Last Sunday, a gorgeous burst of light named Wayne Steinart seemingly left the world.  I know this gem back from my early days as a Producer at Disney Online.  He ended up marrying another co-worker, one of my favorite mega-hot  5’10″ blondes, Miss P.  They were the kind of couple I wanted to be in at the time – effortless, mind-blowingly well-matched, and crazy in love.  Right about the time I settled into my marriage to that very dream guy, she loses hers.  It’s been heart-wrenching.  But I’ve used it as a chance to go deeper into what it really means.

What does it mean to die?  I had oodles of time to ponder such things as I zipped off to LA in a puddle jumper plane, connecting through Palm Springs (the only way I could get there on short notice during the holidaze.)  It led me back to that core question – what are *we*, anyway?  Separate, identity filled beings, or big cosmic jokes?  Both, apparently – but one is closer to the Truth.

As I sailed through skiffs of effervescent clouds, looking down on their shadows as they waltzed across mountain tops, I marveled at how real at all seemed.  At how real *I* seemed. And yet when I try to pin down that concept – that obligatory “I” – there is nothing there but a sense, a wish, a wannabe.  When I go into this essence I label as mine, it’s evident “I” don’t own it at all – it’s just the apparent perspective, this first person view.  What’s more real is that oneness.  There is nothing about “my” identity that is any different from anyone else – just an identification with a handful of specific traits.  Yet I can be any / all of the roles that I see playing out before me – it’s just impossible (so it seems) to play them all at once.  And so there’s a choice – whether it’s mine or Divinity’s, I don’t know – to be a certain aspect of the All, in every moment.  But that seems that the big haha-I-got-you is this — the notion of “me” is just an aspect of the All.  I felt the undeniable reality that I am Divinity – every last cell of it.  Everything is possible.  It’s just that I can only see one tiny sliver of What Is.

So as I found myself missing Wayne, aching for his widow, and wishing peace for all of us who don’t really understand this crazy life-game, there also played across my lips a gigantic smile.  Something really magical is always, always at play – when I fall into it, the gray matter is blown to bits with the love divinity has for me.  It IS me.  Many of us play this wild game of self-destruction and apparent self-loathing – yet, it seems, we are really, really on to something — this is the very crux of awakening, it it is allowed.  There is no “me” to hate / destroy.  That’s only an idea.  As I flew to be with my old work family, I kept thinking, “We came from somewhere, perhaps that’s where we return.”  But it feels now as if I was missing something – we are were we have always been.  There is no coming and going – no life and death.  Just the perception of.  Trying on different masks.  Wearing different parts of our whole.  What else could oneness do but pretend to be separate?  It feels like the only way to realize that there is oneness after all.

And so I thanked Wayne, sincerely, for being a piece of the oneness to help me fall further into the truth.  The visitation, therefore, felt wonderful – even in its massive sadness and injustice.  Those can fit into the idea of oneness – because if all is Divine, EVERYthing fits.  There’s nothing to do or undo – just authenticity, however that feels in every moment.  It was extraordinary hugging all those beautiful souls and thinking – “I love you.  Me.  Us.  I love.”

And yes, it seems to be true that beings come and go, but those in the current view, I see clearly that those are only aspects our ourselves that keep popping up and disappearing.  Think about it – the All would have a lot of facets, a lot of roles to play.  Infinite possibilities.  That makes for a chaotic play, you know?  And we, as the apparent separate consciousnesses that fall in love with the idea of ourselves, and those around us – man, we fall to pieces when favorite parts come and go.  But lest we think we are crying for those that have apparently “passed-on.”  We are crying for the idea of ourselves, desperately missing those to whom we have attached.  And, of course, the fear of that great mortal unkown – because we can’t know, until we’re there – and then we’re lucky if “we” are still conscious enough to take it all in.

I sit here now and fully own these beautiful concepts.  I don’t feel like Kitty.  I feel like the eyes/ears/nose/mouth/touch of consciousness, playing out the very specific actions and emotions that it wants to place in the world.  Makes it clear why authenticity is so tethered to the Divine, no matter what it looks like – this is what “it” wants to be.  God, the universe, divinity – whatever you want to call it.  It’s moving through each of us, as apparent separate beings, with a bold and boisterous acorn of intention.  When that’s repressed, in my experience, it feels like poo.  When it’s released, it feels like. . .aw wow, just fucking perfect.  It’s so much better to be authentically sad than inauthentically happy.  And so even though there’s some awareness of this magical drama that’s unfolding, this wannabe “I” willing goes into the grief of loss.  It’s impossible to know if and when I’ll ever see the uniqueness that was Wayne again.  And that hurts, because he just rocked.  So that is true, but so is the illusion of it all.

What a freaking beautiful paradox.  Let’s all love this perfect mystery, and every facet of it – ie everyone in it.

“Is your place in heaven / worth giving up these kisses?” – Tori Amos

I’ll just come out and say it – I’m a very, very frightened girl.

That is, my egoic programming once led me to believe as much.  Fears so bloody deep it took me decades to acknowledge them.  And make no mistake, there are more hidden in deep layered coffins inside my twisted little psyche.  Truth be told, I can’t wait to find them.

Three weeks ago, I gifted myself a mystifying experience of self-realization.  In the days since, I have maintained a pretty solid awareness of the veil of separation.  External events will transpire, and my consciousness stays in the space of “everything is perfect.”  An attempted carjacking.  Needles full of numbing goodness jabbed into my forehead by an amateur medical student.  Judgmental siblings that wish me to be anyone but who I really am.

These are the ones I have handled with grace and gratefulness.  I have found, for example, that the disgust of my family is no longer a sore point – at least in this present experience.  I can finally let them be the beautiful people that they are, fully recognize that they’re just extensions of my own awareness anyway, and let there be peace in the discord.  Oh, happy day indeed.

But as Orion and I say thank you to the cosmos for the massive openings we’ve been gifted, we’ve also done anything but slow the pace.  I am owning now that Waking Up is more than an instant.  It’s the everythingness from which I never have to return from, and I still have work to do.  I don’t sense that Enlightenment is a simple destination, but I don’t know that unequivocally yet.  I only know that since there is something in me still seeking, there is still an imbalance.  More to Know.  

That’s exciting, yes, but it makes me insane with fear sometimes.  I should qualify that – it makes my ego freaky-scared.  Her power has not only been grossly diminished, it would seem that her days are numbered.  I own that now.  I own that I am already an Enlightened being, I need only to remember exactly what that state is all about.

And to do that, I need these delicious fears that keep tossing me big old emotional curve balls.  Since Orion and I have both literally thrown ourselves in the galactic pressure cooker, shit’s been surfacing as of late.  Different shit for each of us, but equally head-spinning and really quite fun (at least the masochist in me agrees with that one.)

My fear-based confessions, as they stand now, are as follows – please accept the global caveat that these are not really *my* fears, but my programming + stories.  The more I expose and allow them to be, the more I know they will diminish and cease to be.

* I am afraid that I will soon lose my job and have to move someplace on the other side of the planet to maintain a financial stability high enough that I may continue to pay off my massive debts 

* I am afraid that I am no longer beautiful, and my self worth will crumble once this becomes a reality

* I am afraid that I am all talk with this Enlightenment chatter, and that I am tricking myself into falling for the lie of possibility

* I am afraid that nothing is real, including God 

* I am afraid that I’ve made all the wrong choices in my life, and that shit is going to blow up in my face any time now

* I am REALLY afraid that I will one day go insane

* I am afraid there’s something seriously wrong with my body (health-wise – I’m bleeding a lot)

* I am also afraid that Orion will achieve full-scale Enlightenment before I do, and this will be completely unbearable for my ego, and it will destroy our bond and my sanity (back to that REALLY big fear)

There now.  I feel better

It’s magical what these confessions do for me – I feel like outright laughing at every line I wrote up there.  That’s not to say that these aren’t completely real feelings, it’s just that when I see them in black and white, I can fully acknowledge what meaningless little stories they are.   They are all manifested by the part of me that is quite literally *dying*.  She doesn’t get her way with selfish conflicts anymore.  She doesn’t get to externalize anything that happens – she only has to own that it is ALL coming from her /me.  She doesn’t get to be a victim, even for a New York minute.  She doesn’t get to hide.  And she’s getting more and more discipline, more and more aware of the power of the Oneness.  That gorgeous void from which it all springs from.

You know that feeling you have when EVERYONE is in on some joke, and you just have no clue what it’s really about?  That’s how my ego feels.  Because the higher me, the non-egioc me – she’s getting closer and closer to being the All.  To dropping the notion of separatism, and connecting with the Oneness for all eternity.  Strike that, I am ALREADY doing all of this, I’m just working on bringing this into my permanent consciousness. Like flipping a light switch.  But the thing is, my ego can’t come with me.  I can’t hold on to my identity AND be god at the same time.  She knows this, I know this.  As such, we have what you would call a Big Fucking Conflict.

I will admit I am often awed by her tenacity and craftiness.  But ultimately, I Am Not Afraid.  I know who I am.  I know I’m playing the mother of all games – unraveling a lie so (un)believable that it could only come from God.  It’s our lie, and it’s up to us to come clean.  That is my current reality.  Integrity like I have never known.  

And so for now, I will keep on letting the frightful little tears flow, all the while acting as the observer.  But letting my ego act out her passion play, without giving her the wheel.  It’s a damn fun game.  As Ami would say, it’s the only game in town.  I will do my best to be in this space as both the feeler and the observer, the creator and the created.  To see it all as a gorgeous illusion – there to help me die before I die.  That is to say, there to help me see and be the Ultimate Truth – that flash we are gifted with the moment we leave this body – before I actually have to exit stage left.  

If I never have this Knowing, dear self / God – then at least grant me the grace to be joyful and humbled with all I have already come to Know.  Yes, there is still more for me, but let me take a moment and just say -

Wow.  This – this current little projection of time and space – this is glorious too.  In these moments where I can wear the Truth, there is nothing that could ever be anything but.