It's a lot, isn't it? These last 4 months...It's a lot.

Peace is defined as "freedom from disturbance; tranquility."

How in the midst of all that is going on in our world do we have peace/tranquility?

First of all, we remember or realize that True Peace comes from the world within rather than the outside world. I can hear some of you saying "Are you kidding me!? How an I have peace within when the world has gone crazy!!??

That is a valid question and one I have been confronted by for most of my life.

It is seldom easy in human terms to be peaceful during truly traumatic, chaotic times.

Now our world, and specifically my country, is demanding change on very fundamental levels. First, we must create peace within. Then we will be instrumental in creating peace in our families, communities, countries, world.

For me, the path to true, abiding peace begins within me. The past 4 months of the pandemic and the separation from others that resulted have tested me at those very...

Emerging into and from True Self is the adventure of a lifetime. The initial discovery of the truth of "I Am All That I Am" is like the high we experience when we fall in love because that is exactly what we are doing. We fall in love with ourselves because we now understand that there is no judge, no condemnation, no punishment. There is only the unfolding into the depth and width of this True Self, this divine being currently having a human experience.

This morning as I rummaged through several drawers looking for a journal with study notes, I came across one with entries from 1996. They all were from a series of retreats that involved long periods of silence and solitude. At the end was a short poem I wrote from my heart, without thought for rules or forms, though it actually rhymes! I will share this and trust it touches a chord in others as it did in me. There is a blessing in looking back for a moment to acknowledge the beginnings of our awareness and to see how far we have...

Life truly is a circle that never ends. A circle can be open with a section of its arc not connected. A circle can be closed with no openning in its border. A circle can draw into itself and encompass a smaller area. It can also expand and enlarge the area it encompasses. When you walk the circumference of a circle, it brings you back to where you started.

How often have you said "I take one step forward and three steps back"? I no longer resonate with that statement. Seeing life with more fluid movement rather than linear (going forward or back along a given line) has changed my perspective. When I find myself dealing with a familiar issue, I now experience it as revisiting something to see how far I have come or to clear a bit of residue that has risen to the top of my awareness. At times I receive an insight that was blocked by my earlier interpretations.

Life is a process and it brings me back around to experiences, attitudes, even people that I need to revisit, whether I always...

I sat and listened to the birds outside my window this morning. It is a symphony. Such a vibrant, happy sound. It is available every morning. Wonderful.

This is how I feel about each of you in this symphony of life. You are a wonder of creation. There is no one on the planet just like you. Oscar Wilde said, "Be yourself! Everyone else is already taken." Throughout my teen years, my father invited me time and again to just be myself. The challenge was that I had no idea who I was! So I kept trying on different personalities, behaviors, and personas. None of them fit because, of course, those were already taken. It was several decades before I began to discover True Self. Teachers came into my life to guide me into the unfolding of my True Self. Learning that, like you, I am a wonder of creation and that there is no one on the planet just like me, continues to be a wonder-filled experience.

You are love manifesting in human form. You are infinitely and unconditionally loved. You...

We are designed for balance and wholeness on every level of awareness and being. Most of us understand, at least on a rudimentary level, the process of homeostasis. The physical body actively seeks its balance 24 hours a day. Years ago during a six-month stint in diagnosis, my doctor encouraged me to stay positive as test after test failed to reveal the cause of my deteriorating health. He told me that it was a miracle any of us are healthy on any given day because of the billions of elements that must be in balance for us to be healthy.

Several years after regaining my health, I returned to college and majored in psychology. While volunteering on a crisis phone service, I spoke with one of my professors about memories of abuse emerging decades after the events. I knew someone who had experienced that. He explained that the psyche (the mental & emotional bodies) also seeks balance and wholeness. As a person matures, the walls of dissociation begin to crack and crumble and...

Balance is the answer to so many things on so many levels. It is the morning of our recent time change and I have physical balance on my mind. I woke up over two hours earlier than usual and may have dozed a bit but never returned to true sleep. Meditation and pranayama (guiding the breath) filled the time. My body consistently shows me the folly of human beings thinking they can manipulate and control nature. My body doesn't know what time a clock says.

There is a simple meditation with breath and finger acupressure that ventilates the chakras. I love that word ventilate. Let's open up and air out our energy system! Read through the instructions and then begin. Throughout this practice hold the intention of balance.

Sit comfortably with your hands in prayer position at the heart. Breathe softly and slowly until you feel your shoulders relax and your mind begin to focus. Bring the awareness to the hands and separate them about a half-inch, keeping the palms facing...

I awoke one morning with these words from a song recorded by Lyle Lovett repeating in my barely conscious mind. I lay still for several moments, as I tend to do, and let the world re-enter my awareness. The light was dim and I heard a bird singing outside my window. My face smiled because I love waking up to birdsong. There it was again:  Here I am, yes it's me...

What? I had not listened to that cd in some time. Why so clearly this morning? I remain still and softly close my eyes, letting myself feel. It slowly becomes clear to me. Here I am and everything is different in my world and yet nothing has changed. It is still me, waking up in my same bed, slowly feeling the day begin, listening to a bird sing outside my window, wondering where I went during the night, feeling the anticipation of writing as a new day dawns.

"Here I am, yes it's me..."  We are all experiencing changes we have not created as we seek to cooperate in keeping ourselves &...

It most definitely can be simple. Here are a few simple examples.

The drawing I am sharing with you was done by my granddaughter, Hannah, when she was 4 years old. I can look at this, breathe it in, and feel Divine Love and Joy, and my face smiles. In that moment, nothing else occupies my attention and that, my friends, is meditation.

I took a long walk this morning and, upon my return, I smiled with contentment because it was a beautiful time of meditation...and I had not planned to do a walking meditation. It was a natural response as I walked. I focused on the beauty of nature, the sound of voices as I passed homes & yards, or the feeling of the road under my feet. There were few random thoughts, just an awareness of what I was experiencing through my physical senses. Walking meditation.

I keep Daniel Levin's card set ZEN Cards on my desk and often read one before going online for any reason but especially before blogging. Can you guess what today's card was...

Intention is a powerful thought form, an energy that guides my behavior. Please note that I said "guides" rather than "controls." When I was younger, others instructed me to control my thoughts and my behavior. I wanted to be a good person so I set out to control myself. Generally speaking, it did not work very well. In fact, it created an inner atmosphere of resentment because I felt judged by the voices in my head and by those around me. I desperately wanted to be free to just be me. Lack of life experience and tools to know myself made that freedom impossible. In my late twenties, a loving pastor listened as I talked and wept in frustration. As I wound down, he looked into my eyes and quietly said, "Catherine, there are some things you just can't understand until you have lived long enough to understand them. Let it be okay to just be where you are." The door to personal freedom began to open.

As I awoke this morning, a mere forty+ years later, I lay with eyes still closed and...

Paramahansa Yogananda came to the United States for the first time in 1920. His life and teachings are described in his book, Autobiography of A Yogi, published in 1946, the year I was born! It remains the classic foundation for yoga teachers, practitioners, and students around the world.

In Metaphysical Meditations (page 42) he writes:  "I am no longer the wave of consciousness thinking itself separate from the sea of cosmic consciousness. I am the ocean of Spirit that has become the wave of human life."

Ocean images are vivid and powerful. My son surfs and I am fascinated by the process of sitting on a board and silently waiting for the right wave to rise up and make itself known. This is living meditation. All awareness is focused on the rising and falling of the water, the pulse beat of the ocean. Each wave has its own personality and life force energy. Surfers wait and watch and read the waves, knowing the risks as well as the thrill of becoming a...