Emerging Futures

Even when I sleep, I am still dancing! I awoke this morning with an yet another insight into my experience of dancing.

My dancing is not dependent on whether or not I like the music, the people or the environment. Dancing is an essential form of expression of who I AM in my world. Music or no music; classical, rock or jazz, dancing is still the expression of my being in a physical world. There are even times when I know that I am the only one who hears the music that entices me to move! And yet, it never occurs to me to question whether or not the music is there. I know… from someplace other than where I have been schooled to listen… that I hear what I hear.

For me, dancing is how I experience the flow of my own evolution. To seek to evolve is the essence of my being and not a tool to solve a problem or an approach to silence the scream from within. Over these very many years of working with others, I have come to know the difference between those who dance for the joy of dancing and those who dance to ‘address’ other less life-sustaining moments in their lives.

There are those for whom a choice to engage in their own evolution has come as an act of compliance with the desire of another. There are those for whom engaging in their own evolution is a desperate attempt to stave off an outcome that appears to be inevitable. And yet still, for others, engaging in their own evolution is a last-ditch attempt to figure out what’s missing so that they can fix their lives - and just get on with it!

Solving a problem. Avoiding a different problem! Satisfying someone else. Postponing the inevitable. Not good/bad, right/wrong - just not what lights me up. In my world, these dances are not from the joy of dancing but from a desire to use dancing to compensate for something else, somewhere else.

This week has been a great invitation for me to pay very close attention to my absolute joy of dancing! More and more, clarity awakens a keen eye to identifyng and selecting those others with whom to dance for the sheer joy of dancing - and not for any other reason. And yes, lo and behold - they are there!

That’s the good news. The sad news is that I have not found many. Ours is a world of questions and answers; a world of problems to be solved and journeys to be completed. Ours is a world of practicality and external referencing; a world that leads us to believe that what we need to do is understand and have knowledge; what we need are strategies to make others do things; and that when we feel we can’t or haven’t, it’s a sign of intelligence that we have chosen well how to protect ourselves from the unknown.

I often say to those with whom I work: be very selective about who you spend your time with. Be very picky about the nature of conversations you choose to engage. Both the people and the conversations we choose to engage will become threads in the fabric of the design of our lives. The problem is, we’re the ones who have to live them.

In our world, as with so many other things, we learn to dance so that we have one more arrow in the quiver of our resourcefulness. How sad that so many of us have lost the joy of dancing simply because it is the truth of who we are.

Breathing is good….

… but living fully is a determination… an intention and an accompanying presence that will not be swayed by anything outside itself… and one that requires we be awake, fully present and both willing and able to engage.

Living fully is no small feat in a world of mediocrity and complacency.  That’s not rhetoric but the cold, hard truth of what stands between me and my enlivened existence!  What we’re up against and what it takes to live a life worth living.  Being alive - breathing in and breathing out - is not living. We can be hooked up to a device that can do that for us.  Is that what I want in my life?

Living fully is MY choice!  I choose to engage at full tilt, recognizing that not everyone around me wants the same for themselves.  It is in those moments that I choose wisely who I spend my time with; who I choose to be in conversation with; and the very nature of those conversations.  Am I willing to mindlessly repeat what everyone else is saying?  No!  Am I interested in saying what will appease and ensure a profound lack of discomfort for myself and others?  No!  Am I willing to allow one nano-second of my life to be invested in what I hold to be drivel?  Not on your life - and certainly not on mine.

More than ever, I am clear that I am looking for The Ten - those 10 women whose hunger to awaken and stay awake is greater than their fear of being different… of standing alone… and of the unknown.  Those 10 women for whom living demands living fully - living large and living meaningful and potent lives!  They are willing to be seen and heard for the truth of who they are.  They speak out and stand up for what they believe in.  They live decloaked lives…. no pretense or hiding; no hiding behind pretending to be who or what others think they should be but living the simple truth of who they know themselves to be and more, to be capable of becoming.

These women know what it means to ‘build it and they will come’.  To go first.  To run where others fear to walk.  They know that lies and betrayals are far more damaging than any truth could ever be!  They know that ‘playing it safe’ will only get them more of what they’ve already got - and that does not reflect who they know themselves to be.

They move forward in their lives because that small voice inside says “GO!” - and they do.  Second-guessing themselves and looking to others for agreement or approval is not in their strategy for living. They trust themselves more than they fear the judgement and disapproval of others.  Their own opinion of themselves is more valuable to them than that of anyone else.  And their lives are living proof of the value of trusting themselves!

I know that those 10 women are there - and that I’ll find them before the end of 2008.  I also know that each of them already is profoundly contagious in the authentic expression of who she is; and is already the attractor for the 10 women who will come into her life!  And so it goes….  I find my 10; each of them finds their 10; and so on and so on and so on.  Who says we can’t change the world??  Who says that each of us… the I AM that we are… can’t be the defining presence that profoundly shapes and creates a new world? Who says we’re not enough; that we’re  not up to it or up for it; that we’re too small or insignificant to change the world?  My life is living proof that none of that is true!

Who else is willing to choose living fully?  Who else is willing wake up and stay awake, becoming the attractor for others who are desperate in their restless and agitated sleep to discover how to wake up?  Who else is ready, willing and able to find their 10… who will each then find their 10…. who will shape their world?

 Playmates.  We all need playmates.  I am seeking those who desire to discover themselves to be an awakened presence in a deeply sleeping world; to become the disturbing presence in a world that profoundly needs to be perturbed!

The power of contagion of an awakened collective.  We already know the effect of contagion of a sleeping…no, not strong enough… a comatose collective.  We’re currently living it!  I, for one, deserve more and better.

Breathing is good…

Since returning from the Emerging Futures: Entrepreneurial Women retreat, I’m noticing that I can hardly breathe!  From one day to the next, I catch myself holding my breath - time and again - and wonder what that’s all about!  Typically, breathing comes easily and effortlessly, bringing with it a sense of the vast Space that I AM for my own evolution.  But these last few days, not so!  

This new series of moments, strung together like pearls on a string, are separate and yet very much part of the same overall experience.  Perhaps as I wonder about it, I’ll do it out loud and discover what else is there for me. 

Breath, at the level of dense matter and the physical body, is essential to survival.  And yet I also know that breath, itself, is not the Life Force but the pump that allows that Life Force to move freely and immensely through my physical body.  Small, tight, tiny breaths = small, tight, tiny flow of Life Force.  

My Life Force rides on the crest of the wave of my own breath, making it possible for the ‘energy’ that sources me - body, mind and spirit - to touch every aspect of my being.  When I am not ‘in breath’, energy is significantly reduced, as is my sense of being nourished in body, mind and spirit. 

I’m noticing that when I hold my breath, it is on the inhale.  This leaves my body bracing… pressing against something… vibrating rapidly as if I have to hurry and get through something.  Images, thoughts, ideas, sounds wash over me in a tsunami of cascading notions that seem to somehow smash up against all that I know.  Other times, I have noticed that I have held my breath on the exhale, leaving my body static and tethered to my physical world… feeling slow and stuck or caught in space and time. No images or sounds; no notions or ideas other than the desire to be still.  These days, I am not feeling stuck - I am feeling as if I’m moving at mach speed!  Truth be told, maybe I am….   Maybe my body is trying to catch up to the rest of me.

My non-physical ‘being’ is already light years ahead of where my body stands.  In these moments, I can feel the matter associated to who I have been and what has been, crumbling at the edges at all Logical Levels.  All that I have been and all that is associated to it is moving and shifting and falling apart.  Disintegration is already happening.  Bifurcation is in flow… and my body is letting me know it is doing so with me and all that I am connected to/with in a physical world. 

And so I notice… I stop and take 5 long, slow, deep breaths… and allow myself to relax into the disintegration of my own life.  It is no longer who I am but an echo of who I have been - and it’s time for it to morph and transform and become the ‘more’ that I know I already am.  

Breathing is good…. 

And so I inhale more of who I know I am becoming… and exhale more of who I have been.  Inhale tomorrow… and exhale yesterday.  Inhale potential… and exhale history.  Inhale curiosity and exploration and adventure… and exhale yesterday’s successes, outcomes and results.  

I live in a world… my world… where in order to become, I must let go of who I was, recognizing that it all co-exists in the now.  My body becomes the territory within which this dynamic experience is sensed and embraced and lived. 

In this moment, I am reminded of Susan’s comment during EF:EW about the caterpillar to butterfly process:  that in the formless mass that briefly lives between no-longer-caterpillar and not-yet-butterfly, there is a pulse.  This pulse is the call to become… it is the vibration that invites matter to reform… and it is the call to awaken to the next expression of being.  If the caterpillar is unwilling to let go of what it knows, it cannot become what it does not yet know it is.  In this mush of who I am today, breath and the space it brings makes way for me to notice and follow the pulse.  The pulse is always in the mush - and I am never alone. 

Today, I am mush!  Glorious, life-enhancing mush, with the potential to awaken and engage the ‘me’ that I do not yet know can be!  I’m good with that, and I really do know….

Breathing is good!

It feels like I’m ready to come up for air and check out the rest of the world.  Between my time in Hawaii, my re-entry into the world of grocery shopping and laundry, engaging in programs and with clients and - let’s not forget! - the riveting moments of ‘Dancing with the Stars’, I’m just now feeling like I’m back in the game and ready to play! 

For some time now, it’s been a challenge for me to find books that hold my interest.  I know… I know… there are lots of wonderful authors, wonderful books/topics, etc. AND after 40 years in the personal evolution/self-development field, I’m finding that much of what’s out there is now on its third pass.  It’s not that I need more - it’s that I need different. 

I was very drawn to Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s book - My Stroke of Insight.  Truly a remarkable woman on an equally remarkable journey of self-discovery.  And not just discovery of her ’self’ but discovery of a process of how ’self’ is discovered.  All of her most excellent academic, scientific training had to expand and loosen in order to make room for the magnitude of what she came to know herSelf to be - deeply, profoundly and in her body - as the truth of her own experience.  Well worth the time to read, not just for her inspirational, courageous and heart-warming tale but for the massive challenge that her truth is to the so-called ‘truth’ of the medical sciences.  

And then, as my great luck would have it, Ervin Laszlo’s latest book was published in March of this year  - called Quantum Shift in the Global Brain.  I love the way this man’s mind works.  A philosopher and a scientist, he has a way of standing on the edge of them both so that he can see great distances in either direction.  His message in his last book (The Chaos Point) was a strong one.  In this book, he goes further to lay out what be believes it is going to take to make a difference… fast!  

In all fairness to Dr. Laszlo, I’ve not gone beyond the first three chapters when I say this:  for me, the same piece keeps being overlooked in his work and the work of others.  (Perhaps there’s more at the end?)  With an emphasis on the recognition that we must engage with each other and with our world, differently, it seems to be unrecognized that before we can do either of these, we must first become willing to engage with ourselves, differently.  Without that essential and fundamental shift, all else is not sustainable in challenging environments.  Like using will power and determination to stay on a diet, the minute we’re hungry and food we love presents, our fallback position is to eat.  

Our first requirement is to change how we engage with ourselves. Change how we define what we are. Change our sense of ’self’ and from there, our sense of ‘other’.  In the truest of ways, charity really does begin at home! 

And my last little adventure in magic and mystery has found its launch point in Michio Kaku’s new book Physics of the Impossible, an entertaining and fascinating exploration of the possible science behind the impossible realities of things like phasers, force fields, time travel and teleportation.  Kool!  And not so much because of the things themselves, but because of how in order to make sense of any of it, we have to allow ourselves to let go as we read. My question of such work is always the same:  how does this relate to my life, today; and how do these insights and discoveries invite me to redefine not who I am but what I am? 

Michio Kaku is one of the best theoretical physicists in the world, currently teaching in New York.  When I read what he writes (and he’s written other wonderful books that will stretch your realities and your mind), I allow myself to become lost in the possibility and potential, and be willing to ‘know’ (in my body, where it really counts and not just my intellect) that no truth is an absolute.  From a Logical Levels point of view, what’s true at one logical level can lose ground and fall apart at another.  I love it!  In this strange but effective way of ‘being’, anything becomes possible!  

So, for now, my days and my thoughts are taken up with notions of Emerging Futures and living as a Quantum Biological Human™.  I have these moments of great clarity when I know that a thought or notion that I hold is impossible and I know with equal certainty that it’s true.  My greatest challenge always becomes: can I live with that in my body without it feeling like chaos?  For that to be so, I have to be willing to have many ‘realities’ co-exist and honour each other.  It is not that ‘truth’ wears many masks - it is that truth has many faces.  

So far, I’m doing just fine! 

Breathing is good…..

I love being in the deep end of the pool!  

I love the power of the conversations and the way they change lives.  ”Just talking’ is more than enough to guide us all through ‘invite and allow’ that we might find a new place to stand.  

I love the intensity that accompanies this highly personal, individual and unique journey of discovery.  No two of us are the same - and no two conversations are ever heard the same way.  It is perhaps that immense diversity that is inherent to a holographic universe that has captivated my attention,  fed my curiosity and nurtured my soul for all of these years! 

I love being with women, gathering in a small group, talking about what matters to them. When we get past the (sometimes) initial uncertainty (i.e. what are the rules?  what can I say/not say?  what will they think?  is it ok to be myself?, etc…) there are two things that naturally  flow:  humour and a deep compassion for self and each other.  I believe it is the essential nature of who we are… and of what we are. 

Spending so much time in the deep end of the pool, loving every minute of it… I sometimes find it feels a little strange to ‘return’ to the day-to-day unfoldings of my life.  I have a HUGE capacity for intensity and not every day of my life is intense.  Perhaps that is indeed, the very good news, particularly for the people who love me.    

Returning to my life is often accompanied by a slight sense of disorientation; a sense of not quite knowing what to do with myself without opening to and extending myself into ‘the field’ to sense and perceive, and be sensed and perceived.  It is, after all, a dance… a magnificent flow of energy moving from and through, such that we become unsure of where one ends and another begins.  I think of it sometimes, as not just watching Northern Lights but BEING Northern Lights!  How can anyone tell that it is ever anything but one complete thing?  That there are no moving parts but just the constant flow of the whole?  That in all its movement and flow, it is whole in its every expression.  That is what it feels like to me to be in these intensives.  

Whether it’s ‘Decloaking’ or any of the ‘Emerging Futures’ retreats, it is always electric with the desire to stay open to and be present for ‘the moment’ that will present itself; that will offer the invitation for an ‘emerging future’ experience; and that will either engage and unfold - or not! - based on my willingness to trust, be present and allow myself to be guided by it.  For many, that is where the deepest fear is. 

What will happen if I let go?  What will happen if I choose to engage without knowing?  Who will I become if I allow myself to discover this…. this… power!  Who will I be as ‘mother’… as ‘partner/spouse’… as the daughter that I have always been thought to be?  What will my life become? 

During my adventure last week in ‘Decloaking’, there were moments when I became so aware of my own life.  (After all, in a holographic experience it is never about anyone but me!  Although others present on my holodeck, each is a living expression of some aspect of my own consciousness.  Every other person is my gift of self-discovery, if I choose to accept it.)  Perhaps the most potent for me was to become aware of how profoundly we train our children to ‘be’ who we believe they should be, framed by my definition of what is true and real and right.  They learn well, and they often grow up to be sometimes strident but always faithful defenders of what we’ve taught them to hold as reality.   And then, the moment comes when we discover for ourselves - in the acquired wisdom that can only come from living our lives - that my certainty about my world may be softening at the edges… and I discover my children to be unable and/or unwilling to loosen their grip on ‘truth’ and ‘fact’ and ‘reality’.  In that moment, I may fear losing my children.  Yet in that same moment, I may risk losing myself.

And so, my love for the deep end of the pool… my ease and comfort in my much deeper truth that it is not that I am a good swimmer, it is that I am amphibious and the distinction is irrelevant… allows me to slowly re-awaken to my ability to also move effortlessly across land and thrive on the breezes that stroke its curves and remind me that I am also a physical being in a magnificent  physical world.  That feels so much slower and denser to me, and yet, I know that, too, is me.  

Like rubbing the sleep from my eyes - not because I have dozed off but because I have lived in the Dreamtime - I slowly gain my footing in my ‘real’ world.  Days of grocery shopping, laundry and discussions with the gardner on how to make my grass grow!  And yes, this too is my life and I am so divinely guided in living it.

I am grateful to and for every breath I take.  I know that I am alive, awake and engaged!

Breathing is good… 

That we change is not what separates us from the rest of the world. HOW we change, is.

We are not the first (and likely will not be the last) who claim to have found a way to accelerate their personal evolution; to create profoundly meaningful lives for ourselves. Given that I’ve been in the ‘personal growth’ world both as a participant and as a facilitator/coach/educator for more than 40 years, I’ve seen more come and go than most people experience in a lifetime! I have made it my life (not just my life’s work) to explore, experience and express all that offers a gateway to transformation.

My explorations of what was ‘out there’ to help me change my life covers a wide range of what was and ‘has beens’, starting in the late 60’s all the way up to the current moment. I’ve been through every kind of therapy/process known to both novice and avid practitioner, alike.

I’ve been analyzed (from a range of counsellors, psychologists and mentors/guides to twice a week for 52 weeks with a psychiatrist… and for sure, after THAT, I really needed therapy!) and self-actualized. I’ve EST’ed, been tested (diagnostic kinesiology) and wandered the world of energy (Reiki attuned and chakra balanced from stem to stern). I’ve spent two decades of my life in ‘traditional’ therapies, not to mention 12 years spent in 12-Step programs for addictions and families of addicted people.

I’ve stretched my body (10 years of high-impact aerobics, running, weight lifting and yoga), my mind (read everything I could get my hands on from ‘New Age pookie-pookie’ as Anne Wilson-Schaef would say, to quantum physics, neuroscience, anatomy and physiology, NLP and hypnosis) and my soul (searching for god in all the wrong places… where even god would never hang out!). I’ve searched close to home and travelled across North America and Europe in my desire to discover…. myself.

And through it all, I launched myself body, mind and soul into every new discovery! I journaled, meditated and grouped process’ed. I sat in silence and talked myself silly! I held my breath, pinched my nostrils and twisted my body into as many tight little balls as I could manage. I read and I wrote. I talked and I listened. I struggled with it by myself and I shared myself into oblivion! And over time, I generated the most impressive and expansive library of books and audio/video programs that you’ll find anywhere in the world! Guthy Renker and I were on a first-name basis. I should have just given them my bank account number and had them put me on a monthly stipend and keep the rest!

Through it all, I learned a great deal. I could hold my own with anyone trained academically in human behaviour, often knowing more than they did. My entire life for more than 20 years had been devoted to finding myself! That’s a lot of discovery and information and education - and it was also a lot of disappointment and (sometimes) hopelessness.

Not that long ago, I sat across the table from a woman about my age who had just decided to engage in one of our intensives. Tears streamed down her face as she declared: “I can’t take one more disappointment! I can’t take one more unkept promise or undelivered result! I am spent - physically, emotionally and financially - and I don’t have much left to see me through one more failed attempt!” I knew exactly what she was talking about.

From 1968 to 2008, I’ve seen a lot of ‘pet rocks’ of the human evolution kind. I’ve seen things repeat, as they drifted onto the stage in one form, reappearing in new clothes 10 to 12 years later. In truth (at least my truth and that of many others), not much is really ‘new’ in this whole area. So much of what is touted as ‘revolutionary’ is a rehash of what already was expressed some four decades ago. The good stuff recycles - and so does much of the useless.

The arrival of Deepak Chopra and the notions of a quantum world began to touch the edges of something different and compelling; something that we could not easily parrot and yet, instinctively knew was worth exploring and figuring out. In the decades that I had been searching, there was finally something that was an invitation for me to reconsider WHAT I was and not just WHO I was, moving me beyond the content of my ‘psyche’ or personality and offering me a significantly and profoundly different perspective on my humanity and its expression.

So, color me radical in my approach to transformation! And ‘radical’ is a word that has been used to describe the things I say and a WEL-Systems perspective. And radical it is, when compared to what has been going on in this world of personal transformation for more than 40 years!

That we create change is not considered ‘radical’ - it’s how we do it that either really catches people’s attention in pure delight or with great annoyance. Because ‘how’ we change is really what makes the huge difference - in both approach and outcome.

It’s radical to consider that we are not WHAT we’ve been told to believe we are. It’s radical to consider that we are the very god we seek. It’s radical to consider that our bodies are quantum biological processors and that what they process are signals or chunks of energy/information that ultimately define the quality of our lives. It’s radical to consider that what goes on inside of me is far more relevant, pertinent and significant to the quality of my life than anything that goes on outside of me. And it’s radical to consider that the future is not something that we are captive to but is a constantly emerging invitation of potential and possibility that we have been taught to say ‘no’ to… and can learn to say ‘YES’ to!

I, for one, have found a very different way to consider my own evolution…. my own accelerated evolution. And I am not alone on this journey. Many, many more have discovered that when they become willing to reconsider WHAT they are, they become able to reconsider HOW they are.

Breathing is good….

My time in Hawaii is almost complete.  Tomorrow, I leave the Big Island until the spring of 2009 when I return for a four-day retreat for women.  Emerging Futures:  Power, Passion and Purpose will change lives… including my own! (More information will follow on this ‘Emerging Futures’ retreat re dates, etc.) 

I am already a changed woman.  During my time here (as it is on every visit) the flow of Fire transforms who I believe myself to be, making way for discovery and new ways of moving through my world.  This trip has been no exception.  If anything, it has happened faster than ever before.  With Kiluea more active than it has been for 25 years, I am mindful of my body engaging more quickly in ways that invite insight into my own intentions, interests and personal evolution. 

In these last 10 days, I have awakened to a couple of truths that I carry deep within my cells:  my body knows things that cannot be rationalized outside of me (and thank you, Danny, for helping me relax more easily into that about ‘being’ Hawaiian!); and almost 40 years in the ‘human evolution’/personal growth movement means that I have seen more things come and go than most people will ever discover, from the ‘pet rock’ of human potential to the ‘everything old is new again’ song that can be sung about so much that exists today.  The good news is that I know what I know AND I know it profoundly changes lives!  I now trust that like never before.  In this domain of human evolution, I am claiming my place at the table as a Tribal Elder.   

For some time now, I have been aware of a desire to move forward in the company of 10 other women who are also feeling the ‘pull’ to accelerate their own evolution.  It is not just about creation or co-creation - it is about co-creation for (as Paul has awakened me to) mutual evolution.  That last part - the ‘mutual evolution’ part - is extremely important to me. 

Creating things for their own sake does not light me up like creating things that will press the edges - FAST! - of my own evolution.  Co-creating with others carries the same interest;  will our manifesting X result in us each becoming ‘more’ as a result of engaging?  If not, I have to ask myself:  why would we invest our energy/time/effort in this way?  If I am not pressing myself to discover more, I am being who I have already been.  That’s not good/bad, right/wrong - it’s just way too familiar to capture imagination for very long. 

Some time ago, we became aware that a ‘critical mass’ for the creation of Intention 2009 would be for 200 unique women to engage in ‘Decloaking… and living authentically’ in one 12-month period.  Why 200?  Because when we consider the notion of ‘contagion of an awakened collective’ and the number of people that are touched by 200 women, the potential impact goes beyond linear, sequential impact.  To me, it’s about creating a new way of moving through a new world.  

We already know the impact of contagion of a collective in a coma:  it is what has produced the world we know.  Imagine the impact of contagion of an awakened collective; a collective whose greatest force lies in the awakened genius of each individual choosing to move mindfully forward and engaging with mindful intention to shape the world they desire, rather than learn to adjust to the one they think they’re stuck with. 

It’s also about acceleration… finding ways to speed up the process; to move beyond the capacity of the intellect to manage 7 plus or minus 2 items in conscious awareness and to move instead, to using the intellect to engage the body directly to process at the speed of 3 trillion cellular interactions per minute!  The intellect does have a role and processing isn’t it!  The body (as a quantum biological processor) is the most powerful processor we have - what’s missing is that we don’t know how to get out of the way! 

And so, I prepare to leave the Big Island with plans already in place to return.  I also leave knowing that the next 3 months will find me connecting to those 10 women who are also seeking to co-create  for accelerated mutual evolution and the global change that will come with it.  I welcome contact from women who are called to this same consideration.   Already, three have come into my awareness since being here that I did not know 10 days ago.  Be careful what you ask for!  

Aloha goes with me as I prepare to re-enter my ‘regular’ life.  I leave with a great desire to once again be ‘home’ with my family; and I also leave the Big Island knowing that I belong here and will be back, time and again, to reconnect with the Earth and Water that ground and soothe me, and the Fire and Air that propel me in ways and into expressions that I cannot find anywhere else.  In these moments, I know what it is to be whole. 

Breathing is good…

And so, we begin.  

I am on the Big Island of Hawaii, at the magnificent Mauna Lani Bay Resort.  Slowly, over the last few days, ‘ohana’ (or family of choice) has been gathering in this place to spend time in shared discovery.  Our first time together will be in about an hour, at the Aloha Reception for the 22 of us who are here.  

In this moment, my heart is full…. of a sense of connection; of hope for the times that are coming; and of the desire to touch and be touched by those who desire to be awakened and stay awake!  I know that as this ohana gathers, I am in the good company of others who are seeking the ‘more’ that they know themselves to be. It is not about finding it - it is about allowing ourselves to be found by it. 

Tomorrow, Day 1 will be a time to connect with the Elements…. to find the Earth, Water, Fire and Air in their unique expressions and in how they come together to shape the ‘whole’ that each of us is.  Here, in Paradise, we are surrounded by these in ways that are impossible to NOT notice, experience and become.  

Kilauea is ever-present, with an intense, constant pressure as an expression of intensity.  What this says to me is that intensity will be found in the coming days, from inside ourselves.  How will we vent?  What will the plumes of our own emissions look like/sound like/feel like to ourselves and to others around us?  When we consider what moves inside of each of us, what surprises await? 

I am thrilled to be here - and I know there will be many more. Already, an ‘Emerging Futures’ four-day retreat for women exploring POWER… redefining it and reclaiming it… it taking shape for April of 2009.  I can feel the rumblings already…. 

For now, what I know more than at any other time:  breathing is good!  

This time next week, I will have been on the Big Island of Hawaii for 24 hours.  The last time I was there (September 2006), I missed the earthquake by three weeks. However, during my entire stay, I could feel the earth move under my feet; and I could hear its sound.  As much as I knew that 2007 was not my time to be in Hawaii, I know that April 2008, is.  

Kilauea is introducing new expressions into the day.  As much as this volcano is now attracting many to the Island to watch, my desire to be there is different.  Recognizing that it is a holographic universe, I am mindful of my desire to be on the Big Island to ‘know’ this expression of intensity as one of my own.  For whatever reason, the Big Island has always felt like ‘home’ - a unique experience for me as I’ve never really felt home to be anywhere in particular.  But on the Big Island, something inside me was awakened (more than 15 years ago) and I’ve never gone back to sleep. 

It is on the Big Island of Hawaii that I had my first experience of being profoundly connected to the elements.  On this small dot of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean… 2500 miles from anywhere!… something inside me came to life.  Although initially less than enthused by my Island experience, my initial indifference quickly turned into a panicked need to return.  It was as if returning to the Big Island was not a nice thing, or a fun thing to do - but an essential thing to do.  The ‘pull’ was not one of the intellect but one of the body.  I couldn’t sleep, was profoundly distracted from the day-to-day events of my life, and  turned myself inside-out to get back there ASAP!  That was 15 years ago and I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been back. 

 For me, it really does feel like going back to where I belong.  

From the very first moment that this Mauna Lani Experience began to form itself, it has alway been about connection - to the elements, to each other and to Self.  It has also been about coming home - to Self and to the elements; and to recognizing that in all others, I can find mySelf.  Sometimes, our connection to the elements of Earth, Water, Fire, Air and I’O (as they each represent some aspect of ourselves and the whole of what we are) allows us to know some part of us that cannot be known - or touched! - through logic, reason and habit.  And in this Spirit of discovery, I know that there is still much of me that I have not yet met.   

I will be in the best of company!  Six more sleeps we’ll be on our way!  And one thing I know for sure:  there will be intensity and there will be acceleration for us all.  The powerful forces that are allowing Kilauea to breathe more deeply are the same ones that will expand my own capacity to breathe life into my connection to being here.  

It is all unfolding exactly as it should.

Breathing is good…..