The Art of God

photo by Vanessa Hill Rogers

  We are never separate from God. This is one of
  many lessons I have been learning from
  discussing my relationships with my spiritual
  masters, Helen Lordsmith and JoLee Wingerson,
  for the last 15 years (I am a slow learner). I have
  heard it said “We are God” or “We are part of
  God." Ultimately spiritual experience is personal
  and the way we frame it is unique to us. We
  decide what that relationship will be. Sometimes
  we pattern God after a wicked parent (which is
  interesting because individuals with Dissociative
  Identity Disorder also develop a personality
  modeled after their abusers).

  I feel connected to God - some Cosmic Chemical, Energetic Power, Paternal-Maternal-Fraternal Force. I like the image Marianne Williamson used of one wave saying to another wave: “Do you believe in the sea?” But, as fate would have it, humans are not created to be sailing smoothly with God in our sails. We are born thinking we are separate sinners, and our egos want us to confirm that with proof, because the ego seeks power at the expense of our health and happiness. People will treat us in exactly the way we believe we deserve to be treated – as Ego or Spirit.

Lovers and friends will come and go, but who are we between those times? Why do we give away our power to the Other as if we are not enough. When we give away our power to them, we are no longer the person the Other chose.

When I’m doing it right, my happiness is not dependent on who walks in the door on a particular day or what they are saying to me. I am totally flowing. To learn this I have kicked and screamed when someone walked out the door or didn’t appear in the way I expected. My heart has been shattered by conditions and expectations, and re-pieced. As as result, I’ve become a better teacher, mother, counselor, lover and friend as I’ve learned how to sculpt my life without expectation for the materials or the outcome. Oh how I’d like to be able to CONTROL things. Grr. My ego is a pirate!

With awareness of the fact that we are never separate from God, we are never apart from the people whom we love. We can feel them in our hearts. This is not a THOUGHT. This is something FELT and, amazingly, we can shift or morph or grow into this feeling state of being. The example I have had to model what true love looks like is my grandmother, Mutti, who died 15 years ago. I can feel her hands wrapped around me when I was a baby. I can feel her embracing me as a teen when I cried after breaking up with a boy. I can feel her braiding my hair, and I still smell her food. Her love was so total and complete. The safety I felt in her presence was so thorough that to this day she is woven into my heart and the loss of her does not throw me because I can still FEEL her. (Papa was great too but he was working long days to help support us.)

Mutti and Papa

I did not realize that this could apply across the board. The trick is to be totally open and present with the people in our lives, the people we love – without conditions. We get into trouble when we think: “I’ll only love you if you stay with me the rest of your life.” That’s a thought. The heart wants to feel. TODAY. LOVE. GO DO IT. Your kids will move out. Your lovers will leave or die. Your friends will move. Your parents are doing the best that she can. What is your personal barrier to love? Because that is the faulty belief that you are separate from God. That is the illusion standing between you and Heaven on Earth.

Dog of our Heart

REFLEX
When I heard the jingle of a collar as I was making tea this morning, a hopeful flash raced through my body before my mind had time to stop it. KEESHA’S BACK! Of course she’s not; she’s dead. Transitioned. Crossed over. It was my daughter's dog's collar. My body keeps anticipating what my mind knows is not true. Grief has many faces. I’m a little confused, really tired and have no sense of time. I cleared my schedule to give myself the space I need to honor my companion, which includes writing these highlights of our time with Keesha.

STROKE OF LUCK

When Bella was 6, she started riding lessons at a local riding center, Mita Sunke (which means “my horse” in Oglala Sioux). Lizzie was 2 and would observe Bella’s lessons with me. The first time we set eyes on Keesha she was tied near the parking lot, and she dropped down and rolled over for a belly rub. We kneeled and stroked her soft, red coat. When I looked into her eyes I thought: “You are my dog!” But that was impossible! She belonged to the wonderful family who ran Mita Sunke. I walked over to Sandy, one of the barn owners, and commented: “I just LOVE your dog.”

“Do you want her?” she asked point blank.

Messages from Hummingbird

My fruit trees are busting out with apples and pears, and the squirrels, magpies and deer are feasting on what I don’t gather. Days are still hot, but nights are cooler. The elementary school is alive once again with the laughter and shouts of kids;

the bell rings regularly. I bought a 4-foot ceramic colored fountain for the little side yard under my kitchen window – the window that faces the school. The fountain graces the raised flower box that is blooming fuscia bougainvillea, rosemary, columbines and bluish-white hydrangea – it’s my little corner of Italy.

I hung a hummingbird feeder the other day, but I noticed it wasn’t getting use. Online I read to tie a red ribbon on the feeder to call attention to it – and it’s true the elegant feeder did not have enough red, but as soon as I tied the ribbon and walked back into my house, a hummingbird appeared to drink! After he drank his fill, he flew towards me and hovered by the window long enough for me to say: “You’re welcome. Come back any time!”

Who says Dr. John Dolittle is fictional? Speaking with animals requires nothing more than changing the frequency. If there is someone in my family who currently does not have animals as part of their circle, it is because they are in transition in some way. Animals are important to our tribe. My grandmother Mutti occasionally put my ailing parakeets under a spell and operate out their tumors. I stood by to hand her

what she needed, or to hold the tumor that she would later dissect. My other grandmother, Nonnie, rescued her one-eyed cat, Taffy, from a dumpster – it had been shot, but she nursed it back to life and he lived many years. Aunt Helena (pictured here to the right) spent years caring for dogs, cats and rehabilitating a wide array of wild birds - a bathroom was converted into an aviary.

But it was my childhood mentor, Elizabeth Lukather, (a Karate Kid sort of mentor) who taught me that animals really do talk to and listen to us. They might not know our language, but they still understand the intention. She once opened her front door and found a huge snake curled on the steps. She told it that she was going to close the door and give it half an hour to go find another resting place. When she opened the door again, it was gone. It helps to show the animal a picture of what you would like it to do. When I can’t handle a bigger issue between my animals, I call in JoLee Wingerson, an official animal communicator and owner of Spirit Whispering (www.spirit-whispering.com) and she’s taught me some tricks of the trade.

Granted screaming “SIT!” at a dog doesn’t count as communication and will only make him think you are trying to bark louder than he can. Training, like the kind Cesar Millan or the book Raising Your Dog with the Monks of New Skete promotes, is the greatest gift we can give a dog. To become his leader diminishes a dog’s anxiety and

will extend his life by a few years. Similarly, my daughter, Bella, studied with Buck Branaman (left), featured in the documentary BUCK, now appearing in theaters. These great teachers are able to convey, without aggression, to the dogs or horses that we are on their side and there is nothing to fear. As a result, the animals relax and respond to our requests.

This morning as I watched the tiniest hummingbird I have ever seen take a poop bigger than a raven’s, I was using the end of a lime to watch the sides of my sink. I was thinking how weird the germ fanatic culture was when I was growing up – people were slaves to the media and Clorox as though nature is dirty or being clean and using chemicals meant everything else would fall into place. I remember how amazing I thought my Aunt Judy was for having a couple of her babies under a tree. (At least that's what I remember - if it wasn't under a tree then it was something close.)

Unfortunately, I was still chained to the cultural norm when I had my kids. I want to do it all over and have my babies on a blanket on the grass, under the hummingbirds and pine trees and bougainvillea who would instruct me because the more I listen to the plants and animals, the more I hear and the less the culture has the ability to lull me into its clinical spell.