The Healthy Choices Wellblog

I see the window now, thanks God

Unless otherwise noted, this content copyright, Neva J Howell, all rights reserved

To understand this post, please read all the doors closing first.

It’s a few hours after my post now, and I have just had an epiphany. I’m 51 years old and just now realized that I’ve walked a lot of my spiritual path entertaining a faulty spiritual premise.

This premise goes something like this….I am a spiritual seeker, continually striving toward a greater and stronger connection with God. I seek to be more aware, more loving, more peaceful and more compassionate as I grow as a spiritual being.

What’s wrong with that? I certainly heard it from enough pulpits in my youth, though couched in Christian language. I certainly read it in enough spiritual books and heard it, or some version of it, in enough spiritual lectures.

Today, walking up and down the long hall of my home (this is a form of Jappa for me, walking in a prayerful state) I suddenly saw something I’d never seen before.

Almost all my past dreams, goals and personal aspirations could be traced by in origin to some belief in lack. I was lacking something and had to seek it out. I was missing something and had to find it. I was less than and had to be more.

The strongest mirror in my life for the past few years is a person who experiences more experiences in a 24-hour period than can be possible. Literally. She will tell me about a single day in her life and I end up wondering how in the world anyone can do that
much in one day. This feeds her. She loves living this way. And it’s not just her. The world lives for experience. Granted, she is awake, aware and spiritually connected to her experiences in a way that the world at large does not seem to be connected. Still, it
seems to be about experiencing…about doing.

Unconsciously, I picked that mantra up early in life and I’ve chanted it for most of my life. It has only been the past few years that I’ve noticed that it doesn’t work for me now, and that maybe, it never did work.

What caused me to see this is that I’ve also, in the past few years, realized every big dream I ever had. There are no dreams left. When I realized this, I felt there was something wrong with me. I started immediately trying to find the new dream, the new direction for my life. To have a directionless life felt
terrifying to me, and still does.

Yet, my Spirit is whispering to me that it is ok to be without dreams, without goals, without definable direction. Comfortable, no. OK, yes.

I see the window now. Thanks God.

Looking for an opening

Getting a clear picture of what NOT to do….

Unless otherwise noted, this content copyright, Neva J Howell, all rights reserved

Lately, I feel like Spirit is closing a lot of doors in my life and I’m wondering when something is going to open.

Just one example of many in the past few weeks…..I’ve felt I needed to make a change in my life for some time. A friend had wanted to go to the Redwoods with me and had asked several times so I thought, maybe a pilgrimage with conscious intent to a glorious exhibition of natural beauty might help shift me and shine forth a direction for my life.

Started looking at ways to get there (fly, drive, amtrak, etc.) and found out there are over a thousand fires burning out there right now. Then, amazingly, a friend of mine in Oregon decides to go and reports back that yes, indeed, a tough time to be there. Severe smoke and hard to breathe. Hard to see very far too. Door closed.

I’ve heard it said that when God closes a door, God opens a window. I’m seeing the doors close all around me….where’s the window?

Walking the Path of Peace

Well, I returned home from Caritas of Birmingham a few days earlier than I had planned. It was all perfect, even the day I spent in torment trying to get my tent up and to make it through a night of camping in an incredibly noisy environment with generators, constant traffic, etc.

I attended the first gathering in the field. For those unfamiliar with Caritas, it is a community founded on the principles brought in from visionary messages. These messages are said to be coming from Mother Mary.

I honestly think I was thinking of Conyers, Georgia when I went there. I’ve never been to Conyers yet and don’t know that I want to go now but if I could have gone back when…..was it 1994 that Nancy Fowler gave her last message….I might have done so.

In any case, I got some very significant insight into my own spiritual path and the way Spirit wants to use me. It appears that my path involves standing in places where there is some degree of crystalization around religious form and shining light on the path of flow.

I don’t need to articulate that any more clearly at this point in time.

I am grateful for the journey I took to Caritas and for an earlier, gentler pilgrimage with a man named Scaughdt. He is a Peace Pilgrim in rather the tradition of the original Peace Pilgrim and is a Light and a Delight to be with and commune with in Love. If you have a chance to see Scaughdt, I’d encourage exploring whether it is in your path to do so. He’s a blessing and so clear in his own path while so open to the reality that we each have our paths and that, while they cross at times with blessings for each in the crossing, we all must have freedom to continue our own path as Spirit guides.

Learning to walk in faith

I heard it growing up, from every pulpit.

I heard it all grown up, from every spiritual and motivational speaker…..

We walk by faith if we walk in alignment with our Highest Potential.

I’ve worked it all my life, this one piece, in all it’s various shades and hues.
I’ve worked it but I’ve seldom walked it, without work and conscious effort.

This morning, I got a glimpse of actually walking it instead of working it and it shook my little ego self to it’s very core.

So used to the illusion of control by doing, my ego became almost uncontrollably agitated at the idea that there was really nothing for that part of me to do.

That, in fact, it had done it’s job so well that I finally got the lesson and the personality self could just chill and let Spirit move our lives.

That doesn’t mean I sit still and do nothing, oh no.

In fact, since I “got it” things have been presenting themselves at warp speed….potentials, invitations, Spirit-guided direction. My job in this new paradigm is comforting a little ego self that is quite freaked out by realizing that it controls nothing at all and needs do nothing at all until the very moment something needs doing.

At that divinely inspired moment, “doing” becomes so effortless that it feels to the ego as if we haven’t participated.

It’s a learning curve.

Medjugorje in America

I recall reading the stories of the children of Fatima and the messages from Medjugorje. A part of me wanted to be there, wanted to be them.

I later had my own personal experiences with spiritual energy that I recognize as the frequency of consciousness of Mother Mary and it was a blessing.

Yet, I have not participated in very much of the Catholic ritual, despite my awareness that I am here to walk a blended-tradition path of spirituality beginning when I walked beyond the confines of rigid, fundamental Christianity and continuing as I stepped into and beyond the rigidity of other faiths.

Maybe I haven’t been drawn to Catholic ceremony because it contains so much structure or maybe it’s a subconsious thing from being raised Christian. I don’t know.

Maybe it’s my resistance to this idea of suffering and pain as a path to God. I’ve certainly traveled that path, beginning with my piously religous Grandmother who knew that life was not where treasure was….that one had to suffer and wait and be rewarded in heaven.

I also saw this structure in the Native American rituals of Sun Dance and Vision Quest and in a lot of the Sweat Lodges too. While I saw a different way being worked by the few, a way of being lifted by the energy where suffering was not necessary and a supernatural force took over, the many still seemed to be suffering.

Then, I saw what seemed to be the opposite in Buddhist ritual….the giving up of desire and thus the end of suffering. Didn’t quite work that way for me but that’s another article.

Anyway, despite what the areas of my resistance are to being much in the Catholic Gridline, this spiritual journey I’m contemplating now holds more.

Most of what I know about it holds no appeal whatsoever. Camping out for 5 days, being asked to say specific prayers at specific times, having to endure heat, mosquitos, standing for long periods of time, being required to wear long sleeves in spite of the heat, and having to walk a mile each way, each time I go to the ceremonial area.

So what draws me to this unpleasant scenario? Do I hope to “get” something? If so, that’s what I recognize as ego-bait, something my personality self has latched onto which distracts and tempts me long enough for me to get something else.

All I know now is that I’ve gotten my tent out of the storage building. It’s been there since I bought it, except for one time that my nieces and nephews used it. That tells you how much I like camping.

Is Mother Mary calling me? Or is this just the lure of the ego….a hope that going to Caritas of Birmingham and being part of Medjugorje in America will change my personal life in some miraculous way?

The only way to know for sure is to go.

A grounding and centering practice

Can you feel both your feet?

I mean, can you feel your Spirit coming into your form, your chosen form on the third dimension, all the way down to the toes in both your feet?

I couldn’t. I realized I was part-way out of my body and, when I looked at why that was, I realized that my mind had taken me into the future. Whenever I am in the future, to the degree that I am in the future, I have left the present.

A good, good spiritual practice for me is simply to notice my feet and see if I feel myself all the way to the ends of my toes. It’s an odd realization to note that I cannot feel my feet. As soon as I know I can’t, I am there by virtue of sending my consciousness down to my feet.

In a way I can’t explain, it helps to center me, bring me back to the present moment and balance me in whatever future potential I face. Maybe that’s why I’ve always loved foot reflexology so much. It is a delightful way to get back into my feet, and into the now.

The habit I had very unconsciously gotten into was to let my mind carry me away from the present moment. It’s a tricky thing, learning to plan for future potential IN THE MOMENT and vastly different than letting the mind go into that imaginary future and start trying to work out how it will be, should be, may end up being, or may not be.

Sometimes I even stamp my feet, to get myself back into them and into the present moment. Whatever it takes, I want to stay conscious as much as I can. Anything else is something different than really living.

I am not my feelings

I was having a real come-apart over something the other day. I don’t even remember what and the reason doesn’t matter.

In talking with a friend, she commented that it was “just a feeling”.

After we hung up, it dawned on me what that meant.

I had momentarily gotten so identified with a feeling that I thought it was me. I felt threatened or confused or addled by something I was giving more power than it had a right to have.

Feelings come and go, flux and flow, ebb and wane.

Feelings are not who I AM.

I AM is having a feeling in a body.

Regardless of what the feeling may be, I still am I AM. I am so much more than the little me that is having some sort of come-apart.

Just remembering that helps me to also remember that “this too shall pass” and not to start building such a story around my emotions that they take over my life.

I’ve worked with animal teachers for many years now.

I have trained myself to pay attention to the creature beings
that enter my life. When they appear in a significant way, I
strive to pause and ask….”what was I thinking? what was I
about to do, say, decide?”

The messages have been life-altering at times and, at other
times, very confusing.

I am wondering if anyone has information on groundhog as a
totem because I’ve been seeing them everywhere.

I saw four in one day….three on one side of the road and then
a fourth about a mile down the same road.

Then, a fifth a few days later.

Then, I hit one with my car. Thank God it didn’t kill it but I
recognized an acceleration in the medicine and wondered…
what am I missing about this that it had to come again, and
so severely this time?

I read in Animal Speaks that groundhog medicine can foretell
a period of intense spiritual digging and development that lasts
for two years. I confess that is not the message I want. I feel
I’ve dug and developed for a gajillion lifetimes already. I’m really,
really, really sure that work is over.

Animal Speaks also says that groundhog may appear as a totem
or Spirit messenger to assist with lesson on death without dying.
That’s another lesson I thought I’d done with.

Am I missing something or just thinking I’m through with something
and not through?

I just wondered if anyone else might have a different message
from groundhog as a totem. If so, I’d love to hear your comments.

I posted earlier about my discovery that someone is building three large chicken houses about a half mile from my home.

I was thinking this morning, while reading Oprah’s blog about her 21-day cleanse, that there has been a synchronicity leading up to that moment. Up til this morning, I hadn’t realized that but had felt something building.

Spiritual awareness, in my reality, draws what I need to shift consciousness. Because I am actively seeking more and more spiritual integrity and centering, I notice synchronicity in messages….eventually, ha.

About three weeks ago, I guess, I was once again behind a chicken truck on the highway. Everytime this happens, and I see those chickens in their cramped little crates, sometimes in the dead of winter with the freezing air just rushing thru the open cages, I decide again that I will stop eating chicken.

Then, over time, the memory dims and I forget how badly most of our feathered friends are treated before they make the ultimate sacrifice for us.

When I got behind this particular truck, it was empty. I was grateful for that but, at the same time, noticed that I was having the same reactions as if the truck had been filled. I could still see those chickens. Though it was not cold this day, it was raining and I could imagine what that would have felt like, pelting them through the crates.

So, once again, I swore off meats. I looked at the consciousness of cows again and also recalled the newscast I had recently seen about how the processing of beef was one of the most energy-wasteful food processes of any food we eat. In other words, beef costs more energy (gas, specifically) to process, ship and get on the table that most other foods.

Add to this the simply horrible images I have in my head from documentaries about beef processing plants and the simpler question might be how I could ever eat it instead of how do I stop.

One of my problems has been that my body really craves the kind of protein in beef and chicken. I’ve tried soy, whey and other proteins and they are simply not the same. In fact, whey protein products upset my digestive and eliminatory processes and soy just doesn’t feel right in my body…..so, how do I get my protein? I can only eat so many beans!

Anyway, back to synchronicity. Nothing brings a message home like having it come home, literally When I think of having a chicken house that close to me, I just can’t think of it. Really. At first, I thought it would be the odor. I talked with the man building the houses and he says there will be solid walls to reduce odor, rather than open walls. Doesn’t mean there won’t be odor but should not be as bad as I first imagined.

However, I am realizing that odor wasn’t the biggest issue. The reality is sinking in that I don’t want to be that aware of what it takes to bring that chicken dinner to my table.

And then I tune in to Oprah to hear this woman speaking of not eating meat, as part of conscious eating…..

Spiritual synchronicity, full circle.

So what do I do now? Well, I live my life here. I am probably going to sell my healing center. Until it sells, I live my life. I will be living it a little more consciously due to these developments.

I found out this morning that the construction sounds I’ve been hearing for months at my new and lovely healing center are the result of someone clearing land for the building of three huge chicken houses. These will be less than a mile from my home.

To some, that may elicit a “so what?”.

To others who, like myself, are extremely sensitive to odors, you will know the feelings I could have dropped into when I found out. They are not pretty feelings.

Surprisingly, that didn’t happen. Rather than rage or hopelessness or helplessness or depression, I just came straight home and called my real estate agent.

In talking with my wonderful friend and fellow spiritual warrioress Susan, I made a statement that she caught hold of and gave back to me. It resonated strongly and when I looked at it again, I saw that it held great truth.

It went something like this……

“Now that I’ve let go of the dream of creating the healing center, doing classes, living here, maybe now God can use me.”

Oh, glory, glory, glory.

What freedom there was in the recognition of how very much I had sought to control my life. I had these ideas that had already congealed into plans. Susan has often quoted a particular statement which, I think, is either from the Course in Miracles or Eckhart Tolle:

“A healed mind does not plan”

This bespeaks a degree of walking by faith that I have not embodied til today. It literally means that I walk in the moment and follow right action in the moment….not in tomorrow’s moments or even the next hour’s moments. Right now is all that is. Why do we insist on planning for things that may change, probably will shift and change, many times before they unfolds in God’s perfection?

In the moment that I realized that my environment here might radically change in the next year, I also realized how attached I had become to a certain vision of what living here for the rest of my life had looked like to me from my planning mind.

I already saw myself giving Accelerated Alignment Training and offering Healing Retreats. I planned it all out and put it on the website. Now, it may be that none of that happens or, if it does happen, happens here.

I saw, in an instant, how very restricted my view of my future has been….not just now, but all my life. I saw how anything short of complete spiritual surrender would keep me captive to my planning mind instead of aloowing me to embody my healed mind.

My prayer this day is that this awareness will be so grounded in me as to be unshakable.