A Brave New World, Inspired Message by Rev. Lisa Haqq

An inspired and inspiring message delivered this week at Evolving Life Ministries by Rev. Lisa Haqq on revealing the heart and choosing love in the midst of our relationships -- overcoming the fear the keeps imprisoned in the past. Choose love...choose truth...choose liberation! Definitely worth listening to!

https://www.evolvinglifeministries.org/ENG/30.0.php

Letter to Nichole ~ 40 Days, 40 Nights

This is the letter I wrote this morning to my Beloved Nichole who is currently incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (to read her please blog go to http://www.freeheartfreemind.blogspot.com ) in response to her question, "Anakha how did you do 40 days in silence and solitude? I can barely do 8 minutes. Why did you do it? What did you do? What happened for you?" This is a beginning of a series of letters to her about my time "apart" last July/August in intimate communion.

*******

Good Morning Nichole…At least it’s morning here…late morning 11:40. I am sitting at the back table with the morning sun shining through the window on my face. It is supposed to be 60 degrees today…it is sunny, blue sky. Of course you are out enjoying this weather as well…thank God! Breath in all of the love that is available through nature…it will help nourish and encourage you…let the sun love you, the air love you, the breeze love you…really feel it coming into your cells giving you courage to face what you need to face, feel what you need to feel, do what you need to do. This Universe adores you and is here to offer you its glorious love…become present to the love inherent in all things. You will become love as you walk this path into love. This is what Yeshua is asking us to do in following him into the sacred heart. To awaken the love in our hearts…to remember that we are made in his image and his likeness…we are not who we’ve thought…we have thought we were alone, separate, bad, wrong, mistakes, filled with shame and fear…these are all lies of the mind…we find our beauty in our hearts. Open your heart Nichole…let the pain, the grief, the disappointment spill out…you will withstand it, and you can go through it and find yourself stationed on solid ground. This is what drew me into the silence…the 40 days of intimate communion with God and my true Self. I found myself standing one year ago…March 2007 on the veranda of a beautiful condo in Maui, Hawaii…smoking an American Spirit cigarette looking out at the beauty all around me…and I couldn’t feel…I couldn’t experience and take in the beauty. I felt dead inside. I was aware that something essential…some life force within me had died…or was on life support…barely breathing. My heart had closed….retreated…gone into hiding. I was running on empty…the power of Love was unable to penetrate the walls of hiding and protection I had built up around my heart and my life. I am not even sure how it all happened…one small betrayal of myself, betrayal of others, losing people I loved…my father’s death…working at Coffee Creek…addiction….the truth was my heart had become shielded, guarded, closed and I was dying. It was painful that morning to realize how disconnected from Life and my own radiance I had become. I was in Maui with Gary and the kids…Gary was equally shut down…closed off…how painful to be there with someone I had once loved so much and to see us both cardboard cutouts…playing at the game of life. The kids registered this I am sure. The one beautiful moment I had was when I took the kids out snorkeling…teaching them to snorkel and see the colorful fish in the coral reef. They were mesmerized as was I. I love being underneath the ocean’s surface…this is how I live my life…underneath the surface actions…I live with the fish, like a mermaid…a mystic underneath the sea. I sensed a spark, a thread of my aliveness as I dove down under the sea into the realm of magic…seeing the many colored fish flowing through the warm Hawaiian waters. Flowing in beauty…flowing with the beauty of life…this is what I desired. I was disconnected from the flow and the beauty of Life, of my life, of my own essence. I had purchased a red journal with the sacred heart on it prior to my trip to Hawaii. I hadn’t written one word in it. I pulled it out on the flight home and wrote these words:

March 19, 2007
I am ready God! Bring me the fire of the Holy Spirit – engage my soul, ripen the fruit, use me to serve the sacred awakening. I am coming alive with the heat of the Holy Spirit, opening the mysteries of the Sacred Heart. Love melting into love…mystical marriage…sacred union.

I think that was the beginning of my journey into fully opening my heart…becoming an embodiment, a Divine expression of Love. I wrote this poem a few days later…March 31^st:

Come Holy Spirit
Burning Spirit
Abide in me Now
Abide in me Always
I long to feel your heat in my blood
In my bones
Infuse me with your grace
Know me as your own
I am a spark in your
Rapturous fire
Enkindle my heart
My humanness with your love
Your passion
The Christ Mind
The Christ Heart
The Christ Eyes
Are mine now
And Forever
Maranatha
Maranatha
Amen!

Nichole, this was the beginning of the deepest and truest journey into my own heart that I have taken. It sparked the beginning of a transformation from Fear to Love…it lead me into the 40 days and 40 nights of solitude and silence…a deep discovery of my own beauty, radiance and goodness. Before then I may have appeared free…but I was locked away in a prison as well. No freedom. Sure, I could go places and do things…but that, as you know, is not the essence of freedom…what we are all longing for is an experience of Soul Liberation…aliveness, radiance, presence and love. This is what led me to take time apart, to listen, heal and open. This is what you are being offered now too. To slow your pace…to slow your rhythm…to listen and let be…to slow way down and begin moving at the pace of guidance…the pace of nature…this is the place where you can practice “ahimsa” the Aramaic word for nonviolence…nonviolence, deep love and compassion for yourself and for others. This was the word that Yeshua (Jesus) gave me the first day of my retreat…Yeshua said to me…”if you want to open your heart, to become love…you must slow your pace, move at the pace of nature, move at the pace and with the rhythm off the heartbeat…and practice ahimsa…radical love and self-acceptance. Every time your mind wants to attack yourself or others, repeat and chant ahimsa and return to the truth that you are a Beloved Child of God and that all is well in Life…all is well in this moment.”

I will tell you my story Nichole…through these letters and this will become my book. Thank you for asking me what I did during those 40 days…why I took this time apart…and what occurred…in answering your question I will relive, remember and offer my experience as a gift to the world.

See Beloved Dear One…how you are ministering to me? How with your question you are helping me to remember my purpose and why it is important that I write about my journey into love, that I share the teachings and mysteries that were given to me in that time and that continue to be offered to me. So often I think that what I have received and conceived of is unimportant….please help me Nichole, to remember that what I am and who I am are valuable…just like I help you to remember that what you are and who you are valuable. We are essential in so many ways…each of us a thread in this beautiful Divine tapestry of love and creativity.

Happy Birthday…I celebrate the day of your birth…the birth of you, this young mystical woman that has taken a crash course in awakening to the realms of embodied love…you are making the journey into wholeness and reclaiming the truth of your birthright…that you are a child of the living, loving God…whole, complete, worthy and beautiful. You are here on purpose…you belong…you are wanted. You belong with me…you belong in my heart…you will always have a home there.

Happy Birthday Nichole…you are so very much loved, adored and cherished by so many…but today especially, you are loved by me!

XXOXOXOXOXOXOXO,

Anakha

Naked Desire

Come Naked!
Come Naked!
Come Naked...
Before God and this Sweet Universe
Naked with Your Desire
Naked with Your Longing
Naked with all Your Beauty
Naked with all You Fear is Ugly
Revealed, Exposed
Ready to Break Open
And Spill Over the Edge
The Edge of Becoming
God, God Embodied
Empowered
Holy in Your Wholeness
Secure in Your Stance
Devoted in Your Desire
Forward Movement
Soul in Motion
Divine in Action
Strike a Pose for God
Drench Yourself in God
Dedicate Yourself
To All That Brings You Alive
Dance
Dive In
Love
Pray
Desire
Donate Yourself
Your Whole, Holy Self
Your Messed Up, Crazy Self
Your Sinner Saintly Self
Donate Yourself
to the Fires of Love
and
Burn.....................................................
Burn....................................................
Burn....................................................
Until all that is left
is your Desire
Down on your knees
you look up
and find yourself
face to face
with your Desire
and....then, only then
Can you truly become
Devoted
Devotion Embodied
Desire Enacted
Divine Deliciousness
Coming into Form
Fear no more
Find the pulse of your desire
In your body
Pry it open
Shake it loose
Expose it
Reveal it
Crack it open
The Code lies within you
The I AM Code
The I AM Code
is the Desire of Becoming
Embodied
in God
as God
for God
I am God, I am.
I am one with Desire, I am.
I am one with Devotion, I am.
I am one with the Good, I am.
I am one with Love, I am.
From discontent to devotion
The Path of Desire
Leads the Way
Home to Soul Fulfillment.
God is All There Is.
And God is just another name
another Holy name,
for all that You Desire.
I speak this truth to the world,
for the world.
It is so.
Ameyn.

Music Got Me Feeling So Free

I am dancing in the kitchen this morning, music pounding from the iPod station on the counter... "Music got me feeling so free, One more time We gonna celebrate Oh yeah Don't stop dancing One more time." (Daft Punk, One More Time) I've been on a cleaning spree since 7 a.m. Cleaning out, clearing out, making way. Kodi, Randy's dog, is following me around the house, panting, smiling, watching the ancient shamanic ritual of chasing dust bunnies around the hardwood floors.

As I pass through the kitchen I stop to dance...celebrate, oh yeah...and I remember what I am celebrating and who I am celebrating. I remember how much I love just dancing by myself. How much ecstasy my own essence brings me...how beautiful and free I feel in my body. Free to feel, free to move, to express...free in my heart to love, to cry, to be joyful, happy. I am free.
I enjoy my solo dance in life. I enjoy my time in partnership. I enjoy my time in community.
And most often I reach my most ecstatic states in love when I am alone...grooving with God.
This is who I am and how I am. And that is alright with me. Don't get me wrong...I love loving another...loving with another, being in love. This love I feel for life is enough for me today...moment to moment...love is abundantly available. Will I pause, listen for the music and dance?

And, I am in love with me today. And that is so damn cool, so very awesome and amazing. In love with all of me...the frightened, masked, scared aspects and the evolved, mystical, beautiful parts. All me, here now...in this sacred bundle of a bodysoulheartmind.

I chase more dust bunnies...I clean the mirror...I see myself clearly in the reflection...reel in the projections. Yes I am a womanchild in this journey into love, into intimacy...I am both evolved and evolving. Yes, I am still learning...I am still this sacred art form becoming.

I think back to a song I wrote with Blaine 4 or 5 years ago. The title, "It's Been Me." Today I return to that place of knowing the only Lover there is, is the one that lives inside of me. Seek there first and all else will magically fall into place.

I return again to my own naked and revealed heart...so much more available due to my journey with others that have joined me for the last several months after my retreat. I have been "schooled" as they say, through our interactions...you all have shown me my light and my dark and for this I am eternally grateful.

Kodi has settled at my feet. I wonder if she is ready for the upstairs cleaning? Maybe some kundalini yoga first. My friend Johnny is in town today...the mystic on the motorcycle (although I doubt he has his bike today)...we will have lunch together. And then I will return for more cleaning and clearing...my life is opening into the realm of miracles...constant and abundant and for that I am grateful.

So very grateful...so very humbled. I have so much to learn.

Love,
Anakha

P.S. The lyrics....It's Been Me...

It's been me, I've wanted all this time
It's been me, the mystery lover
All the frantic searching, heartaches and dead ends
It's been me all this time

I'm the one I've always wanted to hold, caress and love
To delight with, take flight with, beautify
TO respect, trust and care for, believe in and even die for
It's been me all this time

Today I lay naked like a babe on its first dawn
I wrapped myself in Love's embrace
I finally know what it means to truly love myself
My whole body, each limb, every part of me
I manifest the Spirit in this unique design
Thank you God for love, Thank you God for me

Thank you God for the mystery
Thank you God for the simplicity
Inside and beside me
To and through you guide me,
May the Spirit shine as me
It's been me all this time.

Message from Manasseh

After publishing my last post, I visited my friend Peter's blog and read his latest entry entitled, "It's Okay to Be Vulnerable." Here is an excerpt that grabbed me:

If we’re willing, like a garment, the Universe takes our souls and turns them inside out and hangs them to air out. Now, our hearts are on the outside and vulnerable for all to view. The hypocrisy, like dirt, falls to the ground. God can now wear the garment.

You can read more from Peter at http://manassehmysticalhealer.blogspot.com/2008/02/its-okay-to-be-vulnerable.html.

Thank you Peter!

Knock and Be Opened

This day which is quickly coming to an end...started out at 6 a.m. I woke up, started playing with my iPhone (still fascinated with it) and accidentally (?) clicked on Neil Douglas Klotz Aramaic Prayers. I began breathing and chanting...feeling my heart open to the presence of Yeshua. One of the prayers was a translation from Matthew 7:7 ~ "Ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock, and it shall be opened unto you." I chanted the Aramaic words, Qush Wa Eth-Phetah..."knock and be opened" over and over again feeling the resonance deep within my heart. I knew that I would be opened, I knew that my heart would open from the inside, that a dam would break and love would flow to the outer regions...the places within my heart that are fenced off by fear...fear of being left in love, fear of loving too much, fear of losing control in the ecstasy of true love.

I kept chanting anyway...for hours I listened, chanted. I felt the Love Presence grow within me...I followed desire all the way home to the Source of Love within me. I felt the dams break.
The constrictions within me began to uncoil, unwind.

Love is flowing. Love is infiltrating the barren lands of my own heart, the places where I hide, mask, run from what I most long to experience ...a true love, a true loving -- myself true in love and in loving. Being true to myself in love.

My father left when I was 1 1/2 years old. I think that at this young age I was baffled and stunned that this man with whom I shared such warmth and joy and love could all of sudden be gone. In an instant. I am certain that I registered this deep within my cells. I know that as a grown woman, just standing near him would create a resonance within my cells, within my life force that said, "yes, this is my father." I must have had a cellular recognition and resonance with him...since most of the time I spent with him was during the ages of 0 to 3 and then again in my 30's. My grandmother tells me stories about my father coming to visit me when I was 2 or 3. She tells me that my father would often cry during our visits and that I would comfort him...but never shed a tear, never let on that I was hurting...until he left. And then the tears would come. I don't think I had ever heard this story from my grandmother until recently. It may have been after my father died...just over 2 years ago now. He was gone in an instant then too...one moment pounding the pedals on his mountain bike...the next laying dead on a trail.

I think this story can tell me a lot about how I show up and how I hide in love today...about my fears, about how I suppress the fullness of my love and desire...my pleasure and my pain. I think the story I made up to reconcile this separation might have gone like this..." be really good...don't show too much emotion, don't ask for too much, don't reveal too much...stay as small as possible so that he won't leave again. Abandon yourself so that you won't be abandoned. Don't desire him too much or he will leave...don't trust the love that exists...be baffled and confused. I am done with this story.

I have compassion for her. She was so madly in love, so crazy deliriously in love with herself, her father, her mother, her life. I can't imagine the impact on her soul to lose the presence of such a great love.

So what is the point? What is opening in me tonight is the awareness of how I've spent so much of my life compensating for that experience...controlling, avoiding, protecting my relationships so that I would never, ever have to experience the devastation of that kind of a loss again.

Until now.
Until now.

I am surrendering all my ways of hiding from love, of controlling myself in love, of manipulating others in love so that I might have a chance to receive, to create, to experience and to live...a great and true and profound and ecstatic love in my life.

I have deep compassion for this part of me that screams so loud, who grips so tightly to these charades, these lies, these illusions. I bless her and I ask her to please come home, to please come home to my heart where I can love her and care for her. I ask for her to serve a greater purpose...to support me in being a generous and open-hearted lover. I don't need protection anymore. Her job is done. A new assignment has arrived.

To love myself.
To love others.
Truly, deeply.
Authentically.

Knock and be opened. Let me be opened fully. I withhold nothing from you God. I make a full and complete surrender tonight. Into your arms, into the mystery of my life, into the fires of Sacred Love that burn within me. I no longer wish to be a child with childlike ways...I wish to fully embody and inhabit the woman that I am. I wish to be grown up in my love and in my loving.

I am knocking from the inside, heart opening from the inside.
I wish to be made new.
Resurrected wholeness.
Holy Spirit, Maranatha...
Come do your sacred work within me, within my life, within my relationships now.
I ask for your grace and for your delicacy as you breath new life into my heart.

Dear God, I ask for your blessing on my anim cara...his soul's presence in my life has brought me to this moment now, where I begin again, anew.

Ameyn. Let it be so.

God's Lovers

I am aware, in this moment...in this early morning hour,
of what makes my heart come alive...
small, sweet, sincere acts of love, of loving.
"We can do no great things, only small things with great love," says Mother Teresa.

I have been shown great love through small acts.
You have shown me great love through your small acts.

A sliced mango in the morning.
A cold Ginger Kombucha in my hand.
Dark chocolate with raspberries in my mouth.
A dance in the kitchen.
A meal shared.
A walk in the park.
Sunshine on my face.

I am so grateful for this love, this opportunity to love.
I am learning from my teacher.
The moment teaches me to love...
to surrender to the small acts of loving service
to myself,
to others,
to life.

One breath into stillness,
a pause to remember why I am here.
Make love to the moment.
I am making love in each moment...
Each precious moment...
is dripping with passion
with aliveness
with love.

I am drenched with God,
My heart writhing with ecstatic sweetness,
bittersweet losses in love,
a near miss,
hearts collide.

I slow the pace. I find my rhythm.
I connect with the sensuous she that lives within me.
I find my heart.
It is full this morning.
Full of love, opened and expanded through loving.
Loving through illusion.
Loving through the fear.
Loving through constriction.

God's grace has descended
and left its kiss upon me.

The floodgates have been opened.
The relentless pounding of love beats at the door to my heart...
I open from the inside,
Waves of the sweetest, truest love enter me.
Crashing through what is left
of barricades
from the past.
This love has reached me now.
I am no longer alone.
I am dissolved in the Truth
that you will always be here,
be near...
neither death nor distance
can separate God's Lovers.

Be still and know I am God.
Be still and know I am God.
Be still and know yourself as I Am,
the glorious Presence of God
that breathes you into being.
You are so beautiful.
So alive and curious.
Amazing in your motion.
Courageous with your Truth.

You Anakha are here now.
The lover you have been waiting for
has arrived...has penetrated the walls...
has awoken from the slumber...
lives within you,
resides within you,
forever within you,
she is...
I am.

We are one.
Now and forever.
Amen.

p.s. this week I vow to live my life, moment to moment, sourced in Love...sharing Love through small acts. thank you to the teacher of the little way. i am grateful to walk the path of the sacred heart.