Nichole's Prayer

Dear One of My Sacred Heart,
Blessed Daughter of the One
My Girl Nichole,

I hear you sweetheart calling to me, calling to us all
as you spiral in the darkness of addiction
I hear you sweetheart and feel your heartbreak
the loss of love, the loss of Isaiah, the loss of innocence
I hear you sweetheart begging for mercy, crying for release
from this cold, dark prison that keeps you separate from the love
that would warm you, melt you, resurrect you
I hear you sweetheart, I hear your despair, your terror, your resignation
your dark thoughts, the belief that it can never be any different than this
I hear you sweetheart, I hear your shame, your guilt, your deep regret
for living, for breathing, for being
I hear you sweetheart, I hear you entertaining ideas of suicide, of death
of running until there is nothing left
I hear your pain, I feel your heartbreak, I sense the unbelievable and undeniable loss
you are encountering...that your oh so sweet sweet heart is experiencing
And I know who you are...you cannot hide from me, you cannot hide from those that have been in your presence, that have tasted your wisdom, that have been graced by your humor and sass
I will not give up on you, I am not giving up on you
I love you now more than ever
I will not fear you or the despair of the world that you mirror to me, my own despair and pain
You will make it through this darkness Nichole
God will see you through this darkness Nichole
I will see you through this darkness Nichole
One day you will breakthrough
The shackles of the past will be gone
And you will be free to live the life you are here to live
I know you...you...the true you...the essential you cannot and will not be able to outrun
the radical and relentless love that I have for you
With every ounce of love in my heart I am penetrating the dark prison of your addiction and I am speaking right now, words of healing salve directly into your heart.
You are not alone
You are not alone
You are not alone
God and Love have not forsaken you.
Surrender in all ways to the love that you are
Surrender in all ways to the beauty that you are
Surrender in all ways to the heartbreak and pain that you feel
Come home Nichole
Come home to those of us that love you, that hold the Truth of who you are...that will stay with you as you walk from the hell of addiction into the light of wholeness
You were only a child honey when meth came into your life
You were only a baby when you took your first trip
You were only 3 when you had your first withdrawal
You didn't deserve to be hurt and abused
You don't deserve that now
You deserve love
You deserve a safe haven
You deserve to heal, to be free from the jaws of addiction, from the burdens of your mother's past
Hear me O Sweet and Adorable One
I behold your innocence
I am a stand for your wholeness
I will not leave you
I will love you until you can love yourself
I will forgive you until you can forgive yourself
I will be unstoppable in loving you.
Come home Nichole, come home to your Soul.
God, please...perform your healing miracles in this Dear One's life.
I beg of you for mercy.
I beg of you for your intervention, your healing intercession.
If I have ever served you Beloved Yeshua, if I have any outstanding favors to call in.
Bring this one home please, I am on my knees, tears streaming down my face
I beg for your grace, your love, your mercy to descend and envelope my dear one Nichole.
Please God, with the entirety of my being I make this humble supplication.
Lord, hear my prayer.
It is done.
Tetey a Yeshua.
Ameyn.

Sacred Chaos

It's 6:39 a.m. on Saturday morning...just 2 days before we turn into the new year. My heart is bleeding from the inside out...stricken by the vulnerability of oneness...experiencing the consequences of loving with a naked, unguarded heart. There is a price to pay when we disrobe, dismantle, disarm and dissolve...there are consequences to unguarding our hearts...living without the numbing coma of addiction...the frenzy of delusion and distraction. I am fully present now, in my naked heart...feeling the immensity and intensity of the human experience. As I descend from the tower of my mind...the seat of control, constriction, fabrication, illusion...into the temple of my heart...the house of love, surrender, compassion, openness...I experience vertigo, a dizziness...a loosing and a losing of control. I am not who I thought I was. Life is not what I thought it was. I have fallen into the chasm between past and future...spiraling into the truth of here and now. Where is my terra firma? There is no solid ground...my lifeline is my heart right now and the love, the astounding love and compassion that is flowing through me...flooding me. My thoughts when followed are dead-end streets...dissolving into nothingness...meaningless islands in a dark sea of nothingness. I have lost all semblance of control...I have surrendered to my Beloved in the fullness. There is only a thread of my former self now. Am I dissolving into essence or going insane? Do I need patience and silence or Prozac and therapy? Am I becoming a slacker or resting in gentle repose? I have been turned upside down, shaken, dumped out...where are the pieces of my former self...gone. Who will put this humpty dumpty back together again?

I spoke this Christmas eve about how Christ is born in the darkness. The Christ is born when our Soul enters the darkness...this is where profound miracles of love and healing occur. Christ isn't born in our lives in the midst of our ascension....our enlightenment...no, the Christ is born in the night of God...the darkness...the lowly place...the manger of our Soul...the tomb, pre-resurrection. In my message I spoke of three aspects of this darkness...1) The place of our sacred wound, our most vulnerable place, the place where fear reigns in our psyches, our hearts...when invited, the limitless power of Christ's love will enter this place and alchemize, fortify, sooth, salve, save, 2) The place of unknowing, the great mystery...the place where we lose our limited knowledge for the true gnosis of God. For this to occur we must swap our mental control for Divine will and a radical faith...this is where the astounding wisdom of Christic love is born, 3) The dark womb of the Mother...the place where we enter the dark, become gently dis-membered and re-membered in Christ...in the pattern and the promise of the I Am...to birth the expression of the One that we are here to manifest in the real. This is the place of the cocoon...the caterpillar turned to goop, imaginal cells searching for one another...the gestation time before the butterfly of the true self emerges.

I am in the darkness of the sacred wound, I am in the night of God, I am the goop of the dismembered self. And in the midst of this my heart is being opened, initiated further into the fires of Christic Love. I trust I am in the holy crucible, that I am held in the arms of the Beloved as I undergo this sacred alchemy. I hope to make it through this...I must trust that the Beloved of my Soul will deliver me to the Kingdom...I am ready to rest and allow the Universe to love me as the adorable one that I am...I am ready to be adored...loved into new life.

I arrived home on the 26th to one of my own Beloved's betrayal of herself...one of the women that I have mentored and loved from Coffee Creek stole two cars from our driveway on Christmas day (one of them a brand new Prius...5 days old). I have been reeling from the heartbreak of loving someone so completely and the agony of seeing that person throw her life away time and time again. "Love always reaches, Anakha...maybe not today, or this year...or maybe not in her lifetime...but Love reaches...always. We never love in vain," these were the words Andrew spoke to me that first night as I spiraled into my own grief, disbelief and doubt. Since that night I have been calling this young woman every hour on the hour...reminding her of who she is...how much life she still has to live, telling her how much I love her, that she is forgiven...that it is time to face the consequences, stop running and come home. I received a text message from her last night...she is ready to go in...face her life...return for another, long stay at Coffee Creek.

Can I love myself in the midst of my own self-doubt and shame? Can I love her in the darkness of deceit? Can I love my roommates as they spiral through anger, frustration and disbelief? Can I love this world and all its woundedness, in all of its injustice, in all of its glory and sublime sweetness and soul-aching tenderness?

Am I becoming a true sacred heart mystic...able to experience the immensity, intensity and intimacy of Love...or am I going to end up as pool of water dissolving into the earth...swallowed up in Sacred Love...forever? I am reminded of a book sitting on the bookshelf to my right..."Are you becoming enlightened or losing your mind?

I think that just maybe...becoming enlightened means losing your mind...putting on the mind of Christ...residing in the temple of love. Stay tuned to see...

For now, I wait for a call from this young woman...when it is time I will go get her...call the officer and escort her to jail...with as much love and grace and dignity that we all can gather. I intend to realize this part of my journey...and hers...as sacred.

God works miracles in the darkness. The Christ is born in the darkness of the Soul.
This is my prayer...come my Beloved...enter my darkness, enter our darkness...birth your Sacred Love, your Sacred Wisdom, your Sacred Self in the fabric of this life.

Let us pray...

Totally Random

I've been up since 3:33 a.m., the clock just turned 4:44 a.m. They say the veils are thinner in the early morning hours...that divine messages are making their way through...the time of the angels.

As I listen in to my thoughts...attempting to catch an inspired idea...all I hear are random thoughts....

*I am not really into Christmas anymore...I am tired of the worn out concepts, marketing jingles, tacky displays crowding the stores...I want to celebrate Christ everyday...walk in the newness of the holy birth within me, within others moment to moment. This is the Christing that is coming down. It's an everyday, every moment celebration, inhalation, exhalation, consummation...

*Sometimes the only place I feel truly alive is on the dance floor...there I can express the fullness of my passion, my power, my desire, my rage, my sweetness. On the dance floor we expect each other to show up, to put it out there, to engage with the beat, the breath, the body. This is one of the only places in my life that feels big enough to hold the unbridled fire that is my essence. I sure hope my foot feels better on Sunday, cause I want to dance...it has now been 2 weeks of hobbling around. I am ready for this to be healed. Now!

*I have a crush...a shy, effervescent crush for the first time in years. It is really quite sweet to experience this sort of middle school adoration. Playing with flirtation in the most sweet, innocent and natural way. I can imagine her...the young me...having her first crush. In fact, I think his name was Scotty Surrat...anyway...I am smiling just thinking of being almost 40 and crushing on some stranger that I have never spoken to...we are passersby on this cosmic dance floor.

*I ate blueberry pancakes for dinner last night with my new soul friend David. I haven't let myself eat pancakes in years....yummmmm, they were so good. I think I ate 3 of them...with syrup. David is medicine for my soul...he is helping me unwind, relax, eat pancakes, let go, heal and reveal....there is much to say about David...our relating and what is occurring as we introduce each other to the sacred, to the intimate -- and I'll save that for later. We come from different planets, he and I, ...we are creating a new language, the one of union, of God embodied, of sacred intimacy...God, Self, Other...The Naked Heart puja received rave reviews...stay tuned, we are stirring up more divine beauty and sacred ecstasy of the intimate nature for 2008!

*I am craving the silence...craving my time in uninterrupted union with Yeshua and the Divine. I am ready to dive in to the sweetness of silence and solitude during the time of the turning...between Christmas and New Year's....sink in, relax, be, listen, groove with the sounds of harmony, receive, praise, bless, create. I am ready for the fullness of my mystic's heart to open...to fill and be filled.

*I will be having a reading of an excerpt from my new book in February...I am thinking of having it on Valentine's Day...since it is all about becoming love...sacred devotion, intimacy, union, and all the landscapes we travel on this divinely human journey into the embodiment of Love's presence...stay tuned for the date and the location. Chocolate promises to be involved.

*Sometimes I grow tired of hanging out with myself...I dream about being somebody totally different...but then I would miss who I am...so I quickly toss out those imaginings and throw my arms around myself...promising to never leave me...truly, most days...I find myself and my life to be quite interesting, intriguing...at least on the inside, which is where it really counts. I travel to some amazing places...the sweet and treacherous landscape of my soul.

Okay, enough naked heart random rambling. Not much holy inspiration...a few confessions.

I am wanting to deepen into this time of Christ's birth...to receive in essence, the new life that Mary ushered in on that silent night, that dark night so many years ago.

I love myself. I love you. I love myself. I love you.

Christ is in our midst!

In my hallucination I saw my beloved's flower garden In my vertigo, in my dizziness In my drunken haze Whirling and dancing like a spinning wheel I saw myself as the source of existence I was there in the beginning And I was the spirit of love Now I am sober There is only the hangover And the memory of love And only the sorrow I yearn for happiness I ask for help I want mercy And my love says: Look at me and hear me Because I am here Just for that I am your moon and your moonlight too I am your flower garden and your water too I have come all this way, eager for you Without shoes or shawl I want you to laugh To kill all your worries To love you To nourish you Oh sweet bitterness I will soothe you and heal you I will bring you roses I, too, have been covered with thorns.

~ Rumi ~

Love is the Only Answer...

My dear friend Gene said to me today, "I think its about time we admitted we don't really know anything, that we are all starting from scratch when it comes to loving one another." I nodded my head, I really couldn't agree more....

I see the struggle we are having in our attempts to love one another...to fulfill the Christic commandment, to live as love, to reside in peace. Today, having rode my own demons all the way down...courageously facing my own shadow...I am more prepared than ever to love completely, to love without condition, without projection, without misguided expectations. Yes, having faced myself, my fears, my darkness, my distortions, I have fallen in love with myself again, wholly, truly and I am now courting the question of how to be love, give love, activate love with you...

My heart is soft...like the petals of a flower...innocent again...free to love another, because I love myself...I'm innocent again. These are words to a song I wrote with Blaine Moody several years ago. I have now found my way into living these lyrics...Innocent Again.

My heart is registering the call to love...the revolution of the heart...a global metanoia. Love is the only way to grasp another human being. Here it is again...the choice...to see with the eyes of love or to stay clouded with the smoky and distorted haze of fear. Remove the plank from your own eye before you condemn the sliver in your brother's. Jesus has been quite clear about his stance on owning up to our fears and projections. When you see a sliver...it is time to look for the plank. Yes, it is much easier to believe it is about another...when really the truth is that what we see outside so painfully mirrors what we have denied inside we can hardly stand it. We'd rather disassociate and project the pain somewhere else rather then step inside the darkness and resurrect the wholeness that is hidden there. Christ was born during the darkest time of the year...Christ is born again in the dark places within us...this is the fertile veritas of Christ's Love.

From Thomas Merton...

"Love is the only answer. But medieval talk of love does nothing. What does love mean today? We have to love in a new way, with a new attitude. and I suppose perhaps the first thing to do is to admit that I do not know the meaning of love in any context -- old or new."

My question from my 40 day retreat remains..."how can I truly love another, my sisters and my brothers, to exchange the essence and the vibration of love, that will re-root, re-route, re-vitalize...resurrect? This is what I have come to learn, this is what I have come to offer. The questions and their answers. The wound and the salve. The lock and the key.

This journey into sacred love is finally and completely and ever-so-beautifully opening me....setting me free. I am humbled, I am gratefull and yes, today I am free.

Det haboon had'l had akayna d'ena ahabtekoon.

Ameyn.

Come Away with Me!!

My belly is screaming I love you, I love you, I love you. I am wanting to tell all the lovers in the world, I love you. I am so in love today...I have broken free...I have crossed over, I am in Eden before my fall. There are so many amazing hearts and souls in my life, in the Life. Each one different, unique...each bearing, baring their gifts, their desires, their burdens with such beauty, with such truth. We are works of art...broken-hearted, open-hearted....grieving, revealing, desiring, yearning, healing, journeying, moving, opening, constricting -- glorious divine art. I am feeling the magnitude and the power of embodied love swirl in my belly tonight, moving upward into my heart, dancing figure eights around my eyes, changing my vision...

There is a choice, we have a choice. To see and perceive with the eyes of Love or remain clouded with the smokescreen of fear. Love's vision or fear's vision? Moment to moment, what will it be? The path is that clear...yet the choice is not always that easy. We become haunted by the voices of the past, the lies of the present, all the prisons of the mind's worrying, struggling, fretting. This love is penetrating my prisons, my past, my heartbreaks, the lies...the chains are off, the bars have come down. I stand naked and stunned in the cell that used to hold my life. I look around and suddenly find myself in the field...you know the one...out beyond right doing and wrongdoing...the field where we meet again...divine lovers...the garden with no gate.

Love's vision is taking me, taking me places inside and outside. I am being overcome with the ocean...this drop, this precious drop of me has made it back to the Source...the drop, the wave, the ocean united. I am swimming in love...suffocating with the intense pressure coming from within, wanting to be freed. I love you beloveds...I wish to behold your sweet faces in my hands, cupping your tenderness, soothing your worries, holding your hearts like the precious ruby gems that they are. There is such sweetness in sacred intimacy....when we let go, drop in, disarm, disrobe...reveal, dismantle...dissolve. When we become the naked heart, we melt into presence, we overflow with effervescence, we rise again together in radiant love.

My body is becoming a host to Love's presence, no longer separated from this dance with the Beloved. Yes Blaine, everything is indeed holy now.

Yeshua has made good on his promise to give me his very own sacred heart....to make the sacred trade...my life for his heart. I vow to make good on my end of the deal. To donate myself, again and again...to the fire's of Christic love.

Come Beloveds, come fall in love with me!

XXXOOO,
Anakha

Dark Sweetness

I am dark chocolate.
Deep, rich, still, solid.
Being depth.
Bringing depth.
Bringing sweetness from the dark depths of my heart.
I carry the mysteries.
The mysteries of the sacred heart.
These are teachings whose time has come.
I took the Eucharist this morning,
and offer my prayers....
Andrew says I am training the "light"
on the wound...the Christic wounds...
I direct Christ to enter into the core of
my insecurities, my inauthenticities,
my fears.
I ask for this radiant Christic love to
penetrate my darkness
To turn it into dark sweetness.
To make a love elixir that
will awaken the hearts of
my brothers and my sisters.
During the Eucharist this morning
I hear Yeshua say, ...you have the key...

unlock the teachings now

begin writing them.
My monkey mind worries about
how this will pay my rent, my car payment...
Trust...Surrender...Trust.
I am dark, rich, sweetness.
I have mysteries to reveal.
I carry the forbidden
I will do my part
to bring Eden back.
We are dropping in again....
into the mystical depths,
where what was hidden
will be revealed
in word, in flesh.
The Kingdom is coming...
Christ is here now.
Christ is alive in me now.
Christ is in the world now...
as you, as me, as we.
I confirm this with my entire being.
We are love, we are love.
Come, I know you are tired...
this is the way...the way
of Love's salvation.
Amen.

In Bed with Jack

Jack is one of my best friends in the world...he has been with me since the early days of seminary and has been my teacher on the mystic's path. He teaches me about the wildness, about unencumbered adoration and affection, he demonstrates single-minded focus...ball, ball, ball, ball, ball, ball! I love this little being...a soul-mate for certain. I picked Jack up after dance last night...I hadn't seen him in a week or so...he ran out and put his paws around my neck...was clinging to me with a fierceness that said...take me with you. He is lying next to me now...doggy snoring...one paw on my arm. I am grateful for Jack...for all the joy and all the love and all the outrageousness he has brought to me. I am not sure how much he likes the new place...he certainly is not so fond of Jimmy's wire haired datsun, Frankie. Frankie seems to be in love with Jack and runs up to jump on him (she is all of 3 or 4 inches tall) and barks incessantly. Jack bares his teeth and growls at her....really quite grumpy and pissy. He doesn't know or seem to care that Frankie is the peace troubadoor's dog and that he really should be more friendly and loving. That is what I love about Jack...he just allows himself to be what he is...I see him go through different emotinal states...sad, scared, excitement, love, agitation....he just let's be.

I find myself back to Let it Be, Let it Be....there will be an answer. Let it be, let it be. Why am I blogging at 4:12 a.m.? I don't know...let it be, let it be.

Exquisite Order

All is in perfect order...always, all ways. The grief, the despair, the Crucifixion, the resurrection, the joy, the bliss...all aspects of the One perfect order moving in, through and as my life. I am grateful for my life...the flickers of light in the dark were real...are real...I am emerging slowly, carefully from this dark night. Once I fully surrendered to the discomfort...once I was willing to stop bitching about how hard this was, once I finally felt the full measure of despair, the release began. A new wholeness is emerging. A new willingness to just be who I am...fully, moment to moment has taken root.

I experienced this in the dance tonight...the theme, Dark Radiance...we danced into the darkness...relentlessly pursuing and surrendering to the dark, penetrating it with our abandon until it surrendered the diamond, the gem, the concealed radiance. I danced with all the parts of myself that I have judged...or others have judged...the parts I have tried to dismember, suppress, make pretty, water down -- I danced the anger, I danced the erotic, I danced the neurotic, I danced the shamanpriestessprophetwoman, I danced the seductress, I danced the joy, I danced the bliss, I danced the surrender and there on that dance floor, I came into wholeness.

I have invested a lot of my life force in trying to be someone I am not....trying to be good, holy, appropriate, loved, and in the process suppressing the most powerful, juicy and amazing aspects of the I am, that I am. I am ready to bring all of me to the party of life. I am trusting that if the Holy Spirit, the Divine Alchemist didn't burn it away, then it is fair game...that it is essential to me, to my life and to my contribution to this silent, sacred heart awakening. I am entering this time of sweet emergence and integration and I am grateful for the change of internal scenery.

There is an exquisite order to life...yes there is, the heartbreak, the tear down, the dissolution, the build-up, the infusion, the Resurrection.

I was reminded of that today...seeing vinn after more than 2 years of absence. A prayer was answered for me today, a miracle of reconciliation occurred...I found myself sitting across the table from this Beloved One who taught me so much...this amazing man that I have loved with, struggled with, learned with, fought with, created with, laughed with, danced with. Here we were...dropping into a rhythm, a conversation, an interchange between two devoted lovers of God.

What can I say other than thank you. Thank you for the Crucifixion, thank you for the fire, thank you for the burning away of all that was inessential. Thank you for the breaking open, thank you for the grief, the despair, thank you for allowing me to feel my brothers and sisters and their silent suffering. Make me an instrument Lord, make me an instrument of your fiery passionate and compassionate Love...make me your instrument.

I am the sacred heart awakening.
We are the sacred heart awakening.
We are burning into love
We are igniting the flame of the sacred heart
We are on fire for God.

And so it is. Amen.

Let It Be, Let It Be!

As I sit down to write this evening I can feel the exhale and the letting be in my body. The Beatles song is playing in my mind...let it be, let it be. Several lines pound in my heart..."in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me...and when the broken hearted people living in the world agree...there will be an answer....let it be."

I have been feeling the grief and the despair of the anawim. The lost and forgotten ones. Anawim is the plural form of an Old Testament Hebrew word which is translated as "poor", "afflicted", "humble", or "meek". It is the Anawim, "the lost and the forgotten ones", to whom Yeshua refers in his beatitudes on The Sermon on the Mount. "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven", and "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth". ( Mt5:3,5)

To connect with the anawim is to connect with the radically loving, ferociously tender and endlessly compassionate heart of the Cosmic Christ...the Sacred Heart. I am amazed at the endless and overwhelming grief and terror that the earth and the animals and the anawim are experiencing in these times. It is overwhelming to connect into this unimaginable and unending reservoir of pain, and despair and grief and fear that is being experienced as a result of the violence that is occurring. I did not know that this is what the stigmata would be, would bring...a physical experience of what the my brothers and sisters...human, plant, animal, rock, water...are experiencing on the planet today. A shattering of my heart through the grief of our world.

I am humbled.
I am humbled.
I bow down and kiss the feet of the anawim.
I have been so selfish.
I have been so protected, numbed to the terror, the grief, the despair.
How can I serve, Yeshua?
Show me.
Bring me into and unto Thy Will.

No more complaining...or in the least I intend to be more aware of my complaining about my small sufferings when there are people in real situations with real fear and real terror and real despair...war, rape, violence, starvation. Where do I start....where do we begin to heal this...how can my life be a salve, a part of the solution, a part of the balanced distribution of God and Good?

There will be an answer, let it be, let it be.

Today I am feeling connected to the anawim and simultaneously starting to see a flicker of light in this deep dark night. I awoke this morning and let the grief be...I didn't force myself to run or do yoga...I let be...I took the Eucharist and prayed with Yeshua, I remembered that Christ is my bread in life, my true vine, my good Shepard and he won't leave me hanging or lead me astray. I am tethered in the Christ...Christ is my rock and my foundation when all else crumbles there we will be...holding one another...the bride and her groom, united in love.

I am seeking the essential...wanting to live from essence, giving and gifting what is essential to the world, receiving what is essential from the world. I want to contribute my soul's gift of love...a love that is so fierce and compassionate and radiant and gentle that it will change the very nature, the very fabric of my being, of our being, of our world and of our living.

I am being now, exhaling...letting be...there will be an answer...let it be Anakha, let yourself be.
Keep watch and pray...let us hear the answer, let us be the answer for the anawim, the brokenhearted world. Let us be the medicine of the Resurrection.

Let it be, let it be.

When I find myself in times of trouble,
mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness she is
standing right in front of me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
And when the broken hearted people
living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted
there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer. let it be.
Let it be, let it be, .....
And when the night is cloudy,
there is still a light, that shines on me,
shine until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music,
mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be, .....

Coming Down from the Cross

I was "told" before leaving for my retreat back in July, that I would receive the stigmata of the Sacred Heart. I remember trying to ignore that whisper, that foreshadowing for days before fully allowing it into my consciousness, accepting it as guidance from my Beloved Yeshua. I remember talking to Aminga about it...I remember feeling apprehensive, I remember her saying to me that her sense was that it would be more emotional than physical.

The stigmata of the Sacred Heart...the heart that holds compassion for the world, for suffering...the heart that is penetrated, pierced by grief. This is the stigmata of the Sacred Heart...being opened into the fires of love through the grief experienced by Christ in the Crucifixion. I have been aware that this deep and seemingly endless grief is connected to my Beloved Yeshua's experience on the cross. My ankles too have been so sore that I am barely able to walk most days. I remember saying to Gene a couple of weeks ago that my sense was that I had been hung by my ankles in a past life or something...and that was such a weird thing to say...since I don't spend much time in that arena. I am now understanding that this too is a part of the stigmata...that I am feeling some effect of the Crucifixion in my own body and heart and spirit. In the retreat at the Beloved Community today I became aware of the full surrender required during the Crucifixion...that Yeshua couldn't do anything to get out of it...it was his destiny...he didn't fight it, he didn't struggle...he blessed with compassion, he donated his heart in forgiveness and he commanded his spirit into the hands and will of God.

I am just barely able to make sense of all that is happening and why...although I know that it is inextricably tied to the intention that moved me into the retreat and continues to move me now -- the intention to awaken my sacred heart...to become an embodiment of love....to radiate love to others, to awaken hearts. Today I walked to the cabin where I spent the 40 days and found the intentions that I had written before the retreat (as dispensated by Yeshua)...pinned to the wall. I took them down and gathered some of my other items and walked away from the cabin. When I rounded the corner near the stone labyrinth I was guided to walk it and place those intentions in the center...fully surrendering my heart, my life, my gifts, my desires, my service to the Divine Will that is ordering and orchestrating my life now.

I also became aware of the question of what is wanting to be crucified in me...what is dying on that cross, what needs to be left behind so I can come down from it...be cradled in the tomb, be wrapped in cloth until the time of my full and complete resurrection into new life and into an unimaginable wholeness that I have never experienced until now.

What is being crucified? Fears, distortions, separations, judgements. That is what wants to be fully surrendered to this Crucifixion...to the hands of God....I want to forgive myself for all the ways that I have betrayed myself...I am the betrayer, I am the betrayed. Forgive me, for I know not what I do...to my self, to others when I do not trust myself, when I question my gifts, when I deny my heart its voice.

I am afraid to come down...I know the Crucifixion...what is the Resurrection? What will be there after this incineration? Can I honor life, will I serve with integrity, will I bring forth the essential and embodied teachings of the Christing that is coming down, rising up, taking over?

I am going to share with you and with God what is keeping me on the cross...what wants to be surrendered so I can come down...

I am afraid I am nothing, know nothing, have nothing essential or worthy to offer, to bring, to teach. I am afraid that even if I do, that I will mess it up, I will distort it and won't honor the integrity of the message. I am afraid I will stop here, that I won't come down, that I will stay frozen in this state of bleeding from the inside. I am afraid that I am insane, that I can't make it in the world, that I am a mistake, that I can't, that I am not smart enough, quick enough, that I don't have what it takes. I am afraid that it is too late, I'm too old, that I am not wise enough, deep enough. That I am invisible...that I don't get it and I will never get it. I am afraid of being impotent..unable to do this. I am afraid that just trusting the moment and being fully present is not enough. I am afraid I am not enough. I am afraid nobody will want me, want what I have to offer...that I am irrelevant, a random part of the Universe that doesn't make sense or have a part to play. I am afraid my nest egg will run out before I get it together. I am afraid I will burden others. I have a lot of fear right now....I must be getting close to something good...those dragons are breathing fire...protecting the gift, guarding the diamond.

I am so afraid of not being able to support myself with my native gifts...I have long left the corporate world...there is no way back...the door is closed...a new one is open...will I step through? Will I choose life or will I die here on the cross?

I am being asked to surrender my doubt, my fear, my worthlessness to the Crucifixion, to the Divine Will...I am surrendering tonight, into your hands I command my Spirit, my Life, make me new in Christ, bring me into a new integrity, a new wholeness, keep me humble, pliable. Move your Sacred Intent, your highest will for the good of all through me and through my life. Lord, make me an instrument of your radical and radiant love. Take me off this cross now...heal my wounds in the tomb, make this suffering holy, resurrect me into new life. I am ready. I commit to being here and walking through the open door in front of me.

I hear Yeshua say, "I am the door, I am the life, I am the Resurrection, I am the shepard, I am the true vine, I am the bread of life...I am your all in the all."

I love you Yeshua, I love you Christ, I love you Jesus, I love you Mary, I love you Magdala, I love you Angels, I love you Beloveds.

I love you Anakha, I do...I love you.

Ameyn.

Resting in the Love of God

I am returning to Ashland this weekend and as this night moves on and the time of departure nears I feel an anticipation...a deep sense of love and homecoming...a return to the place where my beingness was restored, where my entire life turned into a new reality. I am so filled with love when I think of my time in my cabin, aka the Sacred Heart Chapel...this summer. It is in my little cabin in Ashland that I fell in love with the one that has been here all the time, it is in that space that I found deep rest in the silence and in the love of God. I am returning now for another experience...ready to re-connect in the silence of love. I have so much gratitude for the grace that descended on my life...for the Presence that filled me to overflowing...for the Power that coursed through my blood and through my life...rearranging, reordering, resurrecting, re-membering. I feel my heart expand and dilate as I write....remembering days of fasting, of waking before dawn to take the Holy Eucharist, of walking and talking with the Presence, of doing yoga naked on my deck with the trees bending and stretching by my side...days filled with art, sculpting, writing, praying and sacramental ritual...bliss. I long for those days in the sunshine...listening and following the exquisite guidance that is always available to me. Slow the pace...attune to my rhythm...ahimsa Anakha, ahimsa...these were the first teachings that Yeshua delivered to me on the first and second day of my retreat. It is time to return to rest, to my natural pace and attune again to the perfection of loving guidance available. This guidance, if heeded, would allow a blind person to navigate a mine field with grace and ease. This is the nature of God's love for us...it is active and engaged...it is imminent as much as it is transcendent. He knows you by name...she knows the number of hairs on your head. The Divine Father Mother burns with love for each of us...we are born with blessing and it is within this blessing that we have our life and our living. I love God with a piercing devotion...with an overwhelming sense of gratitude...and I am now bringing that love into the realm of my relationships. This is risky for me...bringing what I have held so precious and so sacred to the world, to relationship, to intimacy with others. The exquisite beauty of the connection gets a bit fuzzy as I cross the border from the metaphysical into the physical...from essence to embodiment. I am willing to bring the mystical into the real...I am ready to fully embody and express the beauty and the inspiration that lies behind my eyes and within my heart.

I am ready to be here now. I am here now. I am here, I am one, I am love.

I am resting in the Love of God. Be still and know, I am Love.

Nigredo: One Stop on the Mystic's Highway

"Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasures."

~ Rilke ~

In the midst of my grief yesterday morning, I prayed for guidance and pulled Andrew Harvey's book, Dialogues with a Modern Mystic from my book shelf. I "just happened" to open it to the section on Grief and the New Therapy and to a section called Nigredo. Here is the passage that caught my attention:

"Coming to know and harness the chaotic energy of our dragon involves the acceptance of a long and grueling process. As the alchemists taught us, many descents into the dark, what they call nigredo, and repeated burnings away, what they call calcinatio, of what is inessential, is necessary to this exploration."

Nigredo is sometimes called darker than the darkest of the dark and the deepest of despair. In this place the soul becomes lost, disoriented...meandering in the wilderness, confused, separated. Relief washes over me as I begin to read more about nigredo and the seven stages of alchemy. I have been experiencing unimaginable levels of grief, despair and disorientation -- wondering if I am becoming enlightened or losing my mind ;-). Maybe they are one in the same. I have had the feeling of my soul being lost...my life purpose and direction out of sight...walking in the labyrinth...meandering back and forth, like the Israelites on there way to the promised land...lost in the desert for 40 years.

Yet, after reading about nigredo and the other stages of alchemy I sense a deeper trust and surrender to the process that has taken over my being, my core, my life and my living. I know I am begin asked to let go, to trust life, trust love and trust this Divine Alchemy that is taking place within my Soul.

Here is another excerpt on nigredo that I found online...

In alchemy, one of the symbols of nigredo is the ‘decapitation’, and also the ‘raven’s head’ (caput corvi). Those symbols refer to the dying of the common man, the dying of his inner chaos and doubt because he is unable to find the truth in himself. In one of his works, Hercules cleanses the Augias stables. It is the cleansing of all the impurities in oneself.

Psychologically, nigredo is a process of directing oneself to find self-knowledge. A problem is given full attention and reduced to its core. This is not done so much in an intellectual way, but especially by feeling the emotions. By really going into to it, one causes putrefaction, the decomposition of that in which one had been stuck. The confrontation with the inner reality is often painful, and can lead to depression. But once in the depth of the darkness, with the discovery of the seed of the problem, the seed in the ‘prima materia’, the white light is born (=albedo, whiteness, the next phase). A state of rest arises. Insight into the problem has been gained, it has been worked out emotionally, and knowledge arises on how to handle it in a more positive way and to build a more pure attitude.

I find these 7 stages of alchemy intriguing and I am mapping them to the 7 sacraments and the 7 chakras...another part of my book that I experienced and started writing this summer in retreat called "High Alchemy: The Sacraments of Bliss." Another chapter, another layer has downloaded.

So what? So, I am surrendering to nigredo...I am exhausted and longing for the infusion of love and light that the next phase, albedo will bring. There are so many stories to tell from inside this transformation...so many ways this is manifesting in the inner, in the body and in the outer conditions and relations of my life.

I deeply need to bring my Soul to the Beloved and drink from the bosom of the Mother. I will crawl into the womb of the soul tonight...into the Cosmic Mother Mary and rest and restore.

Keep watch. Keep watch and pray.

I am forever grateful for my Beloved Friends, my co-journeyers on the mystic's highway.

I love you all!

Anakha

P.S. I request a Full Return and Restoration to this Natural Radiance and Original Innocence!

Shannon Coman, 1 year, 7 months

"Original Innocence, Natural Radiance"

Be Still and Know I Am Love

I have been stripped...I am bare-naked...gone are the ways I have guarded myself in the past, gone are the ways I have propped myself up, soothed my heartbreak, avoided colliding with life and love. I have never felt so open and vulnerable...I have never been so immersed in the mystery...so out of control and blinded by the dark night. Where am I? Who am I? Why am I? There are times when I am not sure I can withstand the fire's burning, the continued melting away of all that is not me. Will there be anything left when the fire's work is done? I pray for the diamond of my soul to be unearthed, revealed, illumined...I ask that what is True, what is essential, what is real be ressurrected in my core, and spill over to take form in my life. I feel the despair of wanting this dark night to be done...for the purification of my Spirit to be complete. I want so much to get on with it...to write the book, to speak, to do spiritual counseling. I want to serve Life, I want to awaken Love. My friend Lisa said to me today, "you are doing your work Anakha, this is just the hardest part for you." I am surrendering again tonight. Surrendering to the Will of God...surrendering to the Way of Love. I asked for this. I asked for my sacred heart to be awakened...I set out to become love...this is the way...this is the way. I read a poem by Hadewijch of Antwerp tonight (posted below) called Imagining...she was a Christian mystic...part of my lineage. One of the lines in the poem says, "I will belong to her (Love), whatever she may be, Gracious or merciless; to me it is all one." I surrender...I will belong to love...I will be penetrated by the Divine, I will trust that when the time is right...I will surface into life...I will move forward and bring these inspired words into the world. When the time comes...I will be ready. And, as I write these words I hear the voice of one of my seminary teachers saying, "God is on time, in time, every time."

And so it is. Pray with me. Pray for me. I want this ressurrection. I want to be useful in this journey of love's eternal, internal awakening.

I will be still and know I am Love.
The Beloved is with me, the Beloved is with all of us.
Amen.

Her deepest abyss is her most beautiful form;
To lose one's way in her is to touch her close at hand.
To die of hunger for her is to feed and taste;...
We can say yet more about Love:
Her wealth is her lack of everything;
Her truest fidelity brings about our fall;
Her highest being drowns us in the depths;...
Her revelation is the total hiding of herself;
Her gifts, besides, are thieveries;
Her promises are all seductions;
Her adornments are all undressing;
Her truth is all deception;
To many her assurance appears to lie---
This is the witness that can be truly borne
At any moment by me and many others
To whom Love has often shown
Wonders by which we were mocked,
Imagining we possessed what she kept back for herself.
After she first played these tricks on me,
And I considered all her methods,
I went to work in an entirely different way:
By her threats and her promises
I was no longer deceived.
I will belong to her, whatever she may be,
Gracious or merciless; to me it is all one.
- Hadewijch of Antwerp

Sleep Less, Love More

Last night the divinely raucous conversation of love and of the fusion of the sacred and the erotic descended on our home and its inhabitants. What started out as a simple conversation over pizza, vanilla creme sodas and chocolate soon turned into a 6+hour exploration into the soul of love - the ecstasy, the agony, the resistance, the surrender. Lisa, David and I were gathered around the kitchen table after a chaotic day of moving, movers (yes, Robert and Chris were back again) and Comcast installations when the conversation began. I am telling you this house gets the action -- certainly a hotspot.

As our conversation began to heat up we decided to call Gene and have him bring his video camera (who is making a documentary called "We Are the Lovers")...the night was pregnant with promise, the conversation charged...who knew the territory we were about to enter. Gene arrived with his camera and lots of tape...thank God, I think he ended up shooting 3 1/2 hours or so of our interaction. Lisa's love, Russell, registered the energy all the way from LA and stayed on the speaker phone with us for most of the night. We tenderly passed around Lisa's phone -- "the voice and presence of Russell" as we each took turns drilling down, deepening and spilling open.

Yes, the truth will set you free...the truth will strip you, the truth will shatter that sweet comfortable life, and when you are on your knees...donating your life and your living in complete surrender to the Divine, to the fires of love...that is when grace descends. That is when God shows up in a big way.

Lisa, David, Gene, Russell and I stepped into the crucible together last night. There were rare and exquisite moments of tension melting into recognition and surrender. Truths were revealed and told. Edges pushed. Doubt and fear arrived and released. Shame, unworthiness, playing small, shutting down, and opening again. Each of us entering into the mystery of being in relationship with one another as we engaged this tender and rapturous territory of the heart,the soul, the body.

I showed up. The woman of allurement and seduction showed up...dancing, moving with the mystic, the healer, the child - all the aspects of me. This energy is so important for me to allow, to surrender to, to no longer repress. It becomes dangerous when I do...potentially harmful. I am ready...I believe my soul presence is strong enough to allow this , to integrate it and use it to serve love, to serve this melting into essence. In that energy of allurement...I seduced the soul of the others in the room, calling, beckoning, shaking, recognizing, pulling, pushing, giving birth...midwifing this sacred life force into being. This is where I come into the ecstatic presence, this is where I embody the fullness of radiant love. And I shake things up and sometimes the ego begins to shout and scream and that is where I usually recoil in shame, think I am causing problems, that I am to blame. I went through this threshold tonight with the help of Lisa, David, Gene and Russell....I stepped in and through. When the shame came, David was there to speak to me, to offer me his incisive intervention into Truth.

This is what is true...when I step into the fullness of the I Am...when I stop playing nice and small and polite. When I stop trying to get you to love me, manipulate you into approving of me...when I finally get out of the way, this Life Force, the Love Force, the Good God Almighty Force takes over and it has its way with me...it has its way with everyone that comes into contact with the Presence that I'm courting...that we all are courting.

So this is where I am arriving this morning after 3 hours of sleep....

I surrender my life, my living, my eyes, my seeing, my voice, my speaking, my mind, my thinking, my ears, my hearing, my heart, my loving, my arms, my holding, my belly, my breathing...all of me surrenders to all of You, God. The sacred, the erotic, the mundane, the exotic, the child, the woman, the dark, the light, all of me living in the All of You now.

I don't know what broke loose and was unleashed in our lives last night. I do know it was powerful, palpable and that each one of us walked the edge...maybe even dropped over.
We talked about the madness of love...how when we enter into divine ecstatic erotic loving how we go insane...it alters our cells, it changes our wiring...we are forever altered, we are never the same.

I am living in this Christic love crucible. I am humbled by the blessings and the movements that the Divine is bestowing on my Soul. I want to never be the same again...I welcome the full activation of Love's presence within my being. I donate and surrender my being and my doing to becoming and embodying radiant love. I donate and surrender my life and my living to awakening with others to the full brilliance and splendor of naked hearted, ecstatic love.
We are the Lovers.

This is my work in the world. I am open for business. Pass the word on...
Anakha activated ready to roll...

I love you all, tenderly, madly, sweetly...forever.
Amen.