Night is when we 're-ravel' what became unraveled in the day, or that is what is supposed to happen, but every so often, rest is not to be had. When you dutifully get up anyhow, in spite of a rough night, and stumble to the bathroom and look in the mirror and scare yourself, you know you are having one of those days.

The causes for the restless nights are multiple and some are just flat out unavoidable. We humans are being re-calibrated to match up with the new vibrations and it is not always an easy transition. Necessary, but not easy. So what's a body to do?
 
Here's what I recommend. Fall on the floor laughing at the image in the mirror. Spoiler alert. You are not doomed to look this way for the rest of your life. As a matter of face, the newly re-calibrated you will become rejuvenated and will start looking and feeling much more in keeping with your ascending journey of consciousness.

Rome was not built in a day. Take really good care of yourself physically in as many ways as you can come up with during these fast shifting times, and in the meantime, find the disconbobulated you to be very very funny.

By the way, the dog in the picture was one of the sweetest beings ever. She ended up being adopted to a very loving household full of children who thought this dog was a gift from heaven. She was and hopefully still is.

I keep talking about 'the New World' and everything being different since Dec.21,2012. And, I know, there are many who do not notice anything being particularly different, which brings to mind the process of creating a butterfly. The caterpillar cells reach a point of no return. There is nowhere to go from where they are. It is time for the caterpillar to die.

Usually that is the end of the story, and that is what the caterpillar cells sense. It is just at this point where it looks like the story is over that this amazing drama commences. The chrysallis is created around the set of systems known as "caterpillar." All hell breaks loose, so far as the caterpillar cells are concerned. There is violence and destruction and nothing they can do to sustain themselves as caterpillar cells. The show is over, and chaos ensues (picture the caterpillar literally dissolving)..

Something else, however, is afoot. A whole other kind of cell makes itself known, the imaginal cell (not sure where that name came from, but I love it). These cells see a whole different vision of what is possible. This vision is so strong, and so powerful that the cells commit 100% to creating it. Where the caterpillar cells see the end of the world, the imaginal cells see a whole new bright and unprecedented future. They see flight and lightness of being and being able to travel from Canada to Mexico from in the air. The caterpillar cells thinks the imaginal cells are certifiable, and probably dies with that conviction.

This 'New World' that birthed Dec.21,2012 is the vision of the imaginal cells. The people who are the holders of the vision of something entirely new and unprecendented are the human imaginal cells. They get called by different names. They are called 'light workers' and 'starseeds' and 'Children of Light' and they are also called crazy and deluded and naive, but no matter for they see what they see and can no more not follow their vision than a fish could choose to live out of water.

When the world becomes so divided between what one part of humanity sees and what another part of humanity sees, a huge polarity emerges, potentially. But here is the thing about imaginal cells. They are not into negotiating. They have one thing in mind: build a butterfly. They are not looking to create a caterpillar with wings.

There is an inevitability about this process the world is in now. The butterfly is going to prevail, and the caterpillar needs to say "thanks for the memories" and allow its own exit. This is not what we witness as old, tired paradigms are fighting for their life with everything in them. My philosophy is that much will fall of its own weight.
 
I know in my own case, I am here to be a good hard working imaginal cell and keep my eye on the vision of what is possible in this 'New World.' I am so filled with possibilities that sometimes I cannot sleep at night. I have waited all my life for this pivotal time, and now it is here. And . . .there is much work to do. It is not time to celebrate yet. It is time to keep on keeping on, and keep the best vision we can come up with right in front of our eyes at all times.

That is my commitment, and you can hold me to it.

When one of their own falls, crows do this amazing thing. They all fly close to where the crow died, a member of their crow community, and they sit quietly for a short while, and then they all fly off. Clearly, this is some kind of acknowledgment.

A PBS special on crows shared the latest research on these remarkable birds. We now know that their intelligence and cognitive abilities go way beyond what anyone suspected.

As we humans are being given an opportunity to evolve into much more of our potential, animals are likewise evolving. They have always had their animal wisdom and power and beauty but now, they are taking things to the next levels, it appears. Maybe they have always been this on par with us cognitively and we just failed to notice until now. Certainly, their value has always been 100% as beings that carry life within themselves and their own special place in the whole. Now we are seeing the error of our ways in not giving the creatures equal value to ourselves, though our roles on the planet are different.

This will be known as the time of humanity's humbling. No more turning a blind eye to the awesomeness we live among, in all forms. Being humbled is not so bad. When I look at the times of my life when I have been arrogant and the times when I have felt humble, hands down, being humbled is the best. It is such a relief, and leaves a huge space for joy just in the privilege of being able to participant in this amazing adventure called life on earth.

I live with a 'murder' of crows close by (yes, a 'murder' is the name of a cluster of crows) and they are truly my brothers and sisters. I am very aware of them, and their calls to each other never fail to get my attention. Here's the other thing. They are aware of me too. Crows are great watchers of humans and even pass on to their young which humans do what. They have face memory!!! When I speak to them, they cock their heads, for what that is worth.

Watch the PBS special. It will blow your mind.

Kati and I talk, ocean to ocean, twice a week. She is on Maui, and I am on Tybee Island and both of us are tenders of the water and in deep appreciation of Mama Ocean. Our connection with each other began with our having that in common.

Be that as it may, Kati just shared a story with me I will pass along because I think it is so representative of what we need to do and how we need to be to take advantage of this 'new world' we find ourselves in. To get free, to become free to be all of who we are, we have no option but to face our fears. ALL of our fears.

Ever since moving to Maui over a year ago, Kati has yearned to swim in proximity with dolphins. For whatever reason, it wasn't happening. Instead, the turtles came to her and she linked strongly with those magnificent beings. But then, it was time for something else.
 
This past week,Kati found herself on the beach with pounding surf and lots of lava rocks in the water, and she sees the fins out at sea on the other side. But how does she get to them? The surf is strong and the rocks are sharp. She wades in the water and is suffused with fear. Not small fear, but BIG fear. Everything in her wanted to join the dolphins, and everything in her was afraid of what would happen if she went into the pounding surf with the sharp rocks.

She took her time deciding what to do. She allowed herself to feel the presence of her fear standing next to her. She stayed with that presence, waiting for the moment of decision to happen, not knowing what it would be. And it did happen. She went into the water, got beyond the breakers and for the first time, got to share her beloved watery domain with its natural occupants, these dolphins. They swam in a pod a ways away from her but she could hear them when she put her head under the water. One dolphin veered off from the pod in her direction, not close enough to touch, but close enough to make connection on the level of supreme love and happiness in the moment. There was such completion for Kati in having this dream happen. It was just as thrilling as she knew it would be.

What if Kati had decided to not enter the sea? Would that have been failure? No, not at all, for, because she stood her ground and endured her fear, had she chosen to turn back, it would have been a common sense decision of being too dangerous to venture further. Standing her ground with her fear allowed her to assess if she could go forward towards having an experience she has yearned for, or not. When holding one's ground successfully, you do not know how the decision is made until you find yourself moving in one direction or another. There is a lot of mystery in this process.

These kinds of events are alchemical. You do not KNOW what to do until you stand with what you are feeling and just be with it long enough for the shift to the next place to happen. That is what Kati did, and one dolphin in particular seemed to say "thanks for letting yourself in."

Well done sea woman.

In the cartoon B.C., everytime the cave woman saw the snake character, she would proceed to club it mercilessly. Fortunately, the snake was of the hardy sort, and would just get a headache and rue that everyone seemed to have it in for him. And then, in the Adam and Eve saga, the snake is made out to be the villain of the piece. And so it has gone throughout history. Snakes have gotten a very bad rap. True, dying by snake bite has been a big exit route for untold numbers of humans throughout history, but when you don't have arms to push back, how else but with fangs do you get someone to leave you alone? Think about it from the snake's point of view.

But there is more to the story. Snakes have a bad rap, and they also have a very good rap. The snake coiled at the base of the spine is the source of all awakening as he/she goes up the spine on its kundalini swim to the top. In plant wisdom ceremonies using the Amazonian brew known as Ayahuasca (used by shamans for thousands of years), the most commonly reported experience is of meeting a wisdom spouting snake.
 
Which brings to mind, a story by the author of The Fingerprints of the Gods, Graham Hancock.I encountered this story just the other night while watching a video of one of his totally absorbing lectures on hidden civilizations. Graham has himself worked with Ayahuasca down in South America under the guidance of a particular shaman. During one of the visionary "journeys" while in an altered snake, a huge anaconda came and wrapped all around Graham and ended up with her head right next to his. This snake was, as is frequently the case on these journeys, the embodiment of Ayahuasca herself, in snake form. To be so snake wrapped, I assure you, is one of the more intimidating experiences you could have in the alter world that Ayahuasca invites you into.

 Important to know in evaluating these 'journeys' with Ayahuasca, her (and she is a 'she') main purpose is the care of the whole planet and all of the systems on the planet and the consciousness of humans who need to re-connect with nature so that they and the planet might survive. So she has a very very large job to do, and yet, Graham said, she was choosing to just be with him. She could destroy him in an instant but what she did with him was simply let him know, it was imperative that he learn to love himself. That's it. That simple. Just learn to love yourself.

That an energy that large, and that magnificent and at the same time terrifying would attend to something Graham very much needed to do for his own welfare, was, by his own testimony, one of the most humbling and heart opening experiences of his life. That's snake wisdom for you. It takes what it takes to go through a genuine transformation and if a snake can be of such vast assistance, who are we to say no.

One last but not inconsequential thing. For clairvoyants who are able to see the colors in the auras of all beings, it is reported that the snake is the only animal that has all colors in its aura. The whole spectrum. So that would make them little (and sometimes not so little) rainbow ambassadors on the planet. Who doesn't love rainbows?

When I take my dogs out for their late night  under the stars walk, I remember to look up in my second story bedroom window and see a beatiful blue star shining there, a gift to me this Christmas. It glows and twinkles and always gives me a little thrill to see it up there, keeping vigil.

If I move my head just a quarter turn and look up into the sky, there she is, the other blue star, Sirius, my most favorite of all the twinklers. As I turn my head back to see my star in the window, and then back to Sirius, I suddenly realize something. They are communicating with each other, earth to heaven. I listen closely, and this is what I hear.

Earth star: So many humans are hard at work, doing all they can to shift this world in a whole new direction. It is still pretty chaotic down here but since that goes with the territory of all great transformations, I guess that is not entirely bad news. 

Sirius: From up here, we have a better view of the overall picture. We see the chaos seeming to ramp up but we hear the music in the background that understands the caterpillar's death, and what the chrysallis is for.

Earth star: What music is it that you speak of?

Sirius: The music of the spheres.

Earth star: I have heard of it.

Sirius: It is playing very loudly these days. The whole Universe is watching the Great Mother Gaia with such interest as she goes through the birth pangs of this amazing process. The music I mention is like the score to this magnificent event.

Earth star: Can the humans hear the music?

Sirius: They can indeed. Mostly they hear it in laughter and bird song, and the music of the whales. But they also hear it in deep silence and especially at sunrise.

Earth star: What do they make of this music?

Sirius: It makes them soar in confidence of the journey they are on. That is a very good thing for the journey is not without it's testing of their faith and their vision.
 
Earth star:There are so many brave and beautiful souls alive on earth now.
 
Sirius: Oh my yes, and as a result, things are going so well in ways that are not necessarily known to the public at large, at least not yet. We see all from up here, and assure you, sufficient numbers of human hearts are beating in a new rhythm, and most importantly, they are joining up, one with another. We can hear from all the way up here, the sound of the one human heart made up of individual hearts beating in synchrony. Talk about 'make a joyful noise.'

Earth star: Thank you Sirius for  all you do for us down here in our earth crysallis of transformation. I have long heard stories of the role you play with our solar system.

Sirius: Well, you see, it is easy because we are madly, passionately in love with you. Always have been. Always will be.

In the dolphin world, the females all stay together. Mothers and newborns and elder daughters and aunts and grandmothers remain in constant contact. When a female dolphin is giving birth, all the other females gather and form a protective matrix. Never has an incoming new life been more attended to. A young female dolphin stays with her mother and all the others for life. A male baby dolphin stays for at least 2 years.

In the summer, here on Tybee Island, I spend hours and hours and days and days with the female dolphins. Where I live is like a dolphin nursery. I get to watch all the different stages of development and how dolphins handle bringing up the young.

Being a lousy scientist, mostly how I observe is through my own energy system (versus notetaking of a meticulous kind). I can feel what is going on and that is primarily what I wish to share with you today.  Oh, I notice plenty, but what I feel always takes precedence.
 
What I feel is like the prototype for what the Divine Feminine is doing as she is pouring into our planet in time present. The energies of the feminine, whether of dolphins or of planetary archetypes, are all about making a space for our potential to be loved and protected so that it may flourish and offer back to life, the very best, as we learn to become what is in us to become. It is not about female versus male. It is about all of life that needs nourishment.

Male dolphins when they are young are in with all the females and being oh so well tended. They are not being debilitated by the feminine energy (men have, especially in times past, tended to fear what women will do with their power to create and sustain life). Do these males then go off disadvantaged by this much exposure to the feminine? No, they go off fortified to be the best they can be, with their own particular set of strengths.

I also hang out a lot with groups of male dolphins I call these groups 'the big bad boys' whom I know got very very nourished in the midst of all the feminine energy, and are all the better for it. Male dolphins, once they break from their connection with the feminine enclave tend to socialize in small groups made up strictly of other males (balancing all the female energy they grew up with, one might assume). Just like any adolescents, they are full of mischief and are very much fun to play with, when they let me know they want to do that (it is always their call). The male dolphins are just . . so very male.

I live in area of water which I call 'the dolphin nursery' where there is so much nurturing and nourishing and teaching going on, having to do with these large gatherings of female dolphins. At the same time, 'as below, so above' (pardon the slight adjustment to the Hermetic principle I just made), I think all of humanity is in the nursery of the Divine Feminine at this time. What we need to do is trust that what feels nurturing, that which is trying to happen and express . . . it really IS nurturing. The baton has been passed from paternal protection (the best of the masculine which, like anything through time, got out of balance) to maternal nourishment (which can also become unbalanced through time) . Women know what is brewing and all are feeling the desire to make things better and safer and more loving on this awesome planet we share. Men and women alike stand to gain. This is not a zero sum game, not in the least. It is a coming home of what happens when balance is restored.

So, as the time of the return of the dolphins happens this Spring, bear with me as I tell you what the females are doing now. They are lighting the way, in my opinion, and we stand to learn so much from what they are demonstrating. I will pass on all the hints I get from them. They are most generous in their sharing.

So many people feel it. When they see a whale, are close to a whale, or hear a whale. They feel the presence of something momentous that our very cells seem to recognize and remember. But what?

Whales and dolphins too have been on this earth up to 50 million years. With their high intelligence, they have observed things we know nothing of. They have watched us grow and develop, learn to build structures and populate the earth, and they see where this has taken us, including decimating them. If you look closely at this whale, you will see a tear coming out of its eye as it lays next to our structures. It is up to the observer to decide what is this whale crying about.

I have felt for some time a desire to have my life be about bringing the land and the seas together, and the people of the land and the people of the seas. We both have so much to offer each other and the whole we make up when combined. I daydream about communities of sharing and co-creating between we land creatures and the sea beings. It feels more like a memory than a day dream.

Clearly, our ocean and its inhabitants are in jeopardy at this juncture, as are we all until we turn the tide of our forgetfulness of how all is connected. This is not news. In fact, so many are so used to hearing it, that this intimation of foreboding even fails to register to people so highly distracted by so much information coming at them from all sides.   It seems to be one of many "urgent" messages we are inundated with.
 
So I say, forget the words. forget the messages and just look at this image of the sand whale long enough to allow something inside you to stir as to how you might want to respond to this whale. I know how I would respond. I would say the Hawaiian prayer "I am so sorry"  "please forgive me"  "thank you" " I love you.".  I would say that, and I do say that, over and over, until something inside starts to alchemically shift, and I no longer feel guilty or sorrowful or despair ( which only worsens things) at choices humans have made, out of ignorance..I say the Hawaiian prayer until the boundary between Us and whomever the current 'Them' is, is gone, and I can no longer think of who is the good guy and who is the bad guy.

When I feel the consciousness of 'Whale', whether from this sand whale or an actual at sea whale, it feels like the Divine to me in that I sense no judgment of humans. It feels like whales are the givers of absolution that is granted us even before we know we need it. I think the song "Amazing Grace' has its roots in more than one source, and who cannot feel the power of that song.
 
Self forgiveness is a very good place to start in how to respond to whale consciousness that is still with us, for now. May we wake up (oh please let us do this) soon enough to be with them forever.

We are so used to think of seeing as primarily being a physical function. You have to stand aside from that orientation to understand what the gift of 'seeing' is really about.

When a mystic has a vision, or a shaman has a vision, or an artist has a vision, they  all have in common that they have opened the windows of perception within their own being and within their brain. These transcendant experiences were for the few in times past, comparatively speaking.That is no longer the case.

How long have we known that we only use a small percentage of our brain's capacity. How long have we, the general populace,  been shut down to seeing as a mystic, a shaman and an artist sees. How many people have been considered to be mentally ill because they opened their windows of perception and were able to see the worlds within worlds that we live in all the time. The answer is - what certainly feels like a very long time.

Not everyone wants to stray far outside the parameters of the familiar but I think that is about to change in a big way. Keeping ourselves small to stay safe and be comfortable is no longer working. There is a wave of creativity birthing that I think is directly coming from the windows of perception being thrown open for masses of people. This ability to see so much more than our singular reality can happen while awake, while sleeping, while meditating, while laughing, while being absorbed in something you love doing, while making love, while grieving, while traveling in the wild, while journeying with a shaman, while being suddenly stunned by the sound of a bird song. Any doorway will do.

The likelihood of transcendant experiences that show us whole new ways of seeing and being is very very strong at this time in our evolutionary spiral. No one is exempt from having these experiences now. It is no longer reserved for the special few. Finally, we humans, or at least a healthy number of us, are ready to mature into  far more of our brain's capacity to be an instrument to show us how big the adventures of our spirit can be.
 
I think there is a price of admission for this to happen, and it very much involves having an open heart or at least the interest in having an open heart. There again, massive open heart 'surgery' is happening on this planet all over the place now with the recent killings at Newtown being an example of how hearts can be transformed through compassion on a worldwide scale.

I have a very deep suspicion, and if I am right, it cannot happen a minute too soon. I think money as a god is going to be replaced by art. When I say art, I am not restricting it to any one expression. Anything is art that is the result of creative expression. I do not know how this transition will occur, but I sense it is already beginning. Open windows of perception on the parts of exponentially exploding numbers of people will show us how to shift our cultural centerpoles and allow the money god to finally loosen its grip. I have my own peeks into some of the other worlds, and I see enough to allow me to go out on this limb and share my suspicion.
 
With any luck at all, a bird will land on this limb I have gone out on and sing a glorious song to the sun in celebration of so much awakening as is happening on this planet, if you know where to look.

Here you are, smack dab in the middle of your life, and YOU have to figure out what to do with it. Everyone has opinions about what you should do, how you should think, what makes you a good person, and what is life anyhow. Ultimately though, it is your job to make the best of it and outside help is often more confusing than helpful.

You are left to your own devices. You are in the boat of your body in the sea of life. You have the paddle of your skills and abilities, the clothing of the love you receive from others, but you have to choose where to paddle.

Fortunately, as we are choosing from the inside out, it becomes obvious, eventually, that we are anything but alone. In the inner sanctum of our being, we will find there is always at least one guide ready to offer assistance. This guide slides along just enough ahead of us to tell us, through our intuition, what we need to do in the next minute or two or ten. We will also discover that we are being watched over by parts of our soul that carry much more wisdom and perspective than our little personality selves, and that this oversoul is always there to be felt in times of need. The oversoul, or your High Self, of angels, or God Almighty (it matters not what you call it) is there to give comfort and courage, but not directions, at least not in the tradtional sense of spelling out exactly what to do.

When we feel the "Presence" of the oversoul and we heed the guidance of our intuition, a beautiful peace, like a calm sea, comes over us. These are the times we know we are privileged to be having a human experience, and these are the times we can see life as an adventure, and not something to be feared. We are always more prepared than we know. Live long enough, and you will laugh about how true that is.

That said, forward ho the paddles.