Category:

In The One Divine Sea

5/30/2015

Back in 2006 I was singing with an improvisational music group I co-founded with Andrea Loretz Frey who named it Improvelocity. It was always magical when we were together because we never knew what music was going to emerge, nor could we repeat what we created – that’s the nature of improv.

One of the songs that came out of this collaboration was “I’m Connected” (click here and find player to listen). We were rehearsing in a church in Arlington. Joel Cohen started a musical phrase on his cello, the words “I’m connected” dropped into my head so I began to sing them, Lia Davis picked up the theme on piano, Andrea joined in with soprano harmonies, Ukumbwa Sauti added rhythm and nature sounds, Michael Carey added flute and tenor sax.

I’m sharing the above music file with you because it illustrates musically what can happen when we trust our intuition in collaboration with others. We trusted, and the music that resulted from our individualized expressions of The One coming together in the moment was true alchemy. I’m sharing this unedited recording with you because for me it was a message from God that we are all connected . . . in myriad ways . . . which leads me to the following . . .

There are a good number of emails I receive from different individuals and organizations that are all giving the same basic message: We are all waking up, we are all One, we need to connect (through a gathering, workshop, event, teleconference, presentation, healing modality, etc.) to make this a reality in our world. We are receiving divine energies to help us wake up. We can receive these energies for our own continued awakening into the Consciousness of Oneness, and to administer and share them with others through our individual and group work. This awakening into purer states of awareness and consciousness is catching on more and more every day. Dare I say there are millions of us now who are doing this work, and, there is a tremendous influx of assistance from the invisible realms. There is also turmoil where there is resistance to this flow into Oneness.

I’d like to share with you this deductive “if, then” reasoning: . . . If there are billions of people on planet Earth . . . if there are billions of stars, galaxies, celestial phenomena, even universes in the skies above us . . . if there are countless species of plants, minerals and animals . . . if there is a tremendous variety of weather patterns the effects of which we experience somewhere on this globe in every moment . . . if we are trillions of dollars in national debt . . . if in any given moment we cannot see any of these things except for what is directly in front of our eyes – yet we “know” they exist because we saw-read-heard it from someone . . . then we have to believe that there are vast hierarchies, communities, societies, realms, frequencies, etc. of beings and life forms who exist beyond our 3-D capabilities of perception.

By way of illustration, let’s say your hand gets stuck in a snow bank up to your elbow. Your hand (analogy for a human) may experience itself as all alone in this cold, dense, impenetrable medium. It can’t move freely and its ability to feel and respond rapidly freezes up. But, the part of you that is connected to your hand outside of the snow bank (analogy for God Spark or The Divine) knows better and tries to let the hand know that it is not alone. Your friends, family and neighbors (analogy for The Divine as an expression of other life forms from other realms) come along and ask you about the hand.

Together you try to come up with different strategies to help the hand feel its connection with the rest of the world outside of the snow bank so it can free itself. Alas, the hand doesn’t hear, or see, or feel the help being offered and so it withers away in the cold icy snow, trusting that there is a God “up there” but believing that it is alone “down here”. "Why didn’t you, with everyone’s help, just pull the hand out of the snow bank?" (Haven’t we all asked the question, “If there is a God, why does God let this bad thing happen?”) Because the hand has been given free will and couldn’t find the strength to surrender its belief that it was alone. So, it couldn’t receive the help being offered.

Now this analogy might be a little off, but the idea is that we are always connected to our Source and we always have help, unseen though it may be, from the Divine Beings who are here to help us make the transition to pure perception.

So, to continue our weird analogy . . . Let’s say the snow represents our consciousness – both individual and mass consciousness. What’s happening now in our world is that the snow is melting. It’s causing great flooding (e.g., floods of people in different countries demanding change and justice). The melting is also allowing the awareness of something more to reach the hand than the reality of the snow bank.

One of my favorite chants is, “I am the Bubble, make me the Sea” by Paramahansa Yogananda. That’s what’s going on now. While simultaneously maintaining our daily lives, we are merging and becoming One with the great Divine Sea.

Thou and I as One,
Tonia

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Adventures in VortexHealing ® Divine Energy Healing

9/11/2014

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My first experience with VortexHealing® Divine Energy Healing http://www.vortexhealing.org was in October 2013 when Lorraine Goldbloom, one of the certified teachers, came to Boston to give a demo workshop. Two of my meditation buddies encouraged me to go, so I did. It’s where I also met Irina for the first time. Lorraine did her talk and asked for a volunteer to give a demo of how the basic healing works. She asked if anyone was a singer or musician. Robert and Debra were sitting on either side of me and both poked me in the side at the same time to volunteer, so I did. Lorraine asked me to sing a song, then she would do the healing, then I would sing the same song again. I sang a Paramahansa Yogananda chant, “I am the bubble, make me the sea.” She did her VortexHealing thing. I sang it again. This time my voice sounded richer and fuller, my throat seemed more open, and vocal chords seemed more lubricated. I was shocked that I could notice that much difference with the sound and feeling of my voice in a couple of minutes of her work. Best of all, she said it would be a permanent change, and so it was.

Robert knew Irina through the VortexHealing classes and invited her to my Monday Meditation. Irina is a masseuse and a powerhouse of energy and healing talent and happens to live in my town. On September 1, 2014 (about a year after my first experience with Lorraine) Irina announced that she wanted to practice and anchor the new modality she had learned and would any of us be interested in being test subjects. Of course everyone present said yes.

I and my partner J.J. did the Genetic Healing session. It was long (2.5 hours) because Irina facilitated the release of personal, then karmic, then ancestral imprints from our DNA, RNA and epigenetic levels. (Maybe she’ll offer them in separate sessions once she’s ready to offer them to the public but I was happy to get the whole package at once.) Three days later she did the follow-up session, cleaning up any residual genetic leftovers. Then she did the Multi-Frequency Transmission which contains millions of life-frequencies and all the color variations of light, in dense and homeopathic form, so that my body systems could access whatever was needed to balance and harmonize the newly cleaned structures.

After the first session both JJ and I felt spacey, cranky, bossy and impatient. I was not my usually even-tempered self. I can describe the feeling in two ways. Imagine a window screen, a metal mesh grid structure with spaces for air to come in and out. Now imagine that your screen has accumulated so much dirt and debris over the years that it is a solid mass with nothing going in or coming out. Then along comes Irina who does her VortexHealing magic, at the end of which there is no more dirt and debris and the spaces, spaces which were long forgotten even existed because they were habitually, comfortably or painfully full, are now empty. The fine mesh grid structure is still there, strong as ever, but now it can be seen and felt; and the light and air can pass through the millions of spaces again, and the screen is able to fulfill its original intent.

The other way to describe the feeling was like coming home and finding that all my furniture, accessories, walls and floors had been removed so that all that was left was a shell with a ceiling, structural supports and floor boards. Where did I go? Where’s my stuff? Who am I without my stuff? How can I live without a floor and walls and all my stuff? My ego was completely thrown off and became very cranky because the familiar 'clogged' state of being was gone.

Just now as I'm writing this, J.J. came to me to show me a wound he just got when he stood up from stroking one of the cats, hit his head hard on the slider handle, and scraped a triangular piece of skin from his forehead just above his third eye. We treated the wound then he said, "I'm surprised at how I reacted because normally I would have said 'mother f__er, %$#@**&^%$** but I just felt the pain and came up to show you." We laughed about what it took to open up his third eye and I told him not to be surprised at any visions he might now experience. His new calm reaction was a real testimony on the effectiveness of the changes he experienced as a result of the genetic healing.

This process has worked on the personal, karmic and ancestral levels and the proof is in the details of daily living. I've been constantly noticing and adapting to this new inner state. I am in a state of BEing that is palpable and real. BEing. All I want is to BE . . . wait for the next moment to see what calls me, or what guidance I receive, then do it . . . then go back to “being” again.

The following text is from the VortexHealing.org website.
I encourage you to explore it more deeply.

VortexHealing is not something we created but comes to us as a gift of the divine presence within the Merlin lineage. And the intention of that divine presence is to heal us, transform us, and open us to the inner freedom of our true being.

Most healing arts that work with the Divine use Divine energy (also called Divine light) but do not access Divine consciousness. Although Divine energy is pure healing energy, it is Divine consciousness that transforms the roots of the consciousness of separateness. When Divine consciousness is truly accessed, it also acts as an independent intelligence; it knows exactly where the roots of your issues are held and goes directly there to transform them. VortexHealing works with both Divine energy and Divine consciousness, accessing both in a variety of ways.

Genetics & Multi-Frequency Devices
The Genetic transmission enables the practitioner to release personal, karmic and ancestral imprints from the DNA, as well as to effect changes in the epigenetic level. And the research we are doing in this field—from both medical tests and university genetics studies—indicates that the effects we can create on the epigenetic level are impacting genetic expression. Hence, in addition to working on genetic "kinks", you can create genetic "enhancements" to your system as well.

The “Multi-Frequency contains millions of life-frequencies and all the color variations of light, in dense and homeopathic form. It can be used to release, to harmonize, to nurture or to ‘re-set’ various system in the body.

(Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression caused by certain base pairs in DNA or RNA being "turned off" or "turned on" again, through chemical reactions.)

“VortexHealing” is a registered service mark of Ric Weinman. All rights reserved. Used here with permission. For more information on VortexHealing visit www.VortexHealing.org.

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Forgiveness and Justice

3/15/2014

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"Forgiveness without justice is being a victim."
A friend asked my opinion about this statement and here’s my reply . . .

Who said that? And why would anyone believe it?

The dictionary says a victim is a person who has been attacked, injured, robbed, killed, cheated or fooled by someone else; someone or something that is harmed by an unpleasant event (such as an illness or accident).

However, there's something we do to ourselves after being victimized that creates an additional definition . . . A victim is one who perpetually allows circumstances or people to be the justification or the cause of their suffering. Victims place the power to change their suffering into the hands of the perpetrator (person or circumstance). When the perpetrator doesn't change their behavior, or worse . . . dies, the victim's suffering goes on forever because the perpetrator - the one the victim has empowered to stop the victim's pain (by apologizing, loving, accepting, embracing, paying, etc.) - has refused, or has left the planet.

The dictionary says a victor is one who overcomes or defeats an enemy, opponent or adversary. In the context of forgiveness I think a victor is one who perpetually finds ways to reframe past circumstances into acceptable situations, even if it means turning those circumstances into character- or skill-building exercises. A victor catches the ego's attempts to maintain its position of "us against them" and confronts the illusions for what they are.

When peace prevails, Spirit is present.

"Forgiveness without justice is being a victim" is a statement designed to imprison one in pain and servitude to the past, forever. Remember, the ego puts forth and grasps onto anything that justifies its position and need to be right. Whose job is it to decide when justice has been served? I'd say, "forgiveness without justice is being wise."

And let's remember that forgiveness is not saying that what happened to you then is okay or acceptable now. Forgiveness is giving yourself permission to move on.
Repeat after me: I give my self, my inner child, and my personality aspects, permission to move on.

Victims say: “I'm not getting justice because you're not paying for the crime you committed against me.” Unconsciously what happens is . . . “I'm going to punish and victimize myself by holding on to hate, shame, blame, bitterness and regret about what you did to ensure that someone suffers and pays the price for what you did . . . and I'm going to do that by constantly replaying the event in my mind and imagination, and never forgiving you.”

Imagine a victim finally and simply deciding that appropriate punishment or justice is complete, whether it actually is or not. Imagine a victim deciding they want to be mentally and emotionally free more than they want to be right. Imagine a victim, through forgiveness and letting go of the past, is released forever from the self-made prison called victim. Just like you decide what to eat, or what to wear, deciding that you've suffered enough is really that simple. "I've had enough and I'm moving on." Then you can fill your “mental belly” with new decisions/food to replace the thoughts/food that caused your suffering. New decisions like repeating self-affirming phrases, kicking out any victim thoughts that may creep in, and really feeling and enjoying what your mind, body and emotions feel like without all the residual bitterness, hate and poor-me stories. This will make space for the real you to emerge.

Here are some other thoughts and affirmations about forgiveness and they're illustrated here:

Forgiveness is a selfish act of healing my heart and taking back my power to choose.
Forgiveness is choosing to be kind to myself even when no one else can or will.
Forgiveness is the fastest way to heal from the pain, shame, blame and bitterness about the past because I know that the past is only a memory my mind chooses to hold onto and replay in the present.
I know that the past can’t be any different than it was . . . so I forgive [give up] my fixation on the past (events, choices, people).
I forgive by letting go of the focus on my own bad choices, and the bad choices of others, that harmed me or my loved ones.
I forgive because I realize that the recurring thoughts and memories that remind me of my trauma, are doing nothing to the perpetrator.
I forgive because I want to experience mental and emotional freedom and normalcy, and that’s what forgiveness does.
I forgive because it allows me to be fully present and alive in this moment.
I fill the hole where the event once lived with unlimited, internal, eternal sunshine.

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Life is a Mosaic

3/14/2014

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My life and my writing is a collection of little pieces waiting to be formed into a completed work of art. Each piece is complete unto itself yet, when joined with hundreds of other small pieces, contributes to a larger picture of my life.

In true ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) style I’ve gone online and looked up the word mosaic. I find an image so as to further illustrate what it is I’m saying.

Mosaic: a picture or pattern produced by arranging together small colored pieces of hard material, such as stone, tile, or glass.

And now that I read this definition I realize that what I’m describing is actually a mosaic that uses many tiny images instead of tiny pieces of stone, tile or glass. So I look that up.

Photomosaic: An image composed of many smaller photographs; a large-scale detailed picture made up of many photographs.

When you look at this from a distance it’s an image of President Barack Obama. When you zoom in, it’s hundreds or thousands of individual pictures of different people many of whom are holding campaign signs.

This is what our life is. Thousands and thousands of individual moments, thoughts, actions in each day, week, month, year, decade, lifetime that create the photomosaic of our life. What do you think your portrait would look like if each mosaic pixel was a snapshot of each of your moments – mundane, traumatic, ecstatic, mysterious; each of the people you’ve met along the way; every kindness, every meanness, every moment of self care, ignorance, and sacrifice you’ve made? I’d love to be able to see what kind of portrait my moments have made so far. I wonder if that’s what the Akashic Record is like. Find the person’s overall portrait then examine specific tiles or pixels for details.

For a good “definition of the Akashic Records as found in the records themselves” go to Carolyn Evers website: http://www.akashic-reading.com/akashicrecords.html. Here’s an excerpt: “Akasha is a place where the records are deposited for this planet Earth. It is a location. Akashic records are a recording of all activities and emotions of each individual soul who has experienced Earth in any form. The records are deposited by the soul itself and it is an automatic process. There is no way that these records can be altered or changed by the soul as this recording is completed through a process of vibration.”

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Two Different Realities

11/27/2013

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One recent Monday evening after our group meditation, my friend and I experienced what seemed to be the intersection of two different realities. What follows actually happened.

Friend: “I have to ask you something that’s bothering me."
Tonia: "Sure, go ahead."
Friend: "Why did you push me away?”
Tonia: “What are you talking about?” (I'm confused about what she's referring to.)
Friend: “I rubbed your shoulders for a moment, then took your hands. Then you pushed my hands away with a lot of force, like this.” (She repeats the gesture she experienced.)
Tonia: “When?”
Friend: “Just now.”
Tonia: “Just now, just now??”
Friend: “Yes.”
Tonia: “That didn’t happen.”
Friend: “Yes it did, and I felt rejected by you because you pushed me away so hard.”
Tonia: “Well, as far as I’m concerned it didn't happen at all. But if you actually experienced it, it’s possible I just let go of your hands very purposefully and that may have felt like a push.”
Friend: “Okay, that makes sense.”
Tonia: “If I did it I didn’t mean anything by it. Yet I honestly don’t have any recall of you touching me at all, in any way.”

In both realities we were in my kitchen and I was sitting at the kitchen table.
In her reality, she placed her hands on my shoulders as I sat at the table. She then took both of my hands in hers, then I let go by pushing her hands away.
In my reality, I sat at the kitchen table and she was standing next to me the whole time. She never touched me at all.

I checked to see what the Internet had to say about parallel universes and here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:
The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of infinite or finite possible universes (including the historical universe we consistently experience) that together comprise everything that exists and can exist: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. The term was coined in 1895 by the American philosopher and psychologist William James.[1] The various universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes.

The structure of the multiverse, the nature of each universe within it, and the relationship between the various constituent universes, depend on the specific multiverse hypothesis considered. Multiple universes have been hypothesized in cosmology, physics, astronomy, religion, philosophy, transpersonal psychology and fiction, particularly in science fiction and fantasy. In these contexts, parallel universes are also called "alternative universes", "quantum universes", "interpenetrating dimensions", "parallel dimensions", "parallel worlds", "alternative realities", "alternative timelines", and "dimensional planes," among others. See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse.

I like the idea of “interpenetrating dimensions” because that’s what seemed to have happened with my friend. She and I interacted in her dimension with one outcome, and we interacted in my dimension with a different outcome. The factor that doesn’t apply in our weird moment in time is physical laws. Physical laws only apply where there is physical matter. Where there is no physical matter, physical laws don’t apply. If the reality I was in wasn’t completely physical then we have to look at non-physical, or meta-physical laws. And, since most people don’t operate in the non-physical on a regular basis (perhaps we only visit the non-physical in our dream states), we tend not to consider that possibility when something outside of physical laws shows up in our physical experience. It’s also possible that my friend and I may have had a momentary intersection of 3rd and 5th dimensional reality where two different versions of the same moment were experienced by each of us. Fascinating!

If you have an explanation or thoughts about this, I’d love to hear from you.

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Telling Stories vs. Storytelling

6/20/2013

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For my whole life I have been a prolific writer in the context of day jobs and work projects. I can write well and have evolved a decent design skill when it comes to flyers, brochures and announcements. However, I lapse into resistance and conflict inside when it comes to personal or creative writing for publication. Even this message . . . the only way I can get it done and actually post it is if I imagine that no one is going to read it.

A friend invited me to be one of 3 performers in her Sunday Salon Storytelling series. And, in true improv tradition, I said “yes!” to her offer. That was back in January 2013. I told her I would take this plunge into the unknown on Sunday May 12, 2013, which turned out to be Mother’s Day and also happened to be the 36th anniversary of my mother’s passing, and her mother’s birthday. So of course the stories I would tell would have something to do with the mothers in my life. The performance was 4 months away and I lived in an internal state of chaos, indecision, fear, and regret for having said, yes.

I’ve never called myself a storyteller, nor have I ever told stories in front of an audience for more than 10 minutes. My stories have always been told as a natural part of conversation with friends. I do have the stage/performance skills to do it but I (1) never performed like this alone for more than 10 minutes (I’ve always been on stage with other musicians, actors, singers, or my instruments and meditations to keep me company), (2) never told a series of stories just for entertainment (my stories have always been woven into my work as a public speaker, teacher or facilitator), and (3) never told stories for 75 minute! This prospect freaked me out.

Due diligence . . . I met with 2 friends, who are actor and storyteller respectively, and received wonderful and extremely helpful coaching and ideas for how to create the arc and content of the performance. Four days before the event everything fell into place and what was several months away, is now one month in the past. Time.

The stories I told were all from my life and told as me or in character as my mother and my grandmother. I sang 3 songs woven into the narrative and the audience seemed to enjoy it. But I didn’t feel any juice afterward. No sense of joy, or completion, or accomplishment, or satisfaction. I felt neutral, nothing, void. So I decided I wouldn’t do it again. Been there, done that. No more storytelling for me.

Several days later my aunt June (who had seen my performance) told me about another storytelling opportunity at the end of September that she “highly recommended” me for. Much to my chagrin I said yes. Duh! I swore I would not do it again. What is wrong with me? I know how to say no. Am I reverting back to my compliant, go along to get along, childhood patterns? No, it’s something more than that. It’s about challenging myself with discomfort because my life is very comfortable. It’s about doing something that I could be really good at if I apply myself. The bigger question is, why? Why am I doing this storytelling thing when I have so many satisfying forms and outlets for creative expression?

Somehow, this ties in to the resistance to creative personal writing . . . something to do with my personal stories needing to be told so, if I refuse to write them down, then they’ll get told in performance.

It’s easy to “talk” to people when I’m in a group, or teaching, or presenting, or performing, but something about the expectation of doing it for an hour and 15 minutes to entertain people seemed daunting to me. Somehow it’s linked to the personal-creative writing issue.

Perhaps getting caught at plagiarizing a story for an 11th grade writing assignment shamed me so badly that somewhere in my subconscious there’s now a self-imposed rule that’s stopping me from writing creatively or telling my own stories that has spilled over into verbal storytelling.

And then there’s the exploration I did when I first joined the Nubian Writers Group in June of 2009. In the process of exploring my fear and resistance to creative writing, I wrote a detailed “fictional” account of a guy who lived in Italy in the 1500s who was persecuted and eventually killed for talking and publishing books about spiritual and cosmological truths. The story I wrote was so interesting to me I did some research and discovered the life of a writer named Giordano Bruno whose details eerily matched those in the story I had just written. I thought that maybe this was another life of mine. Even when I read about him again just now on Wikipedia I got eerie twinges of recognition in my solar plexus.

Bronze statue of Giordano Bruno by Ettore Ferrari

Anyway, if I trick myself into calling it “talking about my life” or “telling you about my family history” or “sharing things that happened to me” then maybe it would just flow. But it’s called “storytelling” and there’s something about the word “storytelling” that bothers me. It’s such a benign word. Yet we use the phrase “telling a story” to also mean being a snitch or “lying” or “speaking an untruth” or being deceptive. And I’m allergic to that. I can feel twinges in my belly (my bullshit detector) indicating I’m compromising my integrity even if I knowingly exaggerate the tiniest thing or add some insignificant detail that I know didn't happen but can’t remember exactly what the truth is. One of those Ruiz 4 Agreements is “be impeccable with your word” and apparently I've assimilated that agreement very well.

I call improvisation a spiritual practice because you really have to allow the flow of spirit and inspiration to take over, and trust that your fellow actors or musicians will work together with you for the common good. And you definitely have to get out of your head and open up to the guidance and creative impulses that happen in each moment. For me, being in this space of moment to moment surrender is exquisite joy. Yet for me, telling stories I already know, for 75 minutes, is stepping into an excruciatingly small and boring box. Also, in improv, it’s important not to be a “talking head”, so there’s another conflict with the art of storytelling.

I feel like I’m drilling down to something important but haven’t arrived there yet. When I do, I’ll let you know.

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Peace or Nothing?

11/22/2012

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I wrote this blog entry in August 2012. Now it’s November and I’ve finally posted it. I don’t mean to whine or complain (though it may sound like it) but I want to share a piece of my process of self-reflection and discovery.

Over the spring and summer months of 2012 I asked myself the question, “What am I doing here?” It seems like I’m existing peacefully, uneventfully, pointlessly. Have I done all that I came here to do? It doesn’t feel like it but I’m not sure what “it” is I’m supposed to be doing. Then, in mid-July this message arrived in my inbox:

“Your current purpose is to focus upon peace within your being and mind. This will allow for peace to manifest more fully as an energy of support and stability for all at this time of ascension . . . With change so evident upon the Earth . . . peace is needed as a support and strength. If you are able to adopt a mind-set that expresses and experiences the vibration of peace then you will energize and encourage others to let go of doubt, fear and worry, embracing love and truth on the Earth . . . When you adopt a greater sense of peace within your mind this will imprint upon the minds of others. We are all one united consciousness after all, whether we exist near or far away, on the Earth or on the inner planes . . .”

This was part of a truly helpful message and guided meditation entitled Purpose of Peace by Lord Melchizedek, channeled by Natalie Glasson on July 15, 2012. You can read the full message here: https://omna.org/purpose-peace-lord-melchizedek/ It went on to say:

“We are all being asked by the Creator to release the habits of fear, worry and doubt replacing them with an inner knowing, love and empowerment. The magnification process in December 2012 allows for us to enhance and amplify all loving qualities of the Creator that exist within our beings. The magnification process is an experience of empowerment, but in order to truly experience empowerment there is a need to accept yourself and let go of unneeded energies that no longer serve you.”

So I read this and think, “This is my present mission . . . to release unneeded energies of fear, worry and doubt and replace them with an inner knowing, love and empowerment.”

Then I realized that my personality aspects and my ego are afraid to allow the Divine Expression that I am to be. To fully accept the truth of who I AM. To burn through the falseness, resistance, and worry about what people will think if I live and express myself from that place . . . worry that my ego will take advantage . . . worry that I’ll “be too big for my britches”. . . so I hold myself back. I’m sobbing as I write this. I don’t allow my Goddess-self, my Amma-self, my Divine Mother-self, my Creator-self, my Radiant-self, my Joyous-self to be visibly present at all times, especially when there's no audience, when there should be no worries at all about being seen. What’s that about?

At another place in the message it said:

“With peace and connection with the Creator you can follow your inner guidance, being of service in all areas of your life and the lives of others. Guidance is always present within you and channels through you from the Creator; there is simply a need to create a space for your intuition to flow in all circumstances. You will then be given the most divine and sacred tools to assist and be of service in all situations whether you are directly involved or not.”

I have all the toys and tools but don’t use them. With all the available time and opportunity I have, I don’t ever use my skills to just entertain myself even though that’s the inner guidance I receive. Despite all the musical instruments and art and writing supplies I have, I don’t use them when I’m alone. And I’m alone a lot. I just sit at the computer and do work for others – some of which is necessary because it produces income – some of it is just being helpful. I never sit outside in my beautiful back yard. I have so many things around me that are beautiful and meaningful to me yet I do nothing but sit at the computer or sit in front of the television. Is that what they mean by having a “screen addiction”? Hi, I’m Tonia and I’m a screen addict.

If I imagine that the reason I’m in such a holding pattern is because I am being a pillar of light and peace on the planet, and it causes me to be as still as possible, as much as possible every day, then it makes it easier to accept this overwhelming sense of pointless nothingness with work and brief segments of watching TV or playing computer card games.

But never am I doing anything that feels creatively satisfying unless I’m doing it for someone else’s benefit. And if no one shows up to receive it then what’s the point of doing it? This is also why I never do anything just to entertain myself. I only do it if it is going to help some person, or project, or cause, or group, or audience of some kind, or is absolutely necessary to maintain my health, home or livelihood. When the receiver goes away then I’m left with no reason to do anything.

Sometimes I wish I had the compelling consciousness and passion of a visual artist who can’t live without painting or drawing or sculpting or engaging in some form of art making. I just don’t have that passion for anything. It only shows up when someone needs my help or I’m in performance, beaming divine presence and healing through my offering. Since the receivers have been so few over the past 18 months, I’m changing my focus from music and sound healing to teaching improv and Playback. I find it enjoyable and meaningful but I don’t feel any passion about it. It’s just something I can do that if it helps people feel happier, more alive, more free, and more engaged in meaningful service to others then, in the process, I get to feel that my life has meaning.

The fact that I’m even writing this entry is remarkable since I’ve been hearing the inner encouragement to write my life’s stories for months now, yet never actually do it. What is the resistance to following my inner guidance when it benefits no one else but me? Enough already!

For now I’ll be satisfied with holding the state and energy of Peace. That’s a pretty important job and I’m happy to do it. Just wish I could know what impact it’s having. I guess that’s where trust comes in. Okay, let me say this differently . . . I know, love, and feel empowered to be a Pillar of Peace in the world! I know, love, and feel empowered to be joined with other known and unknown beings who are Pillars of Peace in the world! We are doing this “behind the scenes” work with knowledge, love and power to benefit humanity and the planet. And so it is!

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Tax Plan for the New Millenium

5/19/2012

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Click to see spreadsheet: Tonia’s Tax Plan: 1% to 40%

As I began to prepare my federal tax return for 2011 I became crazed at the profoundly convoluted complexity of the forms and language and formulas the IRS has devised to figure out what we owe. I’m sharing this new tax chart with you because in the reality I’d like to live in, taxes are okay but this is the way we determine our fair share to support the federal government. The entire tax code as it currently exists gets burned at the stake and this new plan gets established. It’s so simple that even a child could file their own taxes. And while the IRS and accountants might lose most of their reason for being, I’m sure that they could turn their attention to enforcement to be sure everyone reports all their income. I’m sure there must be some institute or think tank or university somewhere that could figure out what the implications of my plan would have on the economy and the national income, budget and deficit.

The Tonia Tax Plan applies to individuals and organizations equally. It taxes everyone on an incremental sliding scale that gets bigger the more you make. It takes a truly fair percentage of gross income, but there are no deductions of any kind allowed, none, zip, nada, nyet. It does not tax anyone whose gross income is $20,000 or less. It even has a small percentage for traditionally non-tax paying organizations that have net revenue of $500,000 or more, orgs like colleges, universities, and yes, even churches and non-profits.

This system would require people to report all income from all sources and pay their percentage of tax on an individual basis only – no joint returns, no exemptions for spouses or number of kids, or being blind or old or anything else. But the percentage is so reasonable that it would be virtually painless and would leave a significant amount of money to pump back into the economy, pay for daily living, investments, savings, etc. But again, some organization or think tank would have to run the numbers to determine the impact.

I’m curious to know what you think about this and how you think it might work out in the long run. I would so love to say I earned ‘x’, my rate is ‘r’, my tax is ‘t’, done.

I uploaded the spreadsheet to Google docs and the 2nd tab has the concepts. I’m sure I probably missed something but you’ll get the gist. I’d love to hear and respond to various what if scenarios.
Click to see spreadsheet: Tonia’s Tax Plan: 1% to 40% > $20k

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Consensus

5/18/2012

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Everything out there in the world is a reflection of what we think and believe. The reason we want everyone else to believe what we believe, or do what we say, or support our cause, or act like we act, or wear or eat what we wear and eat is because we think that their agreement validates us and our position and makes it believable and true. Or we think that they’ll be better people or have a better life if they agree with us. But I’m beginning to realize that I’m the one that will have the better life if I actually do the thing I’m trying to convince someone else to do.

We live in a consensus reality. That means that the reality only sticks together if we all agree with the same concepts like “duality exists” or “there’s nothing else but what we can experience with our 5 senses” or “we should believe outer authority figures rather than our inner knowing” or “I must eradicate, fight, condemn, force my will on, anything that does not conform to the reality I believe in” (that’s a good one) or “what they tell us on TV must be true”, you get the idea.

I notice that the more I let go of my belief in the reality defined by others the easier it is for me to actually experience what reality is for me. What I’m discovering is that it’s as if we’ve been living a mile down in the ocean and gradually the earth beneath us has been rising up so that now we’re only 10 feet from the surface. We’re still in the ocean water but now we’re so close to the surface of another distinct and different reality or realm or plane of existence that we begin to notice differences in our water world. It’s much brighter, gravity seems lighter, fewer and different species of water life. If we focus our attention just right we can poke our head into this other waterless reality for a while even though our bodies are still immersed in the water.

That’s what’s happening on Earth right now. It’s much easier to feel in ourselves and perceive in others truth and lies, foolishness and sincerity, fear and love, subtext and transparency, ego and spirit. It’s like we’re all finally waking up and realizing that all the hype is hype, not truth, so we now decide to rely on what feels right on the inside rather than what the media is trying to feed us. We notice that we actually can think for ourselves despite the barrage of opinions everywhere we turn. The truth about things (events, concepts, people, etc.) is being revealed so fast that all we have to do is wait a minute or a day and the thing we were so fired up about in one moment has completely changed or been resolved in the next. I’m sure examples of this are coming to mind for you.

I think about the upcoming presidential election. I don’t know about you, but I happen to know that it takes more than a couple of years to fix something that’s been messed up for decades. If we can’t fix our own lives in a couple of years why should we expect a president to fix the whole country in a couple of years?

What the point I’m trying to make? As December 21, 2012 gets closer I think we’ll be really noticing how easy it is to see the truth and common sense under the rhetoric and prestidigitation (sleight of hand; a show of skillful deceitful cleverness). The Mayan end of the world as we know it is really the end of believing that deceitful cleverness is truth. We’re beginning to realize that we can see behind the curtain of the great and mighty Wizard of Oz to what’s really going on. We’re finally beginning to understand that we’ve had those magic ruby slippers of clear sight and insight that will show us the truth in our possession all along. All we have to do now is put them on and walk in the beauty of trusting our innate knowing, No consensus needed.

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Being the Divine

8/5/2011

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The way I experience reality is changing for me. I’m noticing in both obvious and subtle ways that I’m able to remain an observer to all the things going on in the world. The world the media shows us and society perpetuates is a creation of the egoic mind, a mind that operates and remains in power based on fear and separation. I truly believe that we can change the way people operate in the world if we continue to create fields of consciousness that are based in love, compassion, truth, integrity, and creative power – more powerful, because of our numbers, than the current fields of fear-based consciousness.

The articles I’ve included in the August Newsletter speak to this and call us to shift our focus from the world of fear and separation to creating a consciousness of love and compassion. It doesn’t mean that we ignore the suffering in the world. But if we create the morphic field of love, compassion, truth, integrity, and creative power, the Hundredth Monkey Effect will kick in, then the people who perpetuate fear and suffering in order to feel powerful will find other ways to feel empowered that don’t involve starving, torturing, killing and imprisoning innocent others. The essence of the Hundredth Monkey Effect is this: when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind. There are more of us than the media will ever reveal that are living and practicing these Divine qualities. We just need to keep it up until the rest of the monkeys catch on and wake up!

We are told that this world is ours but we only allow ourselves to see our reflection in the things around us. Unless we are raised otherwise, or have a very strong sense of Divine Self, most of us build our ideas, character and behavior based on what we experience and see around us because that’s what our environment tells us is available to us. Yet if we are really honest, we’ve always had an inner dialogue going on. Sometimes that voice is the voice of our egoic mind, sometimes it’s the voice of our emotional body, and sometimes it’s the voice of our intuition that comes from our Divine Source.

Fear is another mechanism that has so many layers and rates of vibration that it’s almost impossible to do away with it unless the ego is willing to let go of the need to do, such as save others, or have enemies, or fix everything. I know this sounds like blasphemy but hear me out. Ego revels in the feelings fear generates because these feelings justify its existence. When fear is recognized it can be dissolved and replaced with love or wisdom or creative power. But that’s a choice the higher mind makes with the help of the Divine Spark.

Separation seems necessary for the Divine to have individualized experiences of Itself in Creation. Yet it is not truly separated from Itself. I/we have a physical body that has the most intricate and complex of systems. The organs and systems of the body seem like they are all separate (because the egoic mind has separated and labeled them). Yet I experience myself as something separate from the body when I think objectively about the various systems and organs that comprise it. Each system - integumentary (hair, skin, nails, etc.) , central and peripheral nervous systems, endocrine-glandular, cardiovascular, digestive, urinary, reproductive, immune, lymphatic, respiratory, skeletal, muscular - works individually and together to produce a particular outcome that sustains the vehicle that houses the Spark of the Divine. Within each discrete body system are individual components or body parts (glands, blood, brain, bones, skin, etc.) that do their jobs to assist the function of their particular system. Within each individual component are individual cells and functions that do their jobs to assist the function of the component. Now imagine that each of us is a cell in the body of the Divine. How does that change your view of reality?

When one of the individual components fails to work, other components work overtime to compensate for it until it has been repaired. The problem is that the Spark of the Divine is housed in a body of flesh that also has an egoic self that doesn’t exist and isn’t necessary when the Divine consciousness is not expressing through that body.

Allow yourself to try on the reality that the individualized expression and person that you are is actually the Divine Source in a physical body experiencing life on Earth as you. Imagine that the only way it can experience itself is to become “the other” and hide its true identity within the veils of forgetfulness, allowing the influence of its Divine Nature to seep through invisibly into daily living.

This invisibility coupled with the law of free will sets up the conditions for the all knowing, ever present Divine to have a limitless variety of surprise experiences; if the ego has free will then choices may be made that the Divine didn’t anticipate.

Now, the ego’s job is to protect and ensure the survival of the physical vehicle that has been prepared for the Divine Spark which makes the vehicle come alive. Since the ego believes it has to protect itself, it creates and encourages behaviors that ensure that pain won’t be experienced again, that choices will be made based on past experiences rather than current facts, that situations and people will be judged based on the ego’s perspective, and that people regard this individual as important to them or the world – in a positive way, in a notorious way, in a dangerous way, in an influential way, etc. The ego does this by only relying on what it is seeing, hearing, and experiencing outside of itself. These outside authorities define who the ego self is and is not. As long as the ego believes that it is important in the eyes of the people around him or her, then the ego has accomplished its job. When the ego doesn’t feel that it has any importance then it can generate anger, depression, self-pity, acting-out, aloofness, withdrawal and other kinds of implosive or explosive behaviors, all of which are designed to get attention.

But what is this attention that the ego seeks? And here is the fun part of the equation.

The ego has a very limited repertoire to work with. As a result it keeps doing the same things and behaving in the same ways, over and over again. It changes the outer appearance so the activity may look different but the foundational drive remains the same, thus the result remains the same.

Eventually the ego begins to exert itself in ways that make it impossible for the Divine Nature to express itself through the vehicle at all unless . . . the physical, emotional, and/or mental pain becomes so great that the ego gives up control, at least for the moment, and states an intention that it wants the pain to stop. It is then that the Divine is able to be more fully present to guide our experience into harmony with its Divine Nature and we are then able to know and feel the Grace, Acceptance, Love and other qualities that the ego has sought but has been unable to achieve.

There is only One Divine Consciousness experiencing itself through countless forms of individualized expression in the universe (and there’s more than one universe but we won’t go into that right now). Then you’ll realize – real eyes – that the essence of this expression is you.

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Tonia Pinheiro, Author

Some of who I am, what I do, what I've experienced and how I think and feel is reflected on the pages of this website. At the moment, I'm creating blog entries about subjects I'm passionate or curious about along with sharing moment from my life and Wake Up! Works insights.

Wake Up! Works

Wake Up! is the call to listen to the inner knowing... to remove all the layers and veils of fear, unconsciousness, denial and self-illusions so that YOU can experience and live life and relationships as a fully conscious being, awake in the ONEness of your true divine nature.

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Tonia Pinheiro, Author

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