How to clear yourself of systemic energy and the pain that accompanies it

An “-ism” is essentially a system of belief and we often identify with an –ism, for example, a religious or political set of beliefs and any community(ies) that support this set of beliefs. In my experience, they can also be the source of a lot of emotional pain.
 
Here’s why: if something is causing you emotional pain, it’s quite possibly because you believe something that isn’t true with a capital T. Another way of saying it is, you’ve attached your identity to a temporary truth or a false belief. Truth with a capital T is eternal, infinite and whole. No pain is there. At all. Now as eternal Divine Sparks embodied as humans, we may experience all sorts of pain. It’s part of the human learning experience. That’s because pain can be an excellent teacher. Pain in the body is a great way to learn that something’s gone wrong and needs attention. So too, it can be with emotional pain.
 
Let me give some examples. I experienced mega-pain during my whistle-blowing saga—for the first year and a half anyway. All the betrayals of ideals by my spiritual community and all the retaliations and betrayals against my family and me had me in a dizzying downward spiral of grief and emotional pain. I won’t go into the details here but as I wrote in My Karma Ran Over My Dogma “my traumometer was tipped way past full.”
 
However, the intense pain woke me up to my Truest Self by motivating me to figure out What The Heck Was Going On. And on that particular day in December of 2002, when I did wake up to my Truest Self, the pain disappeared. In an instant. The grieving just plain stopped. Every onc​e in while since then, when I’m shifting and expanding my energy and it requires me to do some more clearing, I’ve discovered small pieces of residual grief from various incidents throughout my life. And every time I’ve looked at the pain energetically, I see that the pain is there because I’ve attached to some temporary identity. I’ve believed something that’s not really, really TRUE.
 
This is especially helpful when dealing with clearing systemic or “-ism” energy. Given our country’s recent election results, there have been a lot of people in mega-pain over the sense of loss of our country’s ideals, betrayals by certain leaders, and other systemic griefs. I processed my own stuff around what happened and then after that noticed there was still some pain in the outermost periphery of my energy. When I tuned into it, I noticed that it wasn’t mine. It was the collective pain of the country.
 
Now how was this pain I was holding onto on the outer edges connected to something that wasn’t True? Because at the core, my Truest Self isn’t American. Nobody’s is. When my consciousness leaves my body, I’m not American. I’m not female. I’m not white. I’m not even human. I’m divine consciousness awakening back into Itself and Its Truth.  And so is everyone.
 
So when I realized that I was holding a bit of the collective grief of our country, I also realized it was because I had another bit of me that was identifying as American. It’s true temporarily, but it’s not really real with a capital R. It’s just a temporary condition and not my True Self. And so I released that belief. “I as my True Self am not American.” Immediately, I felt the pain and grief at the edges of my energy fields dissipate completely.
 
You can do the same for any system you identify with if you desire. We are all connected with multiple systems of belief, and many isms: Our families of origin, our sex, our gender identities, our schools, our work systems, our spiritual belief systems, and we tie our personal religious, social, and political identities to them. You can release your identifying with any and all of them, as you like, “I release my identity with being a McDowell” “I release my identity with being human” for example, always while also affirming the really big picture, that your True Self is Eternal, Love, Light, Joy, Consciousness, etc.

This doesn’t mean that we leave our lives or ignore what is in front of us. We remain fully engaged, here and now, embracing our soul lessons in embodied form, individually and collectively. It just means that we don’t attach anything permanent (identity, worth, safety, love, joy) to something temporary and not Eternally True.
 
When I woke up to my True Self many years ago, I realized that all the pain from all the betrayals and false beliefs I identified with had been a wonderful teacher. By releasing all of my previous identities in such a big way all at once, the pain left in just as big a way all at once as well. That’s why my grieving just stopped. Now if I experience winces of pain here and there, I welcome it because I know it will teach me to let go even more of what isn’t True, setting me even freer of pain, and inviting in the Big Joy.
 
Here’s my process:
1) Find an emotional pain bobbing around in your awareness.
2) Look at it and ask it questions: Why are you here? What are you about?
3) See if you can pinpoint where the attachment is to something temporary and not True. Are you identifying with Family? Community? Country? Political party? Religion? Or are you holding onto a belief from family, community, country, religion, etc. that isn’t True?
4) Release this identity and/or belief if you are ready and affirm the Truth. “I am not X. I am an Eternally Divine Spark of Consciousness. Ultimately, no harm can come to me.”
 
Repeat this process as necessary or as pain enters into your awareness.
 
As I’ve released more of my false, temporary identities, I have become more fully embodied, centered and grounded, and engaged. I am thus able to keep my balance more easily (or right it more quickly) when individual or collective storms arise, no matter how big or menacing they seem. I know the Truth. And the Truth sets you free.

​--
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

Right now my bathroom sink drain is struggling with a partial clog. I used drain cleaner a couple of weeks ago, which seemed to work, but now the clog is worse. In the past, I’ve found that trying to clear a drain that’s only partially clogged only partially works. It’s not until the drain is nearing a full-on clog that drain cleaner works the best. Perhaps that’s because while the drain is only partially clogged the cleaner can’t get at the core of the clog. It just swishes on by, clearing some but not all of the clog.

In many ways, life and energy can be similar. Until we experience something nearing a full-on block (clog) in our energy, it can be difficult to find the root of the block and clear it all out. If we’re not tuned in at all to our energy and Spirit, we might not notice at all that anything’s amiss. And even if we are tuned into our energy and Spirit, and attempt some inner work and healing, until the block is more fully developed, we might not see the core of the issues. We might understand part of it and clear part of it, but it’ll keep causing bigger and bigger roadblocks in our life until we can see more clearly where the core is out of alignment with our True Self.

Our country has been going more and more out of alignment with its collective True Self for awhile now. Money above all else has corrupted some of our country’s energies and caused our collective actions to be unbalanced in the world. We do have a lot that is in alignment with our collective Soul. We have a lot of health. However, the blocks and clogs in our country’s energy have now reached a critical mass and have revealed themselves by electing a person who from all appearances looks like he may have a personality disorder that is in alignment with tyranny, dictatorship, and other abuses of power.

Having dealt with someone similar in a big way in my life, I can say that although the destruction and pain that someone like him can produce in big ways, that full-on block in my career at the time was the catalyst for clearing me out all the way to the core of my Soul. It drove me to find healing at a deeper level beyond anything I could imagine and led to my awakening to my True Self. I am so, so grateful.

The same can be true for you and for our country…IF we use this as teacher. Everything and everyone is teacher if we choose to learn from what is unfolding in front of us. Even the worst can turn into the best. Here is an excerpt from My Karma Ran Over My Dogma of all that I learned from my dealing with an abusive tyrant. From the chapter, "Find the Blessing in Every Curse": 
"Upon reflection and over time, I realized that--
—because of all the stress from my situation, I learned how to “ride the waves” of a storm and be peaceful when everything was falling down around me. 
—the physical damage to my nerves and internal organs put me on the path of alternative medicine and energy healing, and eventually led me to becoming a healer myself. 
—because of the financial destruction, I learned complete dependence on God’s care for me and my family. 
—through being unjustly fired, formally blacklisted and essentially forced out of the Presbyterian denomination, I discovered a hospitable new spiritual community. 
—because of discrimination against women in the church, I founded a women’s church called Women’s Sanctuary, which provided a welcoming community and spiritual safe haven for other women, many who needed respite from abuses of all kinds in the church. 
—by being smeared and lied about by other ministers to an extent that still boggles my mind, I learned who I really was.  I learned my true core was indestructible."

Awakening to your True Self is the most core healing you can experience. It gets to the root of all clogs and your energy starts moving and flowing in ways you couldn’t have even imagined before the healing shift. You'll have eternally replenishing energy just like a slinky on a treadmill!

​Keep asking and saying to yourself, “Who am I? Wake up! Who am I ? Wake up!”
​
May we use this New Year to awaken to our True Self and to our collective True Self. May it be a catalyst for a mass awakening, the likes of which the world has never seen. Blessings and Peace and Love to all.

​Wouldn’t it be nice about now to have a star that appeared overhead to give us continual day-in and day-out guidance? A star that showed us where to go to avoid traffic delays as well as where to go to avoid life delays? A star that showed us minute-to-minute directions and that showed us the big picture direction as well, especially for our country? Kind of like a Google Guiding Star. Ask a question. Click! The answer!

The Star that guided the magi in the biblical story might be myth, might be literal. I believe in spontaneous miracles and I believe that everything is a miracle. I believe that Nature is always working wonders by way of miracles that a lot of us just don’t even see or experience because we don’t think it’s possible. I’ve had FAR too many synchronicities with animals, birds, clouds, (well, pretty much everything really), to discount the very genuine possibility of an unusual Star that guided some mystical types to the birthplace of Jesus. Honestly, that kind of thing doesn’t even make me blink anymore. And I LOVE that this kind of thing is normal for my paradigm and for many of you. How awesome is that?
 
However, what if we go beyond the “is it myth or is it literal” question and ask if the Guiding Star might also be a metaphor. 

You see, I have seen on occasion the Divine Spark that exists within each and every one of us. Native Americans say we each have a piece of the Creator. In energy healing paradigm this Divine Spark or piece of the Creator is called the “Core Star.” That is because that is exactly what it looks like. At the center of your being and body is a brilliant light that looks like a star, shining out in all directions in brilliant white and yet at the same time multi-colored rainbow light.

​So perhaps regardless of whether the magi’s Star is literal or mythic, it is also metaphor for this Inner Star that we are all seeking in order to find the Christ Consciousness within. This Core Star is pure divinity. It needs no fixing, no healing, no saving, no nothing. It is eternally True, infinitely Source. I have seen and know that within each of us is the Divine Light we are seeking.
 
Now we exist in layers, and so this Guiding Star within that has quite literally taken my breath away whenever I’ve seen it in people, can get covered with layers of life, just like any jewel’s luster can’t be seen if it’s got layers of dust, or anything else on it. And so our great spiritual task in life is to uncover and clear more and more of what is just stuff, just temporary, just not the true us, until finally we can see a speck of that ever-glimmering Star within. Others might even be able to see our Light shining too. And when we clear enough of the layers away, then we can consciously tap into our Divine Light and follow that moment-to-moment and big picture guidance that it’s always giving. Your Guiding Star has been there all along. You are always connected to it, even when not always aware of it. It is always eternally shining, even when you don’t always see that in yourself or others. It is there—this beautiful gorgeous spark of all things divine: love, joy, peace, abundance, generosity, wisdom, etc.
 
So for me what some people think is outrageous or awe-inspiring: the belief that Jesus is both fully human and divine is nothing compared to when you realize that the truth about him is the truth about all of us. We are each Christ, each “God dressed up in drag” as they say. We are fully Divine and human: A Divine Spark, a Core Star of light all dressed up in human form. What a concept! How absurd! How outrageous! How wonder-ful!
 
Meditate and contemplate on this bright Star within. Picture it in your mind’s eye. See it glowing and expanding in all directions, reaching everyone and everything on the planet, and then reaching out into the Cosmos. Get quiet and ask for guidance from this Center. 

The Divine Incarnation is everywhere! This is the good news for me.
 
The Core Star Within
(Sing to the tune of “We Three Kings", adapted from the chorus)

O, Star of Wonder, Star of night,
Star with royal beauty bright,
Loveward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us with this Perfect Light.

​As we in the northern hemisphere find our daylight diminishing and the night increasing, our bodies move into the rhythms of rest and renewal, even of hibernation. Well, at least our bodies try. Our society fights against the earth’s rhythms with all of its might through lots and lots of lumens of artificial light. Think about life before the advent of artificial life: it was tough to do much or go anywhere after dark without artificial light, because you plain couldn’t see very well. The roads were dark, and lanterns could only do so much to light a way. Just driving up my hill home in the dark when my headlights suddenly went out was illuminating (ha!) in just how much we depend on artificial light especially in the winter. We turn on the lights, the TV, we go places in our lighted cars, we keep busy, busy, busy, even playing sports on fields with massive power lighting the way.
 
We push against the natural flow of yin energy in our very yang society. We force awake what needs to rest, and force to grow what needs to lie fallow.
 
Perhaps this is because of the Westerner’s idea that darkness is bad: The Light versus the Darkness in a nearly never-ending battle of good versus evil. In Eastern philosophy we find a different idea. We find that not all darkness is bad. In fact, most of it isn’t. Darkness is good and necessary. The darkness of rich, black fertile soil requires compost and fallow times in order for the growth of spring. The darkness of space and the night sky, allows rest of bodies and minds from constant motion. The darkness of the womb allows for gestation and creation.
 
In typical Western fashion we have misunderstood the yin—symbol of the feminine principle and darkness and the yang—symbol of the masculine principle and light. In the West, many interpret that the white or yang part of the yin-yang symbol means good and the black or yin part means bad or evil. We have imposed good vs. evil onto another paradigm that doesn’t call for it. In Taoism, both yin and yang are good, both are necessary, and they require balance between the two for health and harmony. In fact in the Tao Te Ching, there is one verse I’d translate as “Nod to the yang, but bow to the yin.” In other words, if you have to choose which one should be slightly ahead in the dynamic balance between yin and yang, choose yin.

​There may be several things that contribute to our society’s misunderstandings of light and dark and it’s imbalanced push of yang over yin. Perhaps our childhood fears of being afraid in the dark are a factor. Perhaps it is because when it is light out in the spring and summer, we still live mainly indoors and miss the feeding of light our bodies need from the extra sun, so we feel intensely the lack of light in the winter, crave it, and keep the lights on, which keeps us up and busy. Perhaps our rejection of the sacred feminine in religions compounds it. Perhaps the Caucasian ego has posited light (skin) over dark (skin) as a way to gain and hold power in multi-layered systems of racism. Perhaps we are simply addicted to stimulation.
 
This autumn leading up to the winter solstice, choose to honor the goodness of darkness, the blessing of darkness. Have times for deep rest, for space and sacred nourishment apart from the busyness of the holidays. Honor the sacred feminine. Honor the earth. Honor the black Madonna. Honor whatever feels like nourishment to your body and soul. You may find yourself swimming against our society’s ever-continuous tide toward the out-of-balance yang. I’d recommend not trying to swim against that tide because that’s just more yang energy and it’s exhausting! Instead, just float with the flow of life! When you feel the push to do more, notice the increased feeling of pressure inside, and say, “Hi I see you. I’m going to rest instead.” Get in touch with your body’s natural rhythms through a gentle practice of movement or breathwork or energy work. Feel the Oneness with the earth and with all Life, you’ll know the Flow that is balance and harmony and peace.
 

“All Darkness is full of Light, it’s just Light that’s outside
our field of human vision.” ~FB friend

The Girl with a Gift Earth Monastery project was a creative and contemplative project funded by a generous grant from The Abbey of the Arts. The grant was used to purchase 70 copies of The Girl with a Gift and give the book to groups who agreed to read the book together, discuss the questions at the end of the book, come up with their own earth projects as inspired by the book, and share their projects with their larger communities.

Four groups participated:
Women's Friendship Circle of St. Andrew's Episcopal in Seattle, WA
Book Bunch of St. Paul's United Church of Christ in Waterloo, IL
Book Club of Retired/Current Teachers of St. Matthew's School in Seattle
Salon Cerchio Book Club
​
Below is a summary of each of their projects with pictures.

​St. Andrew’s Episcopal (SAE)
 
SAE distributed the books to three groups in their church: Women’s Friendship Circle, Sacred Grounds, and Creation Keepers, as well as to staff. On April 7th, SAE hosted a discussion about the book, using the discussion questions at the back of the book as a guide for the time. I joined them both for the meeting where they gave the books away and discussed the project in general, and for the meeting where they discussed the book questions after reading the books. SAE coordinated the earth care project with their church’s Sacred Grounds committee, which is in the process of revisioning their church property. SAE decided to plant a plum tree in honor of the earth as a result of reading the book, and as something that would provide additional fruit for their food ministry and burgeoning organic gardens on site. They wrote a paragraph about the unfolding project a few times in their church e-newsletter. Here’s a newsletter that contained a summary paragraph on the project (scroll down). After the discussion group, some of the TGWAG books they received were passed along to new individuals and donated to libraries (the SAE church included) to continue to spread this mustard seed project to others!

St. Paul United Church of Christ (SPUCC)
 
SPUCC has a Book Bunch that regularly reads and discusses books, so they chose TGWAG as their selection for February and they discussed the book with me over Skype on March 22nd.
 
This is a summary written by Rev. Thelma Burgonio-Watson, who led the discussion, and was published in the church newsletter.
 
“After a lively discussion, we pledged to do the following, partly in response to the conditions of receiving TGWAG from the author, a free copy of the book for each Book Bunch member, and ultimately as an authentic and sincere response to what we as readers were moved to do to care for  “Mother Earth”:

1. On our own, we pledged to remember to use recyclable or cloth shopping bags, instead of plastic and invite others to do the same.
2. On a short term and to increase public awareness: On Earth Day/Earth Week, in April, we will request St Paul to publish on the church marquee, these words of the Vietnamese Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh: “Real Change will only happen when we fall in love with the earth”.
3. On a longer term and to invite St Paul to join us in this concern: we will request our church to publish one action item to care for the earth, every Sunday in the worship bulletin for 50 Sundays.
4.One time: One day this summer, one of our members will invite Book Bunch and others to get out and clean up a “road”.
5. Long term: Book Bunch will adopt a road as a “Book Bunch Road” to care for. We will invite others to join us.
6.Very long term, in participation with a church-wide dream: we will join in this dream to convert one of the church parking lots that is seldom used into “raised-vegetable garden to provide fresh produce for Martha’s Kitchen-Mary’s Heart and local food pantries. We invite and welcome anyone who is interested to join us in this attempt to care for the earth, for herein lie our own healing, wholeness and joy and those of the seventh generation.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Others who read the book but who couldn’t attend the discussion also added suggestions such as stop using Styrofoam, and bring in Fair Trade to church.
 
Here are pictures from the discussion group.

​Book club of St. Matthews Teachers/Retired Teachers (SMBC):
 
SMBC read TGWAG in January and then discussed the book with me in attendance at their group on February 26th. They decided to do an earth project in memory of one of their members who had recently died. Her name was Mary—a wonderful synchronicity with the characters and story of TGWAG. The earth project they did was to help beautify the earth and they did so by donating a St. Francis statue that holds birdseed to her private garden and planting flowers around it. They memorialized this earth project with a ceremony and ritual, which was written about by another of their members here.
 
Here are pictures of the group discussion group and memorial ceremony.

​Salon Cerchio Book Club (SCBC):
 
The Salon Cerchio Book Club read and discussed the book in May. They felt overall it was a great and interesting story and outside their office space in Bellevue, WA they are putting up a bird feeder (pine cones with peanut butter and seeds). Next week they will be planting a tree in Lincoln Park in Seattle, WA.
 
Here is a picture of most of the readers!

Thank you all so much for your willingness and your participation! It was a great privilege and honor to listen to your thoughtful questions and comments. I'm so proud of all of your earth projects! And thank you again, to The Abbey of the Arts for providing the Earth Monastery Grant!

One of the best ways for me to see energy fields or auras is when people are on stage and a black velvet curtain is behind them. For some reason, this makes their energy “pop” out for me and I can see the auras amazingly clearly. Since I have children who’ve performed in bands and musical theater groups over the years, I’ve had numerous opportunities to observe instrumentalists, actors, dancers, singers, and other performers and watch what happens to their energies. These are some of the things I’ve noticed.
 
When a choir begins their first number, each singer’s aura is distinct. However, within a few seconds or a few minutes, the entire choir’s energy has merged into a whole. I believe this is because they have an intention “to sing as one” and as such their energy becomes one when they sing.
 
Actors tend to not merge with others, unless they’re singing together (see above), but their energies seem to come out of their hands more than others. This may be because they are intending to communicate not just with their words, but with their actions and gestures. Thus, intentional energy comes out of their hands as they are speaking.
 
Dancers energies change based on their intentions. If a dancer is doing a wide-sweeping movement with their arms or something else expansive, their energy fields expand. When a dancer is doing smaller movements or pulling into their body rather than expanding, their energy fields pull in as well. When two or more dancers are dancing together their energies join when they touch each other. Depending on the style of dance, their energies may stay connected no matter how far apart on stage they are, but often their energies alternate between being merged and being separate.
 
At a recent cabaret, I noticed that one accompanist did an excellent job connecting with the singer’s feelings and intentions. He sat at a keyboard behind the singer he was accompanying, and I could see that energy was shooting out from his chest, arcing over the keyboard and connecting with the back of the singer’s heart chakra while they performed. He was quite literally tuning into the singer’s heart intentions. Another accompanist that evening, who was quite technically able and doing a good job on the keyboard, was nevertheless less heart-centered. Energetically, there was a stream of energy coming from him that somewhat connected with the back of the head of the singer. He was trying to connect on an analytical or thinking level rather than a heart level. I could also see that it was harder to create a sense of oneness between them. In my opinion, the more heart-centered accompanist had much more of a sense of the performer and the music and you could feel the difference in the impact of the performance on the audience.
 
What does this tell us?
1)That intentions matter.  Your intentions send out streams of energy into the universe. I can see this and so can anyone who can see auras/energy fields. What intentions did you set for this New Year? You can set intentions at any time, of course. Every morning, week, month, or season.
2)That intentions impact those around you. As an accompanist, dancer, actor, or as an entire choir, setting the intention to perform as one, merges your energies for a more powerful performance. If you can set intentions with your partner, your family, your colleagues, no matter what you are doing, your energies begin to synch together to impact the world.
3)That a heart-centered intention has more overall impact on a group than a head-centered intention, at least in performance. But perhaps this might be true in any profession. The head-centered intention isn’t disregarded, but is merged with the heart-intention with the heart given the priority.
 
In energy healing and in Reiki I am working with intentions a lot, whether that’s through setting an intention to clear an old energy, or through sending a specific frequency through a symbol. When my client and I share intentions, it helps the energy healing even more. I have found that the more energy I clear and shift for myself the stronger and faster my intentions work in the world. It really is using “the force” and since Reiki just means spiritual healing energy, we are using “the force” in Reiki and in everything we do.
 
Set clear intentions with your heart open.
Set intentions with others.
Set intentions repeatedly and regularly.
Keep clearing and shifting your energy so intentions work better and faster for you.

Have a blessed and joyful 2016!

--
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

When I asked for guidance as to what to write for this month’s blogpost, I got “Fear Not.” I didn’t know if that was telling me to chill out or actually the topic I was to write on. I decided the latter, but who knows?
 
The topic I had been chewing on before this guidance(?) came was “humans as creatures” but I didn’t really have a point, so after this guidance(?) came, I thought maybe the two together could yield a dynamic synergy. Here goes…
 
Last week, when I stood in the long holiday line at the Post Office with only one clerk (!) available, like this...

...I noticed something intuitively. As I was viewing a lot of people’s backsides, the intuitive hit I got was how “creaturely” the people were. They seemed more Hobbitish, or Elvish, or, animalish, than human, with idiosyncrasies, habits, and patterns I can only seem to call “creaturely.” Perhaps that’s why we describe some people as pack rats, piggish, bullish, and the like—because of the creatureliness that is in our genes and in our bodies. Humans, one of many kinds of earthlings, are linked to all other earthlings through a long descent from one-celled organisms, whether you call that creation or evolution or something in between. Our bodies made up of earth and of elements were at one time “one cell” and thus, we earth creatures' cells are all connected—we are all biologically linked in oneness. I tapped into that reality while looking at the backsides of several people. You never know what will trigger intuition!
 
That creatureliness of humanity got me to thinking of the holiday upon us that celebrates God coming as child, as human. Since my paradigm shift many years ago that sees everything at its core as divine, this incarnation holiday has lost a lot of impact. To me it’s no longer special that God is in only one person—I see and experience God in all.
 
However, the intuitive hit I got at the USPS of all places, brought some of that impact back. God as creature. God as animal. God as human animal with all the idiosyncrasies that brings, with all the wonderful things that brings (the unconditional love our animal companions demonstrate to us), and with all the complications that brings (instinctive fear.)
 
And thus, I spiral back to the Fear Not guidance(?) I mentioned at the beginning. We, as human creatures, have instinctive fear hard-wired into us as Nature’s way of keeping alive: running from prey, stampeding away from earthquake tremors about to strike, climbing up trees (walls?) to feel safer. 

Perhaps this is why the angels and Jesus repeatedly said, 

whenever they gave guidance in biblical stories. Our instincts are to retreat, to be afraid when the unknown appears. Our creaturely selves can’t always help it.
 
Except that because we are also Divine Souls in addition to being earthlings, we can awaken to the Divine Within, and can then embrace a larger picture even when the human herd wants to react in fear to any perceived threat. (I may or may not be speaking about recent events that have many people wanting to blame specific religions, specific events, specific politics and keep us in fear.)
 
Fear not. Fear not. Fear not. Do not be afraid. There is no need to worry. All is well. These are words we need to hear again and again as we grow the Divine Within to embrace and transmute all of our creaturely tendencies and habits, even fear, into Divine Creature—All Love. No Fear.

Have a Blessed Holy-Day Season!

Here's a beautiful story, "Claimed by a Wolf" that captures the idea of Divine Creature in Humans and Animals perfectly.

From Never Cry Wolf, an Inuit song:
"I think over again my small adventures, my fears.
Those small ones that seemed so big.
For all the vital things I had to get and to reach.
And yet there is only one great thing, the only thing:
To live to see the great day that dawns
and the light that fills the world."

--
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of the award-winning, The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

This month is all about gratitude. However, it can sometimes seem trite and even callous to encourage feelings of gratitude and thanks, especially when the world is burning in so many places and on so many levels.
 
Nevertheless, holding an attitude of gratitude is incredibly healing for yourself and the world. Here's why:

Gay Hendricks, a spiritually awake therapist and entrepreneur, discusses in his books how brain studies have shown that worry, guilt, and shame all trigger a hit in the pleasure center of the brain.
 
In other words, when we have anxiety, guilt, or shame, it gives us a smallish good feeling on some level we usually aren’t aware of. Perhaps this is because we’re doing something in the face of a situation that we feel powerless in. And so doing SOMETHING, even if it’s feeling guilt, shame, anxiety, helps us feel a teeny bit more in control and the brain gets a feel good hit. And since then your brain knows it’ll feel a little tiny bit better if you feel anxiety, guilt, or shame again, and again, and again…, a pattern is born. A habit is born. Even an addiction to these kinds of emotional and thought patterns can be born. These habits might feel tiny bits of good in your brain, but you probably know from experience that living in guilt, shame, or worry overall feels awful.
 
So what to do? The good news is that, according to Hendricks, brain studies have also shown that feelings and thoughts of gratitude trigger a much bigger hit in the pleasure center of the brain. So gratitude trumps anxiety, guilt, and shame in being a more powerful writer of brain code, if you will. It overwrites any previous programming of habitual anxiety, guilt, or shame, to stimulate stronger feel good feelings of pleasure in the brain. And when you feel and think better, you generally do better for yourself and others. 

So remind yourself that it’s not self-indulgent to count your blessings this Thanksgiving season. When we have more people thinking and feeling better, and therefore doing better, more of the world will feel and follow that light and be better. Count your blessings, feel that gratitude as deeply and as richly as you can, and hold that vibratory frequency as much as possible to help lift a hurting world into its own divine nature.

And for some Thanksgiving humor,
​Kramer from Seinfeld as the Turkey.

This month is an anniversary of a lot of transitions of loved ones in my life and in many friends’ lives. It is an interesting synchronicity, because this half-season between the Autumn Equinox and All Hallow’s Eve is sacred (as all seasons are) because of the awareness that all that comes eventually goes. It reminds us that security is only found in the Eternity within us. Security cannot be found within anything created (person, relationship, money, product, or system) because everything in form is temporary. All arises from the unseen order and all will return to the unseen at the given time. Eternity is our True Nature, though, and within the awareness of Oneness, all that comes and all that goes is never, ever lost. "There is no loss in bliss." When the veil is thin, as it is this time of year, we become more aware of the Truth of this.
 
I found this video on Facebook last month and even though it is sung in a different language it had so much energy behind it, I though they must know something of the unending power of our True Eternal Nature! Then I read the lyrics and wow!
 
Hanggai, the group singing, is a Mongolian Folk Rock group that is rooted in ancient and modern, eastern and western traditions. Listen in:

The song's name translated is “Transmigration” [or Reincarnation] from the album "Go with your Heart." Here are the lyrics. So no wonder the power behind it!
 
Reincarnation
 
"Be it flying bird or blossoming flower, all living beings are alike.
Be it time, air or sunshine, we breathe and we share
Time wheels, we carry on
This moment could be short, it passes by and becomes eternal
 
"Spring, summer, autumn, winter: the seasons always go on
We're born, we live, we age and we die: life always go on
Kingdoms rise and fall, years gone by and still go on
Only the universe is eternal, while our youth never comes back
 
"Last year's sun still clings up in the sky, beautiful old songs still sung by us
We live the limited lives yet pass on crowning glory
There ought to be some faith unmoved in the forever changing world
 
"Spring, summer, autumn, winter: the seasons always go on
We're born, we live, we age and we die: life always go on
Kingdoms rise and fall, years gone by and still go on
Only the universe is eternal, while our youth never comes back
 
"Spring, summer, autumn, winter: the seasons always go on
We're born, we live, we age and we die: life always go on
Kingdoms rise and fall, years gone by and still go on
Only the universe is eternal, while our youth never comes back"
 

Blessings in this thin-veiled time, as we reflect on our own comings and goings, and on our enduring eternal Nature.

This is feeling like me today:

Just a wee bit off.

Knowing this is often how life goes, what do we do to pick ourselves up? Sometimes, we don’t have the ability to pick ourselves up. The fall did too much damage, and we need helping hands. I’d like to think that after this woman’s very bad landing, the bystanders quickly gathered around to help her up and make sure she was okay. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what happened.

This same kind of thing happens all the time on my healing table. People come for healings, for tune-ups, pick-me-ups, and for the experience of connection with Spirit. Quite often they have been broken down by life and simply need some helping hands. The great thing is that I’m just one set of hands among many at the healing table. Angels, healing beings, ancestors, guides, and loved ones on the other side will use my hands and they’ll use their energy hands to surround my client with healing energy.

And when a client can feel their hands or feet or head or shoulders being touched, (and I’m not the one touching them there!), it can be such an experience of homecoming, of knowing that all is well, that not one of us is  alone. Ever. It is heart-opening, and it is paradigm shifting. You might know intellectually that the other side exists, but when you experience it directly  firsthand, it makes it that much more profound and real. It’s not something you can forget or dismiss easily.

It happened to me during my My Karma Ran over My Dogma saga. At night, I would awake to being touched on my shoulder or having my legs massaged by invisible hands. I would hear words whispered, angelic songs sung. Quite literally, the veil was torn open between this material world and the spirit world, and fortunately, it was a permanent tear. I have experienced both worlds and oneness every single day since and I’m so grateful. Unfortunately, it meant my heart had to undergo some very painful transformations to open wide up to the universe. The universe was telling me my heart needed a lot more cowbell...

(If you don’t know what this meme refers to, here’s the funny and classic SNL Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken skit.)

Sometimes our hearts have been devastated by loss, by injustice, by loneliness, by living apart from our soul purpose. They need repair. They need rest. They need the connection with the Divine Heart. They need human connection. They need laughter. They need helping hands working together to create more healing and wholeness.

If your heart needs more cowbell—whatever that might mean for you—ask for signs, ask for help, ask for Spirit. Practice breathwork and meditation that keeps you open and flowing and ready to receive from Spirit. Feel love and joy and peace as much as you can from your heart and act on those feelings as much as possible. Go to a healer if you’re feeling stuck. Be out in Nature and be one with Her. All of these things and more can open our hearts to more trust and more knowing that we are always surrounded by a multitude of unseen helping hands and forces. We are never alone. We are always surrounded, always beloved, always watched over, always. Every single one of us.

--

Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

as in Body Consciousness

as in Body Conversation

Bodies. We all have them, most of us, if not all of us, have complex relationships with our bodies. Unfortunately, what that means for many people is that they have no idea how to communicate effectively with their body. People are rarely taught communication skills with other people. Communication skills with bodies are taught even less often (read: almost never). However, I’m here to help.

I’ll do what I can.

One of the reasons we are so disconnected from our bodies is that our society, having gone the “matter is all that matters” route and therefore spirit doesn’t exist/matter, has ironically, disregarded matter as non-spiritual and non-sacred because matter by definition cannot have spirit, consciousness, energy. The body is just a machine. So how can one have a relationship with one’s body, if the body has no mind, no consciousness, no ability to talk? So people learn to ignore their body’s messages, and sometimes not until the body is literally screaming at them in pain or in dis-ease, do they (maybe) start to learn to tune in. I just read an article by someone in spirituality who wrote that you can’t talk to your body. So, it’s not just the “secular western mindset” that shuts down the possibility of body con!

Another reason we ignore the body’s messages is out of fear. It might reveal something we’d rather not have to confront in ourselves. It might involve change. There are a lot of unknowns involved and people are often afraid of the unknown. It also might mean changing one’s worldview or paradigm, challenging one’s beliefs about what is and is not real, important, or possible. These can all be very threatening.

Another reason is that due to very real trauma, physical, emotional, and mental, our bodies can “shut down” or “freeze” and so when people try to communicate with their bodies, they don’t sense a thing.

However, if healing is what you want (not everyone does), then learning to communicate with your body, is one the best and fastest ways to learn to heal. The body has innate, powerful wisdom that you can tap into and as a healer, I can tell you the body DOES talk. If I place my hands on a client’s body or tune into where there is an issue, almost instantly, I’ll start hearing words as to what the body is saying. 

The body might be holding emotionally unresolved issues there. It might be asking for something (nutrition, affirmation, some substance it wants/needs to heal). It may be repeating a limiting or negative thought pattern almost like a broken record keeps repeating itself. The body has its own consciousness, like all matter does. In the paradigm of oneness, matter and spirit are both sacred energy, and both matter.

The best way to talk to your body temple (as it houses your soul), is to talk to it gently, like you would a child. Yelling at it, getting mad at it, hating it, or shunning it, will do to it just like it will to a small child, frighten it into the background so it gets harder and harder to hear. So, the first thing to do if you’ve treated your body harshly or given it the silent treatment is to regain its trust.

1) Get into a quiet meditative state.
2) Tell your body out loud or with your mind that you’d like to start listening to it. Tell your body you are sorry and ask for forgiveness if you’ve been harsh with it in the past.
3) Tell it you would like to learn how to earn its trust, and work with it as a partner to help it get better and stronger and healthier. Let your body know that it is safe with you, no matter what has happened to it in the past.
4) Reaffirm that your intentions are for love, peace, happiness and health.
5) Bring to mind a memory of having a lot of fun, joy, feeling good in your body. Feel those feelings and let your body feel those feelings from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. Rest in those good feelings as much as you can.

As you make progress connecting and communicating with your own body again, remember to be kind to yourself and kind to your body. Giving your body positive feel good images will help it to know that you are wanting it to be better and feel good. 

This, of course, does not mean wanting your body to match some kind of unrealistic Hollywood ideal. It means loving and accepting it as it is now and then working with it to be healthy and happy and joyful. Perfection or even the standard of “the healthiest my body can be” comes from a driven, yang energy that is actually out of balance. You want healthy and getting healthier in joy, a balance of yang and yin, with goals but also with a lot of playful rest.

An actress, Hayley Atwell, was told by Miramax that she needed to lose weight for her role in “Brideshead Revisted.” She thought she should but then her co-star, the great Emma Thompson, told her, “You’re not a model. You’re an actor.” So Hayley didn’t lose the weight and they accepted it. In Evening Standard, Hayley remarked about this, “If I’ve ever had an insecurity about myself in this industry, Emma always has an amazing ability to say something to put it all into perspective, so that you don’t hate yourself.”

If you can’t quite get the hang of not hating your body, imagine Emma Thompson as your spirit animal, whispering words of wisdom to you and your body and repeat after her!

Then place your hands on whatever part of your body you want and send love energy through your hands to your body. Love heals. Always.

or, Doom and Gloom or Hope and Glory?

Recently, I’ve read a couple of predictions by intuitives about the future. One is by a man whose out-of-body experiences with a future incarnation of himself has informed his current self that within the next few decades most of the earth will be inundated with a flood that nearly wipes out humanity. Grim. The other is by a man who also has an out-of-body experience with a future self, but he says that humanity will successfully navigate the treacherous environmental waters we’re currently in, and make remarkable leaps forward on all sorts of levels. Hopeful.

Which intuitive do you believe?

Fortunately, there is wisdom. Lorna Byrne, who has seen and spoken with angels since she was an infant, says the angels have shown her MANY possible futures, some very dismal, others very hopeful, and most somewhere inbetween. She is told that humanity has currently steered away from complete devastation and extinction, so that’s good news, but still how do we know what’s going on with all of these possibilities?

When people see a vision, or are shown something in the future through their third eye, (or merge with a future self), that future is never set in stone. Whatever is seen is most likely probable not predictive. It all depends on how high the probability is set. Daskalos, a healer from Cyprus and considered the great Christian mystic of the past century, talked about personal karma only being set about 1-3 days out, and even then you couldn’t be absolutely certain. Otherwise, with free will and personal choices, people can change the future. The future is simply a complex matrix of probabilities. Anything is possible, but not everything is probable.

Here’s an example. Last summer, before I was going to go on a mini-vacation to Cannon Beach, Oregon, I had a psychic dream. For me a psychic dream (see my e-zine this month for the explanation of different dream states) means my third eye opens while I’m asleep and I start to see future probabilities. In this particular psychic dream, I saw myself driving my car and then T-boning another car. Yikes.

And indeed, that weekend, as I was driving to the Oregon coast, a driver whose car was parked on the side of the road in a random spot, suddenly and inexplicably reversed, directly in front of and perpendicular to me, while I was driving at 35 mph. Why she did this was beyond me. I wasn’t the only car on the road, so she must not have looked at all to see if it was safe to stick her car out into oncoming traffic.

So here I was facing the exact same scene I had seen in my psychic dream. She was stopped right in front of me and it looked like there was nowhere for me to go: To the left was a big berm with a semi-truck parked beside it and I was driving on a one-lane section of the road that to the right had a large, high curb. So my only option other than hitting her was to try to swerve into the narrow pull-off where she had suddenly pulled out of. Thus, while slamming on my brakes and blaring my horn, I turned to the right to try to avoid t-boning her. Then, suddenly, she put it in drive and gunned it back into the turn off spot, right where I was now headed! I had to quickly swerve to the left in order not to t-bone her (again).

Yes, it was what I had seen in my third eye, except that my quick maneuvering worked. I didn’t T-bone her. Thankfully. I was able to get around her and continue on. The probability of crashing into her had been extremely high considering my speed and how closely she had suddenly shot out in front of me with no warning. However, what I had seen in my third eye still wasn’t predictive. Perhaps because of what I had seen in my third eye, I was given a soul warning and it caused me to react more quickly. I don’t know that for sure, but I do know that I didn’t hit her and very easily could have. Regardless, my psychic dream showed a probability but it was not predictive at 100%.

When any intuitive reads your future energy, they are also reading probabilities based on where you are at spiritually and energetically at the time of the reading (as well as where THEY are spiritually and energetically—they may not be able to see some possibilities, may misinterpret others...) However, if your personal choices tomorrow go in a different direction than whatever trajectory you are currently on, your future possibilities and probabilities change.

There may be some absolutes that are set in your lifetime. Your soul may have chosen to meet one or more soulmates from previous lives. Your soul may have set up certain conditions to help you work through karma and learn certain spiritual lessons. However, your response is not set. You can choose. You do choose. All the time. You might in fact meet a soulmate, as your soul predetermined, but you decide not to marry or befriend that person for any number of reasons. You might have a chance to go in many career directions, but because you’ve chosen one particular one, say counseling, your spiritual lessons are unique to that profession.

Each and every choice you make alters your future, and this is true with humanity’s future as well. This may be a relief to some of you, but might cause others of you to worry. But no worries, no matter what you choose, you (and we all) will in time, in lifetimes, and in the multi-dimensional universes, work everything out in the way that is exactly right. And you can always ask for help and guidance, and commit your way to the highest and best for you and all. Remember that you, the True You, is always ultimately and eternally safe, no matter what you choose, no matter what happens. The True You shines into infinity and beyond. All past, present, and future choices and circumstances dissolve into the Love you and we all are.

Or, A Sweet Tool to Heal the Past

The WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) meme is an old one nowadays. However, I saw this recently, thought it was funny, so decided to share it:

While it’s great to contemplate what Jesus or Jung or Oprah or a saint or spiritual master would do, the same divinity that’s in them is in you and your own higher self can bring that same Loving awareness into the painful past and heal it. So next time a regretful memory surfaces, see it as an opportunity to ask WWID, the I that is always and infinitely Divine and Whole and Love and Peace and Joy!
--

Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

It’s a good thing to be able to intuit energy. It can really help to go about your day by understanding and reading the energy of another, or of one’s environment, or the earth, or the planets, moon and sun. Many of you are empaths, too, and can feel the energy of the other. I am one myself.

HOWEVUH.

Once you’ve accepted that everything is energy and you’ve increased your intuitive skills in whatever form they come (telepathic, clairvoyant, sentient, clairaudient, empathic, etc.) to the extent that you are more or less competent in one or more area(s) of reading energy, you come to another level.

This is learning to not soak up and/or read all the energies around you, but to transform them by setting and sending your own energy, or shifting from empath to PROpath.

In other words, you change your radio signals from primarily “receiving” to primarily “sending.” You’re not just picking up energies, you’re a transmitter of energy signals. You are PROactively PROjecting into the world your True Nature. Not just an empath, but a PROpath.

You see, if you’re sending, it really doesn’t matter what someone else’s energy is reading as, or what the moon is reading as, or any part of your environment is reading as. If you know what they are reading, it’s all good. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just that external energies become irrelevant when what you’re all about is vibrating with love, joy, peace, abundance, etc., etc. If you can stay in Love, Be Love, vibrate Love, what does it matter what the energy is around you? You go into your Love Zone and shine it, send it, transmit it, and pretty soon, the whole environment around you has shifted. Don’t believe me? TRY it. No matter what is happening around you, say to yourself: This dissolves into the energy of Divine Love or Divine Peace, or Divine Abundance, or whatever you want it to dissolve into. And then go into that Zone and feel it and Be it. Hold that energy no matter what and see "the whats" change.

Am I perfect at this? No. Not even close. But the more I practice it, the more things shift and the faster they shift. And even if they don’t, it doesn’t matter, because I know who I am. I know the Truth.

For example, I was noticing during the most recent Mercury Retrograde (which I no longer allow to have any power over me), that a pattern was happening. I’d get phone calls from companies that I have contracts with, and they’d tell me that “blah-blah-blah” had happened and it was all a mess. And I’d respond in kind, working myself up into a dither, “Oh no, what am I gonna do? This IS a mess. This is gonna take me hours and hours of time to fix and it’s all their fault.” I’d get really upset and storm about a bit and feel really frustrated that this “problem” had happened and I had very little control over it. And then it’d turn out that a few days later I’d get a call back from the company, and they’d tell me, “Oh never mind. We had it wrong. There’s no problem at all. Sorry. Bye.” This happened three times right in a row with different companies. Weird, right? So I said to myself, “Self, this is teaching you that you are believing in what is not real. Next time when you have a so-called ‘problem’ presented to you, don’t believe it. Dissolve it.”

And so I started experimenting with this wonderful lesson. The next week, I got a bill from a company that had incorrectly charged us. At first, the old script kicked in, “Oh no, this is gonna take me hours to resolve…” But I caught myself and said, “CANCEL. Cancel that, Universe. Let’s try this again.” And I started over, saying, “This issue dissolves in Divine Abundance. This issue DISSOLVES in Divine Abundance.” Then when I had shifted into my True Nature, I called the company and it was totally taken care of—no hassle, no problem, no nothing. The Universe threw another two situations my way, maybe to balance out the three from the Mercury Retrograde: Hey, she missed our pitches three times in a row, let’s see if now that’s she’s a little more aware, she can hit our pitches three times in a row. And sure enough, every time I reaffirmed my True Nature, it dissolved, easily and quickly. Another one of these pitches to me was this: My relatively new toaster started a small electrical fire inside itself. It was too long after purchase to take it back to the store so I had to call the manufacturer since it was still under warranty. Before I called, I again caught the old script wanting to take over to affirm what a problem I had been dealt, but then I reaffirmed the truth, called the manufacturer and voila! I got a new more expensive toaster shipped to me for free a week later and they shipped my old toaster back for free. Awesome!

Now these were relatively small lessons. I’ve got a couple of biggies I’m still working on. I’m continuing to affirm my True Nature, knowing that the size of the issue doesn’t matter. I Am. I am. I AM. It all dissolves in the Oneness of who I and we all are. 

So, thus, by setting my own tone, and then sending out that tone, I shift my environs to match, to vibrate, to resonate with me. So even Mercury Retrograde becomes Mercury RetroGRACE! You see, sometimes under all that “reading of external energies” is a current of fear. I need to know what’s happening, so I can anticipate it. So I can avoid it if necessary. So I can be safe. So I can be protected. So I can control it So I won’t be hurt. And so on.

What I am not saying is to ignore a true intuitive hit, such as when you’re driving and you get the strong impression: “Take I-5 home not I-405.” Intuitive hits might indeed protect you from an accident and keep you safe. I’m merely emphasizing the need to shift from the underlying belief that, “The world isn’t a safe place and I need to use my intuition to read all these energies to try to protect myself” to “I know I am always safe and my intuition helps me stay in the safety that I Am.”

For example, the other morning before I woke up, I had several intuitive hits about being in car accidents. I often get my intuitive hits in the morning before I wake up. This particular morning, the intuitive hits about car accidents came with an energy—an elemental (thought form) that was very strong that said in essence, “In tragedies like car accidents, people’s lives are transformed. They find a new path, a stronger path, a soul path that they wouldn’t have without the car crash.” Now to a certain extent this is true. Tragedy often stimulates soul growth. I know. Read My Karma Ran Over My Dogma if you don’t know that I know.

HOWEVUH.

Not always does tragedy stimulate soul growth. It depends on the person. AND tragedy is not always needed to stimulate soul growth. So, after I woke up, I started affirming my True Nature. “I am. I am safe. I am always surrounded by safety. I affirm that I do not need tragedy to change my path. I do not need cataclysm for soul growth. I can change my path and expand my soul by listening to my inner self, my True Nature as best as I can. I can make radical changes gently, one step at a time. I no longer need tragedy to transform.” I affirmed this as I headed out on a day trip with my kids. And do you know, we were very nearly in six car accidents on that trip. SIX! However, each and every time, I saw the potential accident just before it almost happened, or could feel that one was about to happen and sure enough, a driver would then start to swerve toward me without looking, signaling, or whatever, and each and every time I was able to prevent the accident.

While I was driving I continued to affirm what I felt the need to affirm that morning and it changed my environs. My intuition informed me of the strong elemental that was trying to impact me. But I listened, and then I shifted into my True Nature to transmit a new vibration that transformed my circumstances. I didn’t start my day with “Oh no, what energy is out there today? What do I need to be aware of, so I don’t get hurt?” or “Oh no, my intuition is telling me I’m going to be in a car accident!” No, my intuition came to me and informed me, and I shifted it into something else.

Use your intuition simply to INFORM you so you can TRANSFORM your world. Read the energies that come to you, but don’t be afraid of them, defined by them, or even imprinted from them. Even if you don’t get any intuitive hits or don’t read energy, just go about shining your Light, your Love, your Beingness as much as you can and that’ll send out a beacon to the universe to send some more Love, and Light, and Joy your way, so you can then send out even MORE Light and Love and Joy back out again and so on and so on!!

--

Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

Or, How to Get Unstuck in your Life!

Sometimes, life is like this...

...you're trapped in a car crash between two semi-trucks.*

I’ve felt like that at times. There are no seemingly good options, or rather no options at all, good or bad. It is what it is and you’re trapped without a solution. Anything you do, doesn’t work.

It can be this way with our thoughts and beliefs, too. We can get mentally trapped, which clinically is called a double-bind. Double-binds happen when belief systems or paradigms collide. When individuals with a lot of charisma intentionally use double-binds, you’re likely to get brain-washed by these so-called leaders, and join up with their cult. When charismatic individuals use double-binds unintentionally, you’re likely to get a lot of blind followers that might not be culties, but aren’t exactly aware of why their loyalty to a certain leader is so fervent, either.

And “enlightened” teachers are not immune any more than other leaders. There is one particular spiritual teacher whose methods are classic double-binds right out of a psychology textbook. But she is lauded as one of the great spiritual teachers in the world, and many people and other spiritual leaders I respect are loyal to her and her teachings. Her content might be good—the way she gets people to adhere to them, well, it’s definitely a form of brainwashing. Whether she does so intentionally or unintentionally, I don’t know, but I do warn individuals when I hear them talk about her work, so that if they want to, they can research her methodology for themselves.

However, double-binds get used in lots of other ways in systems of all kinds, from religion to politics to families.

Here’s one I grew up with that combined family and religion: God is unconditional love and God’ll throw you into hell if you don’t follow Jesus the way we say. You see how that’s a double-bind? If you agree with it, you’re agreeing to something that in no way makes sense. You’re agreeing to agree with nonsensicalism. How can unconditional love have a condition? Answer: it can’t, but if you want to not get thrown into hell, you have to agree that x does not equal x. You have to agree on some level to adhere to crazy. If you don’t agree, then you’re going to hell. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

It can happen emotionally in families in not much less insidious ways, where a parent says to a child, “It’ll kill me if you leave home.” So the child is emotionally trapped. If the child grows up and leaves home, then they’re to blame if the parent dies (or gets sick or an accident happens) and if the child doesn’t leave home, the child can’t grow into the person they are meant to be (and thus “dies” to their own life).

The thing is, humans tend to be FULL of double-binding beliefs, either put there by religions, families, societies, or even oneself. Most double-binds are really not all that troublesome. They’re like gnats in our mental and emotional field—no real harm. However, they can become troublesome—imagine if you will, those gnats growing into flying elephants in your fields! And they grew so gradually, you didn’t even know it! And then, of course, there are the double-binding beliefs that are mighty troublesome right at the outset. The challenge is finding where in the world those double-binds are inside of ourselves, and then finding how to get out of them. THERE IS ALWAYS a way out of them, even if it looks like there are none. To do this you have to go a little (or a lot) Zen.

But first, let’s deal with finding them. Then we’ll deal with finding a way out of them.

Finding them.

You probably have some troublesome double-binding beliefs…

If you are stuck in your life.

If you are unable to accomplish a goal.

If you are constantly sabotaging yourself.

If you are continually attracting relationships and situations that sabotage yourself.

If you can say yes to anyone of these, then try to bring to mind two conflicting beliefs that are colliding and preventing forward progress. Here are some examples:

1) It would be good for me to lose weight v. It would be bad for me to lose weight because then I’d attract more attention from men and I’m not comfortable with that

Result: No weight loss or yo-yoing on weight loss

2) It would be great to have some more income v. It would be bad for me to have some more income because then I have to pay more taxes, higher insurance rates, be more responsible, etc.

Result: Never finding success or frittering any success away

3) I’d love to go to Hawaii on vacation v. I am afraid of flying in airplanes

Result: Never going to Hawaii

4) God is Love v. Love isn’t completely trustworthy—you’ll be betrayed

Result: Never completely surrendering to Love

So, now try it yourself: Answer this question with the first thing that comes to mind. I want _____ but I don’t want this because ______.

The important thing is to find and then bring both conflicting beliefs into your awareness.

When you see both things, then you can find a way out.

How to find a way out.

1. If you know EFT, do EFT with each conflicting belief, until you feel relief and clarity.

2. If you don’t know EFT, hold both beliefs, no matter how much they conflict, in your awareness.

3. Keep holding them until there is a release of some kind, usually emotional, but sometimes the release comes by way of insight.

4. Once the release comes, it will be quite obvious how to shift into a larger paradigm, and this new paradigm will then resolve the double-bind quite easily and even naturally.

For example, #4 above “God is Love v. Love can betray. The more you hold these two beliefs in your awareness, you come to release emotional pain you’ve held from past betrayals by those who said they loved you or whom you believed loved you. Then you have the insight that Love is unconditional and that if they loved you unconditionally, they would not have betrayed you. You have now shifted into a larger paradigm where unconditional Love never betrays. You can now easily resolve these seemingly conflicting beliefs by realizing that betrayals are not examples of Love in unconditional form and therefore God/Love can be trusted.

When you experience this release and insight from resolving the seeming conflict or even paradox, then you have what some in social action circles call "the 3rd way" and what in Zen is called Satori- which is on the one hand a incredible RELIEF like this: 

And on the other hand is incredibly empowering. You find clarity. You find you have ways to answer the unanswerable. This is why Zen Buddhists and others use Koans for their enlightenment practice, such as, what is the sound of one hand clapping? They intentionally EMBRACE the seemingly conflicted, the paradoxical, in order to help their minds shift into larger perspectives that can find the 3rd way—the way when there is no way. This is much different than spiritual leaders using double-bindedness to trap followers. Rather this practice encourages a person to refuse to ever be trapped with double-bindedness.

Jesus, too, was an expert in getting unstuck by finding 3rd ways. Again and again, he slipped out of the religious and political double-binds of his day. The brilliant book, The Powers that Be, by Walter Wink** illustrates this. Take the classic saying of Jesus, “If someone forces you to go one mile, go a second mile.” What Jesus was referring to here, was the ability of a Roman soldier to FORCE a Jew or occupied resident to carry his load for a mile. However, the law was that the soldier could only force a Jew to do so for ONE mile. Jews couldn’t refuse, and they had to drop everything they were doing and obey. Jesus here isn’t saying “be complicitous” or “be generous,” but actually encouraging his listeners into social action outside the two double-binding options: obey and be punished with a soldier's load or disobey and be punished in court. You see, it was illegal for the soldier to conscript a person for more than one mile, so by carrying the soldier’s bag for TWO miles, the two-miler has now upset the apple cart and created a third option, one that could get the soldier in serious trouble. Wink writes, “If [the soldier] has enjoyed feeling superior to the vanquished, he will not enjoy it today. Imagine a Roman infantryman pleading with a Jew to give back his pack! The humor of this scene may have escaped us, but it could scarcely have been lost on Jesus' hearers…”

You see how that breaks the double bind? You are free. You are free. You are free. Nothing can bind you. Nothing. Nothing at all. You are always free. Even in a Nazi concentration camp, Victor Frankl discovered the freedom available in the worst of double-bindedness. Read several of Frankl's insightful short quotes here.

You are so free, in fact, that even this is a possibility for you...

When you understand you are free, you realize that no matter how crazy you might seem to others, you are actually the very definition of sanity in a very crazy, double-binding world.

*The man in the photo escaped this incredible crash with only two bandages! How's that for a great metaphor of a "3rd way" out of a double-bind?
**If you want to read more on Jesus' reinterpretation of “turning the other cheek,” “giving your cloak as well,” and “going the extra mile,” here’s an excerpt from Wink's book explaining Jesus’ "3rd ways" out of societal double-binds.

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Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

Putting said book and movie totally aside (ahem), let’s focus on what Love really means.

From my perspective, everything in the entire universe is sourced and continually fueled from Love. And because we live in a multi-dimensional universe, Love is revealed through the many layers of vibrations (shades?), even into the densest of all vibrations/shades—physical form. There are many implications that result. Consider:

1. Thus, there are many levels of Love. It begins with the perfect unconditional Divine Love for all that is the highest vibration and the strongest power known. 

2. From there through various lower vibrations, we can experience familial love, friendship love, romantic love, etc.

3. It also means that even the lesser forms of our emotions are just lower vibrations of Love. Let me explain with the emotion of fear. What do you fear? You might fear losing someone. Why? BECAUSE YOU LOVE THEM! You might fear something bad happening to you. Why? BECAUSE YOU LOVE YOURSELF! Think of that! Every lesser form of emotion is simply a lower vibration of Love that got a little lost and maybe a little twisted and needs tweaking, needs upping into a higher form of Love. Fear just forgot that it is Love and needs to be reminded where it came from!

4. For your own transformation, then, you can use anything that comes your way as a teacher to help you transmute the lower frequency of whatever energy that is in your life into a higher vibration of Love. This always reminds me of this Rumi poem:

Even if you can’t yet see the Love, if you know it is there, you can work with what’s happening to shift into Love. So if you feel fear or anger, ask yourself, What about this feeling is coming from or pointing to Love? Maybe an injustice makes you feel anger, and you realize in asking yourself this question, What about this anger is coming from or pointing to Love?, that you’re angry because you love fairness and equality. So, what you can do, is rather than focus on the anger, shift it up a notch and focus on FEELING AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE all the Love you have for fairness and equality.

5. So, even if a person or circumstance in your Life isn’t demonstrating perfect Divine Love, that Love is still present anyhow, no matter how absent it might seem. Even what most people would consider the worst of humanity and the worst circumstances in the world have Love in them—somewhere. Even if hatred appears to be what is most forthcoming from a person, group, or circumstance, and even if a LOT of people agree on that, Love is still there, even if only in a spark, even if totally hidden from your eyes, because Love is in every single atom and subatomic particle, everywhere. Without Love energy, nothing would exist. “Love makes the world go ‘round” is quite an accurate lyric.

6. What this does not mean is that we tolerate abuse or other acts of hatred that demean others or ourselves. (Okay, so maybe I’m bringing in a little social commentary on the book/movie which probably should be called 50 Shades of Domestic Violence—Hey, I’m a preacher by training—I can’t help myself!) It does mean we can refuse to get caught up in the drama of the hate, fear, or whatever is presenting, to pull us off our own center. We can stay in the Love that we know and we are and act from there to love others and ourselves in ways that bring not only personal healing and transformation but social healing and transformation. 

7. By focusing on the Love in your body, you bring healing to this dense vibratory miracle of embodied soul living. Drawing hearts over your body even helps your Radiant Circuits. Here’s Donna Eden and daughters showing you how:  

I was reminded this past week, that even in energy healing, going back to the basics can be just as effective as turning to the complex, and sometimes even more effective. Many, many years ago, I had a number of slight left knee injuries: twists, sprains, and bruises from playing volleyball and doing some gymnastics in school. Having also been a runner for most of my life may or may not have contributed to the decline of my knee’s health in recent years, but pounding the pavement is no longer an option for me.

Anyway, my knee was descending into complete pain and weakness, even on my daily walks, and none of the healers that had worked on it had been able to bring it up in overall health any more than a notch or were only able to bring me a temporary reprieve from its suffering.

So, I lathered it in castor oil every night over the holidays to see if any cell-memory or the like was coming through that hadn’t yet emerged in prior attempts at healing it. I did have a few small dreams that each gave a bit of insight, but there was no noticeable improvement in the knee. Then I’d finally had it! Enough! I’m going to try to heal this “the old-fashioned way” (ha!), and so every night before bed I started to doing the most basic of chakra clearing techniques over my knee. (Our joints and organs all have their own minor chakras.) I first made counterclockwise circles to unwind and release any stuck energy, then I made clockwise circles to re-energize and strengthen the knee’s energy. This is like going back to A B C in terms of energy healing. It’s one of the very first things I learned as an energy healer-to-be—maybe the first, actually.

Different evenings, I could tell that my chakra clearings were connecting with the energy in my knee as I could feel the pain moving through my knee as I circled the energy back and around, telling me that I was definitely connecting with the injured energy and moving it. Then the third night, I circled up much higher through the various layers of my auric field and felt and saw a very sparkly energy and started the circling at that level. Voila! Since then the pain in my knee is gone and I’m having no more weak knee moments while walking. Gosh, why did it take me so long to try the most basic of energy healing techniques?

Isn’t that so human though? To think the more exotic, the more new-fangled, the more complex must be more sophisticated and effective? In my knee situation it really was as easy as A B C, 1 2 3 and being a child ages 5-15 in the 70s, means cue the Jacksons…

And here’s a funny but longer version if you’d rather, with the classic Carol Burnett (has any new comedy ever improved what her show did??) AND the Jackson 5 (and an earthquake!)

In any New Year, we often think we have to come up with something NEW to fix our lives. But perhaps, rather than just pursuing newer and better, look at the things that HAVE worked for you in the past that maybe you’ve let slide. Although the newest teacher or teaching, the newest technique or book, the newest tool or recipe may indeed have just what you need—I know I’ve learned plenty from many new things—however, the balance is also remembering what is now and what works now.

Breathe slowly and mindfully to find peace. You don’t necessarily need a new meditation technique.

Take gentle walks in nature alone or with loved ones to restore and renew one’s energy.

Eat good nourishing live food in simple recipes that are old favorites.

Take one’s time with whatever craft or art you love or that brings you joy. I mean, look at all that master workmanship in European cathedrals and castles (Downton Abbey, anyone?) we still celebrate centuries later that cannot be duplicated by the fast and the cheap.

Enjoy what is now and what is working. The pursuit of the new and exotic may just be a symptom of something you’re running away from or an addiction to our consumeristic systemic consciousness in which enough can never be enough. “Everything I needed to know I learned in Kindegarten” isn’t quite true in my case—I doubt it is in yours, either. But returning from time-to-time to the basics in any endeavor can often bring healing or satisfaction beyond any new pursuit.

Happy New Year!

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Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

You are Light. This is the essence of your divine spark or core star that exists at the center of your being (depicted above) and what I consider the Christ Consciousness or Buddha Nature that can be awakened within us. The spiritual Truth of the Christ Light born in us this season is this: The Divine incarnation is already within each of us waiting to be acknowledged, honored, and allowed to shine brightly. This Light is in everyone and is always there. It doesn’t matter what religion you are or are not. It doesn’t matter whether you consider yourself spiritual or not. It doesn’t matter how much smudge you’ve accumulated over years or lives. It doesn’t matter what dark circumstances may be in your life or in the world. The Light that you are is always shining brightly into all of your dimensions: your hara, your aura, and your body. It is shining in everyone and in and through everything.

The question for you is how much of that eternal light is shining through you? At the core, we are all infinitely and eternally bright. How much of that light comes through at a certain moment in time depends on a multitude of factors, such as how much inner work you’ve done, how in alignment with your soul purpose you are, how physically well you are, etc. Some of this you can choose. Some of this is pre-selected by your soul and you don’t have a lot of control—it really is a case-by-case. For example, it may be a soul’s design to experience a lifetime without a conscious connection to the Light. This may teach the soul all sorts of things, especially compassion for others who are not aware of their own connection to the Light. Each path is different. It is important to respect and honor all paths. Even if it is a soul’s journey in a particular lifetime to experience disconnection, the Truth is still there. They are light. Everyone is.

Sometimes, I wish everyone’s eyes would be open for just a few moments so they could see that Light that everyone and everything is. Of course, some people would dismiss what they saw, explaining it away, or shrugging it off. But a few, a lot maybe, would start to see things in themselves and in their life differently. I know. It happened to me. Once I started seeing energy and auras, well, it was down the rabbit hole and a whole lotta wonderful woo-woo from there on out. If you’ve never seen an aura, here is a recent picture of someone I know singing at her grandmother’s memorial service. 

Look at all that light around her! I know her grandmother’s soul was present and helping her auric field shine with all the love she was feeling while singing.

Here is another recent picture of a yogi I have done some virtual meditations with. This was taken during a meditation at a retreat this fall at Mt. Shasta that captured his form turning back into light essence.

There are a few people’s lights that are memorable to me. I once met a chaplain. He was quite young as far as chaplains and ministers go, yet, he shined like an angel. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him for very long and it had nothing to do with how he looked physically. His light was so magnetic, you just wanted to gaze at him and soak up some of that radiance.

Another person I met shined light right out of his pores. You didn’t need your third eye opened to see it. He had had a near death experience (NDE) and after coming back, he began to realize he had amazing healing abilities. There was so much light coming off his body he looked like a human light bulb!

Yet another woman, a bookstore clerk, of all things, had a huge light around her head. She was steeped in holiness. You just never know how much light some people are shining until you see it for yourself! If you’d like to practice seeing light in and around yourself, here are some steps you can take.

1. Rub your hands together fast to get the energy in them revved up.

2. Then hold up one of your hands against a white piece of paper in a mostly dark room. In the daylight but with no artificial lights works really well as does at night with candle light in the room.

3. As you stare at your hand, gently unfocus your eyes and look past your fingers/hand, not at them, kind of like when you look at a hologram.

4. As you look past them, with your eyesight gently unfocused, look at the area around your fingers/hand. You might see white light. You might see colored light. The areas around your fingers/hand might look fuzzy or blurry. Some possibilities of what it might look like are depicted below. 

Here are some things you can do to shine your own light more brightly.

1. Do inner work: energy healing, spiritual direction, contemplative prayer, therapy, etc., help you get to the core of your nitty-gritty stuff that needs to be transformed. It also clears your karma and opens your intuitive channels. The more you can do at the energetic level, the faster the transformation.

2. Meditate: This helps to open up your intuition and your awareness. It isn’t the the same as inner work, though. You need both. Meditation helps you wake up. Inner work helps you grow up.

3. Eat well and exercise. As much as this doesn’t seem spiritual, it is, when you recognize that all life is sacred, and food is life and movement is life.

4. Visualize light in and around your body AND embrace your shadow/darkness and own it. Then you can do #1 to transmute it back into Light.

5. Offer your sacred gifts to the world.

6. Play and laugh a lot!

Happy Holidays! May you see your own bright light and the bright light of everyone you meet, no matter how hard they try to fool you otherwise!

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Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

The attitude of gratitude has become such a cliché, it’s hard to circumvent the tendency to scroll past any post that has gratitude as its theme.

We know gratitude is important, yes? We like giving and receiving it. But we don’t—at least I don’t—necessarily want to read yet another post about it. We already know that stuff, even if we don’t always practice it, and we don’t want to feel guilty about yet another thing we aren’t doing enough of, amirite?? We’re busy. Give us something we don’t know already!

And if I’m honest, although my spirit/soul/mucho mojo Self just lurves to slurp in gratitude like gravy on turkey and mashed potatoes, my more human snarky self, often likes to do this:

So, I’m not going to try to talk you into gratitude and out of the complaint line. Stay right there! There’s a whole heckuva lotta sh**y things happening in the world, right now. And there will be tomorrow, too.

But, while you’re in that complaint line, imagine that someone sets down before you the absolutely perfect Thanksgiving dinner. It’s free. You can feast to your heart’s delight, enjoying all your favorites, cooked just perfectly, and better yet, not gain any weight! Would you be thankful that someone met you where you were at, and just gave and gave and gave and gave to you, until where you were (the complaint line) became irrelevant, because who cares anyway? There’s so much to enjoy!!

That’s the Spirit of Thanksgiving in my book. Grace upon grace upon grace is always being given. We just don’t always see it because of all the crappy stuff that’s in the way. And because we don’t see it, then we don’t open to receive and experience all that grace upon grace upon grace. The cup is always overflowing. Always. Here are some of the Spiritual “Ts” you can drink to overfilling if you realize and let yourself receive…

Beau-tea 
     See what I did there? (I can't completely leave my snark out...)

Uni-tea

Sereni-tea

Prosperi-tea

Possibili-tea

Plen-tea-tude

Simplici-tea

Tranquili-tea

Creativi-tea

Clari-tea

Gra-tea-tude (I snuck in the attitude of gratitude and you didn’t mind!)

What other “teas” can you come up with?

My hope for you is to try to receive so much grace this Thanksgiving (rather than just do, do, and more do) that gra-tea-tude just pours forth from within you because you've been so filled up with spiritual "Tea" that there's nothing else left in you for you to give, but "Tea".  

Monica's Prescription for attitude-of-gratitude apathy: Drink up of the Spirit's “Tea’s” to your delight and automatically and energetically you will hit the "share" button and spread that grace to everyone around you.

And here’s a poem for you, to boot. Happy Thanksgiving!!

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Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

Capital M-A-N-I-F-E-S-T-A-T-I-O-N! Manifestation! Manifestation! Manifestation! Woot!

My cheer for you today. You’re welcome.

Last month I wrote about different levels of manifestation. The level I am writing about this month is the mother lode, the granddaddy, the big whopper par excellence of manifesting. Simply put, this level of manifesting is when a group of people aligns with Source/Spirit and intends something for the greater good of all. What happens when a group joins their consciousness together is nothing short of miraculous.

Here’s one example. I and more than 10,000 others around the world participated in a group manifestation for the healing of a woman. For this group manifestation, a woman was secluded and wired up for an EEG scan for the healing. She, nor the brain doctor, knew when the healing would start. The EEG was continually scanning her brain before, during, and after the group healing intention. They wanted to see if when the 700+ participants in the hotel room and the 10,000+ around the world started to visualize sending lightning strikes to the woman’s brain, the EEG scans would register the start of the group intention. In the video below, Adam McLeod, Dreamhealer, tells the group to focus on visualizing lightning strikes to her head, not to “send healing”. They did this so they could at first register the difference in brain activity. However, healing was the overall intent and was eventually part of the global visualization as well. Again, the woman and those inside the secluded room had no idea when the session would begin or end.

Here is a graphic showing the differences in the subject’s brain scans. 

A more detailed scientific description of the results can be read here.

This video of this event below shows the secluded room as well as the conference room where seven hundred were gathered with Adam. The rest of the 10,000 of us were syncing in with them at a pre-designated time for the experiment. As I participated in this group healing visualization, I experienced incredible feelings of Love being sent to this woman. I could palpably feel everyone’s good intentions in my own body. I could see the energy moving and flowing to the woman in a very significant way. It was very moving and heart opening. As the video records, the woman who was receiving the group intentions KNEW when the session had begun, even though she had never been told when it would start, because she suddenly started feeling and seeing all sorts of powerful things happening in her and around her. There is no doubt after seeing the results of the EEG and the woman’s testimony, that group intentions when aligned with positivity and Spirit are very effective.

Another person who is doing a lot in the field of group intention and manifestation is Lynne McTaggart. She has written several books on using group intention to heal our world. The most recent is The Bond.

Conduct your own experiment! You may want to set a specific group intention that you can measure in a tangible way (so and so receives a job within 4 weeks), or you may just want to set a specific intention to contribute to the greater good—which is difficult to measure! Here are some steps to take.

1. Whatever group you are a part of, set a specific intention (measurable or not, doesn’t matter) together for the highest and best for all.

2. Work out a meditation via visualization, mantra, song, or something else that will unify your collective intent with coherent vibration.

3. Come up with a pre-determined plan for how you will all get into the “zone”—a meditative or contemplative state of mind, as well as how you will connect with one another in this state (you might visualize this or just say the others’ names out loud or some such thing).

4. Set a specific time to do this meditation together in person, or at a distance. Distance doesn’t matter but a designated time does help a lot. Decide on how long this meditation will last each time (five/10/30 minutes?) and how often you will repeat this meditation (once a day/week/month?).

5. Follow your group plan for meditating together at a specified time in order to manifest something for the greater good and check back in with each other after each time to compare notes. Continue until you see the result or until you get more guidance as to a better, more healing intention to use and start again.

I’d love to practice this myself with you my readers. If you’d like to do this, let me know and I’ll put you on a list to receive instructions for a group healing/group intention to help heal our world!

Rah! Rah! Sis-boom-bah! Go M-A-N-I-F-E-S-T! Rah!!

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Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

If our outer lives are a reflection of our inner world, what does that mean for the billions of people starving around the world? Does that mean poor or starving people are thinking poverty thoughts or starving thoughts and creating their poverty and starvation?

These, my peeps, are excellent questions. It hints at the first big misunderstanding that many have about manifesting. The Manifestation Principle (see my previous blogpost) posits that you can manifest your desires by focusing all your intentions, thoughts, feelings, and actions on precisely what you want. However, there are different levels of manifesting: there is manifesting from your ego and there is Manifesting from your Soul.

Manifesting from ego desires works. If you really want something, and go after it, it definitely can happen, although it may happen at great cost to your soul/others/the earth. And it’s often the case that as soon as what your ego wants does appear in your life, you start wishing it had never happened!

However, the real magic happens when you Manifest from your Soul. In my experience, this happens to the extent that your desires match up with what Source/Spirit/The Higher Self wants and not with what the ego/the limited self wants. Martha Beck writes that this level of Manifesting seems to be about discovering and feeling into what “already wants to happen,” and falling in love with it. Thus, Manifestation with a capital M works when what you are intending to Manifest is for the greater good of all (not just for yourself/family/country and not from greed/lack/limitation/fear/harm to the planet). 

Trying to manifest mansions, luxury cars, and million dollar bank accounts usually makes no sense from the perspective of Spirit. The Higher Self probably doesn’t need these things in order to fulfill its purpose on this earth. It might—I’m not ruling it out. But really, most people do not need these things to bring more love, joy and peace to the planet, and as Westerners who overconsume most of the world’s resources, we must be mindful of how harmful these big ticket items can be to the earth and to our sisters and brothers in human and animal form around the globe. As someone who has lived and travelled in developing countries, I can tell you that many people living in bare-bones subsistence are far richer spiritually than many people in the western world with a bank account (no matter how much or little is in that bank account). They count their blessings in joy, love, sharing, good work with families, and celebrations with their villages. 

But there is another level of manifesting entirely—one that answers those first questions about global poverty and starvation and gets at the second big misunderstanding about the Manifestation Principle, i.e., that this all about individual manifestation—a typically American/Western blindspot. We, all of us, are individually manifesting, and also at the same time, collectively manifesting our thoughts, feelings, intentions, and actions. Whatever groups we belong to, be they families, nations, political parties, religions, spiritual, educational, or work communities, the exclusive Giga Society, the local PTA, the purple poodle club, whatever—and don’t forget that by virtue of our species, we’re all sailing along on the ship homo sapiens sapiens, (the H.S.S. Humanity)—all of these groups have a group mind, a collective consciousness, or quite literally an esprit de corp. The H.S.S. Humanity is manifesting collectively All. The. Dang. Time. 

When we look at out at the planet to see what exactly the H.S.S. Humanity is manifesting, we see examples of extreme greed and extreme poverty. Over the ages humanity has manifested extreme greed due to fears, lack of love and self-value, and limiting beliefs. This extreme greed has also must manifested its counterbalance, extreme poverty. This greed/poverty manifestation is hundreds of years in the making. It is not anything one person is reaping all by their lonesome with their little penny-clutching worries. Individuals who are starving are not keeping themselves in poverty by thinking poor thoughts. Humanity as a species is keeping people in poverty and starvation by hoarding and wanting to hoard more than is necessary for the Embodied Soul Purpose.

However, we can individually either play into that large greed/poverty thought form (elemental) with our own limiting thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, or the good news is we can work on healing that elemental by healing ourselves within. By focusing on the love, joy peace, abundance within, we start to recreate human consciousness around the planet. This greed/poverty elemental can be dissolved when each of us shifts into alignment with Source/Spirit/Higher Self and intends to Manifest not from greed and lack, but from love, joy, peace, generosity, and the knowing that no matter what, we are safe, infinitely cared for, and always abundant. This is not because “bad things” never happen in this world, but because we are no longer identifying with circumstances and the small, limited human self. We are identifying with our souls, with each other as souls, with each other as Divine Manifestations who are eternal and infinite beings at our core. Then, we don’t have to worry about money, food, clothing, and housing and can therefore, share more with those who are lacking these basic needs of survival.

Now here’s where things really take off. When groups of people intentionally Manifest from Source together then we get to an entirely new level: MANIFESTING. However, this blogpost is getting rather looooong, so I’ll leave MANIFESTING for next month’s blogpost.

But bottom line—don’t think that by aligning with Source and Manifesting from there is not taking care of the extreme poverty around the world. It is in the sense that it is dissolving the greed/poverty elemental and energizing a new paradigm of Manifesting from the abundance that always and already is. Feed the eternal paradigm not the temporary paradigm. This is happening now in many big and small ways through our intentions, feelings, thoughts, and actions, as we live to create a world where no one goes hungry. Let us learn to live with what we need in order to do what we are here to do: live every moment from the Love, Joy, Peace, and Abundance that we already really are at our common Core.

It was Guru Jesus, wasn’t it, who said, “Seek first the REALM OF THE DIVINE and all these things will be added unto you?"


And it was Mother Theresa who said, "Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. The rest will be given.

I recently had a practical world metaphor that is perfect for the energy world. Prior to my My Karma saga, I was a runner. I could always go out for a 30 minute run, even if I hadn’t run in awhile. I kept at it mostly because I loved it, but also because it was a natural weight keeper-in-checker.

However, during and after the My Karma saga, running was no longer possible for me for a number of reasons. I’m still hoping that some day it might be again, but in the meantime I walk, which I love in a different way. Walking hasn't been without difficulty either, though, due to an old injury in my lower back and hip that refuses thus far to completely heal.

When I was walking a few weeks ago, I realized the shoes I was wearing for walking were causing me to supinate (roll outward), so I decided to start looking for good sales for a new pair of my go-to brand. Within a couple of days I found a sale, and a pair that felt just right.

When I started walking with the new pair of shoes, I noticed that during and after the walk, the pain I normally lived with was mostly non-existent. The new shoes had a wider, more established sole and that seemed to provide the support I needed to walk in a healthier, less-painful way. Woo-hoo! It also seemed to trigger circumstances in my outer world that led to energy healing in my lower back and hip. I haven’t yet tried running again as there is still one other factor that needs addressing, but I’m amazed (again) at how fast things can shift when one is ready.

How is this a metaphor for the energy world? The foundation is key. If the foundation is solid, grounded, and secure, like the soles on my new shoes, everything on up can be in alignment much easier. This is true for feet and for buildings and for spiritual work. If we are in alignment with our Core, the foundation of our being, everything else follows along. Our Core, our True Self, is whole, love, joy, peace, truth, abundant, infinite, unimpeded Flow, to name a few eternal qualities of beingness. When we align our intentions, our thoughts, feelings, and actions more with our Core, it causes our outer world to flow into more alignment as well. Since we live in a dense world, this can take some time to show up, although it can also shift instantly, but it really doesn’t matter so much because once you shift into your Core, you are hanging out with such great feelings of beingness that who cares if or when the outer world cooperates?

However, since in my experience this alignment with one's Core, not only feels better, but does indeed lead to outer world alignment in mucho bueno ways, here are 5 steps to aligning with your Core:

1)  Practice Oneness with all that is. Pretend as you go about your day that everyone and everything is just another aspect of your larger Self. 

2)  Love all that arises both within you and outside of you. (Not always easy but there you go.)

3)  If you're having problems with #2, whatever you find “wrong” in your outer world, go within and find it there and heal it inside. Then #2.

4)  Be ever willing to learn and throw out even long-held beliefs.

5)  Affirm the qualities of your inner being: Love, Joy, Peace, etc, and then affirm what you NEED. Manifestation is for what you need considering also the needs of all. Trying to manifest something from ego, from insecurity, from lack, from non-integrity, from harm, from greed, or violating another person or the planet isn’t going to work, or it is and it will make you and others miserable in the short run and/or the long run. 

Here’s an example of how shifting into alignment worked for me.

I was having a horrible, no-good, rotten, terrible day. This is what I felt like.

I had to face calling our prescription provider: Express-Scripts, if you must know. It is the only prescription provider available through our state’s healthcare exchange, so I have no choice but to deal with them, which I consider forced self-torture. Having already spent countless hours with them on the phone since January, I had to call them again for about the gazillionth time and based on previous experiences I was anticipating the worst. I’ve pretty much concluded they are either completely incompetent or completely insidious. (Since they were convicted of fraud by our state not that long ago, I’m going with insidious.) Anyway, when I did call them, I was indeed getting lies, BS, and the run around yet again, and was feeling so frustrated at my lack of progress in resolving anything and feeling powerless to change anything. This is how I felt.

Later that day—much, much later—after I had calmed myself down enough to meditate, I affirmed what I knew at the Core: that I was unimpeded Flow, that I was abundant, that I was in no way powerless, and I could shift into my True Essence no matter what my circumstances. After feeling into my Core, the truth of this, I felt my internal world shift into alignment and within twenty minutes, I got a call from my pharmacy saying that they had tried various new numbers and now everything was working properly with the prescriptions I had to pick up. (According to my insurance company that I love and according to Express-Scripts that I hate, this was not possible.) Nevertheless, I went down and picked up the meds at the right price, found a $20 bill on my way out to my car (told the store in case someone was missing it—no one ever reported it), and went on another errand where, for some reason, the item I was buying was coming up on the register as being half-off. The cashier just shrugged and said she didn’t know why but gave it to me anyway! I deem this spontaneous money as a reimbursement/discount from the universe for my travails in learning and practicing alignment (again!)

Try these 5 alignment steps and see what happens and let me know!

The paradigm of energy healing and mysticism in general is a wild, weird and wonderful world, primarily because you come to know with all certainty, that absolutely ANYTHING is possible. I’ve detailed some of these wild, weird, and wonderful events in previous blogposts and in my books, most recently in Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, but here are some more.

Weird things that happen, before, during, or after healing sessions #477-481:

#477—The night before I was taking a Reiki class, I awoke partially while still sleeping. I saw a person, I believe a woman, standing over my head. A bunch of symbols then appeared over me and abruptly my energy body began vibrating. At my Reiki class the next day, the teacher talked about symbols and attunement and I mentioned that I thought I had had an attunement the night before and told her what happened. Her response: Yes, that kind of thing happens often in preparation for classes. I love it. But I suppose that sort of thing is common for you? Me: Uhhh, yep.

#478—After a recent healing session with a client of mine, I hopped in my car to do some errands. My son was with me so he was witness to this and the next event. Driving down Lake City Way, I stopped at a red light, only to see that the car stopped catty-corner from me was the same exact car as mine. Same exact color. Same exact model. Even the license plate number had the same three letters and the same four numbers, except the second and fourth numbers were switched. It was like looking in a mirror!

#479—I then drove to a Bartell Drugs and parked beside a car that I realized was still running. No one was in it. No pets were either. As I got out of my car, I was looking around for the driver. I didn’t see anyone outside or anyone inside through a business glass door that looked like they were in a hurry with a car running outside. The car key was clearly in the ignition along with what I’m sure were house keys and other important keys. This is a definite security risk in current-day Seattle that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do in decades. As I started to walk by the passenger side of the car to get where I was going, I saw a large black and white picture taped to the dashboard of the car. I thought, “Wow, that’s an old photo—kind of like the ones of my great-grandfather’s UW football team from the 1890s. I continued to walk on by and then I backed up and did a double-take to really look at the photo. I was amazed to find that it in fact WAS one of those photos and indeed I was looking straight at MY VERY OWN GREAT-GRANDFATHER in the photo. (The exact pic is above—I’ve had them on my computer for over a year when this event occurred. If you want to know, he's second row, second from the left.) I thought, This is really weird. I mean, how many people are driving around Seattle with a picture of my great-grandfather taped to the dashboard of their car??? (I believe I'd have better odds winning the LOTTO!) I looked more closely at the car. There was a lot of unusual stuff: a unique yin/yang window sticker, a WWJD bumper sticker (What Would Jung Do?), a Unitarian Counseling sign. It was completely vibing with me. I finished my errand and while my son finished his, I hung around outside my car for a few more minutes to see if I could meet this person and ask why they had a UW Husky photo from the 1890s on the dashboard of their car. However, after several minutes, they never showed up. A Spirit car?

#480. After I got back from my errands, which included dropping off my son at the UW, I went to lie down because I was exhausted. My husband was already trying to take a nap. He said to me as soon as I lay down: You're vibrating the bed, can you stop? Me: I'm not vibrating. I'm just lying still. Him: No seriously the whole bed is vibrating. Me: I'm not feeling anything. Him: How can you not feel that? As soon as you lay down, the whole bed started vibrating. Me: Must be energy.

#481. After said nap, I got up and went to check the voice mail to make sure I hadn't gotten a message from my son to come and get him at the bus stop. I picked up the phone receiver and there was no dial tone. It sounded like someone was there. Me: Hello? My Son: Come pick me up in a couple of minutes. This happened without the phone ringing.

Alone, I might have laughed and mostly dismissed any one of these. However, together this kind of a thing can be a common series of unusual events before or after a healing session. What happens during a healing session? Well, you never know! Portals from the other side open. Loved ones who’ve passed might appear. Angels and guides show up with healing energy. You feel a physical touch where I am not touching you. A cold breeze from nowhere blows over you. A bird cries just as you do. All sorts of things happen when you enter into the experience and awareness of Oneness. Anything is possible. Anything at all. I’ve seen physical reality reshape itself right in front of my eyes in myriads of ways.

How is this possible? This physical world that our senses tell us is solid, isn’t. It governs itself with certain “laws” (gravity, for example) but at a deeper level the rules change. We’re really living in a holographic virtual reality 3-D learning environment where we are confronted with everything we believe, so we can test it to see if it’s really, really true. When we find out what is True, then we know and find out again and again, that anything—anything at all—truly is possible. The pregnant void where everything exists in unmanifest form, can manifest at any time in any way. Physical reality is malleable. It can be hard to believe until you've experienced it, but once you do, the wild, weird, wonderful world that it opens to you is totally worth giving up limiting thoughts and beliefs and even the laws of the physical universe itself. Won't you join me?

A few weeks ago, after I was out and about doing errands for about three hours, I came in the house and sat down on my sofa to rest a bit before moving on to my next task. It was a rare sunny spring day and I was enjoying the quiet—which didn’t last long. After about ten seconds of stillness, I heard dog whimpers, very soft ones. I stirred around because what I had heard didn’t rise into full consciousness and it was disturbing me on a level I wasn’t quite aware of yet. I resettled and again noticed—in full consciousness this time—that when I got quiet inside, I was hearing repeated, very soft dog whimpers. I thought, This is odd. My dog, Ruffles, is outside on this fine day, on the other side of the house. How in the world could I be hearing him whimper, if this is him anyway, especially this softly?

I also realized the sounds of these barely detectable dog whimpers were coming out of my heart! What??? My heart chakra is now capable of producing audible sound, like a stereo speaker?

With this realization, I decided I’d better check on my dog and jumped up and went straight to the back door. I opened it and didn’t see him anywhere. I called his name, checked the dog house as well as the perimeter of the fence and then I saw it—he had dug out. This is abnormal for him, except in a thunderstorm, but although there had been no thunderstorms, clearly he was out.

I drove through the neighborhood calling his name, until finally I found a group of people who were standing around like they were concerned about something, and sure enough they had Ruffles and had kept him with them for over two hours! Thank you wonderful dog-loving neighbors!

Anyway, what I realized with this, other than my dog appears to be able to send audible wi-fi messages to me through my heart’s speaker system, is my ability to get instantly quiet is what tuned me into the intuitive Oneness that allowed Ruffles to connect to me. Getting in touch with that stillness where all information, knowledge, and wisdom lie is the secret to connecting to intuitive Flow.

It is so important to learn to be still or to Be Here Now, Ram Dass’ famous saying and book title. The challenge is that many people have no idea how to "be here now" or have the wrong idea about it entirely. Or, many of those who go around saying “be here now” are big avoiders and deniers who ignore their inner work and thus, these great meditators may also be known for acting like—well, why beat around the bush—jerks. This does not negate the value of meditating at all, though. It’s just that meditating without also doing inner work is like exercising while also eating a constant stream of junk food. Exercising is very important to physical health as meditating is very important to spiritual health. But clearing out the spiritual clutter and junk food is also just as necessary for spiritual health, and that happens through inner work. "Being in the now" doesn’t mean spiritually bypassing inner or integration work. Both are needed to help expand your well-being in a balanced way.

In fact, one of the benefits of meditating is that by getting to the stillpoint, you are able to connect with your True Self so you can then do more integrating and alignment with the True Self. Learning how to be quiet for a brain-focusing amount of time can also enable you to do inner work more effectively and that increases the volume of your inner intuitive voice. I've done a number of blogposts on inner work, so in this one, I'm focusing on how to "be here now."

In order to "be here now," you go to the calm place at the core of your being, the NOW (No Other When) moment which is the stillpoint of All That Is. Most people can do this but soon, their monkey minds then take over, chatting a gazillion miles an hour about everything that must be done, everything that rude person said to those people at the place you were just at, anything and everything. Even if you calm the monkey mind down for a time, you’ll notice your thoughts wandering all over the place again and again. 

To quiet the monkey mind takes brain-training focus. After telling people this, most will then respond by saying to me they must have some amount of ADHD because they can’t focus. Seriously, not to discourage you, my beloved peeps, but it can take years of consistent practice to train the brain to focus and be still. You don’t have ADHD if you’ve tried meditating a few times and it didn’t take. You just haven’t done it nearly enough or haven’t used the right tools that work for you.

Here are three tips and tools to help you train your brain to go to the stillpoint, the NOW (No Other When):

1. Meditation 101: Practice one-point focus by learning to focus on one thing: a mantra, your breath, a body part, a sound (bell or chant), a sight (candle flame, flower, or other object), even a smell. Focus with one of these: your body, your words/voice, eyes, ears, or nose, whatever works best for you. If you find your thoughts wandering, gently and without judgment, bring your mind back to whatever you’re focusing on. Practice practice practice.

2. Meditation 201: Practice open focus. In this more advanced type of meditation, you learn to focus on everything at once. Start off by focusing on one sensation: sight, sound, taste, physical feeling, or smell, and then expand your focus by adding a sensation at a time until you’re noticing as many of the sounds, sights, tastes, body feelings, smells as you can. Hold this open focus and when you notice your brain feeling a bit weary, you can then narrow your focus down to one-point and then go back to open focus, taking in as much sensory data as possible. Again, practice practice practice.

3. Meditation Tutoring. There are brainwave CDs that help the brain focus and reach different brainwave states conducive to meditation. Do not feel that using a brainwave CD is cheating or bypassing the “real thing.” For those of you who have trouble meditating, these CDs can really help tutor or "entrain" your brain and achieve meditative states more easily. Here's one of several free binaural videos available on YouTube. Use earphones for it to work optimally.

There are also excellent meditation cds that offer guided mediations to help steer your mind so that it doesn’t wander off so easily. Drumming and rattling can also help the brain shift into Theta brainwave states conducive to meditation. Here's another YouTube video with just the beating and rattling. 

The more you train your left-brain chatty monkey mind into stillness, the right-brain intuitive flow can and will happen and you will start to hear/sense/feel/know that inner voice more frequently and more clearly—even through heart chakra wifi!! This then can help you become aware of what else you need to heal, let go of, or take action on, even if that’s simply rescuing your intuitive dog!

One of the main ways I spend my time now is writing fiction. Well, to be honest, one of the main ways I spend my time now is thinking about writing fiction. Procrastinating and writing go together for me like Hollywood and Botox. I need a LOT of mental space, a LOT of nothing-filler time, in order to actually sit down and thump out a few storylines.

Whenever I tell someone I’m writing fiction, they inevitably narrow their eyelids, as if trying to hide the amused bewilderment suddenly blossoming in their eyes and say to me rather quizzically, “Really?”——like I’ve declared I’m planning to hopscotch to the moon this year, and they don’t quite know how to respond to this new brand of lunacy of mine. The awkward silence that comes when they realize I am sincere is then followed up by a concerned, “Um, why?”

So, I’ve decided to dedicate one of my blogposts to explaining to y’all why I’ve embarked on this new venture, just to clear up any misgivings you might have about the next chapter in the ongoing saga of Monica’s Foolish Foibles.

Rational Reason #1: I started getting plots in my dreams at night a couple of years ago. Full complete plotlines from beginning to end arrive during lucid dreaming and I am fully aware (even though asleep) while this is happening. My sleeping brain has continued to function as a hard drive for story downloads from the universe up to the present time—even last night.

Rational Reason #2: Not completely sure what I was supposed to do with all these stories, I had nevertheless written down the entire plots upon waking. After a few months, I started getting the message from the divine via signs and synchronicities that “people heal through stories.” Thus, I presumed my job was to start writing out the plots as another way to help people heal.

Rational Reason #3: I’m starting to realize that these reasons are not looking very rational.

Irrational Reason #4: I had been wanting to scratch an itchier itch, to hike a steeper mountain, to dig a deeper well (lame metaphors, be gone!), beyond what writing non-fiction was able to get at. Writing non-fiction was playfully serious for me, but I needed the balance of something seriously playful. And I wanted to tap into that unique ability of the divine spark within: creatio ex nihilo.

Irrational Reason #5: What finally got me out of my wobbling to and fro like low-hanging earlobes (can you tie ‘em in a knot? can you tie ‘em in a bow?) was when I started pondering the wisdom of “beginning at the end.” This wisdom requires that you imagine your desired ending. My desired ending is simply: all is well. Think this through with me: What if everyone on the earth was well? What if all countries were peaceful? What if humanity had healed its relationship with Nature? What if no one was starving? No one was poor? No one was disease-ridden? What if human consciousness had evolved enough to achieve heaven on earth? Then, what—on earth—would we do with our time?

When I contemplated this again and again, the only things that came to me were: Play. Create. Learn. Enjoy.

When we begin at the end, we bring those wellness and wholeness vibrations into our present, no matter how far from wellness and wholeness our present circumstances might look at the time. By staying centered inside yourself now in the imagined feeling, thinking, and take-action vibrations you want to see achieved in the end, you start to help the lower vibrations of your circumstances move toward that desired end in order to match them.

This is easier said than done. But learning to stay calm in stormy waters creates the miraculous ability to say to the storm “Be calm” and all is calm, to say to the darkness, “Let there be light” and there is light.

Irrational Reason #6: And so I’m feeling and thinking and acting on those end vibrations by seriously playing and writing fiction in order to help bring forward a day when play and creativity and joy are our only agenda and poverty and ecocide and war are no more.
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The short story, The Wizard’s Toy, is one of the plot downloads I received while dreaming. If you'd like to buy this e-book, click here. If you'd like to buy it but you don’t have a Kindle, you can download for free whatever Kindle-reader app you need for your phone, tablet, or computer from Amazon here. With this app you can buy and read any e-books on Amazon without a Kindle.