Today feels like a day that I would love to spend in a proverbial bath tub. Soaking. Candles. Music. Early jazz. Duke or Louis. Ella or Billie. Super absorbant towels. Comfy loungewear. Muffins baking. Curled up on the couch lost in a novel. That's the day today.

I don't have a bathtub, but nothing is stopping me. 

Today there is a sadness to washing away my past, to letting go. 

Today is the day where I experience a feeling of defeat. Like I tried to make it work, but just couldn't. I got as far as I could. Butit reflects a fraction of who I am, my potential. 

So I'm taking a loofah - I say that as though this is done through cognitive thought, which it isn't. So I watch myself take a loofah to my insides and out, sloughing off the old. The past. Washing it off and watching the water go down the drain. 

There is a part of me that is in disbelief that someone - a woman in her mid 50's - can start life anew.  And it's not that I'm starting completely from scratch. I am carring the momentum of what I have built internally up until now. The solid base of self love, honor, respect and value. That is all new, and serves as the new foundation. 

The most common experience I hear of someone in this place is a very successful business person leaving their corner office and buying a yacht to sail around the globe, in a deep search inward. 

I am more in the field of the divorcee who packs a backpack and without any prior camping experience attempts the Pacific Crest trail. Or the single woman in her 40's who goes to Italy and discovers her 5 senses for the first time. 

Except I am drawn to hearing guidance and messages from the places you can't see. 

Yesterday Tracey said that in her practice she learned that the head resides in the heart. I love that. As someone who has relied on my intellectual prowess, coming from a lineage of intellectuals, accessing the heart as a place of wisdom and guidance is something I learned as an adult. The more I lean into it, the more vast it becomes and I see the answers are all stored there. The heart as a portal to source. It's way bigger on the inside. The heart is a Tardis. I am going to make a tee shirt "My heart is my Tardis."
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OK I just made the tee shirt. And ordered one for myself and my husband. An anniversary present. 
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Two days On the other side of a full moon and the energy is about letting go. I'll be honest with you. I am having trouble connecting with other humans. All other humans.  For the first time in my life. It's never happened before.

I am traditionally a very social being. Always have been. Since my first friend when I was 2. I have always been surrounded by friends. Close friends.  Good friends. All through my childhood, in ok...wait...just a second...I did not have friends in college. I did undergo a huge friend fallout then, which I attributed to being at a school that was not the right match for me.  I also devoted much of that time toward caring for a "family friend" during the final year of her life - and becoming intimately involved with her extended family and closest friends and community. 

This is totally different. During the pandemic, I saw my tribe break apart and fall away. My closest friends podded with each other and I became more distant. I lost my father, and was left with no parents. Individuals came into my life, revisiting me from the past, but not with the social glue that I experienced pre-pandemic. And now, the two people with whom I felt closest, I am not able to connect with. I am scared to approach my closest friend after being on the receiving end of a reactive tirade and my other closest friend is having tech issues and I litterally can not connect with her.

I am having trouble with humans. Having deep connections with other humans.

I know it's me.  It's not the human race.

But I don't fully understand it. 

In the past, I would be completely melting down. Where are the people?! I can't cope! I have been so intrinsinctly linked to others that lack of connection meant lack of identity. I am no longer in that place.  Over the past 5 year, in particular, I have spent so much energy devoted to developing my own sense of self love, self respect, and self value that my relationship to others has completely changed. I am now at the point where others enhance my sense of self. I am solidly in a place of my true love and devotion is my core sense of self. 

So I'm not completely freaking out about not being able to connect with others. I'm observing myself and watching this as a phase. 

I do miss my best friends. For sure. I would have loved to have shared all of the visceral experiences at the Huntington today with Gisela. I know she would have appreciated the sounds, smells and air of all of the different gardens. It would have been great to have expereinced that with her. 

But, it's not killing me to not have had that with her. 

I guess I see this as what is breaking down in my life. The phase after the full moon. The letting go. Letting go of how I connect with humans. It's all so new to me. 

I have this image of an animation where there is a sound stage or a large boxed stage and the floor boards which are large square tiles all start to come up one by one, as though there is a huge hurricane and they are being pulled up by the wind. And they  get blown away. Dissapear.  Black and white animation. and all that is left is a blank white screen. A blank whie screen. 

Aspects of my life, many aspects of my life need to end, are ending, have ended. I'm ok with that. And am watching it happen. Right now I am the observer. With an unconditional sense of trust that I am being taken care of. That I am ok. That everything is ok right now. I have everything I need.  I am walking into the endings. Trusting that everything is unfolding with a sense of perfection that I can not control. It's an extreme time. In history and in my life. 

And now I call on the support that is new to me. The energetic support I can not see but I know is there. My ancestors, my angels, the spirits of the elements and in nature, and in God. I believe there is a benevolent force that wupports me in this lifetime. I am willing to put down my old life, with the blind faith that what will come next will be better for me. Easier for me. Fuller of life. More laughter, belly aching laughter. More joy and a fuller expression of who I am - for the hisght good of everyone involved. And by that, I mean to shine as brightly, as my biggest contribution to the universe. I'm ok puting down my old life so I can replace it with a new one. One of deeper and full love. 

Alright, ancestors, angels and God - please show me the way. show me my path. 

I just feel like my life as I have known it, is over. And that is all I can feel at the moment.

In response to the 2016 election, I was catapulted into action. At first I was overcome by fear. But then I took that fear and funneled it into the most empowered way I could - become the world I want to see. Double down on what I do have control over. I wanted to see a more loving, peaceful and compassionate world.  I knew it had to start with myself. How loving was I to myself? How compassionate? How peaceful was my life?

Last night I heard another word which resonated with me - harmonious. How harmonious am i  with myself? Knowing that to the degree I can be harmonious with myself is the degree I can be harmonious with the planet and the world. 

I am giving up the old way of living my life and I am 6 months into living without parents. 6 months of not needed to take care of parents. The old paradigm within my body is crumbling. I no longer wish to feed the old stories of being the daughter of the holocaust survivor, and the bed ridden drug addict. It's as though I am watching that identity evaporate. And waht is left in its place is a wide open space, a vast desert before me. uncharted territory. 

At the end of my meditation -which was challenging to sit still today - my mind was going all over the place. But at the end, I was reminded of the term that guided me before - Become the world I want to see.

Today, I need to be loving and gentle with myself. I thought of big day long adventures to nearby mountains or beach visit. But my system - to be harmonius with my system - I need a day of gentle loving nature. 

​As tensions continue to increase in the zeitgeist, I am called to creating a gentle and loving day for myself. Returning to the idea of "being the world I want to see." Tuning in, to the best of my ability, and giving my system what it needs. It's such a daily practice. When I get it right, it feels so supportive. And often what I need is so simple. Today, I got it right.

Recently the Huntington Gardens reopened. I went online and saw there were tickets available for today. This feels perfect for me. And now I have an hour and a half to prepare - shower, eat a delicious breakfast and choose beautiul comfortable clothes for the sunny 80 degree weather, and pack a bag of lucious items designed to feed my soul. 

Later this afternoon, there is a group Angel meeting, and it's perfect for today. 

Right now, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto plays on my computer and it is perfect. 

​Breathing deeply.

A week ago, I drove from San Jose to Los Angeles, listening to Paulo Coelho's THE PILGRIMAGE and I was reminded that this would be the exact time I would have been walking El Camino de Santiago. Today marks the 6 month anniversary of my father's passing. Writing that makes me exceedingly sad, and I can feel my throat start to close. It was on the ride when I decided to instead create an inner pilgrimage for myself, in southern California, using my apartment as home base. The purpose of going on the pilgrimage is to tune into the energetic forms of support around me that I am unable to see but that I know are there. Support of my ancestors, my angels, the spirits in the leaves, Earth, sky, clouds, water, and the Universe itself. 

I am in a unique time in my life. I am six months into the loss of my parents. My home of 24 years is on the market. My friends, my tribe have been decimated during the pandemic. My career is in need of a complete overhaul. I am at a time in my life where I need to rebuild how I live. Nearly all aspects of my life need to be changed. 

I do not have parents to take care of, for the first time in my life.  I do not have children to take care of. I have a wide open field in front of me, or rather a cliff, and I have one foot outstretched about to walk off. 

I know I will be caught. I always have. And for the first time, instead of solely relying on other people, or turning to myself, I am turning to the web of energetic support that holds me up, keeps me moving forward, so I can step into a fuller and fuller version of myself. 

I am feeling drawn to turning inward. To listening ever so deeply. To that voice that knows. The voice that has the answers. Answers from the heart. Answers from the soul. 

I believe when decisions are made from a place of love, then my life track becomes more elevated. This is an experiment to see how highly I can elevate my life track. 

Today, I needed to treat myself with comfort. It was such a strong message. After I nearly passed out during Stength Training, doing a simple side bend. I nearly passed out.  I nearly threw up. And then the wave of emotion came.  So much grief. My day today, to listen to what I need - comfort.

I have a tendency to sit for many hours and not move.  I can be stagnant. My energy becomes stagnant. This experimental pilgrimage is all about the exploration of energy. My body is more energy than it is matter. I notice I sit in stagnation which keeps the energy of my body moving. An important part of that is my emotional body. When I move my body, the energy of stuck emotions can begin to move as well.  I know this. I am trained in this. I completely forget that I do.

I have a music playlist I started building about a year ago called "Peace, etc." It has become my pandemic playlist, to envoke the feelings I would like to be living, day to day during the pandemic. I keep adding to it. It is now a day long. 

Today, in an effort to move my energy, and to give myself comfort, I lay on the floor, with the playlist on, and allowed myself to move, in the most self comforting way I could in the moment.

It's funny how amnesiac I can be when practicing skills I know and teach others.

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On the fist day of my internal pilgriamage  I went on a hike that could have been a dusty road in Spain. 
Intention: to 

Starting a blog. It seemed like the easiest idea. So her it goes.
Sunday. Day 4.
This was the time I was planning on going on El Camino De Santiago. It's been six months since my father has passed. Nearly to the day. I was preparted. Not at all surprosed. Only surprised that he lived so long. It is three years since his first round of pneumonia. The one that was expected to be fatal. But he would have nono f it. He loved life too much. Especially at the end. His final years. when his body was failing in so many ways, For over a year, he had only access to use of his right arm and turnin gof his head. His mental afuclies were usually in tact, although his reality was permeable. He often recounted the same memories of his yearlier years over and over again. Shortly after his first round of phemonia, he needed a new mattress. He gained an electric hospital bed at home. He instructed me that the best mattresses were filled with horse hair and asked if we could get him one. I told him that advancements had been made over the past 100 years.
But the purpose of walking el comino, for me, would be to well, another time. Stephen is insiting on placing himself in my line of vision while working out and jumping rope. this is not the place to go internal.
Today is day four on my internal pilgramage. I fear I may have made the wrong choice to come to the park for a class with Stephen. I honestly would have prefered to have stayed in bed, l
It is KUSC's Fall membership drive. I make a one time donation,w hich will be matched and doubled, during my favorite show, A MUSICAL OFFERING. Two hours of Barouque music on Sunday mornings. It has been a stabilizing presence during the pandemic. Consistancy that has carried over from my pre-pandamic life. One thing I would like to keep. There aren't many other things. Now is the time of change. Huge transsition, as I take this time to rewrite how I do my life. Ona adaily level. On a grand level. Setting up how I want to live for the rest of my life.
Constantly tweaking my inner life. So that my outer life would reflect it.

A live dedicated to deepening ny relationship tiwht my intertnal world. the energetic forces that surround me and support me. the parts of me that I can not see. maintaining and build the parts of me that I can see.
tNoticin what I cave control over. And what I don't.

And at the moment, I feel I owe myself an apolgy - and a forgeviness. I thought the opportunity to come with Stephen this morning to the par in Encino, would be a nice way to connect. I enjoyed his class in Plummer Park so much, I though it would be great to take this class, as well. And the weather. So beautiful, crisp. cool. And these were all intellectual decisions. Overriding how I felt when I actually woke up this morning. And now that I am in the car with 20 minutes before the start of class, I ​

The day I finished listening to The Pilgrimage I came across this piece at an art show. 

​Beauty. Exquisite beauty. Effortless. Radiant. Effortless beauty. The beaty that makes you gasp. The beauty of the sound that makes your heart stop. The beauty ofmusic played from the soul. Beauty that does not stop. The beauty to behold of magic and wonder.
 
This is what I aspire to experience and embody.
The knowing the feeling the being of beauty.
 
It is part of the refinement of aging. Along with the other parts of life that need mantaning and strengthening. Along with that is beauty.
 
SO that the external world reflects the internal.
 
I am drawn now to go internal.
I am now becoming more interested in the parts of myself that I can not see but that I know are there. The energy I can not see but I can feel. The support aroundme that I can not see, but keeps me afloat.
The invisible cheerleaders.
The hammock that has kept me lifted and supported my whole life but now, moreso than ever.
You see, within the past 6 months, I have lost my father, and I now have no parents. My home of 24 years has been placed on the market, and my career is in need of an entire overhawl. My unemployment expired September 4th.
I am at a moment in my life with a wide wide open expanse in front of me unlike I have ever had before. And I feel almost completely unteathered. And yet, the part of me that knows I’m ok is the part of complete blind faith.
And a belief that I am capable of creating or co-creating my life.
I am choosing to do that with a practice of deepening faith and surrender to all that I cannot see but trust is there. Support. Energetic support.
The beauty of presence is exactly the state that I am living now, day to day.
I had planned on walking El Camino de Santiago after my father passed and this is the exact time I planned on being there. But the pandamic changed that plan.