I sleep well most nights. This is something relatively new for me. For many years, I was a raging insomniac. I didn’t sleep well last night and found myself meditating around 4am, not so much to get to sleep but for something to pass the time. Sitting there, my pillow tucked behind my back, and …
Category Archives: Awakening
Run, Rusty, Run!
A friend once told me that my practice was a type of self-soothing. It pissed me off. To my mind, the deep shadow work, the search for truth was anything but soothing. I wasn’t trying to feel better, or so I thought, I was after the big prize: Truth with a capital T. I’d sat …
Life Doesn’t Have to Hurt So Bad
There is only one insight worth the trouble, but that is the one that finds you, not one you can find. Anything short of that realization will ultimately be unsatisfying regardless of how awesome it feels in the moment of recognition. All but one insight dims. Most make room for the next, opening up the …
Door Number One or Door Number Two?
There are some things we simply know, even though we squirm a bit putting that knowing into words. It feels more accurate to say what it isn’t but even that is filled with potholes … deep potholes, lose your car in them, deep. It seems to me that reality is so much more than …
Infinite Aliveness: Unraveling the Mysteries of Existence
It’s a dream. You’ve heard it said before, whether you believe it or not, is another story. You’ve read about lucid dreaming, perhaps even experienced it. To be lucid within a dream means you are aware you are dreaming while you are dreaming. While lucid you can push the threads that knit the dream together, …
You Don’t Want This
You don’t want this, and when it finds you anyway, you won’t have needed me, or anyone, to show you how to get it. You say you want IT, but you don’t. You want a better life, a sweeter deal, not this. No one in their right mind wants this. It’s beautifully simple, and minds …
Every Moment is the Rabbit Hole
Most mornings, Sophia and I go down the rabbit hole, no, really. That’s what one of the trails at Whipple Creek is called. Whipple is our favorite of many great walks here in Southern Washington. The great news is that it’s less than two miles from my front door. What a treat! Every time …
Walking Away: Leaving the Guru Behind
Many years ago, when I knew I needed to walk away from a teacher, I struggled. To leave would mean leaving my community behind and that broke my heart. My inner knowing was strong and persistent as hell, so I knew I couldn’t stay. I didn’t truly know why I had to leave; I just …
Awakening to the Dream: Embracing Enlightenment Beyond Definitions
What do you want? Don’t answer too quickly. Take a moment and let the question settle in. Whatever you want is what you want and it’s not wrong, whatever it is. Many of the people who read spiritual stuff believe the answer to that question is enlightenment, waking up from the dream, seeing through the …
Embracing Vulnerability: Unraveling the Stories, Revealing the Hidden Self
If I point the way and you follow it step for step, it can never be your own. I think that’s why people tend to struggle, sputter and fizzle out following so many prescribed teachings, including the teachings of the masters. Stories always tell us about the past. They’re echoes, retellings of how life was …
Authentic Love: Lessons from Jesus’ Teachings
I recently wrote about loving as Jesus did. It sounds yummy but it has a hitch in its get-along. You see, Jesus didn’t just love the easy ones, the ones who followed him, who thought like he did. He loved the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the Samaritans, the lepers, and he even loved those who …
How Far Down the Rabbit Hole Can You Go?
Years back, it must have been shortly after Ken died, I was meditating and had an epiphany. It was like Kenny stopped by to tap me on the shoulder, give me a smile, and let me know how truly laughable I was. I felt him winking at me and got the gist of his message …
Understanding Love: Unveiling the Truth About Love and Judgment
I don’t do Bible stuff. I walked away from that world years ago when I saw the hypocrisy, the disguised hate, the inbuilt need to feel special, chosen. I was just a teen when I realized that something was drastically wrong with the religion that I had been raised in, so imagine my surprise when …
Does It Really Matter?
Does it matter if life is illusory or real, if this a material world like most everyone thinks or a dream? It looks and feels real, it offers sensations and feelings that attest to its realness. Discovering what this is only matters to the ones attempting to escape their reality, and even that is not …
Vulnerability: Nothing to Run From
Vulnerability is up today. I love the feeling of being vulnerable. How about you? Not one of us isn’t vulnerable, no matter how many stories we tell ourselves about our ability to weather any storm. Vulnerability is life. We are all exposed, no matter what we do or don’t do. Not one of us is …
Amaya Gayle 