Category Archives: Blog

Bars by Steve Snodrass

A year ago for the Easter weekend I was at a friends in Santé Fe working on a creative project.  I was up early that morning and witnessed an amazing lunar eclipse.  We had a productive day and a wonderful Easter dinner and celebration. I made the conscious decision to stay for dinner and delay a three hour drive home.  I was in a very peaceful, harmonious and at one with myself and world place when I left Santé Fe.  I got lost on the way home taking a short cut and it was now dark.  All this set me up to be at an intersection 2 miles from my house at precisely 10 pm.

The Universe wanted me to be right where I was on Easter last year at 10 pm.  It was there a crazed dog ran in front of my car and I hit it.  Something I didn’t think I could ever bear to do.  In that split second everything changed.  In milliseconds mad, scared, confused, panicked and in shock.  I did not do one thing I thought I would have or expect others to do in the same situation.  I wanted to stop but I was scared.  My dog was in the front seat with me and I kept rolling for a few yards, then I thought a car was coming to follow me and I freaked and sped up.  Within seconds I was going 60 miles per hour plus on dirt roads, less than one mile from my house.

At the last turn I decided it was not safe to go home, what if someone followed me there?  As I sped to get out site, my heart raced, I was lucky I didn’t skid, I pulled into an area and turned off the car.  I waited.  Remembering this was an area where a crazed local dumped dogs he would shoot thinking they chased his cows.  There I sat in my sweat and fear for 10 minutes, looking for headlights, trying to get my head around what just happened because my heart was crushed.

At some point my sane voice said this is ridiculous go home.  So I drove home, without lights, pulled up to the house, emptied my car quickly and put it in the car, like a criminal would do.  I was afraid to let my dog out to do its business.  I came inside and tried breathing, meditation, music, and hy0pnosis to calm my spirt and go to bed.  I was afraid to drive that car to work the next day, afraid to go by that intersection in our small town.  Afraid to leave my dog at home. I was officially acting like a criminal and a fugitive at large.

I did go to work but I spoke to no one about it. It was my secret. My husband was out of town.  I held this secret along with incredible shame, guilt and judgment. How could I do that? I love dogs.  I would never forgive anyone else for not stopping, how could I not have stopped? What kind of cruel, self-righteous hypocrite am I?

I would have burst at the seams of emotion had anyone asked. I went to a friend’s house the evening after and wanted to share, but she had a story to share first. How her dog ran away and they never found her and did I know that if you hit a dog, you can call it in so an owner will know?   Three days after this happened there is a story about a wounded dog on the front page of the newspaper.  A couple asking for donations for surgery because there dog was shot at 10 pm, in Marvel on Easter Sunday.  Yea, what are the odds two dogs where harmed the same night in a 10 housing, one intersection community?

The grief and judgment was tearing me up inside. I had dreams of Michael Black and Ferguson cops (that was recent in the news) with mantras saying “it is between the two of them, you don’t know, you don’t know”.  I wanted to help the couple but feared retribution.  I know I was being asked to work with compassion but I could not find the path.  I was angry at the dog owners for letting their dog loose.  I was angry at myself.  I remembered all the times I made marginal calls and put my dog in harm’s way but got lucky. I went from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other. All the while a voice kept saying “you don’t know”.

To bring you up to date.  I worked with Animal Control and they were grateful as the dog had two injuries, one from an air gun and one that fit being hit by a car.   They believe the dog was running mad having been shot and darted across the road in front of my car.  They confirmed that it likely was not safe to stop that night and that I could receive funds if my car was damaged (the law in Colorado). That felt like a paradox and so far from what my heart and mind needed.

The dog lived, had many surgeries by donation in Denver.  I am grateful.

I am still struck how I went from such a peaceful place to feeling and acting like a criminal. I don’t know what would have happened had I had a confrontation that night.  My emotions were stoked on fight or flight. I was so far from any Barb I knew or recognized, I was not in any mind.  I remembered that we indeed all have in us the ability to love deeply and perform unthinkable acts of kindness AND the ability to cause harm, to even kill another.  It is visceral and possible.  And it happens every day.  It is precisely what makes violence beget violence.  Someone has to be brave enough to step out of the madness and do something different, something radical means something opposite.

It took me some time to heal my mind, body and spirt from this event.  I gave extra thanks this Easter.  Blessing the dog, the couple and myself.  I took another oath to remember that “I don’t know” and don’t need to know.  I will do my best not to judge that those “in it” and remember they must answer with their soul’s path and to Source. It is none of my business.  I promised myself self-compassion and renewal – this is what will heal the world now and help to create a new order.

The beginning of this new astrological New Year, I invite you to do the same and see how it changes your perspective.

‘I Am Death’ SoulCollage® card by Barb Horn

They say things happen in threes.  Three is my favorite number.  The past few months I have experience three transitions of people I loved.  One unexpected and unplanned (collapse not revived), one expected and unplanned (chronic illness) and the third unexpected and planned (suicide).  Many souls are choosing to transition as the veils between here and there are thinning (the influence of Neptune in Pisces here for a while).   We keep often keep our knowledge that death is inevitable at bay.  When it does happen close to us it is impossible to ignore.  The impacts of someone passing impacts each of us differently, just as in life, each beloved influenced our lives uniquely.  Add to the mix we each have a different relationship with death.

Death, regardless if expected or not, planned or not, is a game changer for those involved.  Death is many things, but one of the few things in life that stops time and takes our breath away.  Death awakens.  Awakens us with vibrations of life, forcing our attention on our own alive body and how we are living or have lived.  It is a strong and uncomfortable vibration.  Death awakens us to our impermanence and to our fragility.  Death interrupts our illusion of control.  Death gifts us a void we didn’t ask for but a void we get to chose what to do with. Even believing, accepting and or understanding that death is part of life, doesn’t help that much when in the depths of actually navigating what comes up when someone you love dies.

Death, like all things in life, it is neither good nor bad, right or wrong, those labels are not helpful. Human nature wants easy and quick answers to short circuit the pain.   If we can put something in a box with a label like good or bad, somehow, it will fill the void and give us a “pass” on the process of healing.   Labels provide a path to predictability outcomes in our mind.  As part of being human, we attach to outcomes and how we think or believe things should be.  This provides feelings of safety, control and power.   We do so easily as if we know everything we need to know about ourselves, others, nature and the mystery of Source.

If for a moment, when we are able, we get rid of good and bad, right and wrong as useless labels and instead look at all things with equanimity.  This helps us gain a perspective that can serve our grief.  Viewing something with equanimity, doesn’t mean you don’t care or are ignoring it, quite the opposite.  It means you are not giving it 100% over you in order to gain clarity on what exactly is yours in the situation to give voice to, take responsibility, heal, let go or whatever is needed. To identify what you need and feel to make decisions that serve you.  Rather that projecting what you need onto others, demanding what they should do, creating drama and trauma, suffering and confusion.

This perspective is one of many to employ, not “the” perspective.  Viewing death with equanimity is viewing death (or anything) as simply the next thing we get to experience, navigate, participate, endure, conquer, fail, explore, learn, grow, ignore, resist and the list is infinite.  Whether that thing is death, illness, job or relationship loss or winning the lottery, getting married, having a child, purchasing a house or getting a promotion – you get to experience.  It is just the next assignment in the classroom.   From that perspective, it is not personal in quite the same way.  The range of choices available for our response expands.  And we make different choices.  No choice is easy when we lose a loved one and are grieving.  But this isn’t about ease; in fact if it was easy it wouldn’t be valuable, and an important step in making a mark on your soul.  It is about finding choices that resonate with you personally while allowing others the same freedom.  And that is where complications come in.

Death either separates you from or moves you closer to yourself, Source and others. It is a choice. And it might be a choice you have to make over and over in the grieving process.  Death seems to awaken the crazy in people.  Death interrupts the expected and predictable.  People, families, and friends do and say things they would not otherwise do or say.   Things that hurt others, ourselves, defy logic, are confusing, selfish and a host of other low vibrations.  These choices separate us from the very people we are seeking comfort or whom we share grief.   Crazy making happens in families and with friends at death when we allow our fears and lack of control to make the dying or transitioned person’s death about us and our own fears and needs.  In doing so, we cannot discern clearly the needs of the dying or others involved from our own.  Others needs are clouded and muddled by our own fears and needs.  And the choices we make from fear, hurt and confusion separate us from ourselves, others and Source.

Our relationship with death reveals much about our relationship with life and how we believe we are living fully or not.    American culture fears aging and death.   We are more upset when a dog dies in a movie than if 20 people die in the same movie.  Anti-abortionist fight for innocent babies but not for humans on death row or the people who die every day from gun violence.  We spend billions of dollars to keep from aging and in the last few days of life ignoring how either are keeping us separated from a quality life.  When death enters our sphere we are surprised and create drama and trauma to avoid it at all cost (look at our medical, insurance, economic systems that reflect this avoidance) and keep us separated from being present in daily life, separated from a fulfilling life but also from fully engaging in the dying, death and grieving process.  Death is taboo to talk about, taboo to experience or look forward to, and aging is one step toward death so it too is taboo, but I will take your billion dollars to make you believe you can escape it.

We do not have to be afraid, in fact fear separates.  Death exposes.  Death exposes truth, vulnerability and our common humanity.  It is in that exposure, that vulnerability we choose to shut down, turn away and separate or reach out, upward and inward.  And that is when healing occurs.  Giving proper space to the duration, frequency and magnitude to death and grieving.  Death exposes things that were or never could never be spoken, expressed, named, told or revealed.  Death releases all that, if we allow it too, otherwise we carry it with us like a bag of bricks, into this life and perhaps the next.  These exposure and release is an uncomfortable and messy even taboo.  Our culture says it is taboo to give voice to anything but light and love about a person who has died.  Whatever else might be exposed, forget it, get over it and move on.

Perhaps this exposure doesn’t have to be so mysterious and taboo if we give it permission.  Everyone is imperfect in life that is part of being human.   We do not love equally, even if we strive to do so, we do not.  No one does.  We all have and will withhold love for some, pour out excess for others and be love neutral for others.  This may manifest in how we give gifts, money, sex, our time or possessions as an example.  We do this for a host of reasons, including for protection, acceptance, fear, safety, honor, expectations, power, perceptions, roles, dependence, security, survival, control and for love to name a few.  We may not even be aware of it, but we all love unequally.  We are complicated souls in this human experiment.

As such, when someone dies your experience of their love and that loss, may not be, no- will not be the same as anyone else.  If you wanted love from someone who while alive was not able to give it to you, or you could not receive what was given, you will experience their loss differently than someone who was showered with love and could accept that shower.  That is reality.  The problem is we don’t allow space for the full range of experiences.

We believe that by listening and accepting a different experience of this passed beloved person, perhaps a harsher, not so “they were amazing” experience will invalidate my experience that this person loved you.  They could not have done that to you and loved me.  Our desire to be seen, heard and witnessed can result in behaviors that feel like to others we are asking, even demanding that they accept our experience as their own.  To others on the receiving end, who have a different experience, sharing a different experience can feel like others are puking on your own experience and process. It feels like you have to give up your experience to make room for theirs.  Neither is likely true, especially if we can make room for all experiences.

Listening and acknowledging another’s experience is not the same as agreement.  Intellectually we know that others experiences do not invalidate our own, but our hearts are slow to follow, especially when grieving.   Sharing our experiences and being witnessed is healing.  Sharing doesn’t require agreement to be healing.  A willingness to expose our humanity and common vulnerability in death and provide a safe space to do so liberates and transforms shame and guilt into peace, compassion and relief.

Death exposes the universal truth that we are not perfect in life and our gifts in death will not be perfect either. Sometimes the best gift we give someone is who we were not and that drives the other to seek what they need rather than get it from you.   Think about that, many gifts from your parents are likely related to whom they were not, what they could not give or do – and you found a way to fill that void.   We all impact someone(s) positively and etch a quality, nature, meme, attitude or such on their souls. That is how you live on in others.   We all have hurt others in some way as well, intended or not, aware or not as part of the human experience.  Those experiences etch on others souls as well, and are a gift, not good or bad, right or wrong.  That too is how you live on.  Naming those hurts, giving those voices and witnessing is healthy, liberating and healing.

Death either separates or moves you closer to yourself, Source and others. It is a choice.  I invite you to be open to all experiences when someone transitions, for yourself and others.  Create space and time to be vulnerable and expose your truth.  Name what someone who has transitioned etched on your soul, whether it is a labeled positive or “I will remember to not do xyz” or equivalent in nature, they are all gifts, all part of being human in life and death.  Take it, use it and remember you to will leave the same rich complicated bundle for others when you transition.  Develop a relationship with aging and death that serves your everyday life and choices, you will be happier, live full with the time you have and create way less drama and trauma around your own death and those you love.  What a gift, to be fully with those you love in life and in their transition.

I have this “come here, no go away” relationship with change. The kind of change that shifts something form the inside out.  Change that requires a true loss and gain, a gain I never expected or was beyond anything I could imagine.  A shift at your core or soul level that you know has happened to you and in you but is hard to explain to others.  I imagine others do as well.  I desire, even seek this kind of change, changes that help me be the best I can be while I often resist the very change it seems I am seeking because it doesn’t look like I wanted, thought it should, is hard or painful or will take too  long.   I typically want change if I can control the process and outcome, as if I am in charge and know it all.

As young children we learn to expect change as we grow up, grow smart and grow older.  All the while we, and others around us work very hard to maintain status quo and NOT change.  Change is the only constant, so goes the mantra.  When I hear that, I say to myself, “sure, that refers to other people not me”.  Somehow, parts of me believe that the Universe has a special plan for me, one where I get to choose my transformative experiences.   I want to fall in love, meet special people, go places and have experiences that transform me.  That make me feel something perhaps more alive, moved, connected, safe, calm, stable, confident, powerful, fulfilled, loved, valued or heard.  Perhaps I want to feel less of something. In either case, we all desire transformation at times in our lives but we don’t know exactly when or how those moments will occur, precisely because the temporarily suspend our sense of control and knowing.  And, we want something in return for being willing to be transformed. To return to a specific state of mind or being or perhaps to be propelled forward out of sticky stuckness.  We may be aware of this or asleep.

You know when you have been through a transformation.  You are literally 180 degrees from where you were before, 0 is different than 180.  We have a story or belief about who we think we are or aren’t or what we can or can’t do.  Something happens and a belief or story is forever changed.  Something is lost.  It is like there is a cap or a maximum and something needs to be removed in order to be replaced for a different outcome.  As if your inner world were an outfit, and you have to change the shoes, hat, and color or pattern to change the entire outfit. You can’t where both the old and new pairs of shoes at the same time.  There has to be a loss to create a space, a vacancy for a replacement or something different.  You can remember the old outfit, but it no longer is who you are now.  That is what transformation is, a death, something is lost forever, but we can remember its existence, which opens the door, brings our awareness and attention to something new, something we have never seen, felt or experienced before.  That is death and rebirth.  That is transformation.  One moment we have a story about who we think we are or aren’t, what we can or can’t do and that dies.  We can recall that “time” or “that belief, feeling or way of being, but we no longer embody it as if it is our truth, it becomes a memory.  That death created a vacancy, a blank slate, an empty room, a breath, a space.

I witness many transitions like this with my grandchildren, nieces or nephews while growing up. They established stories about who they are or aren’t and what they can or can’t do at various stages in their lives. Then they experience something that literally transforms them in a moment and the next moment forever more they are different changed.  The time one of them decided it was time to face their fear of riding roller coasters comes to mind.  One day, getting that ticket and standing in line. While in line anxiety builds, doubts arise and a few exists and re-enters occur.  Then we are at the front and in the car.  Checks and double checks on the safety bar and seatbelts.  The long, slow, creaky cranky ride up the huge hill designed to build your anxiety to a maximum, knowing there is no turning back now. No scream, halt or reason will stop the forward movement. It takes f o r e v e r.  And before we know it we are on a free fall with our stomachs seemingly in our heads.   We simultaneously feel exhilaration and terror as our anxiety is and fear is transformed into joy.  The expression on your face is indistinguishable between verge of crying and utter delight.  For a moment, our sense of control and knowing is suspended.  And before we can really have a thought about it, the breaks scream the unrealistic speeding cars to a halt.  And she exclaims, “I did it, I did it, that wasn’t as bad as I thought, that was fun, can we go again!”  She is transformed, 180 degrees different than she was just six minutes ago.   The fear is a memory and the joy a new empowering state, way of thinking and being for her now.

It is not that we really don’t want to have experiences that transform us, in fact, quite contrary.  It is part of the human condition to want transformation and to fear it simultaneously.  What we fear is losing control and the unknown, losing parts or pieces of ourselves that, while may even keep us stuck or miserable, they are at least known to us. Know translates to control.  We want to control our lives or our transformations but the very nature of transformation is that control has to be suspended in order create something different.  We are asked to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, to be comfortable with the foreign feeling of being out of control and not knowing, so that something different can come forth.  And we don’t know when those transformative moments will unfold.

Transformation can come from mundane or extravagant experiences that is not important.  We can invite it like the roller coaster, enter into situations and expect it, or stay asleep and resist what has presented itself to us (resistance comes in many forms).  Transformation asks of us, requires of us, really forces us to be vulnerable and risk stepping into something that is foreign.   I recently had another opportunity to raft 280 miles of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon with 16 people for 24 days.  You don’t sign up for an intimate experience with one of the Seven Wonders of the World and not hope to be changed somehow (the beauty alone!).

This would be my 10^th such trip and while I would never chose to swim in violent rapid (rated a 6-10 according to difficulty), I accept the risk that I might.  When I first starting rafting I formed a belief that I was strong and smart enough that I should never have to swim.   That I would never fall out of a boat as a passenger or would never cause a boat to flip (turn upside down) and dump all passengers and gear not strapped down if I was oaring.  I believed that it was a weakness in others if they swam or flipped.  That is until my first flip.  I was a passenger in a boat and yes I hung on and hung on until I realized I could continue to hang on and I would be “in” the boat, but the boat was underwater and I would soon drown if I hung on anymore.  So, I let go. I had to trust in a new belief in that second.  A belief that I could swim or find another solution and rescue myself.  And let me tell you, when you are about to run out of oxygen, you don’t waste much time thinking, your primal instincts kick in and you act. You get out of your own way to survive. The feeling is raw, it is what I imagine the cells of a moth feels like when it dying to become what it does not know yet, a butterfly.  When I was under water and in it, I didn’t know how it would end.

I made it and it was transformative.  I had a new belief about me and an upgrade on my beliefs about boating and boaters.  The transformation happened through the shock of being in the water against my will and control.  The swim itself was not that traumatic.  That was on my first trip and I have since done nine more.  I have not swam in most of them however, this past October I had a transformative swim.   In the ocean, the waves are synchronized and predictable.  You can get your breath in the troughs because you know you will be sprayed in the mayhem of the wave cresting at its peak.   In large rivers, waves are created from all directions and then crash into each other, some at crests, some build and build then peak and crash, others create large holes and wave’s crash down onto those holes.  This is because the flow is bouncing off canyon walls and huge rocks and debris underneath.  It creates a chaotic mayhem of forceful water moving downstream.

I was again a passenger in a boat that flipped at the top of one of these large rapids.  I was not afraid in the moment that slowed down and took f o r e v e r where I knew we were flipping but I was not yet in the water and had not time to think “take a big breath you will be down for a while”.  As I rose to the top (we have life jackets on), disoriented and trying to figure out which way is up or down, gasping for air, I kept floating up underneath the flipped boat where it is dark and there is no air.  The protocol is to take your hands and walk yourself out of under the boat to the side or away from the boat.  Before I could do that the boat and I would be pummeled by another set of mayhem waves. This kept repeating itself and I had no idea when it would stop, if it would stop before I ran out of air.  It was not a good know I was physically capable swimming to calmer waters but I had not oxygen in my lungs.  I couldn’t take a breath without taking in more water.

It felt like forever but likely lasted 60 seconds or less.  At one point I did make it to the side of the boat and saw my husband.  He asked if I was okay and it was then I realized how much water I had ingested because you cannot talk at all. This swim changed me.  Not in the way that I would never raft again, that is not the point, maybe I will or maybe I won’t.  It changed something inside of me at my core.   It suspended my sense of control and knowing and forced me to become comfortable with the uncomfortable.  To trust myself and the Universe in a way I had not before and that was transformative.

No one would choose to transform through trauma or drama, pain and suffering, or feeling out of control unable to turn back.   And yet we know it is part of the human experience that we can’t escape, whether invited and planned or dreaded and unplanned, fun or traumatic, large or small, frequent or infrequent, short or long is not the question.  We will experience transformation we just don’t know when we will be called to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.

The question is how will you respond?  That is your choice point.  Will you embrace or resist?  Our culture does not honor or give voice to the process of transformation.  We tell others to get over it, forget it, move on, ignore it, provide help to maintain status quo.   We don’t acknowledge and value that the fall we have to take, the loss we suffer, the associated grief, anger and emotions with the fall as an essential piece of the new.  Sometimes we find ourselves hanging on to what was because we have a need to have something the way it was, the way we think it should be or to be right.  This kind of resistance can lead to dis-ease.   We are blinded to the new norm that is being born and the knowledge that this new can be better than before, it is just beyond our imagination so we hang on.  We practically demand others transform, even ourselves, but basically don’t value the fall required to achieve the change.  It would be like saying get to the top of the mountain but don’t climb it.  There are no short cuts to this kind of change.  You can start to value the fall as necessary to where you want to go, to who you really are.  By doing so you are acknowledging and valuing that vulnerability is the only way to a more loving, creative, peaceful and wholehearted life.

We also don’t honor or value re-entry or integration of the new you back into the same world.  The new you, the YOU after a transformation, is fragile and vulnerable, like a new born.  The butterfly that emerges from the cocoon emerges in the same world the caterpillar left.  You are now different.  You know it, you feel it you want to share it, talk about it, live it and everything around you is the same.  Words diminish it, Will others understand?  Will they still like you provide what you need from them? What will you have to do, say, let go of, take on, in this new you?  You may doubt yourself and shame yourself.  You may want to deny, hide or make excuses to ease integration.  How will others react?  Others may throw blame, shame or guilt on you.  Integrating the new you can often be more challenging or traumatic than the actual transformation.   It may be tempting to want and try to return to the old way and some might even ask you too because they needed you to be what you were and now they have to adjust to the new you.

What won’t change is that you are your responsibility, whether you claim it or not.   A transformation transition requires your awareness, attention, kindness, compassion and patience.  It needs understanding, support and nurturing like a newborn learning to walk. You would never tell a toddler they are screwing or are bad in some way as they learn to walk, fall down and get up and walk again, however unstable or wobbly.  Nurture yourself and ask what you need from others in this transition time.  You may need more sleep, support and compassion in this newbie state.  Acknowledge and celebrate your transformation, you don’t have to fully understand it to live it.  Our culture does not value this important time, so you have too.

This re-entry as a new you is like the quiet time before dawn.  A time where the light is soft, getting stronger by the second, but slowly, unnoticeable if you stare but noticeable of you look away for a minute and look back.  Quiet, grounding, centering at the core, as if the sun is rising up through the earth instead of shining down on us.  The light at your core is shining out as you claim your beauty and power.  Honor the entire death and rebirth, the old and new, both are parts of the same whole, you.  Honor you.  Let others think what they will, it was never your business anyhow.  You have taken one more step into being comfortable with the uncomfortable, trusting you in a way you never have before and in doing so give others permission to follow.

I came back from my Grand Canyon River trip a different person.  Two months later I am still exploring, nurturing, caring for the new me in the same environment, conflicts, challenges (and wonder and beauty) I left.  It is a process not an event.  You are not alone.  I am not alone.  As I bring more compassion to myself I am able to bring compassion to those around me without judgment and feel the strength in giving a voice and witness to the vulnerability of our collective unfolding. I see another layer of how letting go brings be closer to my truth, my wholeness, my ability to be authentically me, freely and openly.    I look forward to becoming more and more comfortable with the uncomfortable. Will you?