​Yesterday a friend of mine from long ago posted a song of his on YouTube that I had played on – it was my first time into a real recording studio.  My fingers used to freeze in my own living room as soon as I turned on the tape player, so this was a big deal.  I had practiced and practiced and I was so ready, only worried about the mental game.  We did two takes.  What an experience – I wish everyone could do this. After I had finished what I was supposed to do and what I had practiced, the engineer continued the music and asked me, through my headphones, to improvise on the end.  I had relaxed considerably, having finished what I was there to do, so I went with it.  What I did wasn’t brilliant – on the fly all I could come up with was so simple.  But in the end, the work I had practiced got cut and what I had improvised, in my relaxed, “this doesn’t matter” state was saved for the final recording…
 
The point is this. When we are stressed, or in fight or flight, what we produce has that energy around it.  Our best work comes from a state of peace.  

​So, like Elijah in the wilderness, you are being asked – who are you?  What is for you here?  Who are you here?  In the fragile silence of the desert you are being asked – who are you when and if you are not your achievements or your titles or your roles or your possessions or your bank account?  When your children have moved on and your parents have died, who are you?  Who are you when you are no longer getting report cards and winning awards?  Who are you when no one knows who you used to be?  Who are you when all that matters to you is finding shelter and food and water? Do you know?  Who are you here and what is here for you in this place?
 
What is here for you is Stillness.  What is here for you is Love.
 
That is all.
That is everything.
 
Who are you when all there is is Stillness, when all there is is Love?
 
You are Stillness.
You are Love.
 
You are all.
You are everything.
That is all you are, always.

​I am in Vermont, about 90 miles from the Canadian border, on my way home from an orientation weekend at UVM where my son will be a freshman in the fall.  It’s 2004.  I am about to pull on to Route 91, going south.  I yawn as my son sleeps in the seat next to me.
 
Traffic slows.  What’s this?  Armed guards?  Weird. I watch as the cars in front of me slow down and then are waved through.  I feel nervous.  Should I be? I pull up to the man in the uniform with the gun.  Where have I seen this before?  Oh yeah, Yugoslavia.  1985.
 
He doesn’t wave me through. He signals to roll down my window. My anxiety moves up through my legs, into my stomach.  What is this?
 
I roll down my window. He looks at me for several seconds.  I wait. My mind races.  Then he speaks.
 
“State your citizenship,” he says.
 
State my citizenship?  In the middle of Vermont?  Seriously, what?  I try not to laugh.  I think of a joke.  “Wow.  I heard you folks in Vermont are tough.  I’m so sorry, I am a citizen of Massachusetts, but my son is attending UVM in the fall.  That’s him sleeping over there.  We’re almost Vermonters!”  Instead I look at him, my eyebrows go up, I try not to smirk, and I say, “So you mean as in U-ni-ted Ssss-TATES?” He tells me to pull over.  Uh oh.
 
My son awakens and asks me what is going on.  I tell him I don’t know.  Other vehicles are waved on to freedom.
 
More men in uniform arrive with flashlights and proceed to search the mommy van.  My son looks at me as if to say, “Mom, what did you do?”.
 
Flashback.  Communist Yugoslavia.  1985. I am pregnant with my son.  I am sitting in a police station, wondering if he will be born behind bars.  I have to pee.  I try not to vomit.  He kicks me hard, as if to say, “Mom, what have you done?”.  
 
Fear changes us. The proof is here in the middle of Vermont.  I always felt so lucky to be an American citizen; lucky, unafraid and humbled.  Then, 911, etc.  We are changed.  
 
Vermont.  The men find nothing.  We leave with a funny story.  Communist Yugoslavia.  We leave knowing that we are lucky Americans and we get to leave.
 
Flash forward.  June 2018.  This Vermont story no longer seems funny.  My son, in response to his post-911 America, is serving in the Air Force.  The fear in our nation has flourished. The border patrol is commonplace, we are building walls, we imprison or send away “others” and we rip children from parents’ arms.  We are lost.
 
FLOTUS says she really doesn’t care.  
 
I do.  Yes, I do, in answer to her question.
 
And I believe that with deep love, faith, compassion, awareness and right action, we will find our way back home.

Love for Love’s Sake
 
We loved for Love’s sake, unattached to the outcome, although when the unexpected separation came I was thrown into an emotional turmoil unlike any other, and had to go through the stages of grief before returning to Love.  Loving him united me with my Higher Self.  My Highest Self, and yours, is Love.

Love for Love’s sake.  There are no guarantees, and still we must love for love’s sake, and keep our hearts open…
 
The Realm of Joy and imagination
 
Go to the woods alone – stay there for awhile and become comfortable.  Magic happens!  Some things will happen in your imagination, which will light up as you play like a child, rooted and grounded and accompanied by the forest world.  Here you will find your stories.  Other beings will come to play with you – the owls and the deer if you are lucky.  They sense you – they know who you are and they check you out even before you are aware of their presence.  If you are lucky they will play with you.  I have a little friend who I met when he was very small and still had his spots.  He and his mother let me follow them for awhile and then he was spooked by a forest sound.  He ran to me instead of his mother.  I believe in my imagination that some kind of imprinting happened.  I would see him almost daily after that and we would hang out together.  His mother and father checked me out, too, and I got to be close to them in a way I am told is not the norm, but I think maybe it is the norm, we simply have lost touch with that aspect of our being.  But what is most astonishing is that, after having moved away and not seeing them in the months of winter, I revisited in early spring of the following year, and he seemed to remember me.  I followed the little group of deer for a few hours – this same group would let me get close the fall before but now they were skittish and stayed ahead.  I felt a sadness for having lost this sacred connection and finally decided to let them go.  I watched them disappear into the cloak of the forest, turned to leave, and there he was.  A yearling, 15 feet away – looking at me.  Energetically, I knew it was him.  My heart soared and we played!  I followed him and took many pictures.  He would turn and look to be sure I was following and if I stopped he would move towards me.  I had forgotten to turn off my phone and when it rang, a treasured call from my daughter living in France, instead of running he came closer, as if curious, and I chose not to answer, not without pain, but needing to stay connected to him.  After awhile it was getting colder and I realized I had lost a glove.  I told him good-bye for now, headed back following my own tracks in the snow, found my glove, and went to the water trail looking for birds.  An hour later, still in the forest, I turned a corner and there he was again, glancing at me from behind a fallen log!  I had never seen him down in this area before and I laughed heartily and once again began to follow him, this time up a steep incline – he went ahead but would stop and wait and watch me climb.  We went back into the deeper woods together and played some more.  He fills my heart with joy and I am humbled.
 
A few weeks ago I was at the Quabbin, just inside the woods on an old road after checking out a cellar hole, and three large coywolves ran straight towards me at full speed, each turning at the last minute and running on ahead.  I chose in the moment I first saw them to calm my heart and not be frightened, not send out those vibes though I might feel that afterwards, remembering how fierce they looked while running at me, and I tried to get a picture.  I got blurry photos of each one, each so powerful, and again, I am awestruck at these experiences.
 
We are brought back to Love.  Love for Love’s sake.  
 
“Where have you hidden, Beloved?
Why have you wounded my soul?
I went out to the wilderness calling for you
But you were gone.
 
Oh shepherd keeping your watch in the hills
If by chance you meet with my Love
Tell him I suffer in my lonely grief
And I soon shall die.
 
I have searched for my Love in the mountains
I have searched among the meadows and the fields
He has poured out a thousand graces in them
So my heart might be healed
But my heart is not healed.
 
Where have you hidden, Beloved?
Why have you wounded my soul?
I went out to the wilderness calling for you
But you were gone.”

These are words of a song written by John Michael Talbot.  I used to sing his songs in church and I got in trouble for it, but that is another story...

Do you know the power of Love?  We must open our hearts, and even in times of gut-wrenching loss we must keep our hearts open.  This is the only path to peace and empowerment.  It isn't easy, but it is worth it.  Open your heart!  Even still, keep your heart open.