Nov 8 2011

Soul Families

Soul families. An interesting concept. Through years of metaphysical reading, the idea pops up time and again. Not only are we eternal souls having a human experience (that old saw); we are part of soul families who often incarnate together. There are certain people you meet and feel you have known them forever, and, well—you have.

Think about it—aren’t there a few people in your life with whom you share a special bond? No matter how much times goes by between visits, you are comfortable together and intimate conversation is effortless. Maybe you had a some-enchanted-evening sort of meeting where you instantly recognized them across a crowded room. And I’m not talking necessarily about a romantic connection.

One such person in my life is Thom. Our mothers worked together at General Motors years before we were born. We met in the third grade. I have a clear memory of him pushing a spelling test in my direction to help me with the word “since.”

 In high school we had many classes together and happily became Drama Freaks. One show after another. White shoe polish in our hair playing old people. Me in a buck skin shirt dressed as Calamity Jane singing duets with his Wild Bill Hickok. Private jokes. We bought season tickets to the best shows in Los Angeles and saw Angela Lansbury, Katherine Hepburn, Debbie Reynolds, Lauren Bacall, Liza Minelli—live! Romance was never in the cards, so we didn’t have to break each other’s hearts as a rite of passage. We were just the best of friends.

After high school we went our separate ways, but always kept in touch. He became a flight attendant. I ended up in Oklahoma, married, and raised my family for thirty years. Somewhere in the early 80’s, we lost touch. The faithful birthday and Christmas cards from him stopped. My cards were returned addressee unknown. Life was busy, but as time went by, I became convinced Thom must have perished in the AIDS epidemic. Other friends hadn’t heard from him either and had drawn the same conclusion. The thought of Thom enduring the stages of AIDS made me exceedingly sad, but I tucked Thom into the recesses of bygone days.

Except in my dreams. Over the course of the next twenty-five years I had recurring Thom Dreams. They were always different, yet similar. I would suddenly be in a room and see Thom. Usually he was unfolding clothes from a suitcase.

I’d walk up to him, over-joyed and then highly irritated. “You’re alive! Where have you been? Why haven’t I heard from you? We all thought you were dead!”

He never replied. Usually he stood still, maybe a bit puzzled, and totally ignored me. One especially vivid dream featured a bank of windows looking out over the night line of a big city, fully lit and breathtaking. The room had two beds.

Years went by between dreams, but they always startled me out of my sleep and were unusually memorable.

Fast forward to December 2006. By then, I had met Helen, my Reiki therapist, seen Paula healed from an incurable disease, been attuned, anointed and what have you. The Supernal Adventures were well under way. (See EVER-FLOWING STREAMS).

Helen is also a certified Akashic Records reader (that’s a story for another day). Sue had an appointment to have her records read. The day before the appointment, I had another Thom Dream. This time he was in a living room with white couches and potted plants tastefully lining the walls. I went into the same rant—“We thought you were dead! Why haven’t I heard from you?”

I called Sue. “Listen, when you talk to Helen, ask her if Thom is dead or alive. This is driving me crazy!”

So Sue asked. Helen said, “I am sensing his energy and it isn’t the type of someone who has passed over. I think he’s still alive. But, he’s been far away.”

What??? We were so positive he was dead. Well, it took less than five minutes and a Google search to find him. We were both once again living in the LA area.

Through phone calls, Facebook, and emails we’ve been in contact, but life has been busy. Finally, last weekend we had a real reunion doing our favorite thing—going to the theater.

We talked and talked. Catching up, yet feeling that special no-time-has-passed connection.

Thom is part of my soul family. Those dreams? Perhaps astral projection to some hotel room where Thom was between flights?  Maybe. That’s fodder for another blog.

All I know is–once he was lost, but now he is found. Soul families? I am a believer.

Oct 12 2011

Chiming in on Rob Bell’s LOVE WINS

Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever LivedOnce in a while a book comes along that gets people all riled up, bringing forth either enthusiastic praise or vehement wrath. Such a book is LOVE WINS: A BOOK ABOUT HEAVEN, HELL, AND THE FATE OF EVERY PERSON WHO EVER LIVED by Rob Bell. Check out the 563 customer reviews at Amazon to get a flavor of the furor.

Bell is the founding pastor of the Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He bears a respectable educational pedigree from Wheaton College and Fuller Theological Seminary. So what has he done to cause such a stir? The buzz claimed “Rob Bell says there is no hell.”

To many outside the church such a belief solicits a “So what, who cares?” response. But to the thousands of believers who define their faith on the tenet of eternal damnation unless one makes a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ, them is fightin’ words.

I decided I needed to read the book and judge for myself. This was my first exposure to Bell, who is surely an engaging speaker. The style of the book reads like an interesting sermon series. It begs to be read aloud. The placement of words on the page is often poetical.

For emphasis.

Rather than a pedantic expression of his opinions, Bell asks a lot of questions about the basic beliefs of scores of Protestant churches. He is logical—and disturbing. If God is an “all loving Father,” then how can he cast his children into everlasting fire? Hmmm.

For Bell, the question isn’t so much about what happens “over there,” but what is happening “here.” Is there a hell? Open the newspaper, read about the wars, famine, mass executions in Mexico, the domestic violence, sexual slavery. Hell? Why sure.  It is here and now.

The real question is how to bring forth “Your Will on Earth as it is in Heaven” as envisioned in the Lord’s Prayer. Bell’s answer is coming into relationship with the living Christ. The expansive, can’t-be-contained or-totally-understood Messenger of the Good News.

Bell speaks to the disenfranchised, the people turned off by the fire and brimstone message. He breaks down the dogmatic walls. For those comfortably dwelling within those walls, he is a heretic. For those outside the walls, he offers hope.

Oct 8 2011

When Women Share A Vision

The Nobel committee got it right this year awarding  Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakkul Karman the 2011  Nobel Peace Prize.  While the US was heading into a decade of war in 2001, the women of Liberia decided two decades of an insane, deadly power struggle was enough. Leymah Gbowee describes the poignant moment of decision in the excellent documentary, PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL . After she and her children ran for their lives, her little boy said he wanted a donut.

A donut. A simple request. An impossible request in a city torn apart by gun-toting fools.

Gbowee had a new vision that day, a vision of a peaceful Liberia, a vision of women leading the way. Change begins with one person’s vision, followed by determination and leadership. Like Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan of Belfast, Ireland thirty years earlier, the women of Liberia came together and placed their country on a new path of peace. They even elected the first female African president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is sharing the prize.

Meanwhile, it is a woman, Tawakkul Karman, who is leading the Arab Spring in Yemen. She is not only taking on a repressive dictatorship, but a repressive culture. She is very much in the thick-of-it, currently living in a tent in the epicenter of the revolt in her country.

When women take a stand for peace, they can change the world. I pray Mexico might be next, or even Los Angeles!

Oct 6 2011

Steve Jobs, A Cautionary Tale

A couple of days ago, Sue and I got together for a Supernal Session. These are times we meditate, pray and send healing energy to people and the planet. Each session is an adventure. We never know what might happen. Sue is growing increasingly clairaudient—she hears messages or receives blocks of information. Sometimes we pass them on; sometimes they are cryptic and we wonder what we’re supposed glean from them. This week she received “As Within, So Without.” It came through almost as a chant, aswithin, sowithout over and over. When the session was over, we Googled the phrase. Turns out an ancient Greek poet named Hermessianex penned it about 3,000 years ago.

Huh. Interesting. Obviously a referral to manifesting and “creating your own reality” as the current lingo goes. So, why now the message? No clue.

Until last night. I watched the coverage of Steve Jobs passing, knowing a huge influence on all our lives had departed. CNN played a lengthy clip of his 2005 commencement speech. He speaks of the power of death—“Death is the very likely best invention of life. All pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.” He also said he looked in the mirror  and asked him something to the effect “If this is my last day on earth, will I be spending my time doing what I think is truly important?” He said he asked himself that question every day and if the answer was “no” too many days in a row, he made a change in his activities.

Can you see how Steve Jobs set himself up for an eight year battle with pancreatic cancer? He imagined facing death every day. It was a motivational tool for him.

It ultimately became his reality. As Within, So Without.

Undoubtedly, the 2003 cancer diagnosis propelled Steve into action and changed our world with i-pods, i-phones, and i-pads.

But, it came at a high cost. A liver transplant is no walk in the park. Anti-rejection drugs can be debilitating. Only Steve and his family know the personal hell he walked through to keep his vision going. I wish someone had clued Steve in early on about the danger of his daily death battle. Surely there could have been some other powerful imagery to propel him to do great things.

So, Steve Jobs stands as a cautionary tale for me. A great visionary with the ability to manifest his best dreams and his worst fears.  As Within, So Without.

Sep 14 2011

Hope for the Holidays

holidaymedium

Raise your spirits with these stories of hope, family, and a touch of the angelic.

E-Book available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords

 

 

SHINY GREEN SHOES

 1935 was a hard year on old Route 66. The unlikely friendship between a young, black girl and an aging white actress brings hope to a town down on its luck.

 

REFINER’S FIRE

Nestled in her beautiful home in the San Diego hills, Dina Stein is determined to celebrate Hanukkah even without her ungrateful daughter. Getting caught in a natural disaster isn’t on her agenda.

PATTY’S ANGELS

1960, Los Angeles. Downtown LA and the suburbs are only minutes, yet worlds, apart. A little girl brings people together, with the help of her celestial best friends.

Sep 3 2011

Go on a Rampage of Appreciation

Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires A couple of weeks ago I was in the doldrums, caught in the grips of “stinkin’ thinkin’, as Zig Ziglar used to say. Getting nowhere fast and seeing my glass half-empty. I recalled the words of another guru, Wayne Dyer–“Change your thinking, change your life.” So, I trolled the Kindle spiritual books page and happened upon  Ask and It Shall Be Given: Learning to Manifest by Esther & Jerry Hicks. Originally published in 2004, I’d heard the CD version, but never read the book.

It is channeled material via a group of souls called Abraham, which elicits a scary boogey-man reaction from many people. Or as my husband calls it, “a lot of bu**%t.” However, living a Supernal Life makes such things no big deal whatsoever. It’s the information that is important. Is it worth considering?

Ask and It Shall Be Given has influenced the thinking and lexicon of the past decade. The Law of Attraction has become an industry in itself. Rhonda Byrne turned soundbites into The Secret, which is still a New Age top seller. Phrases like The Art of Allowing, Vibrational Set-Point,   and Overwhelment created a whole Abrahamic vocabulary to illustrate the Law of Attraction. Simplified it means, the thoughts you project out bring in the events of your life. Or, we all create our own reality.

Yeah, yeah, yeah you say. But, if you take the time to read the book, you’ll see yourself reflected. At least, I did. It has given me some tools to transform my stinkin’ thinkin’ into a Rampage of Appreciation. And, guess what? Better things have been coming my way. I received two calls “out of the blue” this week to improve  situations  that seemed dismal. Positive reviews have popped up about my books. Coincidence? I think not.

Globally, it seems to me there is epidemic “stinkin’ thinkin.” The stock market plunges on fear. The more everyone fears, the more it plunges. Companies don’t hire because they are afraid of the future. People are paralyzed in their fear. If you want to break out of that pack you might consider turning off your TV and turning the pages of Ask and It Shall Be Given. 

The subtitle of  is Learning to Manifest Your Desires. My Supernal friend, Sue, had an interesting realization about the subject. Listen in her own words on the latest pod cast at Supernal Friends on the Hello from Heaven Radio page. We named the episode “Sue’s Manifesting Epiphany.” She also talks about her increasing talent of clairaudience. Pretting interesting stuff!

Have a great Labor Day Weekend–

Dana