I don't know whether to say of visiting the Galapagos Islands that it was like stepping back in time, or stepping forward in time. Either way, it seemed to step out of time current in that, the wild animals had no fear of humans. Wild birds would land on our shoulders. You had to watch your step not to land on blue footed boobies, gooney birds, marine iguanas, seals or Sally Lightfoot crabs. Even the white tipped sharks I came upon while swimming seemed benign. They were taking a snooze in a rock cave with water currents circulating through their gills so they didn't have to stay in motion. Nothing about my presence alarmed them.

This land of so much peace and acceptance brings to mind Eden, or heaven on earth. We take for granted that wild things avoid us. There are exceptions, but they are rare. Here the exception was the rule. Humans were not suspect.

This state of affairs has been maintained because humans are only allowed to visit here in small numbers at a time and while being monitored. We are not given a chance to alarm these animals who have first claim for their environment. There is no where on earth that I am aware of that is a sanctuary to this degree. I am so grateful to have gotten to experience that a place like this really exists.

I fast forward to the muchly touted 'thousand years of peace on earth', the Golden Age to follow the long slow rise up out of the dark ages that humanity is inching through. My thought is that a large part of that anticipated peace will have to do with how humans behave with each other but also with the animal kingdom and the earth herself. I dream of levels of trust and respect. I dream of not needing to use animals for food, entertainment or any kind of a product and feeling privileged just to know them. I dream and I dream. I cannot stop dreaming. All things are possible when imagined enough. After all, someone dreamed the Galapagos Islands into reality. Let's see what else we can do.

We, the ones having a human experience, are the kindling. If you doubt that, think of the hardest times you have experienced in life. Now think of who you are today, after dealing with the really hard stuff. You are different, right? Dare I say transformed?

Some people feel the hard part of life has had a negative impact and made them less than they could have been. To that I would say, you are looking at too small a picture.

Sometimes I like to ponder what my soul had in mind in choosing my particular set of challenges in this lifetime. I go back to before I was born and imagine myself having a conversation with a muchly trusted guide. The first thing we assess is why incarnate on earth as a human at all. Then we assess what soul powers I have developed thus far that I can use in this coming lifetime Once that is established, then it is a matter of, given my motivation of what I want to use this human experience for, what kinds of challenges would help move me in the direction I want to go.

I can almost feel what I am feeling during this consultation. I might feel excitement, knowing this new lifetime will be an adventure, whatever else it ends up being. I might feel fear, that I might fail in my objectives or that I will have taken on more than I can handle and will suffer greatly. I include in my imaginings that the one who is my guide knows me well and though I am the chooser, I am seen, known and loved as I make the choice. Who knows, maybe the guide has veto power if my choice is too off the charts.

That is fantasy (though I sense it bears some similarities to the before life incarnate way of things). Being here on the planet is very real. Looking at the evidence, I am satisfied that every single hard thing I have ever been through was chosen by me, and with a purpose, of making me better, stronger, wiser and more compassionate i.e. transformed. Here on earth, our swords get tempered in the flame. It appears from where I stand, the hotter the fire, the stronger the tempered steel.

I think of Abraham Lincoln and the intense dealing with his own dark moods he had to shoulder. Add to that, the horror of being the one to make the decision that ended in 600,000 deaths for the sake of a step up in our ethical consciousness. Add to that a difficult marriage and death of two of his children early in their lives. I cannot even begin to imagine how he navigated those waters. I am however convinced that his strength came from what he taught himself how to endure. He was the kindling. The strides he took, as a result, were enormous.

We don't all sign up to grow through such extremes, but as an incoming soul, the likelihood is that what you chose, you did so for what felt to your soul like very good reasons. We need to trust that, and love our valor.The ones with the easier lives are not necessarily the luckier ones.

Who is capable of being clairvoyant? Everyone. Who is clairvoyant? Not everyone. Why not?

Clear seeing with the Inner Eye (or Third Eye as most often referred to) is a capacity all have but for most people, it is a latent capacity. There are reams of accounts of what happens when the Third Eye opens to clear seeing, and how to get that to happen. There are some that purport to teaching this process. Some people are born with this capacity and never lose it. To some, the opening can seem to happen on its own, much like some kundalini experiences that can show up unbidden. Children are born with the openness but can shut down quickly when they assess where they are and the unacceptibility of their gift to many who are threatened by it.

When the Third Eye is open as a stable part of one's life, life is far from what it would be were the capacity unactivated. I feel the opening is an earned reward for commitment to the desire to see clearly and to see all things from the heart. Who knows how many lifetimes of devotion and commitment lead to this treasured state of clarity.

But then, we are living in these times, and these are not times as they have been in many eons, if ever. These times need, nay, require that masses of people come into clear seeing. Having the Third Eye open is now no longer the province of the esoteric elite. If you, from your heart, want to live a life seeing from your heart, then you are eligible to open either through assistance (Drunvalo Melchisidek is a good resource), from a miracle (it happens on its own) or through some private form of study you have found and undertaken.


Warning. Be careful what you ask for. When you see with the Third Eye, there is no way you can hide from yourself anymore, in any manner, and no one can hide from you. Some people will appreciate you for this capacity, but not everyone. Personally, I think by the time you pass muster and see clearly in a way that far exceeds anything external physical vision offers you, you will know how worth it this gift is, whatever it took to get here. And this is definitely a case of, the more the merrier. The joy of looking into the eyes of one who is clear seeing with your own clear seeing eyes, well, it is unsurpassed.

My tendency, of late, is to think very macro both in terms of time and space. I think in terms of global life on earth, and gallactic life and the Universe, and universes within universes via understanding about traversing through dimensions (nods to Barbara Hand Clow and her opus The Alchemy of Nine Dimensions). That is the spatial piece.

The time piece is to think of the evolution of life and consciousness since the 'big bang' (via the Mayan Calendar research of Carl Calleman).

Time considerations also include other lifetimes we have had, do have and will have as souls that are on an advancing trajectory. It includes being in the spirit realms both in our sleep at night and between lives and all that that portends.

Journeying with plant intelligence which opens windows of perception coming from an activated pineal gland is yet another means of expanding our world view to include new kinds of time and spatial concepts entirely as do all the avenues of meditation that have emerged throughout human history. So all of these things I put under the rubric of 'macro.'

Little personality me having a human experience, that is what I am calling 'micro.' I as a personality aspire for things like comfort and safety and company with others. My adventuring soul is a huge driver behind my personality and is constantly throwing me outside of my comfort zone as a result, but that does not change how very meaningful are the simple things, like sitting in the morning sun coming through a window on a cold day enjoying the steam on my face from a hot cup of jasmine tea that I use to also warm my hands while appreciating the aesthetic of the curve of the ceramic against my palms. It is amazing to me how much comfort that gives me.

I took a trip with my mother to Egypt in the distant past. Her luggage was lost, which is disconcerting if you have had that happen. I remember how she lit a candle that night in our hotel room. Doing that made her feel better. Such a small thing, but in a world of meteors falling on our heads, economies sending tsunamis of uncertainty around the world and back, evidence of ethical imbalances that are off the scale, etc. it is the small that will go far to sustain us. The sun always returns but in the meantime, 'micro' is our good friend. That, and hearing the song of our soul no matter what the external clatter.

There is an encroachment taking place on our populous planet now. Urban is increasing and pastoral is decreasing. Even finding where the country is anymore is a challenge because of the spread of development.

When I was a child, I spent my summers in the hills of Brentwood, Tennessee on my grandmother's large farm name Liberty Lodge. It was well named because of the extreme liberty I felt to be my nature loving self in so many different ways. My days consisted of riding horses bareback with my cousins throughout the ranging hills (not a development in sight), swimming in natural rock formation ponds (with polywogs sometimes getting in my bathing suit), eating homemade  applesauce from the orchard that to this day has to be one of the most ambrosiac of all foods that have touched my palate. The smells of the new mown hay and of horses, the sounds of the crows and crickets, the feeling of being both welcomed and overwatched by the huge very old oak trees, the color of the sky at dusk as we would bring the horses back after a day of exploring . . . my cup ranneth over.

Liberty Lodge is no more. My grandmother has long since left this world. That beautiful land and countryside is now covered up entirely by the sprawl of development. I count myself very very fortunate that I got to have that time of being so nourished by the natural world, not to mention my grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousins who meant the world to me.

There are still places where there are peaceful ponds, rolling land and stands of trees in which you can spread out a quilt, pop open some bubbly, bite into an apple straight off the tree, lay back, watch clouds go by and notice an ant crawling on a blade of grass, but you may have to go looking for it. When you find the spot that is just right, wrap your heart all around this fortuitous find and the preciousness of this simple act of picnicing. It need not as an activity dissolve into the ranks of a bygone era, but it may be up to you to keep that from happening. I for one will do my part. Maybe we can save the world, one picnic at a time. What is loved tends to promulgate.

Working with different energy formations is something I have been aware of all my life. Part of the reason for that is that I feel them so strongly and in truth, think part of why I am here on the planet is to become conscious of what different kinds of energies are good for. The vortex is one that is a frequent visitor to my consciousness. More and more, in the form of tornadoes and hurricanes and water spouts and fire spirals and dust devils, it shows up. That is the external version. There also are internal versions within our electromagnetic systems known as our bodies. Here is what I am learning. As we work with our internal vortices, we have influence on the vortices we perceive that are external to us such as found in nature. How does that work?

In 2000, I was drawn to write a small booklet called Talking to Hurricanes. It was a fictional account of a man who learned to mind meld with hurricanes. The ideas in the story were from what I was discovering about what vortices really are. They are formed by a dance of opposites. Cold air meets warm air. Voila. You get a vortex. If you look at this part of nature as a metaphor, it seems to be that a vortex represents what happens when you have two opposites wanting to combine and yet keep their integrity as uncombined at the same time. The stronger the two drives, the more intense the vortex.

So, how do we calm the storms that are showing up in nature with a greater frequency? Here is what I suggest. Work with your own inner opposites. As you, either you as an individual or you as part of a collective, learn to do this, what is outside of you will calm down in response. There are many ways you can go about learning to do this. That is for you to play with. It is a very worthy endeavor.

Two days ago, I was driving down the expressway and I felt a vortex forming between my solar plexus chakra and my heart chakra. It was so intense, I had to pull over. Waves of ecstasy were moving throughout my whole field. As wonderful as that felt, I knew I needed to ground the energy or I would have just left my body. I happened to have a grounding crystal in the car, a red jasper, and it was most helpful to hold while I concentrated on bringing a balance between the two chakra centers and sending the ecstatic waves into the earth herself. It took awhile but I think that energy was somehow helpful to the earth. She so appreciates what comes through us to her. It is a wonderful donation to make..

There are no formulas for doing this work. We are each so unique so you need to discover what works for you. But I plant some seeds here about the power of the vortex as a means for integration and transformation. Powerful mojo.

Forgive the graphic image, but there is a point in sharing it. Dolphins can sustain what appear to be drastic injuries and yet can ofttimes if not most times completely recover just on their own. What special healing powers do they have that allows this regenerative ability?

Like us, they have a consciousness that holds awareness on par with (and beyond us in certain ways) what humans have. We can think about what happened in order to learn from it.. We can go into the future and plan out what to do about a situation. These cognitive abilities serve us (and also can create emotions like fear and regret, so can also work against us).

The consciousness of dolphins seems to be a step up from our inclinations in the following way. I think one reason they heal and regenerate in the ways they do has to do with their emotional body, and rest assured, they have one! They are very present time oriented though I am convinced that they, like elephants, have an amazing memory, and that they, like humans, know how to anticipate the future. They are absolutley geniuses at knowing how to work with etheric energy, the positive and negative energy valences in nature. The only place to do that successfully is to be 100% in the here and the now, where there is no regret for the past nor fear of the future. If we lived more potently in time present, we too would discover remarkable abilities to heal ourselves, especially emotionally, but physically as well.

Dolphins are known for the joy they express and the contagion of joy people feel when around them. I defy you to experience that dolphin energy and let it in and at the same time worry about what is going to happen when you go to the office on Monday. I am fond of saying, joy has no opposite because joy isn't due to external circumstances. Joy is a state of consciousness that derives from being absorbed in the eternal NOW. Dolphins know this and demonstrate this to humans over and over.

Are all dolphins joyful all the time? No. Dolphins  traumatically captured and deprived of their normal life and abused can be utterly miserable. They are miserable because their conditions do not allow them to express their true nature. Interestingly, that is the source of all human suffering as well. Dolphins living with their pod in the wild are joyful most of the time, and not even something like a little run in with a shark will interfere with that state of consciousness. That mega-pod spotted off San Diego showing dolphins stampeding together in a certain direction . . .whatever the reason for the stampede (I personally think it was about huge schools of fish), I guarantee you this - they were having a fine time swimming together

Watch and learn, humans. Watch and learn.

Is there a more important question you could ask? And, in trying to answer it, how close would you get to finding the truth about your being here, now, on this planet, incarnated in a human body.

OK OK. Guilty as accused. What can I say. I was a philosophy major in college, going through existential angst of the first order and only the far reaching questions about life interested me. Then, I calmed down and became interested in just living my life. Then I opened up and started expanding again into the bigger questions and here I am, 7 decades after my birth fiercely interested in these questions that were with me, even as a child.

Our being here was part of a plan, a bigger plan, on the part of your soul, and the more you know about what your soul had in mind, the better. For all the rough stuff about being on this planet, it is an enormous opportunity for soul growth. Those who have near death experiences and  return usually resume their life with a much more pronounced understatnding of who they are, what they are here for and what is the best way they can use their remaining time here, for their own soul growth. Sometimes, there is a period of depression due to the contrast between the peace of the afterlife and the chaos on this planet, but once you really understand the difference you can make, both for yourself and for others, then, it becomes more of an adventure and a privilege.

For more years than I care to recount, I have understood that an astrology chart is one of the ways we can derive information about what our soul had in mind on this particular earthside journey. I use my readings to shed light on that very information. I like to think of the chart as the soul's layout for the kinds of experiences you can best use for growth. Some people have extremely difficult lives, and you can wonder why the soul would put someone through such things. These are deep topics. As Viktor Frankl shared in his classic The Search for Meaning about what allowed some people in concentration camps to fare better than others,  he discerned that when we have a sense of purpose behind circumstances, it makes a world of difference. An astrology chart speaks to that sense of purpose in any given life.

If you are drawn to look more deeply into your 'star map' and ask anew the question "Why was I born", it would be my pleasure to interpret for you. Just go to the astrology section of my website to make an appointment.

I don't know if you have noticed, but a lot is being asked of us during these transformational times. The load can get heavy, and confusing. We go through cycles of upliftment and great excitement about creating in whole new ways, and then, we can hit the wall, as we run into something else that needs releasing first.

'Steady as she goes" is a nautical term meaning, when you are in rough seas and accommodating your ship, you find the balance in the moment and use all your expertise to keep that balance. But everyone falters here and there, no matter how balanced and on top of things they were the day before the storm at sea kicked in.

Here's the thing. We are doing this amazing journey together. Even the most rugged of individualists are figuring out the truth of this fact. It is the ONLY way we can do it. Sometimes, some of the more independent minded of us (ahem) have to be brought to a very clear recognition of how important being together is. It is imperative.

An image I have is of a carousel. We are all on our own horses going round and round through the cycles of experience life on earth is. When your horse is up, the horse next to you is down. Hint hint. When you are up and strong, that is frequently when the one next to you could use your love and strength.. When you are down, they are up, so now you lean on their love and strength.. And so it goes. It is a perfect system. And when we are finished with enough of a particular learning cycle, we can all get off the carousel and go dance together in the town square, celebrating our true progress, until it is time to get on our horses and ride again.


Because of the requirements of the shift we are all going through on this planet, there is less down time now. But we can learn to get a lot from a little. I find when I get rescued from being too intense about what I am asking of myself, when something strikes me as being funny, it is not just kind of funny, it is hilarious, and I get this wave of relief at feeling how I wouldn't miss this trip of life for anything, for I would not have wanted to miss the amazing humor that shows up. Life saving stuff, humor.

Yes, we can bear what is being asked of us and, it is highly advised, when what you need is a bear hug, you ask for it.

It takes a village to raise a child. Sometimes it takes a mega-pod of dolphins running together to raise a consciousness.

The largest mega-pod of dolphins ever reported was sighted last week off the coast next to San Diego, California. No-one knows the exact numbers but miles long and miles wide, seemingly endless, and all dolphins swimming at full throttle.

Speculations abound as to why this was happening ranging all the way from, the dolphins fleeing from earth changes, to getting away from Navy airguns and seismic testing to huge numbers of sardines and herrings sounding the dinner bell and so forth .In a week with asteroid fly by's. meteor landings. Pope's retiring and earthquakes, the dolphin event seemed like one more signature of the amazing times we are living in.

So who is right about what is behind this phenomenon? For any question that can be asked, the 'rightness' of the answer depends on which level you are hearing the question. If you are strictly interested in the 5 sense physical level, you might get one answer. If you go to the level of the power of thought that has a lot of influence over other minds (and thusly creates beliefs), other answers would be accurate. If you go the etheric level where the physical and spiritual realms interface, you get still another answer.
 
In asking myself what is behind this amazing phenomenon, I am drawn to considering  what I understand about fields of energy dolphins know how to create. What I have  learned from being around dolphins extensively is that there is a field around them that is good for many things, most primarily, releasing one from fear and allowing a balancing of energies, within the human and the environment at large. The immediate response to release from fear is joy and confidence both in oneself and life at large. Over and over, people around dolphins report feeling joy. it is just something that happens spontaneously.

Whatever fish were luring them or catastrophe they were avoiding, these dolphins were creating a HUGE field of energy by running together in such large numbers. I think of the field like a bubble that expands and expands and affects more and more consciousnesses that are open to healing and balancing. These are times of massive change so the need for re-balancing is now present on a very large scale. And it is not just any re-balancing that is called for. It is a new KIND of balance. We humans are now working without a net, so to speak, and as we get spiritually bolder, we need all the help we can get.

Dolphins are showing us so much, something I have been writing about forever it feels. But they are also energetically providing a form of love and encouragement when the going gets rough. 

Whatever else they were up to, they gave us an energetic gift by their 'stampede.' To derive the benefit, just think about it, imagine it or watch a video, and see what you feel. Your nervous system knows a good thing when it feels it and will register the dolphin's gift for you. Who knows. Harking back to this remembered phenomenon may save your life some day.