A Kaleidoscope of Coral

Colonies of polyps

Attaching themselves

To hard substrates

Communities of people

Attached to Mother Earth

And to each other

Gravity

Coral can be hard or soft

Growing, serving as

Protection for other sea creatures

Beauty

Needed parts of the whole

Buffering shorelines 

Vital to a healthy ecosystem

Poisoned by toxins

Harmed by climate change 

Warmer water

Endangered

Colorful and diverse

Each colony unique

To its own

Sturdy, Sacred

Stunning to view

Coral needs water and light

Some types thrive deeper in

Colder environments   

Transmuting the 

Heaviness of this wounded world

Gorgeous landscapes

Sensuous scenery, visual candy

Ocean creatures, life cycles

Humans can be stunningly beautiful or

Extremely ugly 

Faces, words, and actions

Tones of voice

People are endangered too

Unlike sharks and other 

Carnivores who survive by

Eating other animals

People attack emotionally

Verbally and physically

No food exchanged

Except metaphorically

Or maybe there is a

"Food" transaction

Food nourishes so

 I may attack you

I may want your food

(Your ability to nourish 

Yourself better - in my opinion

Than I do)

So, I steal, I grab your stuff

I push you over so I can

Have more (in my thinking)

I compete with you for

What I perceive as a

Limited amount of food

Having experienced 

Deprivation of food, touch

Emotional support, love

I want it

I am desperate for it

Power or fame

Wealth or beauty

Give it to me, please

Don’t make me beg

Meanwhile, in the kaleidoscope of the 

Kelp forest

Coral and sea fans softly

Sway in carefree currents

Sharks, sea lions and dolphins 

Hunt for food 

Killing other beings at times

Seemingly without all the 

Vigor and deep desire or 

Despairing desperation of 

Human needs that 

Didn’t get met

Still aren't met

Wonder what we might learn 

From Coral

While still living as human beings?

Silver Threads

Silver sands

Silver shadows

Silver dust

Silver shells

Silver moon

Sitting in the sunlight

The family stretched out

Like cats around the room

Outdoors, the ocean calls

Bright shining sun

Warming our hearts and souls

Penetrating us with beams of light

Rays of hope

Water, sun, fire, air

Mother Earth

Elemental essentials

For human growth

Overjoyed by abundance

Distressed by drought

Too much or too little

Dismay and possible death

Hurricanes, tornadoes,

Storm surges, flooding

Wild fires, earthquakes

Skin cancers, wars

Sun and spirits consistently

Part the clouds

Requesting belief and trust

How can what we need

Also, hurt us so badly?

Just true, it is

How can so many fabulous

Aspects of life be dangerous

When too much or too little is

Consumed or shared with us?

We, the tiny grains of sand on

This elaborate, enchanting earth

Designed by the Source

Maybe Divine, maybe Mystery

Maybe Quantum Physics

Surely Magic

We say: Flow with it

We say: Watch out, don’t get burned

We starve, we thirst, we consume

What is enough?

What is too much?

How do we decide

Or, rather, is much

Decided for us?

Silver threads linking

Us all together

A wondrous web of jewels

A tangle of hearts

A mosaic of minds

No wonder we battle at times

No wonder we love even more

Weaving our energetic beings

One to the other

We know surely as one part

Changes, so does another

And another and another

The rippling ideas, tantalizing tides

Alluring air currents between and

Around us like mesh, foam

Feelings of every sort

Shared between

Graceful, ghastly

Gawky and glorious

All at the same time

This is our earthly home

For now

Stardust always

Closing Our Eyes

Closing our eyes

See the silence

Smell the quiet

No place to go

Nothing needs

To be done

Time for the

In between space

Surrendering to

A total embrace

Hope

Mercy

Weaving together

Throughout time

Remembering

Starships sailing into the night

The pulse, the heartbeat

Breathing in and out

Waves rolling like small slopes

Motion rippling slowly

The quantum field

Jewels of the Rainbow

Bright shining glimpses

The Sun

The Divine always whispers

If we slow down, stop

Invite and listen

Then, we hear

If not, the Divine shouts

Watching the ocean tides

Moving in and out

Creating harmony holding

All of life: plants, beasts, cells

Killing, consuming, digesting

Breathing through complex gills

Fins and paddles swimming

Continuous motion

Just like on the top of the water

On the land, in the air

Just like out in space

All the dynamics everywhere

Colors changing

Moving from magenta to deep

Dark blues, purples, and yellows

Reds, oranges and dark black

Sparkling, shimmering around edges

Sliding in and out of view

Merging and transforming

Separating

Just like we do

Will I meet my Spirit beings?

Will they show me their faces

On this particular journey?

Do they have faces up above

Down below and

Throughout this energetic

Field of delight and expanse?

No, not human forms, rather

A cornucopia of colorful tones

Spectacular looming lights

The blooming of roses

Caves and streams

Structures and forms

We receive their messages

Our senses awash

Beauty rolling, swaying

Just like dance and music

From lyrical, slow, stretching moves

To erratic jolting bass booming

Wild dancing, singing, shrieking

Relaxing the pace becoming

Background sound, soothing

Being seen, heard, experienced

Lived

Joy and war

Conflict and peace

Harmony displayed

All is Nature

All is One

Goddesses, Gods, and Humans

The Celtic Goddess of Spring, dawn and fertility

Brigid was also a goddess of birth, protection

Agriculture, music, and art

Viewed at times as a fighter or a flame

Different cultures, different meanings

Maybe a triple goddess or

Just one single goddess

Myths, creeds, and folklore abound

Who are our goddesses and gods

And are we included in the list?

A goddess protects the land, the skies, and the seas

A goddess treats the sick, heals and comforts the wounded

A goddess brings forth life (and maybe even death?)

She is all knowing, all seeing, all giving

Divine

Sounds like the God that I grew up with

In a church, omnipresent

Lord of all the heavens, the

Earth, the waters and the air

Lord of people and animals

Rocks and minerals

God bless the little children

Surely a god or goddess is

Androgynous or a

Metaphorical hermaphrodite?

Transgender, at least

Not a person at all

So no gender needed

What do I know, wondering and

Wandering while I write?

Do humans need

Something or someone to worship?

Or do we just need

Beautiful and inspiring stories

About heroines and heroes?

Is it human to need to believe

That someone, some entity somewhere

Is looking down on us, or up at us

Watching what happens to us

Comforting us when we need it

And sparking us to move forward

When the world needs us?

Some deities are animals, trees, plants, or ideas

I worship the jaguar, the hawk and the goose

Along with the elephant and the snake

Trees are celestial beings as are

The rose and so many other flowers

Some worship objects or Jesus or Mary

A well, a mountain, or a seed

A medicine or a shaman

Or the magic dollar, power, or fame

The patriarchy

If we don’t worship and pray to a deity

Then what would we worship

Pray to, get mad at, and seek to know?

If our lives are not going our way

Who do we look toward to help us?

Surely we have found out that other

Human beings may act like saviors for

Awhile, but ultimately they, too (we, too)

Let us (each other) down

Just by being human

Some goddess or god must

Have made them (and us) that way

The Muse is speaking

I am listening

I channel her words

With my hand above

The keyboard

Is She my goddess?

The Great Mysteries remain

Let’s keep asking

Questions and

Sharing them

Still Here

So many deaths

Not just bodies

But, hearts and minds

Friends, family

Beloved pets

I know as well as I know

Anything that they are

Most likely better off

Than they were here

At least at the end of

Their lives animated by

Blood and Breath

Whether by accident

Sudden disease or

Long term illness

They are now released

From their bodies

Hopefully, fluttering around

In some spiritually

Uplifting space

Whatever heaven may be

For them

And here we are

Left, abandoned

Sad and sorrowful

Full of tears and

So much more

We who treasured them

We miss them

Or the they who they were

Before the downfall

Before the diagnosis

Before the wreck

Before the cancer

We are grateful to

Have known them

Loved them

Rejoiced with them

Cried with them

Now we cry alone

Along with all those

Who loved them too

Knowing that we will

Rub up against their

Energies again some day

In whatever form

We feel them

We already do

Sacred Waters

Guided by Rebecca Campbell

And her Sacred Water meditation

My inner temple today was a beach

The pelicans escorted me

To Mother Ocean

I stepped inside the water

Swimming deeply

With my Octopus guide

I became a mermaid

Full fish body from torso down

Fin and all

Turquoise and green scales

Still human above my naval

Swirling around with my Octopus friend

I dove down then came up to float

On top of the ocean

Surrounded by the ancient ones

Dolphins swarmed around me

Chattering and nudging me

My intention was to open

My throat chakra even more expansively

To be able to channel Spirit

To speak and write about what I am learning

These vital treasures that I have

Been absorbing for many years

The dolphins smiled widely

Several of them spinning around me

Bouncing up out of the water

And over me, gliding down

Feeling the dear sun on my face and chest

My fin relaxed

Soaking in the Salt water of my Soul

The minerals of Mother Ocean

I belong here

With these sea creatures

I was born here

I will die here

I will become reborn

Again and again

As I transform from life

To death, the waters

Scattering my decaying body

Sharing the food I have become

With plants, fish, coral, mammals

Sea fans, this Octopus

Energy efficient

Part of the whole

Singing to all the world

The good news of the

Truths that are being

Revealed to all who

Seek to receive

To share wisdom

All the days of our lives

Stardust

The tightly held umbilical cord

Snapped

Letting go of biological family

Earth history

No longer tethered

We wander

Fear so rooted to being human

Or being anything living on this planet

We are all seeded by exploding stars

Scattering galactic particles

When (like Mother Earth formed)

Gravity and magnetism pulled together

Stardust, transforming into more

Solid earthly life

Committing to being human

Living our best lives while feeling the tug

Fear, ache, and separation from ancient

Family energies, our birth places throughout

Space and every part of the cosmos

Does stardust ask us to have a

Mission here on earth?

Why did we come here

Individually and collectively?

Living these Mysterious questions

Our structure offers hints

Our bodies, tiny parts of our

Soul’s purpose here

Hearts, minds and spirits

Personalities incorporate so

Many spinning sets of particles

Let us bow to them and pray

We ask for guidance hearing a message

Encoded in our breath, released over and

Over again, surrendering our control

Fighting with our resistances instead of

Embracing and thanking them

For deep healing and growth

Knowing and unknowing

Faith

The imprint of all that has

Happened up until the present

All that has come before

Connecting each part with another

Spinning out the web of change and

Transformation

Coming home

Sensory Scenes

The flute, piccolo, and bassoon

My earlier instruments

Now I listen to crows’ caws

Warning us about the

Hawks in the trees nearby

My mother’s fried chicken

Popping and spewing

Cooking just right

Tasty grease and salt

Going down easy

Touching my tiny dog’s

Soft fur, smelling the salt

From our beach walk

Hiding from the burrs

Violence erupting

Guns aflame

Tragic streets in our nation

Worse tragedy in Ukraine

Here, police shooting at

Black and brown men and children

I hear Martin Luther King’s voice

I feel his

Presence in my bones

Soul speaking wisdom

Courage and Beloved Community

Anger feels like fire

Rippling down my spine

Love feels cuddly, juicy, sweet

Peace seems billowy and heavenly

The Spirit oozes with joy and delight

Transformational Reflections

There are as many ways to grow and heal as there are people on this earth. Choosing one or two methods that can help you may be difficult because each of us is unique. From psychotherapists to wayshowers, from physicians to yoga teachers, it can be mind-boggling to find the kinds of people or practices that will be good ones for you. Community can also increase people’s enjoyment in life even though groups of people can also create dynamics that need to be managed; conflict, for instance.

During my many years as a psychotherapist, I have enjoyed working with people. I have also found my own growth and healing not only in psychotherapy but also in alternative practices, like breathwork, bodywork, and a variety of other processes to achieve not only feeling healthier but finding more freedom and peace.

As we grow through the many phases of life, we may want to learn how to meditate, while at other times we may seek out acupuncture and other Chinese medicine practices. Yes, exercise is good for us and some people believe that they would be on antidepressants if they didn’t exercise regularly. Endorphins help us feel better and there are many ways to move around in this world. We have many choices.

I have knowledge and experience in working with ketamine providers and in assisting people in sorting out what is going on with them and what methods and techniques might be useful to them. Consulting and guiding people toward transformation is one part of what I do along with working with people’s wounded places and inside parts.

Enough for today. I look forward to writing a little more about how I experience transformation and what is available to you as well.

Transformative Experiences

Transformation happens one small step at a time. We keep our personalities, our genetic makeup, and our physical bodies during a transformative experience. But, coming out the other side of that experience, excellent changes can occur, new creations, and maybe even miracles. We are still ourselves but maybe more compassionate, more kind to ourselves and others. We may understand better that we are only a tiny part of the multiverse, and certainly small even on our planet. And, although we ourselves may not be able to create change worldwide, we add to what is there, we impact our communities, friends and families, and maybe that is enough.

Becoming a less anxious, stressed person can do wonders for our physical health and well-being. Lifting out of depression can feel like rebirth. These are no small matters. Our qualities of life can improve even when we still have our same histories, our same families, and our same bodies.

Psychotherapy helps some people as do so many other kinds of healing, a list too long to even imagine. What each of us chooses to do with the resources we have is up to us, being unique to everyone around us. We can listen to their opinions and advice, but when we are set on a particular path of growth, that is ours to design and manage. No one lives in our skins, and sometimes no one knows best but ourselves. Certainly, people like Brene Brown and so many other psychological researchers, speakers, theologians, and spiritual peoples from around the world can help us, and we still get to participate in our own development and healing.

What helps us transform? Often, a relationship with a professional who can act as a guide assisting us, while we tell our stories yet another time, curious about what has changed each time we tell these stories. A safe, consistent, confidential and caring relationship works best but we don’t always know how to find a wonderful facilitator. Much like a partner, a treasured guide is someone with whom we will share information and intimacy - sometimes even more than we would ever share with a family member.

We must also face our fears about being known to ourselves and to anyone else. This is no small task itself. Intimacy does take courage, a leap of faith, or sometimes that miracle that we all seek. More on this later….

Transmuting Energy

Being human, we people have emotions that fluctuate off and on. Sometimes feelings come and go and we are patient and kind to ourselves just knowing there is a normal ebb and flow, the contractions and expansions in our lives. Sometimes, however, emotions flood us and we seek relief from them in any ways we can. Unfortunately, we often act on our feelings and thoughts without having the patience, the pause, and the reflection to take time to understand these emotions rather than act them out. Again, normal human behavior, Sometimes this results in actions we are not proud of, that embarrass and humiliate us, or hurt someone else.

I support practicing nonviolent action whenever we can. James Lawson and The Rev. Martin Luther King have been excellent teachers about nonviolent action and how this type of action gets better results than does violence. Nonviolence is a much more compassionate response as well and helps us build our beloved community, instead of communities full of fear and enforcement of rigid rules. So, when we have big feelings that take control of us, instead of our trying to control or banish them, we need to consider how to transmute these feelings and thoughts/beliefs instead of acting them out.

If we don’t change some of our patterns, we too often experience relationship problems, work issues, and/or family difficulties, and since we have all learned our current ways of coping over many years, change is hard to come by, not a simple matter.

First step in transmuting our feelings or thoughts from negativity and harm to more helpful responses? Breathing and taking the pause, instead of giving in to that part of us that tells us to Act Now! We need to listen to that part and to all our other parts as they battle inside us at the same time. We must take the time use our focus and energies to pause and reflect by wondering why we might be feeling/thinking some of the ways we are feeling/thinking. We can’t always take the time to do this but when we can, we often have better results.

What is transmuting? Transmutation is changing the form of what is happening. First, we need to become aware of these moments. Then, we can take a negative piece of self-talk or a big feeling and explore it. Another step in the process is trying to challenge some of our beliefs about what has happened. When a person has rejected or has seemed to neglect us, we may feel hurt, sad, or angry. We want to look at the entire situation and realize the assumptions or interpretations we are making about the specific scenario.

For instance, when my good friend turns away from me toward another person, I may feel hurt and angry. But, when I look at the entire situation, I can also understand that she is a host at a gathering and in her host role, she may feel the need to talk to others and not just to me. Just by finding a slightly different interpretation of the event , I realize I don’t have to suffer as much as I did during my first reaction. Maybe we can understand and believe that there are several more interpretations to behaviors than just our initial response. If we hang onto our first reaction or impression, our first belief about any particular situation, we may feel stuck or trapped in our distress. If we realize that perceptions are not always actually reality, then we can play with this idea that people’s actions aren’t always exactly what we believe at first. Their actions and intentions may be very different from what we initially experience.

I have much more to say about how to actually transmute thoughts and feelings into more helpful realizations because this is not easy - and the process is as unique to each person as is a feeling. It takes hard work and effort, time and energy, to discover ways to feel better. So, instead of suffering so much or hurting others, we can become more patient and peaceful along the way - with ourselves and with each other.

Innerterrestrial Exploration

Moving inward toward our Souls, uncovering layer upon layer of ego-involved plans, hopes and dreams, we stop and wonder.  Why all the interest in Extraterrestrials? Why not take a look at our InnerTerrestrial Beings, and see what we find? No, this not about a London band with such a name.

What can happen on this exploration? Landscapes that we may have never seen before can become more vibrant and real to us, if we stop looking outside ourselves for answers or revelation, and instead, start discovering what’s inside us, these bodies of ours.  What is our heart about, our brain, our nerve-endings, what do they do inside us, how do they affect our moods, our feelings and thoughts?  No, this is not a biology piece. I am writing symbolically about this precious mysterious internal system that we house inside these bodies, these bones and organs. The breath of Life, the Spirit.

What if we don’t look up into the sky or toward other people so much for answers, but present our questions and intentions to our Souls?  What if, instead of taking a survey of our friends and family about what we should do about a particular choice, we instead turn inward, with or without assistance, to ask our higher selves, our wise and knowledgeable selves - because after all, no one knows us like we do. Unfortunately though, even we cannot know ourselves fully.  We can, however, try to get to know ourselves better and better so that we can live our lives, knowing what our Souls and bodies want and need, instead of being directed or instructed by anyone other than ourselves. In this process, we also contact Spirit which lives within us, all around us, and through us. 

There are more ways to explore our innerterrestrial spaces than we can name. I have practiced as a psychotherapist for over 30 years and I have seen great change in others and in myself because of the usefulness of this type of practice. And, there are so many other avenues, methods and techniques for exploring this sacred space within and around us. So many alternative ways to know and grow, and like our current knowledge about our brains, we may not be able to know but 1/10 of all there is to know. Why try?  Because we are human and some of us are searchers, seekers, spiritually guided and informed by all sorts of religions and teachings - and we are hungry to know and grow more. Why, again? In order to develop into more loving, compassionate people who can navigate this thing called life without as much trauma, division, anxiety, anger, pain, sadness and depression as we have formerly experienced.

So that we can build a more perfect union, not in our country necessarily, although that would be nice. But, between us and our Selves, between us and other people, other beasts, plants, the climate, and all that lives on Mother Earth, and beyond her borders. Between us and Spirit. Yes, we can contact other knowing beings because we are all made up of stardust, shells, water, light, and so much more. We can sparkle more clearly, we can swim more easily, we can navigate life more gently if we can get to know and respect our innerterrestrial selves. The human race changes, and all of the world becomes a better place and space for us to live in and die in, to be recycled in, and to rehearse for our next lives, if we have more. And/or, we may wander into the unknown and extraterrestrial spaces as time goes on.

This can make sense when you think about how far we have come as human beings, and how far we have yet to go. Many people talk about 3D and 5D planes of existence. My guess is as we move up the ladder of numbers, those who are aware of, and get to know and embrace their inner selves, their Souls, their innerterrestrial spaces, may move up quite easily. Harder sometimes to stay stuck below in the concrete and mud when we are such sensitive, imaginative, creative and gifted beings. Why not explore more of our potential here on this earth, in our inner space, in order to become more beautiful, loving and kind human beings while we live here?  Why not start here and later explore Extraterrestrial energies?  Maybe we are they.