across the keyboard and The Year of Living Wondrously, an article on letting go of the past, begins to take shape...effortlessly.

As I complete the piece, I'm reminded that the words are always there, waiting for me to notice them. I wrote that in The Voice of the Muse, but it's something I too often forget.

It's a timely reminder this week as I prepare, after a lengthy absence and with some trepidation, to return to work on The MoonQuest's sequel -- a book that has long baffled me.

The words are are always there, and so is the story. All I have to do is listen for it and let it out. All I have to do is forget any difficulties from the past and trust that each new beginning will carry me forward, in perfection and ease.

On the Air with Mark David

2008-01-22T06:22:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, January 8 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Listen to my conversation with Nashville's Yvonne Perry of Writers in the Sky as she interviews me about writing, writers block and the meeting point of spirituality and creativity.

The interview first aired on January 4 and it's still relevant and inspiring -- whether you want to write, are just starting out or have written forever. Click here to listen.

"It's not that the words won't come. It's that we're not listening for them in quite the right way."

The Miracle of The Voice of the Muse

2008-01-07T01:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday, December 22 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I leave Albuquerque's Shepherd Studios this morning clutching the two CDs that hold my recording of the audio tracks for The Voice of the Muse Companion CD set.

My heart is pounding and I can barely contain my excitement. I haven't yet listened to all 11 tracks yet, but what I've heard so far is beyond anything I could have imagined. Put simply, I've never heard myself sound so good or so professional.

This recording is but the latest in the string of miracles and synchronicities that have surrounded The Voice of the Muse project. In fact, there have been so many that it's hard to track of them.

The first occurred early on, with the cover design: When my first designer proved unable to capture the book's spirit and essence, a replacement -- the highly talented Richard Crookes -- emerged by seeming happenstance through a casual conversation on Facebook.

This latest miracle is no less magical.

From my earliest vision of the book, there was always a companion CD containing my recording of the guided meditations. As I write in The Voice of the Muse, "when a book I’m reading includes guided meditations that it suggests I record and use, I hardly ever do it. Instead, I close one eye and read the meditation with the other, hoping it will have the desired effect. It rarely does."

For the single CD of meditations in the original eBook, I used a Sedona friend's home recording studio. For the new book and its two CDs, however, I no longer had access to free facilities.

Assuming that a professional studio would be beyond my means, I bought some basic equipment and recorded into my computer. The result was not even good enough for a digital mastering facility to fix.

Suddenly, I was faced with a tough decision: trust that a solution would present itself or immediately scrap the CD aspect of the project. Immediately, because the book, which was 24 hours away from being sent to the printer, would have to be stripped of all references to the CD.

With some trepidation, I opted for trust and put the word out that I needed an affordable recording studio. Fast.

Within days, I was in the sound booth at Shepherd Studios, being coached by its owner. A while later, as we're listening to one of the meditation tracks in the control room, he slides over to the electronic keyboard. "I think it would sound even better with something like this," he says, as he starts to improvise a track of contemplative music.

He's right. It sounds incredible. But...

"What would something like that add to the cost?" I ask hesitantly.

"Does it matter?" he answers back, clearly channeling the spirit of the project.

The bottom line? The full cost of the professional recording, editing, engineering, mixing and music was barely more than I had planned to spend on mastering my original recording. And the quality of the studio recording is so exceptional that mastering is no longer needed.

As I listen now to all 11 tracks, I'm in awe -- not only of the sound quality and inspirational power of the 2-CD set but of the trust in miracles that brought it to life...that same trust that brings our words to life on the page, when we let it.

Whether you're a seasoned writer or just starting out, whatever your genre or form, The Voice of the Muse book and companion 2-CD set will rekindle your creative fire, free your creative spirit and revolutionize your creative life. You'll never feel the same about writing again!

At 248 pages, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write is 50 percent longer than its eBook predecessor and includes many new chapters, meditations and exercises. The companion 2-CD set (sold separately) contains my recording of the book's 10 guided meditations and an introductory track of instruction and inspiration. Although you don’t need the book to have a full experience of the CD set (or vice versa), the two work synergistically together to enrich your creative journey.

Click here to experience "You Are a Writer," the final guided meditation from The Voice of the Muse Companion CD set.

All copies of The Voice of the Muse book and/or CD set ordered before January 22 will be signed to you (or to whomever you're gifting it) and will get free U.S. shipping. (Normal shipping charges apply as of January 22.)

Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?

2008-01-07T01:15:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, December 19 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I'm in the video section of Target, Christmas shopping for my daughter. As I'm browsing through the movie racks, I overhear an older and younger woman discussing which DVD to buy a child on their list.

"What about Eragon?" the younger woman asks. "I hear it's good."

"Does it have magic in it? I don't want a movie with magic," the older one -- her mother? -- responds sternly.

They move out of earshot and I'm too stunned to follow.

Are we truly living in some version of The MoonQuest's mythical setting? This land where vision is outlawed and visionaries put to death, where myth and magic are forbidden, where "once upon a time" is a forbidden phrase, and where fact is the only legal tender was a creation of my imagination... Or was it?

What kind of culture have we created where children are denied magic, where fantasy is suspect and where dragons are relegated to dustbins?

Thirty years ago in an essay, author Ursula K. Le Guin asked, "Why are Americans afraid of dragons?" She concluded that most technological cultures dismiss works of the imagination because they lack measurable utility, an outlook only exacerbated in this country by our Puritan heritage.

If 30 years ago dragons were not fit for adults, are they now unfit for children, too?

While the Harry Potter books broadened the reach of imaginative fiction for kids (and adults), it also expanded our hysterical suspicion and suppression of it.

The fact is, imaginative fiction opens our hearts, expands our spirit and broadens our minds in ways that nonfiction never can, and that magical/fantastical fiction can carry more truth in its castles, dragons and trolls than many pieces of so-called literature.

That's why I call The MoonQuest a "true fantasy." There is nothing factual about it. But as those two women in Target have proven, it's decidedly true.

Hidden Desires of the Heart

2008-01-02T01:13:00.000-07:00

Monday, December 17 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

A funny thing about dreams is that we sometimes don't even know we have them until they're on the verge of being fulfilled.

Getting The MoonQuest published wasn't that kind of unconscious dream for me. Rather, it was a conscious dream I had held since the book's second draft was completed more than a decade ago.

The Voice of the Muse was different. As I wrote here six months ago in You Want Me to Do What?!?, publishing this book on writing was not something I knew to be my heart's desire. Even when I sensed Spirit urging me forward with the project, I felt more obedient than impassioned.

Today, though, as The Voice of the Muse's final files reach the book's Michigan printing plant, I'm suddenly overcome by the power in my life of this unconscious dream. It hit me today in much the same way a forgotten nocturnal memory is unexpectedly reawakened by a chance thought or encounter.

Once I heard that the printing process had begun, I was overwhelmed by a surge of excitement I hadn't previously felt. In an instant, my intuitive knowingness had become visceral, emotional. Suddenly, I felt connected to all those who will be freed by this book to tell their stories. It was as though my path and theirs had merged in a burst of shared passion and creative purpose.

Now, to my amazement, the prospect of holding The Voice of the Muse in my hands and of sharing its wisdom into the world fills me with the same anticipatory fervor I felt eight months for The MoonQuest, when it was at a similar stage.

The dream I didn't know I had is being realized, and I'm grateful.

Art by Mark David Gerson: "Creative Force," inspired by Mount Garfield, the eastern edge of the Book Cliffs, near Grand Junction, Colorado

"The words lie within you. They hover in the shadows, longing to be noticed, yearning to be heard, aching to be shared. Together through this book, you and I will give them voice."

The 248-page book of inspiration and instruction is 50 percent longer than its eBook predecessor and includes many new chapters, meditations and exercises. Also available is a companion 2-CD set with my recording of the book's 10 guided meditations, plus an introductory track of instruction and inspiration. You can read/hear excerpts here

All copies of The Voice of the Muse book and/or CD set ordered before January 22 will be autographed to you (or to whomever you're gifting it) and will get free U.S. shipping. (Normal shipping charges apply as of January 22.)

Instant Gratification

2008-01-02T01:11:00.000-07:00

Friday, December 14 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I'm sitting at a book-signing table at the Hastings store on Tramway Boulevard with my friend and fellow author Gary A. Wilson. Somehow, through a miracle of grace (and Gary's enthusiasm for my book), I've managed to sell three copies of The MoonQuest, even though I've felt thoroughly ungrounded and largely incoherent since arriving here.

A young couple approaches our table. As is often the case, it's the woman who's the reader. She picks up The MoonQuest and, instead of scanning the back cover, immediately begins reading from page one.

Her eyes and face begin to glow with pleasure. It's clear she doesn't want to put it down.

"I love it," she exclaims, "the names...the places...the story. I love it!"

I sign it for her and she and her friend move on, leaving me profoundly grateful -- not for the sale but for the light in her eyes as she read my words.

Although, I've been blessed with good reviews and positive feedback, I've never witnessed someone experiencing my story. I've never been gifted with the immediacy of a reader's delight. I've never experienced the instant gratification of a reader's instant gratification.

It's a rare privilege -- one closed to most authors. Tonight, I have seen the impact of my words in real time and I'm humbled by the power of the story that lives within me, the story that lives within us all.

A Sandia Earth/Sky Montage

2007-12-04T16:44:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, December 4 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Photos of the Sandia Mountains and Albuquerque sky by Mark David Gerson

In Gratitude

2007-11-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, November 21 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

I'm sitting at my kitchen table on this day before Thanksgiving, the wind outside my window blowing the last of the warm weather away, contemplating the cornucopia of blessings in my life for which I'm grateful.

Despite all the upheaval in my life and in the world around me, the blessings are still limitless.

The first on my mind, for I leave in a few minutes for the two-and-a-half-hour drive to pick her up, is my daughter, who will join me here in Albuquerque for Thanksgiving this weekend.

This is our first Thanksgiving together as just the two of us and the first time since her mother and I separated that I have a home of my own to welcome her into. I'm profoundly grateful for her presence in my life and for the home I'm now able to share with her.

This time last year, still on the road and about to spend my second consecutive Thanksgiving with my friends Bob and Diana Mitchell in Michigan, I could not have begun to imagine all the unexpected gifts this year would bring, among them:

• a home of my own after 30 months of full-time travel...and the arrival here in Albuquerque, a month after mine, of one of my closest friends -- who now lives a five-minute walk away.

• a home in the foothills of (and with a view of) the Sandia Mountains, which have inspired and uplifted me from the moment I first saw them nearly three years ago. (In fact, my very first place drawing was of the Sandias.)

• the long-awaited publication of my novel, The MoonQuest, not to mention the two awards it has already garnered and the glimmerings of interest in my screenplay adaptation of the book.

• the imminent publication of a second book, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write and the production of its companion CD. (I'll have more to say about these in a newsletter in the next week or so, when I'll unveil its amazing cover...though you can get a small-size sneak preview on MySpace.)

• all the wondrous and miraculous ways I have been taken care of, even as I've let go most of the touring, teleconferences and private sessions that were my financial mainstay on the road.

There is so much more...too much to enumerate. But I can't complete my incomplete list without mentioning you. Through all the radical shifts and transformations in my life and, no doubt, in yours over the past year, I'm enduringly grateful that you are still in my life, part of my creative and spiritual family.

Whether or not you celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, I wish you an abundance of all that would bring joy and gladness to your heart -- today, tomorrow and every day.

Photo by Mark David Gerson: Sunrise over the Sandias

On the Air with Mark David

2007-11-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, November 20 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Through the miracle that is the internet, I'm able to share with you two recent radio/podcast interviews.

The first, aired back in October and produced by Authors Access, talks about how to get through and past writer's block. You can listen to it here.

(I have lots more to say about writer's block in my upcoming book and companion CD set, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.)

The second, aired earlier this week and part of the Authors On the Air series hosted by the irrepressible Marlive Harris, is free-range talk about writing, including how I came to write The MoonQuest. You can listen to it here.

Please check them out and let me know what you think!

Paying More Attention

2007-11-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

Friday, November 2 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Sometimes messages come to me through insects and cars, sometimes through dream.

Sometimes, they come in dream shorthand -- through snatches of song that flit and flutter through my consciousness (or repeat insistently) as I wake up in the morning.

This morning's was the latter, an Elton John lyric that is still looping through my mind hours after I opened my eyes.

For you and I have a guardian angel...

It's the second consecutive morning I've been awakened by these reassuring words from the song "True Love," and they remind yet again me that as I pay attention, I am taken care of...magnificently.

Yesterday's guardian angel message, for example, arrived shortly before I learned that The MoonQuest had been named a finalist in a national book award!

"How can I doubt?" I ask myself....even as, in my humanity, I still sometimes do.

The MoonQuest Wins National Award!

2007-11-04T21:33:00.000-07:00

Thursday, November 1 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy by Mark David Gerson has been named a finalist in the Visionary Fiction category of the 2007 Best Books Awards.

The national awards, sponsored by USA Book News, the premiere online magazine and review website for mainstream and independent publishing houses, were announced today in Los Angeles.

This is the second award for The MoonQuest, which was a New Mexico Discovery Award winner for unpublished fiction in 2006.

The MoonQuest is available online through Amazon.com, where it's a five-star selection, and coast-to-coast in the U.S. at selected retailers.

Recent reviews have praised The MoonQuest as "an evocative and emotionally moving tale of adventure" (Midwest Book Review) and "an exceptional, timeless novel" (The Mindquest Review of Books).

Mark David's newest book, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, will be published in February 2008 by LightLines Media. For Mark David's upcoming book-signings and events, visit booktour.com/author/mark_david_gerson.

At this writing and for a limited time, The MoonQuest is available at a discounted price through Amazon.com

Paying Attention

2007-10-31T20:33:00.000-06:00

Sunday, October 28 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

Whenever I doubt that some higher force is keeping an eye on the human me, I'm given a little reminder.

Friday's was a praying mantis that had settled on my front door. In most traditions, the praying mantis guides one toward rest, stillness, prayer, meditation and an openness to dream and revelation. In the busyness of my days, I had neglected all of those.

Then, in case I missed the message, my car's battery died the following evening -- in the parking lot of an Albuquerque Hastings store as I was leaving a book-signing for The MoonQuest.

My plan had been to do a bunch of errands before going home from the signing. The higher powers-that-be had a different idea.

After 77,000 miles in 26 months, my car's battery needed more than a roadside recharge. Apparently, so did mine!

With an eye to the praying mantis, I spent today immersed in quiet, renewing my battery for the journey ahead.

It's easy for me to get caught up in all that I think needs doing. It's harder to remember that unless I take care of my physical and emotional health, the human me will be ill-equipped to journey anywhere.

Photo by Mark David Gerson

Deeper Levels of Trust

2007-10-07T13:55:00.000-06:00

Saturday, October 6 ~ Santa Fe, New Mexico

I'm at The Ark bookstore reading from my novel The MoonQuest as part of the Santa Fe Short Story Festival.

"When's the sequel coming out?" someone asks.

When, indeed?

I've been so focused on getting The MoonQuest out into the world and completing The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write that I haven't given a lot of thought to The StarQuest.

It's not that I haven't begun writing The StarQuest. I've begun it twice.

Unlike The MoonQuest, though, whose first two drafts each took me less than a year to write, The StarQuest, which has no completed drafts, has been in my life for more than nine years.

When, indeed?

That the question was asked by someone named Ben is significant. There's a Ben in The StarQuest. He's the main character's son. And he's the main character in The SunQuest, the final book of this projected trilogy.

It's almost as though the character himself leapt off the page to find out when I plan to complete his story.

When, indeed?

With The MoonQuest, I rarely knew from one day to the next — some days, from one word to the next — where the story was taking me. It was frustrating, stressful and scary to be forced to live moment-to-moment, word-by-word, in trust that the story would ultimately reveal itself.

It did, of course. In its time, not mine.

As I ponder Ben's question, I realize that what has held me back from completing The StarQuest is a deeper level of the same trust The MoonQuest demanded of me. By this point in The MoonQuest, in terms of page count, I had a sense of what the story was about. Not a complete sense, but enough to keep me going.

The StarQuest has yet to similarly reveal itself, and I realize now that I have not trusted it enough to continue.

I was ready to trust The StarQuest only to the extent that I had trusted The MoonQuest. Where's the growth in that?

In writing as in life, we're constantly being pushed to have more faith, to trust more fully, to surrender more completely. It's true for Toshar, The MoonQuest's protagonist. It's true for Q'nta, The StarQuest's protagonist. No doubt, it will be true for Ben as well, when I get to The SunQuest.

Meantime, it's certainly true for me -- in my writing as in my life.

I still can't answer Ben's question, but I can commit to whatever level of trust my stories (and his) are asking of me. And I do.

While you're waiting for me to finish The StarQuest, check out The MoonQuest.

It's a five-star selection on Amazon.com and a story the Midwest Book Review calls "an evocative and emotionally moving tale of adventure." The Mindquest Review of Books calls it "an exceptional, timeless novel."

The MoonQuest makes a great gift for the holidays! (Find out where to buy it and read/hear excerpts at TheMoonQuest.com.)

Shining Hours

2007-10-04T06:55:00.000-06:00

Wednesday, October 3 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

This moment, this minute
And each second in it
Will leave a glow upon the sky
And as time goes by
It will never die

Those Johnny Mercer lyrics from the song My Shining Hour float through my mind as this day, my 53rd birthday, draws to a close.

As adults, our milestone birthdays are generally the decade-markers. Turning 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 have a particular significance to us that 27, 34, 42 and 53 often lack.

I remember most of those landmarks in my life: On my 30th, I was on a bus tour in the border country of northern England feeling nauseous. On my 40th, I stepped off the ferry into a new life in Nova Scotia...and a stomach-churning panic. On my 50th, an uncomfortable sense of foreboding proved accurate 30 days later when my marriage suddenly ended.

Frankly, so many of my birthdays have heralded uncomfortable shifts that their approach tends to make me nervous.

Last night, I made a different choice.

After nearly three years of full-time travel, this would be my first birthday off the road and the first in my new Albuquerque home. It would, I determined, be a new kind of portal -- one that would be low impact, high vibrational...and fun. One that would anchor my desires, and a way of being, for the coming year.

It has been all of that. Apart from the usual calls from friends and family, it has been a quiet and low-key day: a morning and evening hike in the Sandia foothills; a long, meditative soak in the tub; selective work tasks that move both The MoonQuest and The Voice of the Muse forward (tasks performed at my favorite cafe over a pleasingly decadent coffee drink); and a delightfully self-indulgent gift to myself.

It was a day without expectation or necessary outcomes, a day stripped of perfectionism and self-judgment -- a day filled with shining hours that were all, as Mercer put it in his 1943 song, "calm, happy and bright."

Most importantly, perhaps, it was a day that perfectly models the potential carried by every day. It was a day that reminds me that the most powerful birthdays are not those once-a-year (or once-a-decade) landmarks. Rather, they're the ones that set in motion a year of shining hours, each a brilliant spotlight of consciousness and possibility.

Incidentally, Johnny Mercer wrote My Shining Hour for a film titled The Sky's the Limit,another reminder to carry into all the new moments of my new year.

A Guide for Living in These Times

2007-09-10T22:10:00.001-06:00

Monday, September 10 ~ Sedona, Arizona

Click on this audio link to hear the audio archive of my interview on Blog Talk Radio this evening, in an hour's conversation with host Phil Harris.

It's a free-ranging give-and-take about spirituality and metaphysics and a guide for living in these times.

Breaking In, Breaking Out

2007-08-25T21:22:00.000-06:00

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Thursday, August 9 ~
An Omen?

This final morning in this Albuquerque hotel, I wake up to a dream about another Albuquerque hotel -- the one around the corner I'll be checking into later today.

In the dream, I'm standing in the parking lot of this second hotel. As I gaze up at the building, I remark with some surprise that this hotel is such a powerful vortex that I ought to create an energy drawing of it.

I think nothing of the dream until...

Friday, August 10 ~ Breaking In

It's my first morning in the new hotel. The telephone rings, jarring me out of a deep sleep and a dream about...about something.

It's the front desk.

"Your car," the concerned voice says. "It's been broken into."

I stumble out of bed, into some clothes and out to the parking lot. A police cruiser is parked next to my minivan, an officer jotting down notes from the sea of shattered glass at his feet.

As I peer anxiously through the now-missing driver's-side window, I try to determine what's been taken -- not an easy task given how jam-packed the car is from my 30 months (to the day) of full-time travel.

"Don't touch anything," the officer cautions, as I poke my head into the car, doing my best to avoid the stray shards of glass still clinging to the door frame. I can't open the door until it's been dusted for prints, he says. Just like on TV.

Unlike on TV, my car is parked at the security camera's only blind spot. The camera captured nothing usable.

Bad news for the thief: he captured little of significant monetary value.

Bad news for me: the cases he grabbed (thinking that they held computer equipment) contained identity-related documents, including bank and credit card statements.

I spend most of the day in shock, too busy on the phone with glass, insurance, bank and credit card companies to deal with the deeper meaning of the incident.

The only thing that keeps pounding through my head is the phrase "breaking patterns."

Tuesday, August 14 ~ Breaking Out I

It's funny. I've been on the road for nearly three years, everything I own stuffed into my van. Through that time, I've never felt at risk, nor have I spent any time worrying about the security of my belongings.

Yet here I am, noticing a new missing something every time I step into the car.

It's interesting to me that the break-in occurred during daylight hours and that no other car in the lot was stolen. It's also interesting what was taken. It's almost as though the perpetrator was directed to my car and was guided what to take.

Among other MIA (missing in action) items are
• the bulk of my art supplies
• the digital audio recorder I use to record my sessions, teleconferences and live events
• a variety of documents and other objects relating who I have been and how I have viewed the world

Unthreatened and untouched are my copies of The MoonQuest and anything and everything related to my writing.

Now I see one of the patterns that shattered along with my car window: My work with healing art and sound. Whatever my future vibrational offerings, I know now that they will look and sound different than they have in the past.

It's in this moment that I feel called to make way for the new by offering my complete inventory of sound initiation/activation CDs at clearance prices. [See my August 14 newsletter, The Sounds of Change.]

Throughout my adult life and regardless of whatever else I've been doing, my primary focus has always returned to writing and related activities. Today and as a result of the break-in, it appears to be doing so once again.

Wednesday, August 15 ~ Breaking Out II

Until this morning, my thought has been that I would stay in New Mexico through the fall, perhaps hitting the road again with The MoonQuest after the holidays. To that end, I've been searching out furnished rentals on Craig's List.

It's a pattern I've followed through my 30 months of full-time travel: periods of being on the road interspersed with stops of various length in furnished sublets and vacation rentals.

This morning that pattern, too, fractures and dissolves.

As I drive to the bank to deal with more identity-related fallout from the break-in, wondering en route why I'm not finding any suitable furnished rentals, my mind wanders back more than a dozen years -- to a meditative walk I took in Nova Scotia just after returning to work on The MoonQuest after a seven-month hiatus.

It was on that walk that I knew it was time to leave my furnished rental and find a new place that was unfurnished.

As I recall that long-ago walk, a 2007 version of my 1994 knowingness washes over me: It really is time to stop. To truly stop. To drop anchor. To land. To create not only a home base but a home.

My first thought, as it was 13 years ago, is that I have nothing with which to fill an unfurnished house. My second thought also parallels my Nova Scotia experience: Trust, and it will be fine.

Monday, August 20 ~ Breaking Out III

Hobby Lobby, a regional crafts chain, is running a mega sale on art supplies this week. Is that a sign, I wonder, to replace my stolen colored pencils?

Once in the store, I study my options and settle on a set of watercolor pencils.

Yet as I drive away with my new purchase, it feels all wrong. To my shock, I realize I don't miss my old colored pencils and don't want new ones.

My desire to draw hasn't vanished. But all I want now is a few plain sketch pencils to play with.

Another old pattern makes way for the new.

It's time, I realize, to add my inventory of healing art to my selloff of the past.

Friday, August 24 ~ Breaking Out IV

In my frequent moments of overwhelm this week, I ask for confirmation of my decision to drop anchor.

The signs and signals, while not abundant, are eloquent.

Perhaps the earliest, gone unnoted at the time, was the realization that my thick stack of membership cards in frequent-hotel-guest plans was taken -- probably because it looked like a collection of credit cards.

A more recent indicator (for the author of a book titled The MoonQuest) is that the house I'm most drawn to has the word moon as part of its street address.

A phone call today is the capper: Even though I have no house yet, I've been offered my first housewarming present.

Saturday, August 25 ~ The Eagle Has Landed

I have just signed a one-year lease on a house that is everything I asked for...and more. I'm excited and abundantly grateful, even as tremors of anxiety continue to ripple through me.

It's been 15 days since the break-in. Each of those days might as well have been a year for all the openings and transformations that have occurred since that morning.

There have also been many synchronicities and miracles through that time, and I know that at least as many will carry me forward into whatever's next.

Are my traveling days over? I wouldn't dare suggest that. Nor would I dare guess what lies ahead.

All I think I know is that writing will remain an integral part of it...whatever "it" is.

These New Earth Chronicles will likely continue in some form. After all, the New Earth we are co-creating won't disappear just because I'm experiencing it from a less mobile perspective. My newsletter, too, will live on in its own as-yet-to-be-determined way.

Meantime, I'll continue to promote and market The MoonQuest, work toward completion of its sequel and move forward with publication of my book on writing, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.

Through all that, I'll do my best to stay open to whatever gifts and growth await me on this next phase of my journey...wherever it carries me.

Thanks for being one of those gifts!

• Save up to 75% on healing art and CDs at my Web Store.

• Order your copy of The MoonQuest today -- through www.themoonquest.com or through Amazon.com using this direct link. Or click here for a list of retailers who carry the book.

Photos and Art by Mark David Gerson.
#1 Santa Fe sunflowers; #2 Albuquerque sunset; #3 Waxing moon over the Sandias; #4 Drawing #117 "Portal to Your Passion"

The Heart of Texas

2007-08-01T23:39:00.000-06:00

Wednesday, August 1 ~ Junction, Texas

Images from a week in Texas....

#1 Stained Glass Image of St. Francis, Monastery of the Poor Clares, Brenham

#2 Monastery of the Poor Clares, Brenham

#3 Rt 965, near Enchanted Rock

#4 Rock Formation, Big Bend Nat'l Park

#5 Rio Grande River

#6 Chisos Mountains, Big Bend Nat'l Park

#7 San Padre Island Nat'l Seashore, Gulf of Mexico

Texas Photos by Mark David Gerson|

Giving Up the Need to Know

2007-07-27T20:18:00.001-06:00

Sunday, July 22 ~ Albuquerque, New Mexico

More Texas license plates. Everywhere I look on the drive from Sedona to Albuquerque, I see Texas plates.

They're there, it seems, to tweak my dawning awareness that when I leave Albuquerque on Tuesday, it will be to head into Texas.

Not that I have any idea why I'm being drawn to Texas...again. Why should I, when I still don't know why I was pulled there earlier this year [see God's GPS].

"Not going to work this time," I insist to whoever's in charge. "If you really want me to go to Texas, you'll have to do better than license plates."

It's now my second night in Albuquerque, and I'm chatting with the hotel owner about The MoonQuest, which she's just begun reading. My post-Albuquerque plans never come up. Yet, somehow, it emerges that her husband has family in -- you guessed it -- Texas.

I don't make the connection until an hour later, when I'm talking to Josh, the new guy on the front desk.

"Are you a native New Mexican?" I ask.

"No," he replies. "I'm from Dallas. Texas."

I almost surrender in that moment.

But not quite.

Unconditional surrender comes 24 hours later.

I'm parked outside Office Max. Across from me is a small black car with Texas plates.

"Not going to work," I say, shaking my head at the Universe. "Show me people, not plates."

I come out of the store a few minutes later, following the man who was ahead of me in line. He heads straight for the Texas-mobile and takes off. For Texas, no doubt.

As I walk across his now-vacant spot, something flashes up at me from the pavement. A penny.

I stoop to pick it up and know where I'm going.

I still don't know why, but in that moment I remember my own words from a week ago as I spoke as part of a Sunday Service talk at Santa Fe's The Celebration. The topic? "Too Much Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing: Giving Up the Need to Know."

I give up.