Truly Open-Hearted

I forgot. I forgot what love was. I forgot myself.

I've been living small, and didn't even know I was living small.

I named this blog Open-Hearted Life to remind me: an open heart leads to connection, connection leads to healing, which leads to deeper connection. I know where deeper connection leads me: deep peace, true love, knowledge of Source, living in the flow and the light. And my living there helps others see that you CAN live there - not only is it safe, it's life-giving and fun and vital. So maybe, just maybe, it'll move them to open their hearts a bit more, leading to more connection...

I can trick myself into thinking I'm living an Open-Hearted Life... well, no, wait. It's not a trick: I am living an Open-Hearted Life, to the best of my ability. When I stop what I'm doing, and listen to my kids, really listen: turn away from the computer, make eye contact, connect, hear them. When I stop what I'm doing to sit with Seth and watch while he plays a video game - not because I love the game, but because I love him, and he wants me there. When I ride the bus, and silently send love to everyone else on the bus, directly to each person. When I call a friend even if I'm afraid I'm not going to like what she has to say. When I won't let go of my cash at the grocery store until the cashier looks at me in the eyes, so I can look her in the eye and smile. When I connect with someone while giving them reiki. When I pray for someone. When I pray for myself. When I take time to cook Evan a warm lunch, even though he could do it himself or make a sandwich, because warm cooked food says love to him. When I teach someone who's afraid to, how to hit a drum. When I stand in the center of the drum circle and conduct the flow of the rhythm. Open heart, open heart, open heart.

But, there are places I close up. Like the animal flower - get too close, and poof! I'm gone. It's hard to stay open-hearted when I'm feeling vulnerable -- but I think that's the point of the practice, to make me vulnerable.

So - there's a man. Finally, after four years of being single, not wanting to date, not being particularly interested in anyone: a man. And he's beautiful. And funny. And present. And he's about service to others, and giving. He lives his life dedicated to the greater good, not the ability to shop. And he's beautiful. Did I mention he's beautiful?

And he's married.

Damn it! Married. Not just married, but married with healthy boundaries. And, oh, my heart has been aching. Why? Why him? Why now? Why couldn't I have just stayed in my little cocoon of singledom, not wanting to venture out? Why the connection?

You know how, when you're falling in love, and you're happy, happy, happy, and the colors are brighter and everything's connected and you love, love, love the world? Well, this wasn't like that. This was... sad. And slightly desperate.

He is on my mind a lot. I try not to let my mind go there, I try to honor the vow he took with his wife, but, my mind wanders... SIGH OK, mind - back to work! Stop it, just stop. SIGH

I want to touch him, whenever we're near each other. Arms "accidentally" brushing, a hand on his arm when we talk. We were at a workshop together, and he was standing behind me, talking with someone else, and I could feel the heat of his shoulder on my back. I baaaarely leaned back until we were touching. My heart leapt.

I need help.

So, yesterday, yesterday, I was answering e-mails, trying to get caught up (ha, ha), my mind was not on him AT ALL. When I write, I'm focused on what I'm writing, even if it's a simple e-mail. It's the way I'm wired, even if I write something in a card, I have to get away, focus, connect. So: I'm writing this e-mail for work, then out of the blue, out of the ether, my heart breaks open. I feel SUCH love, from outta nowhere. Love in a bright light, right from my heart. And I see his face, and feel that love... and realize I forgot. I forgot what love even was. True love, unconditional love.

Love is acceptance. Love remains open-hearted, even if you're not getting what you want. Love gives, without expecting anything in return.

I was not loving this man, I was wanting him. And in that flash of light-filled love, I saw that. And let it go, all of it - the fantasy, the naughty thoughts, the desire to touch.

What's left is desire for TRUE connection, open-hearted connection, where I can love and accept unconditionally. Where I don't need him to be a certain way, or be anyone else other than who he is, a married man, with healthy boundaries. Our friendship, our relationship, may need to look different than it has, for me to honor those boundaries and his vows, but that's OK. That'll be OK.

After this epiphany, I clicked over to read 37 Days, and read these words: Love as if you will be answered. Love as if you will be answered. Yes. That's the place to live from, to love from. And I read the lyrical post there, and I cried. Cried from the beauty of it all, and from being lonely, and from having found this beautiful man who was married, and from getting the reminder: Love anyway. Making the choice to love anyway.

And I went around my day, and I was happy, happy, happy, and the colors are brighter, and everything IS connected, and I love, love, love the world. Truly and honestly.

Gassho ~

Two Things That Were Said Today

"But I need to find the woman to give her the Dominion Rod! I have to show her my rod!" Followed by much laughter.



"Ramen noodles! Ramen! You've never heard of ramen? I don't believe it! It's the most famous noodle in Japan!"

New Baby in the House

I didn't think the moth/caterpillar eggs survived - until yesterday morning, when look what surprised me!


So teensy tinesy. Again, the penny for size comparison. It already has little horns!

Here's the first video I've ever put on youtube (which, for some reason, every time I type, I type "yourube" first. Must be my white trash background. Wouldn't that be a fun site? YouRube.) My apologies for the quality - it was taken with my digital not-video camera.



I was SO worried the little guy (girl?) would starve! I looked up what they like: sumac, walnut, pecan, sweet gum. We have a black walnut tree just down the block from us, so I ran and got some leaves. But how clever! They eat their egg first. Now that's planning. (Or completely random and meaningless, depending on your belief system. Or random and meaningful. I lean toward planning and meaningful and random. I'm open-minded like that.)

Now I need to decide whether to keep feeding it walnut leaves (which is does eat, by the way) or put it out on the walnut tree. I actually walked it to the tree yesterday, then had visions of it becoming bird food, so took it back home after about half an hour hemming and hawing under this tree in a field. I want it to live! Maybe when it gets bigger...? Am I doing it a disservice keeping it 'til it's larger? And more intimidating?

These are things I think about and worry over.

Night Visitor

I opened my back door yesterday, and look what I found!


How beautiful! I've never seen a moth that color. Despite being the middle of July, it was cool yesterday morning; I think she was waiting to get warmed up. Seth spent the night at my sister's, and Evan was asleep - and believe it or not, didn't want to wake up to see it! Pictures don't convey how magical it was.



Here's a side view. And look at those eggs in the background! I just e-mailed a biologist friend, to see if we can raise those eggs, or if I should just find them a safe place. How cool would it be to have our very own Very Hungry Caterpillar, right in our house?



This gives a sense of scale. Big freakin' moth.



Hi, moth! You're very beautiful. And fuzzy. And big.



UPDATE: I found out this moth is a Royal Walnut Moth. The larval stage, or caterpillar, is called the Hickory Horned Devil.

Here's why:

Photo © Troy Bartlett courtesy of BugGuide.net

Uhh... maybe I don't want these in my house. Holy moley.

In my research, I found these moths don't have mouths and don't eat - their sole purpose is to reproduce, lay eggs, and then they die. Which is making me incredibly sad this morning.

Further update: My friend let me know the caterpillars pupate underground, for possibly a year or more! So seeing one through to moth-hood isn't likely. Maybe we can just raise the caterpillars for a bit - if I can get enough leaves! They're HUGE. I'm e-mailing Troy Bartlett - who took the above photo of the Hickory Horned Devil - to get his opinion.

I'm Excited About This Book

I've been reading Steve Pavlina's blog for almost two years. The first few times I visited his site, I opened the page, read a bit, then clicked away from it! There's a LOT of information there - I felt like it was beyond me. (And who knows? It may have been at that time.) I bookmarked his site at one point. I'd click on, read a little, click away. I felt like there was a richness of information there, and I knew there was something there for me, I just couldn't quite get to it! There's too much! Where do I start? I remember actually deleting the bookmark at one point - "I'll never resonate with this!"

Then Christine Kane referenced his wife, Erin Pavlina, in one of her posts. Erin had started writing a blog a year before, about her path of developing her psychic powers. Now, that, I could get into! I loved reading about her process, and her experiences with giving people readings. At some point, I joined the Steve Pavlina forum - there's a lot of cool stuff being discussed over there! And it's a very, very positive place to be. I think it was one of Erin's articles that mentioned something Steve wrote, that finally, I read something he had written, and I got it. It completely blew me away. So I started reading his archives, and there's SO MUCH there, like I said - a richness of information. Oh! - I guess some people would say wealth of information! ha. It's funny how words come to me.

I've been very grateful for one article in particular, Lightworker Syndrome. It gave me a new perspective on working in the world. There are so many good articles on his site, he's so insightful.

He's one of my secret boyfriends. shh - Don't tell his wife! She can astrally kick my butt.

I was excited to hear he was writing a book, and even more excited when he told us it was going to be published by Hay House, publisher of Louise Hay, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Debbie Ford, Deepak Chopra and many, many others . I pre-ordered it shortly after it became available on Amazon - I knew I'd want to read it, no doubt. (I think it says a lot that at this moment, it's about to crack the top 100 on Amazon.com, and the release date is still three months out!)

A couple days ago, Steve wrote an article about the book, letting people know it could be pre-ordered, and going into how it was structured. Reading this made me EVEN more excited about it! Just in reading that article, I could feel my heart opening and expanding. My hands actually got hot, like they do when I give reiki, or connect in an intuitive reading, or see the occasional dead person. I firmly believe this book is going to have a huge impact on people, across the globe, and I wanted to give you a heads-up, in case you have never been to Steve's site, or, like I used to be, are slightly intimidated when you get there. I know this book is going to change people's lives, expand them and put them on paths they didn't dare take before.

Which will, in turn, change the world. Our world.

And I wanted to let you know.

It's a Mystery

Seth enjoys writing and illustrating comic books starring his hero, ten man. (not tin man) Many times, he'll ask me to spell something, or sometimes, write something out for him if he gets impatient with writing, letter by letter. The past couple of times I've written for him, he has called a question mark a mystery mark. As in: "Mama, write 'what the' with a mystery mark after, then those three dots."

What the?...

I don't think I can express how much this pleases me.

Mystery mark. I love it.

I Saw a Dead People

NOT ME
<-----------












So... I mentioned I've done some intuitive readings here and there. It's not something I've pursued... how would you even market something like that? But, now and then, if I get a strong feeling, I pass on what I get, and it's generally helpful.

Ooh, I just realized, too, that many people who look for help from psychics and intuitives, etc. are very, very needy. I don't want to be drawing that energy to myself!

But, recently, on my crazy, crazy weekend, something really incredible happened. I had gone to Lisa Williams' website. She is a clairvoyant and medium, and I enjoy her show Life Among the Dead. I have no idea why I went to her site, besides: that problem with the internet. But, there I was. I noticed she had a discussion forum, and you had to pay to join her site to participate. I'm usually resistant to that - I mean, ten bucks to chat with some strangers? I felt compelled to do so, though, so followed that feeling, dropped the sawbuck, joined the forum.

It's a very welcoming, friendly group there. VERY welcoming. I'm not used to being that friendly! I mean, I'm nice and all, but I tend to hang back until I get to know ya. But I enjoyed the warmth. I participated a little bit, here and there. Then, I noticed: every time I went to that site, I'd hear the name "Anne". I looked for posts written by an Anne, and didn't find anything. That happened a few times. I asked in the chatroom if there was an Anne on the forums, and I was told there was. The next time I logged on, I heard/saw/felt "Anne" again, so I finally posted: If you are Anne, or know an Anne, spelled with an "e", contact me! I got a few replies, but there was one, when I saw her name, I knew was it. I just got a rush of energy when I saw it. I e-mailed her, and said, "I have no idea what this is about. But let's connect, and see what happens." I also knew that we'd have to be connected at the same time - like in chat, or on the phone. Sometimes, I pick stuff up from people by reading e-mails, but I knew that wouldn't work this time.

And don't ask me how I know, I just do. I don't know how.

It happened that on that Saturday, we were both home at the same time, with not much going on, so I phoned her. We started chatting, and I found out she's an unschooler! I thought, maybe that's it. It takes a lot of support and connection with other unschoolers to live this very unconventional life. Just for a lark, as we were talking, I said, Hey, let's get quiet, and I'll try to do a reading! Just to see what comes up. I got immediate information about her, which she confirmed. I was also seeing a guy - not the whole face or anything, just a shock of wild, curly hair. In her confirmation of what I had told her, she mentioned her brother. I very much wanted to say, I think I see him! But I felt so weird about that! I mean - what if I was wrong? In my mind, if I said the wrong thing, she'd hate me forever, and say mean hurtful things, like "You are a failure as an intuitive reader, AND as a person. You suck." Lovely mind I have, isn't it? So I was reluctant to say anything. BUT, I'm learning, learning to take the chance anyway.

You'd think, with drumming being a big part of my life, that I'd be OK with messing up. I mean, in drumming, if you make a mistake, you aren't just wrong - you're wrong really, really LOUD. And I've mostly gotten over that. I guess this felt more personal, I had more on the line personally. And, ultimately, I want to be liked.

So, finally, I asked, "Does your brother have curly hair?" She said, "Yes, yes he does." I knew it was him! I then saw Mark from this season's Top Chef. I knew her brother was funny like he is, so I said, "I don't know if you watch Top Chef or not..." and she cut me off, and said, "Mark! Yes, he really reminded me of my brother." I said, "Not so much the looks, but definitely the curly hair and sense of humor." She verified that.

I then saw her legs, just her legs, and they were very womanly and shapely. I asked if she had issues with her legs, and she said that sometimes, they were painful... Then I knew that seeing her legs had something to do with her brother! And what an odd thing to ask, "Is there a connection with your legs and your brother?" but ask I did. And she said she had developed kind of quickly, that suddenly there she was with a chest and curves, and her brother used to tease her about that, and about her legs specifically. Just a confirmation that it was, indeed, him that was coming through.

That was all the information I got. The connection ended rather abruptly, almost like it got burnt out. Then *I* was burnt out. We chatted just a minute more, then I literally had to run to catch the bus. I mean, hang up the phone, throw on my sandals and go! When I got to the park, I called Scott to see where the drumSTRONG tent was. He told me, and I could kinda make sense of what he was saying, but I went to the wrong place. When I asked the people there if they knew where the tent was, they told me, and it took all of my concentration to get what they were saying! It was like the words weren't meaning what they usually mean. I know they thought I was drunk! They were kinda laughing. I felt very, very altered. When I got to the tent, I took off my sandals and just stood in the grass a minute, breathing and getting grounded and centered. I feel odd now, just writing about it!

Here are my thoughts about all that:

The picture I get of the Lisa Williams site is like a scene from Truly, Madly, Deeply. (if you haven't seen that movie, you're missing out! It's wonderful.) It's like there's a bunch of spirits hovering around the site, going, "We can get in this way!" So they are trying really hard to connect to people there.

I also believe if I pursue doing this - and I'd love to, I think it's a great way to serve - I need to raise my own energy levels somehow. My first thought was food, I know some psychics and readers who say when they went vegan their abilities got stronger. But John Edward tells a story of being in a foreign country (Mexico? I think) and he was so grateful to find a McDonald's and have a cheeseburger! But I'll try food, and see what happens. The picture I get there is of massive, massive energy, trying to get through a tiny, tiny connection. I need to widen my conduit!

I don't really know what to do with all this now, except tell you about it.

And breathe.