Lion and Magic Boy

I’ve purposely avoided too much detail about my trip last month to Vancouver, and mostly because there simply weren’t words that could adequately express the profundity of the experience. From my perspective back in Pennsylvania, now alone, I even have to wonder if I somehow made it all up, if Matthew and Vancouver and my eleven days there with him weren’t just some elaborate, albeit wonderful, construct.

Well, no. I do have a few pictures. Not a hundredth of the ones I wish I had taken, but I have a few million more stored in my mind’s eye, snapshots of experience combined with emotion.

For instance (you don’t really want to hear about all this, do you? you do?) there were the meals. Matthew did all the cooking, and after a few days I got comfortable enough to do the washing-up. It was extremely freeing, this role-reversal combined with, what was it, a partnership? I enjoyed watching Matthew in the kitchen, taking note of his techniques, his efficiencies, slinging lettuce about or savoring an olive or thrusting a spoonful of luscious exotic dragon fruit at me.

I’ve talked before about my food issues. I’ve been anorexic in the past. There was a time for me that food was equated with entitlement, with deservingness, with love. Plus, culturally and historically, food is life. Some of those connections don’t fade easily, so the fact that here was a man creating life for me and presenting it to me was extremely soulful and loving. No one has cooked for me like that before.

Eating those meals was perhaps the most intimate thing I’ve ever done. We mostly ate silently, connected with a gaze that spoke more than mere words could have. I could feel ripples of connection to our distant human past move through me, quiet sleeping distant half-remembered memories of a time when food truly was life, when sharing food with someone meant you were linked with them forever.

And I ate things I always knew I didn’t like, yet now I love them. How can that be? I never said a word, simply accepted what was given me, and consumed green olives and eggplant and hardboiled eggs and oh, the salmon! All things I have never liked, yet now they are part of a different lexicon. And I eat them even now, choosing them for their own qualities as well as the connection they give me to that too-short time-slice.

I’ve mentioned the hiking. Or maybe I haven’t, but we did a lot of it. I’m not sure I truly have words yet for the feelings that were evoked from the connection with nature we made together. It’s what I’ve been denying myself for so long, yet the trees welcomed me back like an old friend. It was all so…familiar. So many of my internal snapshots are from views we shared, tiny pictures I can string together to create a panoramic view of the experience.

On the way back down from Whistler we stopped at the waterfall we didn’t see on the way up. Crossing a railroad bridge to the forbidden unofficial side of the falls, we went and stood directly over them. I could feel the incredible power of the water vibrating through the soles of my feet. It was intoxicating. I stepped down to a tree at the cliff’s edge and peered over for a better view of the water, but after a moment Matthew asked me if I didn’t have vertigo. I was pleased that for once the height thing wasn’t bothering me. Hey! Maybe four days in Whistler was so magical that I’ve completely cleared up my intense fear of heights! The one that keeps me off six-foot ladders and hotel balconies, the fear I’ve had since, ever! How about that!

We picked our way back over the railroad bridge to the official side of the falls and walked the easy paved trail down to the viewing site somewhat lower down than our precarious tree-perch. I was greeted by the view of the entire falls, including the bottom way, way down there, and the enormity of the risk I had taken dawned on me.

The last day I was there held a sense of foreboding. We both knew that the next day I’d be getting on a plane and going back to Pennsylvania, that aside from a planned meeting in Colorado nearly two months later, that’s anyway a work event for me as well, we didn’t know when we’d see one another again. All day I felt a sort of mute dread, and the unspoken words between us just hung like a pall in the air.

We walked on the beach, making our way down a long flight of steep wooden steps to greet the drummers who bring in the sunset every night there. The clouds obscured and diluted the sunset, and I felt cheated. Even nature was conspiring to wring this experience from me. Then we walked a bit in the university grounds nearby, as when we had driven past I was struck by a sudden sense of familiarity, realizing that some of the buildings there had figured in a dream from a year or two ago. The spell was broken by walking through it, though, and once again I felt the magic slipping from my grasp.

Again we entered the forest, yet this time the magic seemed to be elusive. I could feel the trees chanting “you’re leaving you’re leaving you’re leaving”. There was so much I wanted to say, but couldn’t. I felt pain and didn’t know what to do with it. Matthew began coughing, clearing his throat. It dawned on me that it might be related to his own apparent inability to speak, and he asked me what I felt in him. Not as a test, but with trust that I could see into him, could sense him somehow on an innermost level.

I told him simply that I thought he had words that were unsaid. That created a space where he could say them, and the tension abated and the mist cleared a bit.

Then it was my turn. Ever attempting to give me the freedom to be vulnerable, Matthew invited me to scream into the forest. I demurred. What if someone heard me? That’s the point. What do I do? Just scream into the trees. How should I do it? Like this. And he let out a yell, half-wild, half-delight, very alive.

So I tried it. But I couldn’t make a sound without basing it on the simmering emotions that seethed within me, all the pain at leaving, and anger at my situation and my lack of freedom, and my new-found joy in just being, all that lifted from me to the very tops of the trees in one anguished sound.

I was afraid the trees couldn’t withstand it, but they did. And I did.

Then we went home and clung to one another in joy and pain. Matthew couldn’t sleep and got up and went downstairs. I lay in his bed and listened to the gentle rain that had just begun, the rain that covered the tiny back garden where Zippy the cat mewed to come in, the rain that leaked my pain in tiny drops all over the city of Vancouver. There was no need for tears when we had the rain.

[tags]Vancouver, Whistler, hiking, rain, love, forest[/tags]

Tired of me talking about bikes yet?

Ummm. My coffee tastes strangely salty today. Have no idea why.

[fingers drumming, thinking of something to write about that has nothing to do with bikes]

Enough of that.

Too bad.

I’ve got a new baby. Sort of a test-drive deal. Yep, I left a bike shop a tentative credit card amount almost as high as the price of my first car, and yesterday and today I got to ride a real road bike before it goes back to the shop.

Oh, yum.

First, the clipless pedals: they are not all they are cracked up to be. Took me awhile to get my feet actually into them while holding on to the roof rack of my car. And once they were in, my feet! Were stuck to the bike! How weird was that!

I would characterize my first ride therefore as tentative.

For one thing, there’s the handlebars. I had forgotten, in my tentativeness, where actually to put my hands, for fear that I wouldn’t be able to reach the brake when needed. of course, I was hoping anxiously not to have to brake at all, because that would mean I might have to stop, which would mean I would have to get my feet out of the pedals, to avoid falling over. But since I’ve already done that, no problem, right?

So I rode several miles in a lower position than necessary. For which my back is commenting to me, right now. Why hello, back, and you’re welcome!

I noticed after a mile or so that the stuck-to-the-pedals position my feet were in was very different from how my feet usually feel in the pedals. In other words, my natural inclination, apparently, is to pedal like a duck.

This new position, of my feet being pointed actually forward! imagine! created a feeling of stress in the hips. Hello, hips! Nice to meet you! What have you been doing all these years? Ow.

However, one thing on this bike is definitely a huge improvement: a woman-specific saddle. Trust me. HUGE improvement.

Despite all the strangeness and tentativeness and new little pains, I did find myself eventually falling into a rhythmic cadence. Apparently, from the reading I’ve done lately, there are two ways to approach riding a bike, spinning and mashing.

Evidently I have been a masher.

It’s pretty much what it sounds like: MUST. WORK. PEDALS. KILL. HILLS. BRUTE FORCE WILL WIN!!

Spinning, on the other hand, seems to be about allowing the bike to do some of the work for you. By increasing the speed at which you pedal, you actually get more power (speed) from each stroke. Or something like that.

Being naturally philosophical, I can of course apply this to life. What, you don’t view cycling as a metaphor for life?

Spinning takes a lot of shifting, because the goal is to maintain, as much as possible, the same cadence at all times despite hills and all, so you’re constantly moving into and out of various gears, up and down through various levels, if you will, to maintain an equilibrium (today I am liking, cadence-wise, the speed of this song).

I was reminded of the biking we did in the rain up at Whistler a few weeks ago. I could hear Matthew behind me, constantly moving through his gears, shifting much more than I was. At the time I didn’t think much of it, just a different riding style, whatever (okay I really thought he was just playing), but now I’m wondering whether it has more to do with his approach to life. Which has been much more about flow than my approach, which has been more like insisting on being shot out of a cannon.

So the spinning thing, it really seems to work. On a bike at least. I sailed over the Sisyphusean hill with much less effort than usual. However, I noticed that with all the increased revolutions, the wear and tear on my hips is noticeable. In fact, I would say that my hips haven’t seen this much repetitive action in quite awhile.

You can take that any way you want. It’s true, though I would in no way mind a change.

Actually, I’ve already begun to take the spinning approach to life. Rather than managing life, trying to MAKE things happen, there’s an advantage to allowing things to flow. To spin, much like the earth spins, merrily and unceasingly. I’m learning this.

But there’s the problem of the Puppy Close. Are you familiar with this? It’s an old sales technique; to sell the puppy, you allow the person to take it home. After all, who can resist a puppy once it feels like it’s yours? Puppy, reallycoolroadbike, whatever. Same thing. [sigh]

I love thunderstorms. I remember the first time I ever really experienced them, when at the age of 19 I moved from the Bay Area of northern California where I grew up (and where thunderstorms are about as common as snow) to the mountains of Arizona (who knew! mountains! and snow! in Arizona!). That first summer, the thunderstorms rolled in day after day, coming up over the mountain into the valley where I lived, then rolling through and out the other side. They’d come on fast and furious, and I’d dash out to the porch where our homemade wind chimes hung, made from a bunch of old keys, now jangly in the sudden wind, and I’d stand out there and soak up the LIFE that came along with the storms. I never felt so alive as when I stood out there in a storm, the rain pouring down in buckets and the lightning crashing everywhere, I mean, does it get more REAL than that?

We’re having a thunderstorm now, here in Pennsylvania where I live. In the summer they visit regularly, usually in the evening. Today was ripe all day for a break to the oppressive humidity, the air expectant and ready to burst, so I’m not surprised about the storm.

I just wish it hadn’t come just as I was headed out on my bike.

However! That’s better than if I had already been out when the storm started, so I can look at it that way. Riding like a drowned cat isn’t all that fun, although I find it interesting that biking up in Whistler not too long ago was enjoyable even in the rain. In fact, the rain got in my eyes and was thrown into my face by my front wheel and still I found the whole experience wonderful, now why is that??

I’m still savoring moments from my trip to Vancouver, large ones and small ones. Like how wonderful it was to have someone cook for me. Not out of service or obligation, but out of love and creation, the way I look at preparing food. And every day, too! I made my Strollerderby people crazy with all the talk of the succulent salmon and prawns and, well, everything.

But mostly the trip was about connecting with Matthew. Oh. I haven’t exactly mentioned Matthew yet, have I? My bad. But…can you fault me for keeping all this wonderfulness inside where I can savor it slowly?

I’ve actually known Matthew for years, but only online until recently. I’ve felt his energy before in doing some channeling for him a few times as part of the online communities we’re both a part of, and I knew Matthew to be a kind and warm person, but when we met in April there was an immediate connection, an immediate sense of belonging and acceptance and openness, a sense of what I always thought was possible but somehow had always been unattainable in a relationship. So clearly it had to be checked out further, and I’m happy to report that the reality exceeded even my high expectations.

So, that’s not very specific, is it? Oh well, you’ll have to keep reading then. I most assuredly will mention him again. And Matthew is a big part of something I’ve been hoping to do months even before we met, this collaborative book project, and it’s all come together so perfectly that I have to imagine it was planned somehow, on some level.

And right now I am all self-congratulatory for bringing all this wonderfulness into my life.

In my years as a channel of the Michael entity, I would say I’ve grown a fair bit. Not only that, but my relationship with Michael has changed somewhat, and in that time (we’re talking 8 years here as a professional channel, with many more before that in training to do so), I’ve noticed some shifting in their energy somewhat. It’s likely from my moving into a more comfortable space with the work and the energy, and especially lately, I’ve noticed a much more loving focus. Some channels receive drier messages than others, but what’s been coming through for me, especially in the past year and especially more so since last April or so, has been loving and playful both.

This month’s message felt designed for some of you specifically. In fact, I think it is for you. Was it?

[tags]Michael teachings, channeling, psychic messages, Love[/tags]

I mentioned before that my Vancouver trip was so…so…

See? I still can’t find words. There was so much. And I’m still processing all of it, much to the chagrin of Nathaniel, Serena, and Eric who are likely sick to their eyeballs of hearing me wax rhapsodically about the trees there, or the way the sky looked, or…or… Well.

But here’s one thing. I met someone there, a blogfriend I’ve known online since sometime late last year. I knew she lived in Vancouver and emailed her before I got there, which is totally unlike me. After all, why make an overture like that to someone I barely know when they can read all about it in my blog afterward and then say to me, “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be here?! I would have loved to meet you!” which is completely what I usually would do.

So this day wasn’t going to work, and that day was out, and then we went to Whistler and I was sans internetto for FOUR DAYS AND DID NOT CARE ONE WHIT, and when we got back into broadbandland I phoned her and lo and behold, she had time! That day! Which turns out never happens. I mean, this woman keeps herself busy. Which is wonderful.

So I went and met Isabella at her home office and spent a delightful 90 minutes with her drinking her tea and eating I think the best cantaloupe I have ever had (did I mention that everything on my trip tasted better than usual? Why is that?) and talking about reincarnation and other spiritual stuff and simply, well, connecting. It was wonderful.

And when I left she reached into her magical medicine bag and pulled out a tiny keychain in the shape of a Buddha and gave it to me. It’s on my key ring now, and for me it’s become a symbol of everything from the trip:

Transformation
Openness
Beauty
Growth
and of course, Love.

Take this test: Which are you? This is me.

I am still in Vancouver. Still with excellent hair.

There is so very much to say about all this, but where to start? How do I break it all down into bloggable experience, when everything is completely connected with every other part?

What I can say for sure is that I am irrevocably transformed.

Lest you think that’s a big deal, and it is but that’s beside the point, we are ALL irrevocably transformed by each and every experience. Just so you know.

Still.

And again: so much to say, yet…

And, as always, inspiration comes from unlikely places. Which means I can talk about the Cat Visitor. Out back where I am staying is a small garden, underneath the fence of which come various Visiting Cats. Zippy is the most frequent visitor, and from what I hear she likes to remove socks and take them back to her home for various nefarious cat purposes, but mostly she scoots in, rubs herself over available surfaces, shakes the bells on her collar, and leaves again. Too impatient or distractible to stay for any length of time, she comes and goes throughout the day.

Having a parttime cat has its obvious advantages.

Hey, you want to see where I was this weekend? Have a look:

And you want to see evidence of my transformation? Here you go, then:

Do I look different? I sure feel different. I wonder what it could be, exactly… any ideas?

[tags]vacation, Vancouver, British Columbia, mountains, transformation, Love[/tags]

By the way, I should tell you that today I am writing from sunny Vancouver, having arrived here last night after only a “slight” (3 hour) delay connecting in Chicago. And my hair really really likes it here, in fact I have never had such excellent hair, so I’m afraid I am going to have to stay.

Can we talk about my trip? Sure, you’re a captive audience, why not?

TIP: When parking off-airport anywhere near New York, you should expect a New York Experience.

I wish someone had told me that before I stepped out of my car inside a chain-link fence next to a tiny broken-down charmingly and helpfully labeled “Office”. There were New Yorkish guys roaming around, one loading catering trays into a van. They ignored me. I looked around for Tony Soprano. Finally one New York Guy told me to park my car, which I did, and I got out my bags. Another guy stepped up and grabbed one of my bags, which had suddenly become very very important to me, something from which I was reluctant to part. I told him I had a coupon and wanted to park there (duh). He gave me a withering glance presumably usually reserved for people insulting his hair and told me, like EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS THIS, that I should take my coupon to the office. Duh.

So I get all New York back with him and tell him that he should COMMUNICATE, that this is not OBVIOUS TO EVERYONE, and he accuses me of yelling at him. Good. So we know where we stand.

At the office, another New York Guy was sitting down, eating something out of a “to go” container. He ignored me. Then Mr. Slick called me over to the counter, and again treated me as if Everyone But You Knows How To Do This Parking Thing. I surrendered my key (my key!) and received a flimsy slip of paper in return. Which may or may not be exchanged at some later date for my key again and, presumably, the car that goes with it. I should have taken another key with me, but who knew?

Then I’m struck with the realization that Patronizing New York Guy is also my driver, which means that my life and my timely arrival at the airport are both in his hands. Great. If it wasn’t for the TSA guy also riding in the van along with his catering trays, I figured I’d end up in the river somewhere with concrete boots on.

But actually Patronizing NY Guy was quite nice, despite leaving me miles from where I needed to go in the terminal, so I figure he must be used to the New York Treatment.

So I could write about my search for an available electrical outlet for my laptop in the airport in Chicago, or about the marathon tarmac session as we sat, stranded in a thunderstorm and hours after it passed, waiting our turn to take off, or about the AMAZING beauty of the mountains seen from my 30,000-foot vantage point all contrast in dark and light, the waning sun lighting the snow on the peaks, BUT NO!

Instead I am going to write about Eric.

Why not?

Last Friday was the last day of school for Nathaniel and Serena, and yes it has dawned on me that my available bike-riding time will be severely curtailed as a result, but hey, this isn’t about ME, IS IT?? NO!

On the last day was a two-hour assembly showcasing all the work done by each grade this year. Sounds interminable, does it? I can assure you that it was touching, humorous, and illuminating.

But the best part was Eric.

I think I’ve mentioned before that Eric likes to connect with people, haven’t I? When he was very small and I wore him in a sling, he’d telepathically call people over so he could get a look at them. When he was a little bigger, last year in Colorado, it was apparent that he loved connecting. Still riding in the sling, he’d throw out his arms to certain people he picked out, asking for hugs. Once in Large Discount Chain Store That Shall Remain Nameless, he made a worker there cry. She came up to him and, thinking he was a girl, likened him to her dead niece, and all of a sudden I was standing there while a woman in a blue smock wept and hugged my son. If I hadn’t yet known about Eric’s mission in life, I knew then: he’s here to connect.

And he knows how to work a room.

A bit bored of sitting on my lap and watching the children’s performances, Eric decided to go see various people. At times, even for long stretches, I didn’t have sight of him in the crowd of parents sitting on hard metal folding chairs, intently fixated on their children so proudly singing in Spanish or reciting lengthy verse or playing flutes. But I always knew where he was. One parent or another would make eye contact with me above everyone’s head and signal wordlessly, often with just a raised eyebrow or a simple nod, that Eric was with them, down at Eric-level where I couldn’t see. He was passed around, making his way as he pleased from one parent to another. I heard that he was especially fascinated by the piano player and stood there at the keyboard while she played, transfixed. He also enjoyed the African song performed by the 8th grade and some jamming parents, and I believe would have liked getting on the stage to dance with them.

But it dawned on me that day what a true community this school is. Due to circumstance I’ve backed away from it quite a bit compared to the level of participation I had a few years ago, but the community is still just as warm and welcoming to me, to Nathaniel and Serena, and to Eric as they always were. He connected with parents last Friday that he hadn’t really met before, or who only knew him from when he was a tiny sling-carried fragile thing, yet his gifts were seen, appreciated, and embraced He loved and was loved in return.

I know this wouldn’t happen in a public school, as wonderful as many of them are. I feel lucky to have this community as a resource, even if I’m not taking full advantage of it just now. It’ll be there for me when I’m ready again to allow it to embrace me, just as it is there for Nathaniel and Serena, holding them in loving expectation, and one day for Eric as well.

[tags]travel; airports; New York; Vancouver; good hair; Waldorf education; Waldorf schools; community[/tags]

When I was about 15, my parents quit their jobs and leaped into the abyss that is multi-level marketing, having drunk the koolaid that convinced them that their fortunes would be made by selling a fuel additive, one quart of Mix-i-Go at a time.

What? You haven’t heard of Mix-i-Go? But it made FORTUNES, dammit, ZILLIONS of dollars!

Just not for my parents, who likely weren’t cut out for a life of ease, just as they clearly weren’t cut out for the whateveritwas that it took to make the ZILLIONS that the few at the top of the pyramid were making.

I did learn some things from all this, however, as impressionable as I was at the time:

1. I know how to shake hands properly.
2. I know pretty much everything in the Dale Carnegie book “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
3. I know that manifestion works.

At 15, I was encouraged to “set goals”, something my parents did by taping bits of paper to their bathroom mirror that read “I WILL BE RICH”, or listening to a homemade tape of wishes that whispered under their pillows at night, “I AM A SUCCESS.” I tried that once and was distracted by the sound of my own voice under my pillow and couldn’t sleep.

So I went the easy way: I made a list of things I really wanted.

And weirdly? I got them. Or, some of them. I was hoping to make the cut on the upcoming audition for the school choir, but not only did I make that one but I also got into the super-duper exclusive Madrigals group that I was hoping to make it into the following year, the one that got me my one and only television appearance. So either I had actual talent, or…the manifestation thing really works.

Or both?

At the same time, I wrote some things down that I hoped I would be in ten years, at 25, which was very long time away in my estimation and one in which I would most certainly be a “grownup”!

Here’s my list:

1. Live in a city (I was thinking New York but wasn’t specific.)
2. Have an “important” job (and presumably wear high-heeled shoes while doing so).
3. Drive a sports car.

(Shallow? Why no, what makes you say that?)

When I was nearing 25 in actuality, something caused me to take stock of my life and compare it to my hopes from 10 years before. I had met every thing on my list:

1. I lived in Phoenix. Which, though not New York, does qualify as a city.
2. I managed an apartment building of 432 units, regarded within the company as the most difficult property in the portfolio. And wore high heels. Every day!
3. I drove a Mazda RX-7 that people were forever confusing with a Porsche.

Of course, my list didn’t address the fact that I also had a 5-year old child and was twice divorced, but let’s not quibble with the details, shall we?

The point is, there really is something to the law of attraction.

Now, I haven’t seen “The Secret”, nor am I likely to. I have a feeling that it omits certain important details and maybe has an emphasis on materialism that I would like to avoid. Still, the idea that’s getting to many people now is that they do indeed have some control of their lives. Learning to master that, of course, can take lifetimes.

In fact, despite my early successes, I’m still learning about this.

I believe, though, that you really have to know what you want, and figuring all that out can take a while. It can lead you down paths that become dead ends. So knowing the absolute kernel inside that sense of “I want” is imperative.

The interesting thing is, it’s the process of figuring out what you really want that really gives you the power to manifest it.

Do I see my future now? I see things all the time. They’ve changed over the years, but yes, I do have a picture of the future, and we’ll see how it all turns out. One thing that’s interesting to note is that often what we manifest comes at a price that’s not what we expected. Or, as someone put it just this evening, it creates a jolt to the perception. In other words, there is some truth to the phrase “be careful what you wish for”. Being specific while knowing at the same time that you are looking to manifest the absolute inside of what you think you want, is important.

I think I’ll make my list now. What’s on your list?
[tags]get rich quick schemes, pyramid schemes, mix-i-go, The Law of Attraction, manifestation, wishing[/tags]

Ahh. I just finished my Thinking Mode (1 Hour Cycling + Ten Minutes Showering = Blog Post) and wanted to share some things with you. So what if my hair is still wet. This can’t wait!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about personal power and about the effect we have upon others. I think a lot of people in the spiritual community believe that it’s best to think only “good” or positive thoughts, and that doing anything else can be harmful to themselves and others.

Wow. Not only is that absolutely untrue, but it also robs you of the opportunity to explore the colorful spectrum of wonderful emotion that is part of the human experience. Having grown up in an environment where overt displays of emotion weren’t (I felt) welcome, I learned to suppress much of what I felt in order to maintain a certain decorum.

I’m beginning to find now that it’s much more fun to play. Walking on eggshells because of someone else’s discomfort with emotion isn’t easy and can lead you down a path of future difficulty. Of course, you can’t walk all over someone either, and honoring their particular perspective while maintaining the sanctity of your own boundaries is usually the best course.

Still, what do you do with negative emotion? What if you interact with someone who you are sure doesn’t like you? What do you do then?

Back ten-ish years ago when I was first attuned to Reiki, I remember people advising that when clearing a space energy-wise to send anything negative out into the universe to be transmuted into “good.” That was always a little nebulous for me, but I decided to take it on faith that such a thing could actually occur. Ooh, turning bad into good! I’m all over it!

Taking this concept a little further, is it possible to use it with the hypothetical person who doesn’t like you? (As if anyone wouldn’t like you! I find that hard to believe!)

Why, yes.

But first you have to consider some other concepts. Do you really think that people can have power over you, can send you “bad” energy and affect you that way? In other words, we’ve all heard of curses; are they real?

My answer: they are only as real as you let them be.

In other words, if you give them power, they will be real. But if you don’t accept the notion, and this has got to be on an intrinsic level, then negative energy sent to you that way will be ineffective. That’s not to say that you still won’t be able to feel emotion from others. People have a wide variety of emotions and you can easily sense them even when they’re not yours. But it’s up to you as to whether you choose to absorb them or simply allow them to flow over and through you.

Ah, but that’s a little scary, isn’t it? I know it is for me. Feeling the force of someone’s anger is uncomfortable. But when you know that all it is is emotion, and that emotions as themselves can’t hurt you, it does become easier.

That’s not to say that I can achieve this all the time, in fact far from it, but I’m learning. It helps when you feel emotion to explore it a little, to ask yourself where it’s coming from. Is it coming from someone else in your life? Or is it yours? If it doesn’t belong to you, you can just let it wash away. This doesn’t take long. If it is yours, try just letting it be there without actually doing anything about it. You don’t even have to identify the reason for it, in fact sometimes doing that can cause it to be retained and then maybe manifest as pain in the body somewhere.

Pain in the body? From emotion? Yes, that’s really common. We all tend to hold emotion in various places in the body for different reasons, usually as something learned in childhood as a defense technique. I can already see Serena, for example, holding emotion in her throat (thus manifesting as sore throats) and we’re working on techniques to release this. Me, it’s the heart. Or maybe my entire body! But headaches, neck pain, back pain, etc. can all often be attributed to holding emotion in those places, and having done so for a long time so it builds up.

So, knowing that negative emotion is just that, simply emotion, and knowing too that emotion can’t hurt you (unless you choose for it to!), let’s go back to that curse idea. Intentional negative emotion cannot hurt you unless you allow it to. Period. But what do you do with it? Here’s what’s coming up lately about that, that came through as a result of some channeling I did recently:

Send love to the person intending you harm. Intend that whatever negative emotion that comes to you be transmuted into love to be returned to the person intending you harm, and that you constantly act as a one-way channel for that love, using the never-ending source of love that is available to you at all times from the Universe.

That’s it. Simple, and perfect. Try it if there are angry people in your life.