I thought it was me. All those years I thought it was me, that I wasn’t—smart enough, pretty enough, clever enough, good enough—you know, loveable. Something didn’t add up, but I didn’t know what it was, so the only answer left to me was to try harder. I carefully picked out clothes and counted every …
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Disbelieving Appearances: A Path to Aliveness
It’s a conundrum. I have no idea what is of the greatest value. I find it important to share what is happening in our world, and yet I can’t help but think that the sharing is redundant, that you already know about the world’s depravity, its deep dive into cruelty, its lack of a heart-based …
Demolishing the Illusion of Safety
The greatest gift these times are giving us is the demolition of the illusion of safety. On the surface it sounds like a good idea, to feel safe. Everyone says safety is critical to our ability to be honest with ourselves and others, but when we are cushioned within the illusion of safety, what are …
Flip Flop, Flip Flop, Flip
I’ve been watching how this body-mind is organically moved into action, the way emotions trickle or flood in and movement occurs. These inputs, sensations, threads of thought, are not consciously chosen. They simply appear. The sensations and thoughts create the many flavors of life, the delicious bits I savor, the inedible mouthfuls I attempt to …
Boom! What Aren’t You Appreciating?
After a morning without power, I’m snugged up in my cushy chair watching the snow fall … and accumulate. It is putting it down right now. Wow. I awoke this morning to the sound of a transformer blowing – bang. No that’s too high, this one boomed, snapped and grumbled. Not a sound you expect …
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 …
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, …
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 …
What I Called Bad …
It is fascinating to watch the world from a front row seat, to sit back and marvel at the levels of divisiveness that are splashed across the headlines, that comprise most of what is available to read. I say fascinating because I don’t know what’s right and wrong. I can feel what seems to bring …
When You Come to the End of the Road
Synchronicity and karma appear to be different, but are they? Folks tend to think of synchronicity when something good happens and karma is generally associated with something bad. One appears to be the future pulling a present action into its orbit and the other seems to be what came before determining the present expression. Both …
Irreconcilable
Bastards in one storyline; heroes in another, lost in the first; awakened in its inverse. Same person. Same event. As a friend used to say, same, same, just different. Irreconcilable to one who labels themselves or others, who believes in a self and others, at all. As soon as one comes into being, the other …
As Within; So Without
As Within; So Without Happiness is where we start. It’s at the heart of us. It is what we are before we layer on all the trappings of hope for an acceptable outcome, expectation that the outcome won’t be acceptable, and resistance to what has come before, to what is, and what will be. Resistance …
No More Thoughts and Prayers
It seems trite, to sit here in my comfortable home and send thoughts and prayers to those hunkering down, sitting on the cold concrete floors of the Ukrainian subway tonight. To think of parents holding tightly to their children, doing their best to shield the little ones from the bloody trauma of war simply shatters …
Amaya Gayle 