The truth

We forget. All the time. We forget our divine nature. We forget that everything is perfect and everything is right.

I have these moments, usually when I'm on a streetcar (I do my best thinking on my morning and evening commutes) when I click, I clue in, I remember that everything is okay. Every decision I've made or haven't made is perfect and in order with the universe. Everything that will happen, will be alright. Everything that has already happened only helped shape - but doesn't determine who I am. I am not what I do for a living. I am who I am - and I do what I do for a living.

I was reminded yesterday of the difference between being and doing. Those who believe that they are what they do are not being in the truest sense. They are simply doing. It's a mental math problem that I can only wrap my brain around for a few seconds at a time, but I like where it leads me. It leads me down a path where I am forced to ask "but who am I" and simultaneously forced to shut down all of my usual notions of self. I am not my age, my location, my marital status or my job. I am not my tax bracket, my gender or my name. I am so much more.

When we get past all of those descriptions - who are we?

That's when I get those little a-ha! moments. And I giggle. Because the truth is so simple, and so great.

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Faith

I can feel myself shifting into a new set of priorities. Like a wave that's gently bringing me to a new shore, it's subtle and soothing and a calm movement that doesn't upset.

But even so, I'm fraught with nerves, and there's a whole lot of second-guessing involved. How do I know it's the right choice? How do I know that I won't look back and wish I hadn't made that decision? Am I playing it safe?

And then a voice comes to me, from a deeper place that reminds me and cradles me back into the wave in a warm and welcoming embrace. Have Faith, it says. And I smile and remember that I'm a believer in things like destiny and 'the path' and I know that everything happens for a reason. My doubting the process is a slap in the face to all of these things. It's me questioning the way the universe works, or trying to exert some last little bit of control over my life, despite the fact that I long ago realized that my control and my ego are more often holding me back than advancing my cause.

The biggest, bravest leaps I've taken have always been my best. Faith. Faith is taking that first step off the cliff, into the void, not knowing whether or not there will be anything there to catch you, but trusting in the process. Faith  and Trust.

Faith is love. It's a love of magic in the universe. It's a trust that everything we do is with purpose.

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Finding Purpose

Lately, there's been a lot of chatter in my brain about finding something meaningful to do with my time and my life. It's all about giving back.

But what to give? Every time I think of something, a countering voice says who are you to do that, teach that, heal that. And I'm having a constant argument with myself that experience has nothing to do with fulfilling your life's purpose.

Just because we don't have a million degrees in psychotherapy, it doesn't mean we don't know how to listen. Just because we don't have a PhD, doesn't mean we don't know how to heal. And just because I've never written a book, doesn't mean I'm not a writer.

I am a listener, and a healer and a writer - and all of these things will somehow find a home in my life - so that I may fulfill a greater purpose.

I guess I just wish I knew what that purpose was...

Slowly I'm starting to get the picture of what the next few years will bring. Along with starting a family, I am planning on starting on that book. You know, the one that's lived in my head for 10 years - yeah, you've got one too, I bet. Time to let it out, let it breathe. Because I'll never know how good it is until I write it.

Intuition

Most of my regular visitors know that I've been working pretty hard lately at developing my psychic intuition (and listening to it). And I think I'm now at the point where I'm open to impressions. They don't come at me all the time, and usually it's subtle but powerful.

Point in case: My best friend in Ottawa, 7 months pregnant. She's due May 28th. She and I start talking, she jokes that her husband thinks it'll be the 15th instead. It was like a microwave-esque DING! in my head. I said not only did I agree, but I would put money on it.

Beginning of the week, I checked in with her. She hadn't dropped yet and it didn't look like she would be having the baby this week. Tuesday her water broke. But the hospital sent her home. She went back on Wednesday and delivered her baby boy around 11:15pm Wednesday, May 14th.

I was off by 45 minutes.

Now this might not seem that impressive, but considering my recent streak of not only predicting birthdays, but knowing when friends and family are pregnant before they do... it would seem I've got a relatively clear channel, right??

Except for yesterday. Yesterday I was SURE I was going to hear back about a job I applied for. I was CERTAIN. Certain like I was about the birthdays, certain like I was about my brother's wife being pregnant... CERTAIN. But nothing happened. No call, no email. And I'm a bit stunned.

I guess I "get" that we can't be right all the time - and that there are a lot of factors that come into play, like free will. Did something change? Did I change the event by knowing it was coming or was my desire for the event so powerful that I somehow convinced myself that it was true?

What tricky waters to navigate!

I guess I should let that be a lesson to me, though, that intuition can be fooled by the ego - that one can want something so much that one can convince themselves it will come to pass.

We'll see what happens, if anything. I'll keep you posted.

Death Insurance

I haven't been feeling the most inspired lately, so apologies for not posting as frequently this week. But the high of buying a house is now morphing into the incredible task of filling out mounds of paperwork and undoubtedly signing my life away. Literally. I had to sign up for life insurance.

It's weird, signing up for life insurance. Weird because suddenly you're forced to imagine a scenario - your life without you. How odd.

Death is a weird thing. I've been watching Six Feet Under, trying to get caught up by watching from the beginning. It's a great concept for a show, because death touches people in such different ways. Some people never deal with the grief, some can't seem to feel anything but the grief and they get lost in it.

But from a spiritual vantage point, death is only traumatic for those who are left behind to feel the absence.  Of course, having the knowledge that death is not really the end of consciousness helps with the grief process. Most of us 'believers' (note that I use the term even though I would never say I believe in the afterlife because I know it exists) have an easier time coping with loss because we continue to have a relationship with the departed long after they die. We talk to them, feel them, dream about them, hear their voice in our heads, smile when we see something they would have liked or laugh at jokes we remember them telling.

I always hated it when people would tell me someone would live on "in your heart". That was always too abstract for me - and too painful. They were still gone. Distilled into nothing but a memory.

But after my experiences, I've come to understand that saying to be more about the connection we retain to the spirits of passed loved ones. The connection is love, it is what keeps us dialed into their frequency, able to maintain contact. Our love for them keeps the channel open, so to speak, so that they may continue to watch over us, interact with us (in subtle ways) and guide us when need be.

This doesn't take away from our sense of loss - because we will continue to miss their physical self. We'll miss their laugh or their smile or their hugs... that's inevitable. We'll miss them at weird times, randomly triggered nostalgias. But we live on... and so do they.

So where does all this lead me? I'm filling out my details, insuring my life. Ironic that they don't call it death insurance, which is what it is. But I'm guessing it would creep people out too much.

What Bakes My Noodle

One of my favourite parts of The Matrix is when Neo (Keanu Reeves) goes to see the oracle.

Oracle: I'd ask you to sit down, but, you're not going to anyway. And don't worry about the vase.
Neo: What vase?
[Neo turns to look for a vase, and as he does, he knocks over a vase of flowers, which shatters on the floor.]
Oracle: That vase.
Neo: I'm sorry--
Oracle: I said don't worry about it. I'll get one of my kids to fix it.
Neo: How did you know?
Oracle: Ohh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?

And so it is with psychics. One can never entirely get around the fact that the very act of getting guidance might change your course.

Case in point: the house my husband and I just bought.

I called my psychic a week ago for help with the house-hunting. She described a yellow-brick bungalow on a hill, with hardwood floors throughout.

We bought a yellow-brick bungalow on a hill, with hardwood floors throughout.

Now. I would love to say that I would have picked it regardless of whether or not I had had that reading... but the fact of the matter is that I can't know that for sure. Just like Neo can never know if he would have shattered that vase if the oracle hadn't mentioned it and he hadn't turned to see what she was referring to.

But all I know is that for those of us who happen to have psychics we trust, or guides of any kind, in this world or the other, the fact is that they are a part of our path. I think they're in the equation already.

That is to say, I was always going to buy that house, because I was always slated to talk to Angie first.

But it's still fun to wonder about these sorts of things. I like paradoxes. The universe wouldn't be much fun without them.

If you haven't seen the Matrix - the clip is below.

Schrödinger's cat

And now for a brief journey into the bizarre world of quantum physics... and the promise of a spiritual bent at the end. I've blogged about this before, but I want to come back to it.

Schrödinger's cat.

Schrödinger was a physicist in the early 1900s who proposed that the quantum universe was a very strange place indeed. He found that quantum particles had no definite state until they were observed. They were all possible states until they were observed. He used the example of a cat in a box to make his point in case.

He asked that we believe a subatomic particle was a cat, in a box. You don't know if the cat is dead or alive inside the box until you open it to find out. But the real mindf*#% was that, according to quantum mechanics, the cat would be both dead AND alive until you observed it - and that by observing it you would be sealing its fate and it would become one or the other forever.

Now this information is interesting to think about in all kinds of ways - but my favourite way of thinking about it is in the personal sense - that this is true of us on a larger scale. The entire universe exists in a state of endless possibilities. We are not simply the one thing we think we are - but by thinking we are that one thing (by observing ourselves, we create that reality.

But we are made up of particles that do not exist as any one thing, they exist as everything - and they bounce in and out of existence by the second.

The next time I find myself saying I can't or I'm not.. I'll have to remember that I can and I am... unless I decide that I can't or I'm not. Because we are infinite until we decide we're not.

I'll leave you with this daily gem from Lolcats which inspired my post today:

Bangs

Just had to share this little chuckle I had, whilst contemplating endings and beginnings (see previous post)...

Our favourite Canadian broadcaster, the CBC (note tongue in cheek) has this great little web page for kids to review things - books, movies, toys, etc.

Anyway - I was perusing today (because I'm paid to peruse these sorts of things) and I came across the best reviewed item EVER: Bangs. Like short hair on your forehead bangs. Like "we prefer to call it a fringe" bangs. B A N G S.

Here's what the little reviewer said:

My review is on bangs. I love bangs. they are so cute on me. my mom and my grandma all have them. One day I came home with my friend. Then we were talking about them and them we all decided to give me some.
Now my hair looks even better than before. the only bad thing is you have to trim them so they don't get too long. Anyway I would recommend bangs to everybody who are thinking of getting them!

It's sometimes the simplest things. You forget, you know, as you get older, and then you see something so perfectly for the first time through the eyes of a kid and you're like "yeah, bangs ARE awesome". I mean, I just never really think about it much anymore.

I have bangs. And they are so cute on me too.