Author: Shirley Lynn

Imagine a mother hearing her newborn baby making googling noises for the first time while she was across the room attending to another task. Now imagine her deciding to go to this infant and share with this infant her deep and profound love for this child in this incredible moment. However, instead of moving toward the child face first and in a forward motion, she backed toward the child fearing that what she was hearing was not real or that the googling would stop by the time she got there.

Or….

Imagine a father coaching his son or daughter to play a musical instrument from a perspective of his own musical failures, relegating his successes as inconsequential and irrelevant to the coaching of this child here and now.

These might seem like rather ridiculous scenarios and yet how often do we back into our future, fearing the worst outcome. How often do we grasp only to the LEAST of what we did instead of the MOST of what we did or the MOST of who we are? Our internal models of the way we perceive and take action in the world often determine the kind of world we either create and/or experience.

At the beginning of this year, we talked about it being an 11 year and what that meant (see archives to gain a point of reference). Throughout the year we kept the question in front of us about which path are we choosing, that of our true nature and our joy and peace or the status quo and habitual path that leads to our depletion, illness and overall stagnation in mind, body and spirit. These latter states of being create anger, frustration, depression, fear-mongering, pain and suffering and unresolvable grief.

I find it fascinating that after such a year of choice of what path you decided to take and live, this next year in 2010 is a 3 in numerology. For me, the energy or DIVINE INTENTION of 3 is all about sunshine, creativity, motivation and when at its best the inspiration to express and communicate yourself more expansively and joyfully.

What does this have to do with how we approach 2010? If the Universal energies are bringing us the vibrations of all that the energy of 3 represents and we walk toward this year backing in or only focusing on the past failures, we will miss the opportunity to truly experience the gift of this energy or perhaps Divine Intention for our hearts in this year.

If we return to the earlier scenarios, the baby would see and experience the mother’s joy and the bond and internal mechanism of self worth and confidence would be fed in the infant and the joy in the mother’s heart be exponentially intensified. The father would gratefully and joyfully share the beauty of the music when he was at his best, making it possible for his child to discover the art and power of music as well. These are the most powerful moments of self-expression that transform ourselves and those with whom we are in relationship or communication.

Practical Grace means that we walk forward in our lives, LOVINGLY! It means we release the fears so that Grace can break into our awareness and offer us a perspective that allows us to experience and find the sunshine. Perhaps we have not been able to walk into our future lovingly because we haven’t known the skills of self-expression and communication that lead to joyful and peaceful or outcomes that resolve conflict, that further our goals, that forgive wrongs and right relationships and that deepen our intimacy with ourselves and God/Goddess/Sacred.

As you move toward 2010, turn to FACE it if you haven’t already. Then look at what skills and goals you have that affirm and support this new path of truth you have chosen this year. What resources do you have to take with you into 2010 to get the most benefit out of all that this year of sunshine, motivation and self-expression and communication energy offers? If you back into 2010, you will struggle because your vision is skewed, invisible and psychologically unattainable. For you will in essence be facing 2009 or earlier. We won’t be there. It’s now closing. Turn around. Shift your perspective. Change your consciousness and get going toward that which sustains your happiness and health and inner peace. Communicate your vision somehow and find an extraordinary way to begin the path to express your TRUE SELF with the most sunshine you can!

Marzie and I want to wish you an extraordinary season of love, light and charity for all your family, friends and community. For many we know your family and community extends globally and so our blessing reaches out that deep as well.

Love and sunshine blessings!!
©Shirley Lynn Martin

Are you noticing that we are coming to a close of another decade? For some of you, when we talk about the 60’s, you have clear memories and images and themes that cross your mind such as peace symbols, flower children, the Beatles, a revolution against institutions of the 50’s and prior. Likewise for the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, each of these decades has had a specific theme paralleled with major global events that shaped the psyche of a generation. Whether these narratives are all good or not, whether we like it or not, these decades of social narratives simply have occurred and shape how we love one another.

From 2000-2010, major global events have occurred alongside significant social phenomena that have again fashioned another generation and required deeper commitments of the adults in this world to awaken and return to the language of love and spirit. Personally over this past decade, I explored the themes of love and peace—though these themes seem to be recurring themes that I simply explore, study and practice with ever greater knowledge, expression and ethical mandates for my life and relationships.

In my Soul Coaching seminar, we explore the connection between love and spirit and go through exercises that reveal how we use language to enhance and enrich our experience or constrict, restrict and perhaps even impoverish our life and love.

Think about the word love for a moment. Is it a verb or a noun to you? What does it mean? Imply? Connote? Now explore these questions emotionally and what else do you become aware of about your meaning when dipping into the emotional plane of your love? In the emotional reality of your life, can love be trusted? Does your love offer you and others self-respect and gracious kindness? Does love accept who you are as you are or do you have to live in a state of denial to remain ‘okay’ with the status quo? Is there pleasure for you in your meaning and language of love?

People often say to me several things about love. The word is over used and has lost its meaning or it doesn’t capture their true sentiments in their heart. Another key theme I hear is that love hurts and abandons. When I ask them what other word captures what they mean and would express what they experience in their heart, they often don’t know.

How is it that such a core need that determines ultimately our life and death, whether physically or psychologically and even spiritually can be viewed so narrowly and with such limiting language? For almost two decades, I have been studying the meaning of Grace as a language of love and have come to the experience (not just a conceptual understanding) that Grace is the gift of being embraced as the Divine’s Beloved just because I am and I accept the gift!

We must enrich the language of love if we are to ever begin to build the peace we desire in our conversations and relationships with ourselves, with others, with Nature, with the world and most surely with the SACRED ALL. Let’s consider for a moment, what this reflection might read like if we replaced the word ‘love’ with ‘deeply cherish’ each time. What would start to happen in your heart, in your imagination, in your beliefs if you begin to creatively expand your language of love? What would you ‘intimately appreciate’ about your partner? What would you ‘kindly delight’ in with your children, grandchildren or furry companions? Who would you need to forgive if you begin to ‘exquisitely accept’ yourself? Who would you stop blaming for your unhappiness if you extended soulful compassion to yourself?

As you consider this decade we are finishing, think about the language of love you have been using in autopilot. See if this language of love you are using is healing, awakening, creative or even compassionate with yourself and others. Notice how your autopilot hidden meanings of love affect the relaxation or tension in your body. What is the best of this language of love in this decade that you wish to carry forward with you into this New Year and NEXT DECADE?

When you know what you want to carry forward with you in the next decade, look ahead into the next decade, starting with this next year and ask yourself, “what new language of love would I like to begin to explore in concept, in experience, in feeling, in action and in my ethical mandate for my life and relationships?” We are on the cusp of a whole new decade. Consciously choose to deeply love in this next decade. Consciously choose to richly cherish, to compassionately treasure and to offer sacred worthiness to yourself and all sentient beings. We are the leaders. We must stand up and love more deeply to bring harmony and peace in our families, communities and the world in which we live. If you want to nurture this kind of love and learn skills, practices and develop ways of being in this kind of deep love and peace, consider one of the many courses in these areas I offer. Blessed be.

We here at Feathers, Rainbows & Roses would like to gift each of you with a symbol of a rich and deep and sacred love that forever reminds you are cherished in the eyes of the Divine way beyond your wildest imagination. We gift you the symbol of a purple rose!

Happy Holidays and a Blessed New Year!

©Shirley Lynn Martin

I have a stone in the shape of a heart on Marzie’s grave that reads, “It takes a long time to grow an old friend.” And she is that still! She continues to come on walks with me, snuggle by my side at times when she knows a good dog’s heart is just what I need. And daily she reminds me to eat healthy and really enjoy my food. Her tasty home cooked food and liver treats were one of those most precious realities of Earth that she relished.

What I find comforting on our walks is that her spirit’s behaviour is quite consistent with who she was. That is, she didn’t want to be squished into any one, small label about who she was. Some days she was a healer and coach and other days, she was a hunter and runner. Other days, especially on windy, rainy days, she could become a very indoor dog, who preferred the comforts of her bed. And in these moments of who she was, she comforted me, she loved me and so she CHALLENGED ME!

Marzie has this coyote spirit about her—the trickster. When I was stuck in my behaviours of heart brokenness, she would inevitably run ahead on a walk, then run back, whirl this way and that way, dodge and bounce, so that my mind could no longer follow its own path. She had successfully interrupted my thinking pattern enough that she could invite me into new behaviour which she thought would bring true relief and restore trust.

And that’s all it took. Interruption of my thinking and engaging in a different, more positive behaviour!

My spiritual mentor recently told me that spirituality is never truly authentic unless it fundamentally increases and strengthens one’s love and trust. Marzie challenged me daily to increase my love and trust with myself, with Goddess/Holy Spirit/The Beloved Universe and with the true heart of humanity.

She was keenly aware of energy that was negative, chaotic, toxic and angry. She didn’t want to stay in these environments and would respectfully signal that it was time to go. I believe Marzie knew that her time on Earth was relatively brief. In her wisdom, she made certain we remained in a flow of life where she could stay focused in the behaviours that supported her inner joy and brought healing to those she touched.

Sometimes controlling our thinking seems incredibly difficult and we can end up with inertia of a most depressing kind. We become paralyzed from action or defer to the most habitual habit, even if destructive and boring. Marzie disliked boring walks. Walks were meant to be an adventure. Rarely did we go the same way twice in one day. Rarely, did we even have the same purpose for going on a walk if I was really aware of her presence, connecting with beloved partnership.

Marzie liked adventure and knew the behaviours that created adventure on a walk. She was intentional and trusting that Goddess loved her. When I got on a thought pattern that reflected unhelpful sadness or distrust, she would mirror my behaviour derived from my unenthusiastic thinking until I noticed what she was doing. ‘See’, she would say, ‘this is what you look like to me, you mood spoiler. I’m bored of it. Can we find something to do to change our heart’s way to love and trust.’

Marzie would say that thoughts are like cars on a highway, so many, so different, some the same, but are of different colours, some big, some small, some loud and some very quiet. Yet they all are intended to transport us safely and proficiently from point A to B and for Marzie, to an enjoyable place. She disliked car rides that had no ecological value to them and would clearly let me know when we had been in the car too long or too often. Such slothful use of our car was contrary to our mission in life and she clearly let me know.

Typically, all these thoughts drive through our mind with amazing speed. What she liked, however, is when I rolled down the windows so she could sniff and we took the interesting roads. Of course she noted the many other cars on the highway. However, we weren’t driving those cars. We had my corolla which had her blanket, her seat in the back, treats on the floor, music we enjoyed together and windows that regularly had nose prints on them.

The car we had and the way we rode the car came about because of the behaviours and attitudes to which we both were committed to enhance the quality of our lives. In other words, as much as our thinking influenced our lives, what became more evident for me through Marzie, is that it is our behaviour and attitudes that mattered most. When I behaved kind and loving; when I behaved in trusting and peaceful ways, when I behaved focused and habitually positive ways, then my mind changed and life seemed a blessing.

I discovered that she liked when I communicated with her through wonderful and joyful pictures best. And I realized that pictures are more than thoughts and those wonderful pictures we have, inspire us, just as they did with her. She understood pictures and she could engage in conversation with me about the meaning of them. She had her knowing about how to bring them into living reality which was equally valid and masterful as my own knowing. And so our hearts would work toward harmony of creating meaningful reality from these pictures together. I have come to realize that is what I need to feed my subconscious as well– meaningful, amazing, life-giving pictures and great movies.

Such pictures too invite me into new behaviours and attitudes that change my mind. I still talk with Marzie, and my father, about my pictures and movies. They lovingly and wisely (and with wistful coyote medicine) keep changing my perspectives through calling me into daily, focused action toward my mission and purpose. Nothing grandeur. Nothing falsely magical. Just focused and daily behaviour that reflect the perspectives of the mission and purpose I hold in my heart.

©Shirley Lynn Martin

 

Click here to read Tribute to Marzie

As many of you know, my dear companion, business partner and beloved comedian Marzie, my dog of many years, died recently due to an aggressive form of cancer. She had let me know she didn’t want any form of treatment to cure it. It would simply be her time to go when the tumour would bleed out. She did agree with me to benefit by the healing medicines of Chinese medicine, reiki healing, homeopathic remedies, osteopathic and tonal chiropractic to keep her health and immune system as healthy as possible in light of the stress on the body this cancer could take. At the same time, she and I began the journey of healing any karma or wounds that may have been part of our relationship or anything else and/or have existed from other times and places. The psychological and spiritual wounds quickly healed as we changed our lifestyle and our way of service that better reflected the joys and inner needs of our spirit.

With the support of these medicines and her retirement from Feathers, Rainbows & Roses, her health improved and she became a very energetic, happy and “live fully in the moment”, precious heart for another 6 months. We walked together daily, often with my sister and Marzie’s soul friend Chelsea (rottie dog), with purpose and complete awareness of our special time we had. We ‘talked’ a lot about her love for me and my love for her. We had two amazing mini vacations where she and I and my friends, both canine and human, played in the bush and along Lake Ontario and relaxed well with great food, warmth and good sleeps. Marzie and I took the time to enjoy each other and we became deeply attuned to one another in our hearts. Such opportunities are the graces of abundance where love nurtures itself even more completely.

Her death and transition into Spirit were filled with miracles and moments of laughter. I told child clients who asked about her that she was an angel now and that whenever they needed her, they simply needed to open their hearts and ask her to help them or be with them and she would be there. And she is. She always loved children. Another act of true abundant love. She loved big people and helped them remember the abundance of love in the simple faith found in the true heart of a child.

So why are we then left with the sadness of grief in what may equally be happy transitions? Marzie’s death was a happy occasion for her. I felt the sheer joy, pleasure and freedom of her spirit in the next realms. Grief, like abundance is simply a natural part of life. Perhaps in our modern ways of thinking and new scientific, metaphysical discoveries, we are yet again trying to eliminate the natural human response to loss and transition. Grief does not necessarily mean we are suffering, but it does require the presence of our hearts, bodies and souls to acknowledge the release of that which we love and had deep and profound meaning for us, whether in death or in the diverse transitions we all encounter in our lives. In the system of Chinese medicine, grief is understood to be ever present in some form or another in our lives. With that acknowledgement this medicine says, we must keep our bodies, lives and minds in balance and nurtured with other natural expressions of joy and abundance that equally and perhaps paradoxically, are apart of our existence. We cannot escape grief because we fear it, deny it or wish it didn’t exist. Nor are we to render it our complete ‘god’ by holding fast to it in the face of abundance that shows up at the same time as does grief. So why are we then left with the sadness of grief in what may equally be happy transitions

I am aware that in the midst of my grief of lost loving, partnership, spring is coming to life with all the buds and flowers, wild and domestic, beginning to bloom. I am aware of how Nature and the return of the birds are singing the songs of spring. I am aware of the furry friends in my life that yet remain and who continue to share their love and wonderful characters with me. I am aware of the abundant notes, well-wishes and gifts that people have sent me in this time of re-organization of my life. They have genuinely and without hesitation shared their love with me and for Marzie. I relish in the delights of newborn children coming into the world that also has occurred over the past weeks.

Life flows on and on. In grief, we may join the flow more slowly, but the flow of life continues. Abundance simply keeps the flow of life active and engaged. Where life ends another begins. It is not our task to eliminate grief to only experience abundance. Grief and abundance are two sides of the same coin. Embracing them both and allowing them to shape who we become and increase our joy and love for one another is the task of being human. Abundance means that even in my grief, or your grief, we will be taken care of and loved. There is just that much love and compassion and nurturing available to us in this human experience. Holy Love does not forget us. Human beings can often forget each other, forget ourselves and everything around us, leaving us empty of the compassion, nurturing and deep company which we most need and desire.

Keeping our hearts open in the midst of grief requires not just our own spiritual discipline, but requires the presence of a loving and caring community. We heal grief in community, I believe, because we loose and release the profound connection in the midst of community. A loss of one person, or pet or identity, or job, or home, a loss of a person, a marriage….etc. affects more than one person. Such loss has an organic, ripple effect. Healing grief thus needs the loving, caring heart of the community to heal. I believe the Divine orchestrated such wisdom so that in this communal caring and love, we remember the Abundance of Life that permeates all existence.

Abundance means there is always new life. Always. The rain always comes. The sun always rises the next day. Grace is ever present. The mercies of the Divine are equal and more than the grief that is given. We are asked to trust that faith so we can share that faith and share the bounties of our planet and the relationships we hold dear.

©Shirley Lynn Martin

Over the past months, I’ve had the opportunity to have great conversations with colleagues, participate in various trainings and witness many clients and reiki students make profound discoveries and advances in their lives. Just as I have. The common thread that seems to make its way through all our stories is the very real and honest and RAW conversations we have had to have with ourselves and those who support us.

Many of us who have gone through the fires of transformation more than once know that awakening to our soul and the purity and peace of Spirit is a journey of sweat and hard work equal to that experience of joy and exhilaration in the discovery and feeling of inner peace and purpose. This journey is not without its blisters and bruises and stripping away of layers of raw emotions that have plagued our minds and hearts with toxic heaviness and difficult relationships and lives out of balance.

Whatever symbol or metaphor you use, the yin/yang symbol, the tetter-totter, Jung’s concept of the shadow, you encounter both the light and the dark, the day and the shadow, the up and the down. We are not exempt from the shadow, the dark, or the down. What we do in these moments is what defines our character and essentially our spirituality. Furthermore, the deeper the awakening of who we are, we also encounter the parallel shadow aspect of ourselves and of life. We realize the more we know the less we know and the more strong and humble we must walk. And that’s life…to embrace the paradox of being spirit as human being.

We are inundated with ways to alleviate our shadow sufferings quickly and easily. We all want to feel better both physically and psychologically quickly and without incident. Contrary to the magical thinking of what has been deemed as “prosperity theology” by the likes of the Secret and the Law of Attraction, we are meant to release our pain and distress by embracing the truth of what we feel and the authenticity of faith we have that God/dess/Spirit/Divinely Sacred can work through our distress to gift us with wisdom, grace and compassion.

We are not here to escape our emotions and wounds, rather to truly be honest with what is and to truly allow ourselves to be aware and PRESENT to what we feel. Being in the moment is a challenging principle because it requires us to BE AWARE of what we are feeling in the moment and be PRESENT to the grief, the joy, the anger, the frustration, the excitement, the empowerment of all that lies within the moment. It is the only way where true resolution AND PEACE within us takes place because we surrender to a soul healing and awakening, rather than simply manipulating the ‘healing’ of our personalities.

A recent Spirituality &Health magazine editorial by Stephen Kiesling states that we now need a time for ‘reality spirituality, to bring spirituality back down to earth.’ Hooray! A recent training workshop I went to in Toronto, Fred Gallo, a psychologist of energy psychology, stated that tapping our emotions away simply to suppress them is not healing. I breathed a sigh of relief to finally hear professionals acknowledge that we cannot escape our grief, our sorrow, our trauma, by simply tapping them or balancing them or creating illusions that we have snapped them away without truly being present to the process of soul healing!! It is not that these techniques don’t work and are not effective, but our INTENTION in using these techniques makes the difference as to whether the healing creates authentic whole self peace that extends to all humanity.

So what are we to do? Ancient traditions and practices of spiritual healing remain tried and true for many. Religions around the world contain seed truths that have brought great meaning and power and sustained great faith for centuries. Perhaps the doctrines and political agendas of these religions have not, but core truths that lie within their centre remain as common threads that still give life to any real spirituality or any ‘new’ method created today. Many people still quote the ancient sages and enlightened beings from the past. Their truth is still a thread that evokes confidence in us that we have the strength and compassion to face the raw emotions of our wounds and hurts and traumas. These are the moments of transformation that define us because we open deeply to ourselves and the essence that makes us both human and holy. This is Grace!

I have also noted over the years of my study and experience that most people in most times and places are broken in the midst of being with others, that is, we are broken ‘in community.’ Here a homeopathic principle applies for me where like with like creates a transformative, healing effect. I have witnessed and equally experienced within my own life, the power of sharing my hurt and wounds with another, whether professional or personal, someone who is genuinely present with me in the Spirit of love and compassion. I heal, as others have, in the presence and by the love shared ‘in community.’ I often tell people that grief or shame is healed in the presence of a loving other, not in the singularity of self-relationship. When we are honest in community, everlasting healing takes effect!!

Get honest with how you feel. Suppression only hurts us and those around us and harms those we love. Repression doesn’t work. It just creates poltergeists of raw emotions running around loose as energy asteroids smashing into people, as a teenager recently remarked to me. Using energy healing to ‘rush’ away our grief and pain without honestly being present to it to gain the deep awakening from the insights and accompanying lessons is only a temporary fix. Eventually, our ‘fixes’ need to increase and we lose the sense of empowerment that we first intended to create within ourselves. We have then misplaced our responsibility to gain wisdom from our own experience into the hands of another. This way does not heal us, nor our planet.

This year I am taking another step of living Grace by walking the path to peace. I’m beginning to teach about peace-building conversations out of my experience, study and training. The journey of peace continues to demand honesty of myself and the way I interact with others regardless of whether I am afraid. The courage and strength in Peace as the Way and Grace as the Holy experience is my mission that moves me, and those of you who learn and join me, gently onward. Peace be with you.

©Shirley Lynn Martin

We have been exploring the essence of Grace over this past year as we choose the path we are meant to be on to know happiness and peace (re-read December 2008 below and 2009 reflections). It has been an extraordinary year thus far for me in choosing more deeply my True Path and my True Self. Although we can choose our True Self in a moment, it is the choosing of our true heart over and over and over and over again, with every deepening and quickening of our life’s expression that reminds us of the practicality of Divine Love within us. I invite you to slowly and mindfully read this in first person as though it is your experience in this moment, written just for you!

“Today, All that is Sacred and Good and Divine tenderly invites me, calls me into and out from my pain and into the heart of Divine, Sacred, Holy Love. I realize I have been conditioned to expect love to require and demand my energy and that my heart should somehow attend to myself, others and life in ways that cause exhaustion and a complexity of guilt from which I can rarely find freedom. Today, I gently open myself to a new experience. A space in myself is opening up, for just this moment, creating a freedom to surrender more deeply within the Sacred, Holy Love of All; Love Unfathomable.

With all Presence, I breathe and surrender. Even if I’ve felt Divine Love before, today the opening of space seems different somehow. I don’t know how, I just know it’s beyond what I have known before.

I carefully open the door to Divine Love today. I am surprised and delighted, but a little wary because I am not manipulated, coerced, overwhelmed into, nor tricked into entering this realm of Sacred Love and it feels a bit foreign. With new courage, I decide to ‘enter’ this Deep And Whole Love today.

As I tentatively step into this Divine, I am tenderly and compassionately called into becoming my true nature and personal essence. I am gently and wisely and humourously led into the foundations of myself that sustain this Oneness with Sacred Love. The breadth of possibility here is endless and, almost without hesitation, Sacred Love pulls me into a Divine Embrace, showing me the extraordinary purpose of my created incarnation.

I choose today deep openness and courage so to just taste this extraordinary realm of Divine Love. I look around and it truly extends and expands beyond what I can see and feel and touch and know. That in itself fills me with an awe and wonder, for my very existence seems to have a divine purpose that is joy-full.

What am I to do here? Who am I to be, I ask? Surprisingly, these questions take on a different quality than those psychological questions I ask of my life and experience. In this realm of Sacred Love, these questions begin to illume an existential narrative in my heart about my own humanness. It opens me into the awe of my own extraordinary, unique creation about why I am here.

If I choose now to completely embrace this extraordinary, deep and compassionate Divine Love that has no end, rather guidelines and boundaries for holy living, then what does my heart need to do here, want to do here, is compelled to do here in this realm of holy loving? What is so important, good and joyful about being human and being in human relationships? These are questions that spring forth within me and awaken me to a new level of my human, yet sacred narrative that has been dormant in my heart.

And then a profound and inexplicable realization dawns upon me….I am meant to be human, completely and fully incarnated, nothing more, nothing less. I am struck that no matter what stories I might have heard or not heard about Jesus, or Buddha or Lao Tzu or Mohammad and no matter what I think might be real or not real about what people have said about them, the seed good news they all were compelled to share with anyone who was open and willing to hear, was the power and profoundness of the Divine Love experienced within incarnated essence and human life.

I pause and breathe and take in what has been offered here for me. I am called to RECEIVE Divine, Sacred Love in my heart and existence, deeply and completely. I am fully and adoringly embraced.

Here, I am asked in this Free moment to accept and receive holy love. I am asked to refrain from rejecting and hiding from such deep and abiding love for this moment. I breathe again and again and sink into its depth, slowly and yet with many questions. I leave the “surfaceness” of my ego living for just a moment and sink deeper into my Truth, my core. I breathe again and notice that here in the depth I can more aptly sustain this gracious connection with this Sacred Love and feel more calm and quiet in my mind.

And just as quickly I notice my fear of this Divine Love, fear of myself and fear that it is no longer eternal, that it will run out on me; fear that I am outside of the Divine’s loving arms. My breathing becomes most shallow and I hear and see the stories, some for the first time, that I tell myself. These narratives are dark and sombre, are overwhelming and filled with hurt, grief and pain, worry, defensiveness and excuses. I encounter my anger, my hatred for myself and others. I see the ways my own stories create my own inner hell and sickness. I want to run and hide. I want to pretend none of it exists. I want a way to escape these fear-based narratives I’m holding onto for dear life. But the dear life I yearn for never comes here in this fear and then, suddenly, I come into the awareness of how deeply I feel betrayed and inadequate by my own reality..

Courageously, I break into the moment of my own fear and betrayal. I choose Divine Love and the moment I do so, it kindly rushes to surround and enfold me. This Sacred Love tenderly becomes one with me without judgement, without hesitation and my breathing calms and gentles once again. This Holy Love leads me to my Inner Peace in a way I cannot seem to rationalize; I just seemingly need to surrender and yield to its most tender and compassionate power as it leads me back into my heart’s deeper truth and the Heart of the Sacred. I stand here in amazement.

Without knowing exactly how, I know some deep part of me has experienced and has just remembered the interceding power of Grace….a gift of such profound love that it transforms me out of my repressed and hidden despair, although unconscious to me, negatively remained my life’s compass. Til now….

I giggle. I feel mischievously amazed that we are called to be human, completely incarnated. I am divinely loved, in all my humanity. What GRACE! I am invited to experience Grace, to be sensitive to the ‘God/dess moment of love daily, and then to share this deep, deep, abiding love with those we love over and over and over again. As I pause for this moment and reflect upon the extraordinary depth and expansiveness of Divine Love for me, I am awed and humbled.

I finally have discovered here and now, in a rare and perhaps even raw moment just how eternally I am loved–sacredly and graciously. The path is finally clear here in this present moment. I am to KNOW THAT I AM LOVED DEEPLY, so deeply, more deeply than I can even possibly fathom. And in this knowing, I do and do and do and do what I love. I suddenly feel the rush of wondrous joy flow through my veins. I can see the heaven of my peace!”

Blessed be!

©Shirley Lynn Martin

We are already half way through 2009, this eleven year—the year of choosing your true path. What path are you actually living? Is it the path you said you want to live at the beginning of the year? Is it the path of purpose that gives you joy and meaning in your life? Is there peace in your heart on this path? Does this path reflect your life purpose?

The dictionary defines purpose as ‘a RESULT which it is desired to obtain and which is kept in mind in performing an action.’ To live ‘on purpose’ is to live with intention, with consciousness. So to live our life purpose is to live in a way that we experience and intentionally obtain the results by living the actions aligned with our life purpose!

Are the choices and actions you are taking manifesting results in alignment with your life purpose? Is your life purpose shining through your actions and results you are experiencing?

What we can never escape in this human endeavour we are all living are the paradoxes and polarities of existence. We live with constant polarity and paradox. Paradox as defined by the dictionary means ‘a statement which though true, seems false and self contradictory.’ Polarity defined is ‘the state of having one or other of two opposite polar conditions.’ We are constantly living in a state of polar opposites of realities of truth that contradict each other, whether we like it or not.

In other words, the clearer we are about what we want and take steps toward what we want, we will attract the likeness of results to what we want through synchronicity and faith in the goodness of our purpose. At the same time, we may also encounter the opposite forces to what we want and take action toward, these forces raising their heads to get our attention, turning our intention away from our true path and purpose!

When we give these opposite forces attention, we often give them power and perhaps even increase our own measure of fear that we cannot attain the results of our true purpose.

So what is truly available to us in these moments of polarity and paradox, of fear and doubt about the worthiness, the goodness and the ability of living the results of our live purpose?

For me, it’s an experience of Grace that gently breaks into our thoughts and hearts and offers us a gentle reprieve from these opposite forces of fear and negativity. Grace is constantly available to us, giving us permission to step into a state of worthiness, of love, of daily perpetual forgiveness, of recognition of our divine holiness, freedom and inner peace. Truly, the gift of Grace transforms our mistrusting mindsets and our woundedness, no matter its source or origin, into a knowing that we have the right, the ability and are so truly loved and completely found worthy of the life purpose that brings us wholeness, peace and joy. (see archive Grace and Laughter, May 2009).

Whether we want to improve our relationships, our communication patterns, our eating and exercise habits, become more loving and less negatively critical of ourselves and others, or whether we want to find a different career or enhance our intimacy, pay off our financial debts, Grace offers us the gentle, yet courageous path that we can and will live our life purpose, regardless.

Although choosing grace as one’s path to live our life purpose requires incredible courage, it is equally an elegant and gentle path. This abiding presence of love and forgiveness, of gentle yet powerful Life-giving confirmation of our worth and
acceptance asks us to shed our shame and our inadequacies without hesitation, without rationalizations, without guilt! Grace makes the process of worthiness
and acceptance so elegant and easy and yet it takes all the courage we can
muster to walk beyond the universal truths (lies), negative paradigms and beliefs that we have held about ourselves forever!

Grace, for me, includes the divine in-breaking of abiding love, a transcendent mystery that can and does forgive karma or sin to bring peace and abundance of purpose to someone here and now, for the purposes of expanding consciousness of the masses. We cannot control such Divine Manifestations of Grace (or forgiveness or agape, some may call it), nor can we manipulate it, nor use it for harm in any way. The best we can do is to surrender to it, to embrace its love and mystery and to accept the divine worthiness showered upon us in that moment.

To live in Grace is, therefore, to live spiritually as an authentic human being so our life purpose can manifest the results we seek deep in our heart. Whatever our spiritual practice may be, we need to nurture it in ways that open us to the gift of Grace daily, to recognize it when it comes to gift us!

We will continue to explore this whole living in Grace and Peace as this is my life purpose, my mission to myself and to the world. Whether in 1:1, in the workshops I lead, the reiki and soul coaching programs I teach, GRACE will always be welcomed, embraced and explored to deepen our consciousness of our holiness and goodness as human beings. So rather than try to escape it, deny it or run from it, I invite us to explore Grace, be open to this mystery of holy love and to find its way of moving to create results in living the purpose of our real lives. What a better way to live peace on the planet.

What choices will you continue to make in this 11 year, a year of Grace indeed!

Blessed be!
©Shirley Lynn Martin

The onset of spring and cheery flowers always brings greater smiles to people’s faces and tends to lighten their hearts. Since I was a child, I laughed in a way that echoed throughout the whole room or so I was frequently told. Several years ago, I had a friend tell me that my laughter made his day because my laughter came from way down deep. What a compliment! Although I am very selective about any TV that I might watch, when I do watch I intentionally watch something that makes me laugh. I feel better. My heart lightens. My face lifts and my perspective begins to change. In other words, laughter is a daily habit.

I recently read a comment that if ‘’it’s possible to laugh our way out of a serious illness, why don’t we try it for other things that have gone wrong in the world? As they say, laughter is the best medicine!” I laughed at the synchronicity of finding this comment and its harmony with my Playing with Divine Light Exercise.

Then I reflected on why I’m inspired to speak of laughter to bring peace in this newsletter. In the bigger picture, I realized that we are all choosing a new path this year, being its an 11 year (see December 2008 archives). We are choosing not only a new and true path for ourselves, but we can also participate in creating an alternative path to the destructive patterns and energies all around the world. This path has the power to bring peace in the simple effort of good laughter. This good laughter neutralizes suffering and opens the way to experiencing community.

Have you ever experienced how quick people warm up to you when they hear you laugh? I’ve had people tell me that my laughter made them know I was a safe person to be around. I laugh in sessions with people, even in the most raw moments of their journey because in that moment, Grace enters and transcends the rawness out of any karma or pain or deep loss. In that moment, Grace and laughter partner together and through me, deep healing is made possible to the client. It’s always incredible because people awaken to the experience of knowing that they are not their pain and suffering. They are richly more. And they know in that moment, they are worthy of being special, unique, a gift. And they know in that moment, there worthiness is not just minute, but a universal worthiness, for it came in the rawest of moments. Grace is like that!

Many years ago, in one of my transformative moments in understanding the experience of Grace, I came across this passage from A Spirituality of Wholeness, The New Look at Grace, by Bill Huebsch. He speaks of Grace in this way:
“This grace, of which Jesus was full, this grace is the life of God. The life of God/dess is itself powerful, creative, and energizing and Jesus was full of that. Do you realize what this means? This means God/dess’s own life, God’s energy, Goddess’ grace is WITHIN US. And it means we are empowered (empowered!)…..Anybody created by God/dess, which includes all of you, is created to be Somebody. Don’t become a nobody, don’t give away your power to be yourself, don’t deny my grace to you.”

Grace for me is accepting the gift that the FULLNESS, THE WORTHINESS OF MY SOMEBODINESS is truly mine to live just because GOD/DESS deemed me as good, powerful, loved and divine. Period. Period. Period.

When you are a ‘Somebody’, you laugh with heart and soul. This laughter echoes throughout the Universe and has the power to heal the rawest wounds of humanity. GRACE and LAUGHTER are like that. My newsletter this month has an exercise of bringing peace in our hearts, lives and the planet through a light meditation with laughter and grace. Give it a try and let me know what you discovered and what unfolded for you.

©Shirley Lynn Martin

SPIRIT IS WEALTHY IN ANY ECONOMY! That is the thought I woke up with this morning. I had gone to bed last night having watched 10 minutes of the news until I couldn’t stand the ‘fires of fear’ that were spreading so pervasively. After all the banks still had a net income of $20billion last year (a statement reported to my financial planner from an inside contact from TD). I went to bed with the question, “as a leader of my own life, how do I respond to all the financial disparity that seems to be spreading in people’s psyche about the ‘direness’ of our future?” This thought followed by other thoughts that have been going through my mind that have served me well:

“You can’t think your way out of problems you have behaved your way into” (Stephen Covey)

“The answer to thriving and being wealthy is right here inside me and in my relationship to Nature, to Great Spirit.” (Shirley Lynn Martin)

“You must start beyond scarcity to be wealthy. You can’t achieve wealth from scarcity. You must start beyond it!” (Tony Robbins)

“This moment is the perfect moment for me to truly open my heart to the wealth of Spirit and create my life.” (Shirley Lynn Martin)

As a child, I knew wealth started in my heart. I loved animals with such a big heart that of course, our relationship with each other was wealthy. It still is today. Being wealthy doesn’t mean I don’t make mistakes, but I sure am clear where I place my value and the principles I live by to make sure that my relationships with animals (and others) have deep wealth and richness to them. I knew that how I behaved from my heart toward my animals determined the quality or wealth of my relationship with them.

In my family, we never had TV until I was 11 years old or so. Recreation and playtime was filled with creating games and inventing our entertainment in the nearby creek, the fields and animals around me. I learned that wealth meant having an imagination and knowing how to play for hours without adult intervention. I learned about the wealth of time being directed to what makes me happy and fulfilled and sustains my overall health.

In my family, working together on our little farm was interspersed with playing. Looking back on our family photos, it is obvious that we didn’t have much by way of excess furniture or décor! My mother had a wringer washer (if anyone even knows what that is), until they got a new one. I remember being old enough that my younger brother and I decided to take it apart to see if we could fix it. Couldn’t! We did get greasy though. (I think my mother had to clean up the mess). Nevertheless, I didn’t feel poor. Our work had purpose and our home environment was respected through our efforts to keep the space clean and tidy. I experienced wealth of purposeful work and safe space in the fresh and clean space.

Wealth for me meant playing with animals and my siblings. It meant reading books with my mother and sitting on my father’s lap snapping his nose and laughing. Wealth meant eating from the garden, and then especially treats from Dairy Queen. Wealth had little to do with money, but a lot to do with the joy of my spirit. In the years after my father’s death, much changed and yet, a constant remained. Wealth was still expressed in what I loved to do and what was most natural to me. Even though there was much turmoil and deep grief that had come over my whole family, I could still find inner wealth and outer wealth in playing sports. I loved the physical vitality it required. I loved the competition and the community I felt with my teammates. As I look throughout my life, I can find wealth because of the meaning I have given it.

Recently, my siblings and I discussed some of the events around my father’s death and the financial impact it had had. No one was resentful. No one had wished for a different outcome about what happened financially. Forgiveness had truly been experienced in our hearts. And with that forgiveness, our relationships with each other and towards the community around us, remains wealthy.

Wealth is not only about money and certainly not about the amount of money. It’s about Spirit. True wealth is about Spirit! Spirit is wealthy. Wealthy behaviour means I give to others from a heart of kindness because I have faith in the wealth of Spirit. Spirit gives with blessing, with anointing, with grace and forgiveness. To experience wealth as Spirit does, I am invited to give with blessing, with loving kindness, to forgive and accept grace. Spirit is wealthy and so gives generously. Jesus never criticized wealth. He spoke out against greed and one’s lack of generosity!!

We all know that to receive different results we must behave differently. It’s not enough to think differently. We must behave differently with our heart! And that requires being alive to Spirit. BEHAVING WEALTHY starts beyond scarcity!

If I look into Nature and observe what makes it thrive and be rich, to be healthy, so to speak, I notice that getting a balance of sunlight, night, rain, dry, cool and warmth, good nutrients and then space and time to follow its own natural course of coming into its fullness. In other words, my wealth of spirit is dependent upon my spirit’s health and my spirit’s health is dependent upon the balance of my life. This balance of life is rooted in the wealth of Great Spirit that sustains my health and wealth.

My spirit knows that it takes a season of focused energy toward manifesting who I am naturally. I can’t cram it like I did on my exams in university. Growing up in an agricultural family, the harvest takes focused planning, diligent, purposeful action and lots of faith in the season of time and natural flow to bring about the harvest. I also observed that naturally, a flower does not try to become a tree. A healthy dog does not want to become a cat. They live and breathe naturally into the wealth of who they are!

Spirit is wealth. Spirit is health. Spirit is balance. Spirit is peace and love and more, not just for me, but for ’the WE.’ When Spirit is my centre, then wealth follows. What is your experience, meaning and mindset of wealth? How does your spirituality sustain you in these economic and spiritual times? Let the transformations of us all continue indeed!

©Shirley Lynn Martin

As I reflect upon 2008, I am aware of all the action I took to align my life, my work and my body. At the beginning of the year, I invited you to join with me on this path in your own way and so here we are at the close of this year, measuring how well we have done to stick with our commitments and intentions. Given the kind of events that unfolded, staying aligned was a gift of grace for me and I know for those of you with whom I journeyed! I recently read that 2008, being a number 10 year, and therefore carrying a number 1 vibrational energy, gave rise to many new, unexpected and extraordinarily challenging life conditions. We only need to look back over the year to notice perhaps not only what happened personally for many, but also globally. Regardless of these events, I knew deep inside the unexpected and extraordinary life challenges were good, intended upon providing opportunities of purification and creativity in every way. In November I stepped into the energy of 2009 and my soul sighed with huge relief. In some way, there is coming an arrival to something we have been working toward. All through November and December, I could feel the lightness of this energy and the good changes I knew it would bring me. These changes have already started manifesting!

I took note of the qualitative value of the year 2009 that equals the vibrational energy fields of the number 11 (one of my favourite numbers). I recognized how the energy of this number matched the energy of 2009 that I have already been feeling. The number 11 is, in part, a universal number and one that challenges us to choose between two paths, one that is positive and filled with change and transformation out of the old mindsets and the other path is the continuance of a path of negativity, dishonesty and injustice.

There are other astrological events for 2009 such as 4 retrogrades (which is like asking us to look back and finish up de-cluttering the unfinished). As well, the number 11 is also partnering with the planet Uranus, known as the system of the “Great Awakener.” In other words, we have a year of great change and transformation that is coming to us whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not!

In 2009, I am both introducing new workshops and bringing forward new approaches and ideas of leadership and inner peace that I have been sitting with for a long time. It is now time. The year has arrived. The time has arrived for each of us to step forward as leaders of our own lives, within our families and communities and on the world platforms. Whether your leadership is claiming self empowerment instead of a path of on-going disempowerment, or whether your leadership is creating a new program to teach others or whether your leadership is to give of your resources to others who have the skills, expertise and calling to make profound changes in the various parts of our world where it is needed, we are joyfully called forward in 2009. No matter what your leadership may be like for you, the time is certainly here for all of us to step forward and be the leaders we trust to bring peace on this planet.

My mission is about peace. My leadership is about inner peace. Stabilizing peace on the planet is a passion within that instructs everything I do and choose. Yet, peace on the planet cannot be stabilized until we can stabilize inner peace. I invite you to join me in 2009 to choose the path of inner peace; to become the leaders you trust and to surrender to all the changes and transformations that awaken us to the inner peace that awaits us. The year 2009 will bring change and transformation to our feet whether we like it or not. For me, the changes, although require effort and discipline, are fun and prosperous. From deep in my heart, I encourage you to challenge yourself to change your old mindsets, release the fears of lack and the weight of your past. Let the light-filled changes that are coming awaken you more deeply toward your joy! Come and learn to be a leader and move forward with inner peace. Now that’s a Christmas gift I’m excited to open and live!
Blessed be!

©Shirley Lynn Martin