Putting it out there

I will admit that I am a bit of a chickenshit.

Big talk. Big ideas. Scary Feelings. Little follow through on those big talks and ideas.

Yet, the year I lived in a shelter for women experiencing domestic violence, as a full-time volunteer, my commitment to the women was 110%. At the same time, my heart wondered in the big ideas of who provides transformational spaces for the abusers?  I had no recourse and my first priority was for the women and children who came to our shelter.

The night that Trump won the election, I awoke in the middle of the night, hearing a loud noise in my home, convinced that the hatred of his campaign and that his presidency would unleash was in my home. The vision and guidance that came to me was this: to pray for all the beating hearts in America, and I saw a map covered in pink rosettes (a day later, I received payment from a client inside a card, that was a close-up o f a pink rosette). This time I prayed. I began what would be frequent hunkering down to hold all the beating hearts in America within my love and hope.

The aftermath of Charlottesville VA hate march has left me reeling. Oh, how I am so very grateful to all the people who are writing profound and courageous pieces on racism, to all the people of color who are our shining beacons for change, for those who showed the way to denounce white supremacy. 

So, I posted on my facebook page that "Hapax Spiritual Direction will respectfully work with any white supremacist who desires to change but does not have the life infrastructure to do so." I wanted to add the hastags "scaredcompletely#whatamIthinking #notacounselor. I've learned though, to just put it out there. Will I recieve any phone calls from white supremacists who do not have the life infrastructure to change? I don't know. I really hope so. Do I have a plan if anyone does? I do not, beyond my usual deep listening and intuitive loving presence. Part of my regualr practice is to know when I need to refer. This would apply here too. But you can bet that I will provide a space that is safe, empowering, vulnerable, affirming, bullshit calling, life affirming. Because I care.

I'm not foolish. This is not a call to dialog with die-hard white supremacists. This is an invitation to work with those ready to change. Can you imagine? Can you imagine being a part of such a group mindset and wanting to get out? Can you imagine? Can you imagine your co-workers, your family, your friends full into hate when you want to get out? That is who I want to work with. I cannot imagine the fear and vulnerability.

This is also why, while I am at about 82% post-denominational, I am a christian. I follow the gospel of Jesus because the words attributed to him say to love my enemy. That is subversive and radical. And it works. The transformation is multidirectional and is an equal opportunity game changer for all involved. And so I do it. I put myself out there. Shaking in my shoes.

Let's see what happens.

Thanks be.

Amy

Oversaturated

This quiet sunday morning, on the back porch with dogs, sandwich and a male cardinal flitting from plum tree to persimmon tree, I am at peace.

But also oversaturated because of course I first had to read through facebook, the news, twitter and instagram. You know, just checking in on the world and my friends. I love seeing the vacation pictures, the affirmations of life, the snarky smart comment, the ridiculous. i get sucked into the political antics of baby-adults who are acting out their worst days of Jr. High. The mood flicks back and forth from love to lame, from rage to rofl, from depth to disbelief.

I am oversaturated.

I work best with a theme. You know, a catch phrase for the day. Outline my thoughts from invocation to final song, designed and curated. Yet everything comes from the screen at once: pythons, Bloom County, buzzfeed, celebrity outrage., birthdays, photos, meaningful memes. Where do I land to quell the intense distraction.

Back to my porch. My dog, Alfie, tells me like it is. He snuggles into one spot and then another. He scratches an itch, then sighs and sleeps. In a second he can be at full attention when the woodpile squirrel scoots into view, and he is his most loving when I'm eating my sandwich. Life is right now. When I leave, he waits by the door till I return. And in the peace of the porch, he is happy to just be his doggie self.

The cardinal is male, so the streaks in the sky are fire red, like a warning light, like a passion flame, like power and self possession. He is on a mission. He moves and sings. I watch and catch my breath at his flash.

My sandwich is a simple thing of hearty bread, yellow tomato, mayo, colbyjack, amish bologna. It brings me nourished contentment, and is always enough. It is enough to share with the dogs, to give away.

The porch is tattered and the paint job has seen better days. The table is a slice of tree and we can put our feet on it, tamp the pipe out on it, set a knife blade into it. It holds all of our backporch living.

In the background the cicadas buzz like white noise, melting away the tumult into a haze that lifts the dozen birdsongs to the ear, the plane overhead, the sighs of a pooch, the crumbs on the plate ...settling my heart, and now I am saturated by the day.

amy

Eye Sight

When I was born, I was cross-eyed. My left eye turned all the way into the center and my right eye was nearly the same. Growing up I didn't know the difference. I had my first pair of glasses at 1 1/2 years old, that was the age the kind and gentle Dr. Welty thought I could keep them on. I never looked at others and wondered why I had glasses and they did not. I never noticed that something was wrong.

I loved going to the eye doc. Dr. Welty was a tall Mennonite man, who spoke in hushed tones. When he put the black spoon over my eye, resting his hand on my cheek, I leaned into its warmth. I always felt cared for and loved going to the eye appointments.

Sometime in 3rd grade, I began to understand that others had been having conversations about me and my eyes. That something made me a concern. And thus began the hyper focus on "fixing" Amy. Every day we put a string on the nose bridge of my glasses, Mom would hold it taught and put a finger on one end slowing moving it up toward my face. The objective, I think, was to see at what point I stopped seeing double. I always felt like a failure. I didn't know I had been seeing double. I hadn't known that my sight was not right. And now I had no context for success and didn't know what was normal. We added a patch. A skin toned patch that adhered to my right eye lid. My left eye was my weak eye, so the objective of this was to make it do all the work. I received lots of looks from strangers about my patch. i recall suggesting we draw an eye on the patch so people wouldn't know it was there. It was a sweaty thing, and I can still bring back the smell of the glue. 

Finally, we had corrective surgery when I was in 4th grade. A very nice nurse oriented me to my room. She told me I could have whatever I wanted day or night. Orange sherbet was the thing I wanted. We never had it at home. And I wanted it at odd times. It always arrived. I was hungry not for the frozen sweet goodness, but for the focus to be on what I wanted, instead of strings and sweaty glued on eye patches.

After the surgery, my eyes were straightened. No one looked at me and saw anything amiss. The magnification needed for my left eye made me look like I had a "big eye" and in high school, I stopped wearing my glasses.

Now, in my 50s, I wear my glasses on top of my head because I need bifocals, yet they can never get the prescription right for balance, and I can read and see close up more clearly without them. But I need them for distance.

Funny story: I recently led worship for my denomination's conference. I looked out over a see of 2500 people. I always have to choose when in the pulpit to either be able to see my words and not the people or see the people and not the words. The words win every time, naturally. But as I looked out at this crowd, I saw through my unique eye sight a mosaic of color. Each person was like a tiny piece of colored glass, and the lights from above added the affect of magic. I saw both my words to speak and the art of the gathering.

I do wonder about what my physical eye reality reflected in my emotions and my spirit. Was I just a little off center? Or was a physical telling of how one day I would no longer look outward for awareness of worth but inward to my own true source? I am a whole system, with one part reflecting the parts of the other. I do not believe that my crossed eyes were a signal of a crossed Amy. I believe I had to grow into my inner sight.

to your full self,

Amy

The Camino

I've uttered those words like one newly devoted to a way. I suspect that is true. The Camino de Santiago was all I expected, with surprises, learnings, and dimensional openings that continue to integrate within me.

Little things, really.

Like the day we headed out, and met yet another uphill (that plateaued then went uphill again). That day my son and co-walker insisted I wear his hat. The sun was out and we had long ago determined my own hat was too heavy and not well suited. The brim of his hat kept bumping the top of my backpack, but as I was feeling the benefit of the shade it offered, I just tilted my head down instead of taking it off. This little thing changed my whole view. My view was all feet, pavement, walking poles. Whenever we went uphill, I slowed down to a snails crawl and focused one step at a time. This allowed me to pay sharp attention to my body: lungs, heart, legs, breathing. This day was different from others. It was my 4th day of walking and my whole system was on board. It knew what was going down. And I could feel it syncing with the landscape.

Literally.

Because I was not look up to the peak of the hill, instead having continual focus on the square of path I could see, I was not moving with expectation/dread/reluctance of a never ending climb. I was in the NOW. The NOW, that illusive mystery of a goal that all spiritual practitioners seem to be chasing these days. There I was walking step by step. I was exactly where I was, where feet and pole were planted for a stepping moment.  I realized that my body was adapting to the rise and shifts of the road. I had been accustomed to thinking about how tackling a hill would leave me utterly breathless. But this was different. My body was not tackling anything. It was one with the rise. I could feel the automatic breathing of my lungs and muscle of my heart beat strong in this ongoing uphill climb and by paying attention to this I could tell I was nearing the top and the incline was tapering because my lungs and heart and muscles were adapting and adjusting to the landscape. It was so awesome. So when I did look up and saw what I already knew, that I was now on a flat portion....I was delighted to see that we were headed right back uphill. I go to experiment with this again! Off we went (mind, body, soul, emotions)  to dance with the land. 

So cool.

All of my mystical moments happened when going uphill. Funny. Uphills were the hardest part. The part that made me look up and give a little anxious cry of "Oh God" while trying to look tough and capable for my companions' sake. Those mystic moments began to happen after the first cry out of "Oh God"on the third day out. I do believe I was heard. The mystery that crafted those uphills in the first place and my body and being in the second place saw fit to merge in moments both profound and memorable. I thought my cry was a request for flat land. Apparently, it was for the ability to climb.

The risk of writing out the metaphor of the uphill is tricky. It can quickly turn sappy and uninteresting. But I don't want to lose it either.

• on the uphills, I worked my entire being
• on the uphills, I was my weakest
• on the uphills, I became my strongest
• on the uphills, the mystic portals opened

• what had been dread turned into determination
• what had been fear turned into accomplishment
• what had been winnowed down to heart, lungs, breathing turned into a knowing that I would breath normal again
• what had been an ego embarrassment became a self-knowing of faith

Without a doubt, I remained the slowest on the Camino. Speed wasn't the thing.

The THING it was is still a non-verbal reality for me. It is nameless and wordless and hard to express.

I found myself this afternoon back in Richmond, Indiana imagining taking my next pilgrimage across my home state. The road half a block from my front door is US 40 and I can walk the whole breadth of my state on it. 138 miles/224km, a drop in altitude of about 500 ft (does that mean I need to start in Terre Haute and go uphill to Richmond?). It would be double the distance we walked in Spain. If I walked 20km (that was my longest day on the Camino) I could do this walk in 11 days. So, let's say 14 days to allow a day for recovery if there was a need or a day of play in Indy.  Doing it in Indiana would mean Kurt and Alfie could drive out to visit me every 4 days or so. Doesn't this sound great? You may think that there is no comparison between Spain and Indiana. There won't be other walkers, and people will be speaking English, no customs or long plane rides, no jamon serrano and vino tinto....but a pilgrimage brings surprises wherever.

The point I really want to make here is that before the Camino, I would never have contemplated in a real way such an undertaking. Never. Maybe in a romantic daydream that poofs and is gone when reality sets in. But never would I publicly imagine this in a real way that would cause me to do calculations and believe it to be doable.

Maybe I'm still on the high of the trip. But maybe, something broke inside of me. Like the little calf muscle in my right leg that popped into being on day 3 in Spain....maybe my own fear and reticense with my own body broke, allowing heart/mind/spirit/body to become one. One system. One being.

Back to you? What are your uphills and how are you engaging them? An onslaught? A tackle? An integration? How would you LIKE to be engaging your uphills? Let's do that. I'll be like the lovely taxi driver who took me 24km up the road on the day I simply could not walk in the morning. With no judgment from her, my need allowed her to do what she does best: take people where they want to go

Spiritual Direction and Coaching is like that. Your life situations may need a taxi driver to help take you where you want to go so that you can recover strength to engage your uphills.  And my whole orientation in life is to offer that ride.  I'm not afraid of your uphills. We'll breath with new lungs, move with new inner muscles, dance to the beat of mighty hearts.

To your good path,

Amy

17,000 steps yesterday

17,000 steps yesterday. My body felt it at the end of the day. Kurt provided me with some Arnica pills and I woke up without aches or pains. Alfie stood poised to head out the door with Kurt but turned to me. And my thought at 6am? "Sure Alfie, lets go walk in the park." 

New actions

New outcomes

Stepping out of our comfort zone is major. It is a powerful player in our creative ways. How are you creating your conscious life? What are you awake to? What remains a dull norm, a regular everyday vibe that keeps you where you are? There may be absolutely nothing wrong with where you are now.

For those who are yearning for the next step up, step out, step toward....take one action today that is outside of your comfort zone.

The effort isn't one and done. To bring lasting change, we continue on the path of discomfort. Sounds fun, eh? So make little discomforts. Maybe if you usually walk 3000 steps, you do 8000. 17,000 from much less is a huge leap. It is a massive shift. Can I sustain it? That is the question. Since I'm on a deliberate pace of growth, then those 17,000 steps represent the level of change I am seeking. And I've got to sustain it somehow. That means 17,000 (6 miles) becomes the norm. Pilgriming on the Camino is another big leap.

But what happens when I come home?

What happens when you come home?

What happens when we make a big change: move towns, change jobs, go back to school....are you still in your comfort zone? Did you just change venue and retain the comfortable vibe?

That's what we can talk about. That is what I can help with... walking with you toward change in a deliberate fashion. Fast or slow, you don't have to try on discomfort alone. That would be kind of silly, actually.

Peace & Change,

Amy

BODY heart mind soul

As many of you know, I am a lover of sitting. Sitting at coffee shops, across from people, cup in hand, listening deeply. While I've engaged my heart, mind, soul for much of my life, my body has been left out. Now in my 50s, it is time to bring it on board.

Sure, in my formative years through college I used my body: farm work, running, biking, pom pom squad, malls. When I entered grad school then parenting and a profession of the mind, all of t hat slowed down. I used my body in my late 20s and 30s to keep up with my children, clean the house, mow the lawn, some walking for walking sake. 

In my 40s I shifted professions to office and listening. I worked 4.5 years on my doctorate, all of which was a ton of sitting, administration, listening, and reading reading reading.

I'm now in my 50s and about to embark on 10 days of the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. A pilgrimage. It sure has been.

The moment, nearly a year ago, that I said YES to this adventure and began walking a mile most days, I developed plantar fascitis. I figured I'd walk right out of it. But it has lingered. And I've kept walking. I added weight training in February and love the feel of a strong body. I feel it throughout the day. Last week, a voice popped into my head that said "jog". So I did. Not far. Doesn't matter. All of a sudden, my body knew what it could do, and my mind received it and conveyed it to me. I've jogged a piece of my walk every day since. 

Yesterday was a tough day. I had set plans for a weekend of miles. By Monday I hadn't completed what I thought I would and was depressed. So today, Alfie and I were determined to walk, jog, and double our distance.

We did.

That was a hump to get over.

And here is the bigger piece. Once I began employing my body for what it was designed to do, other things began opening up. Deeper intuition, more mature responses, strong centering in a volatile election season and aftermath. 

When we bring Mind Soul Body Heart together, as an interwoven fabric, we see in 4 dimensions.

think

feel

intuit

move

It is a brilliant design for the human experience. It takes us beyond the human experience into the transcendent. When we bring these all together, we enter the 5th dimension of limitlessness. I think that all of the great inventors dwelled in this space.

What is your 5th dimension? Do you know it? Can you get there? I'd love to explore that with you.

Peace,

Amy

I jogged today and I felt strong

Today I jogged for the first time in 30 years. Let me tell you the story. Some of you have been following my life changing decision to rescue (who rescued who, is always the question) a little white elderly Maltese. This was in April 2016. Alfie joined our household and turned my mornings inside out. According to plan. Sometimes we walk long, sometime half the long, and sometimes just up the alley by our house. He walks ahead or behind with his tail like a flag, super happy to suck in all the animal smells that have been typed out like a book at the base of a tree, a fence post, a tall patch of grass. Stories that dogs and other critters leave for one another.

On this particular morning, Alfie was off doing his thing in our alley and the vacant lot that is like a starbucks of smells and excitement to many animals. As I stood there I heard the word "jog" inside my head. And it was met without resistance. Curiosity for sure, but no resistance. Around the corner to the straightaway home Alfie shot like a bullet, and I loped into a jog.

It was a gentle jog, feet barely lifting, but arms and knees and lungs and legs all seemed to know the posture and what to do. It was just a half a block, the length of the alley. But I jogged without resistance.

This has been a year to allow my body to catch up with my spiritual/emotional/mental health. I've worked hard on my interior space right alongside my clients. Growth points noted nearly every day. There have been some major mind blowing relational events that not only turned corners but took me/us onto a whole new path with no return to the old paradigm.

My body, however, has been the final frontier. Off and on I've done this or that. about 5 years ago I swore off dieting because I only gained all that was lost plus some. In those 5 years Ihave stayed steady. Sure, I would like to lose, but I most certainly do not want to gain more. So, steady was fine. 

This past year, walking Alfie, I entered into the final framework of focus. Alfie got me out each day, and then I made the decision in June to do a walking pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago in Spain to take place June 2017. Tickets, shoes, and backpack are bought. I'm doing it.

My first order of training was to become a walker. That meant to take seriously the morning dog walk. Then it meant to keep walking even as I got plantar fasciitis in the summer. At some point in the fall, I realized that I had been walking through the pain for months, never quitting the program. 

The training became the pilgrimage.

I was a walker.

February hit and as planned I needed to increase my activity. I jointed Planet Fitness. I love our local joint. I like the harder, more focused pace and purpose that I can achieve on the treadmill than when I'm accompanying my dog on his sniffing, poo-ing way. In March I added 3x a week the whole body circuit of strength training. I.Love.This.

Apparently, so does my body.

So who did I hear say "jog" in the alley? My inner guidance? Higher Self? Alfie? God? I don't know. In the 100 step back cosmic view the voice came from within the universe itself, which is located inside of me. Perhaps I needed to energize my core before my ears could hear its desire.

AND THIS IS THE POINT: Big miracles happen when we work on our whole self. Heart Soul Mind Body. There is magic, sacred magic, blessing, abundance when we see ourselves as a whole being and grow accordingly. For me it meant one element at a time with a bit of overlap. But the walking was the shinging final piece.

Oh, and I have given up coffee. A big deal (have you been to my resonance website? Full of coffee photos). I feel a gazillion times better, freer, unchained, even keeled. 2 notches on my marking wall. walking and no coffee. What is next? I don't know. But it will be amazing.

Thinking Thinking Thinking

Yesterday, I watched body language of someone who asked "How are you doing?" The question was to me, after I had listened to her tell me her latest adventure. The body language I saw, was like watching a balloon deflate before my eyes. The interest literally left her eyes. And it never came back. She asked a few more questions of interest, but her eyes gave her away. What they gave away, I'm unclear: boredom? disinterest? jealousy? disbelief?

What I also noticed was how while I shared a rising passion of mine, something that once in place will change my life significantly, I felt life surge through me. And when I caught the interest leaving her eyes like an empty shell, I did not get ruffled by it. I took note of that. I was not sad, or angry, or put off. It was a true and clear sense of knowing where I am headed, and if others want to join me or not, that was up to them. I'm on my way.

This is sort of new for me. I tend to have a radar personality. I go into a room and read it for emotions and dynamics, looking for the wall flowers and the take chargers. I get my bearings and then I know what me to step forward with. The authenticity is there, but to varying degrees of my truest self. Like on a scale of 1-5 in Amy-ness.

What other people think of me has always mattered. And I used to correct myself accordingly.

Less so now. This is the outcome of tapping into my essential nature, my soul blueprint. I know who I am and the work I'm to do, and so my guidance system is based from the sacred within rather than the chaotic without.

Join me in unveiling your essential nature.

~Amy

Two days ago, I forgot my son's birthday

Sure, a month earlier I had asked what he wanted and he reminded me that I had bought a ticket to Spain for him, so that we could do a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. Pretty good gift. But I forgot his birthday. The days before were a flood of days without dates, as I road tripped for work (my current beloved day gig) and thought only in terms of Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Tuesday meant that I was home. I had assigned no meaning to it other than rest. It was not February 21. Had I been tuned into the date, I would have tuned into the full memory of his birth, his smirking face the first time he saw me, the pleasant balm that infused the space around his head. Had I been alert to something more than Tuesday, I would have stepped into that flow of artistic quirk that was his childhood and growing and becoming. Now he is 23. A young man, living a funky life of coffee, art, and music, smirking still but with a sense of hidden meaning.

Our lives are to be lived in a vibrant awareness, with whatever markers we choose to create by leading the way. Do we have side gigs or imposed obligations that are taking away the very center of our being in this lifetime? I'm pretty adept at crafting a day, a week, a season to explore and explode into oncoming alignment...but I get caught every now and then. At those moments, I right myself, like dumping water from an overturned kayak, and catch the flow downstream again.

You are invited into the flow, into the rapids, into the vehicle of your own making as you and i set a course toward an awakened and conscious life. We work with esoteric, non-material knowledge and insight, that is pure in intent, and sacred in purpose. Set backs are moments to regroup and there is never judgement. Even when we miss a grown child's birthday.

Let's use all the resources at our fingertips and soul sources at our breath's intake and make a creative focus for you. Your personal, unique vibration in this universe will carry you forward.

~Amy

Hapax Spiritual Direction, 41 South 20th Street, Richmond, IN, 47374, United States

amy.hapaxsd@gmail.com

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