Something About Me

My personal life means little to me anymore, however, my father convinced me that I should say something about my life because it would help people relate better to what I am saying. I am taking his sage, 91 year old advice. My father is my best friend.

This is a little bit about how I began in earnest the search for a path, for knowing me, only to find there is no path and what I was looking for is what is looking.

To tell this story, I need to back track a little to create some context. In 1994, I quit work due to extreme burnout. For seven years I had been an executive, mother, caregiver for my ill husband (the black ops. guy), sole support for my family, and homemaker/cook at night and on the weekends. I really needed some time off and thought a two month break would be sufficient, but when I landed on the sofa, I didn't get up much for four months and couldn't even be counted on to go to the grocery store. I was shocked by how utterly depleted I was and realized I had almost killed myself. I'm fortunate that I only have a couple of residual health issues.

During my tenure on the sofa, a long-time therapist friend pronounced me--spiritually destitute. At first I was offended by this statement, and then I saw it was true. My condition was a desperate realization. There was no where left to go but inward. I had no idea who I was or why I was here on this planet, and what was worse saw I never had known. I was at ground zero.

I felt drawn and sometimes pushed into a personal retreat of intense internal discovery lasting almost four years. My marriage dissolved early in the process leaving me enough money to take care of myself and the children for four months. Initially I thought I just needed another two months or so, and during this time I would learn some really useful things about myself and my spirituality, and then go back to work before the money ran out. However, that was not to be the case. Whenever I tried to produce income with methods used in the past, I either got sick, or was met with the equivalent of an energetic stonewall. Nothing would happen. When I did things that supported my spiritual process, circumstances and finances somehow worked. I lived for four years this way. A close friend's assessment of this period of my life was that I lived in an altered state of grace in which the miraculous became commonplace.

Most of the four years were spent in quiet mystical rapture, watching, listening, contemplating, and being in union with God. I began to keep notes on file cards of my thoughts, experiences and realizations. The more I realized, the more I knew less and less about what God is. It seemed odd to know less and less about something, and yet... feel more and more connected and at one with it. Knowings, thoughts appeared in my awareness often with a clarity and origin outside of my normal thought processes; they were deeper, more profound and connected to all of life. I felt compelled to write them down. Eventually, with a stack of file cards three inches high I noticed I was writing a book. And so I began the process of converting my cards into a book and continued writing for the next three years.

Due to personal distress over my parent's divorce I barely completed high school, and did not finish college so there were distinct gaps in my education. I didn't actually know how to write other than short business communications, so taking on a book was not an easy or fast process in the beginning. I also needed to expand my vocabulary. Then there were additional issues like learning how to structure a book and writing about spirituality, a difficult subject to communicate in any kind of linear fashion. Of course, there was also grammar to bone-up on, something that I still sometimes puzzle over. I dove in anyway.

Many friends came forward to support me at this time and I literally would not have made it without them. There were also a few who thought I was being a lazy duff and told me to just go out and get back to work. What they couldn't see is that whenever I tried to do that nothing worked, and one thing I know about myself is that I know how to manifest results. Whenever I am clear about something; it occurs. It was like the universe was conspiring against that happening. When I let go of my old ways for living life and making things happen then a flow would happen and life just worked for me and the girls.

Toward the end of this period, I reconnected with an old friend, Jack Fitzwater, one of my former college professors. In one of our calls he said, go teach English at a university. I reminded him that I never got a degree. He said,"Who cares, it will work!"

What he said had a different ring to it, a kind of clarity, and I knew to pay attention and do what he said. I spoke to the local university and a summer teacher had just gotten very ill so they agreed to talk with me. We got along fabulously. My executive background and manuscript convinced them I was the one for the job, and they hired me--without a degree. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I taught four classes of college level ESL (English as a second language) to foreign professionals and executives. We all had a great time.

At the end of that summer, I began to think about where I fit in the world. I had no idea what to do with myself, but being a commuting corporate executive was not it anymore. All I asked for was to be allowed to do God's work and take good care of my children. It became my mantra. I knew if these two things were taken care of then everything else in my life would turn out.

A month later, I dialed a wrong phone number--the direct private line of the person who hired me at a corporate charitable foundation. I thought I was calling my daughter's school regarding their annual fundraiser and the call went well logically for about one minute. Then I just stopped and couldn't figure why it had turned strange, why the person on the other end of the phone was no longer making any sense. So I asked her if she was new at her job. She huffily said, "No, I'm a Senior Vice-President." Well, there are no Senior, or otherwise, Vice-Presidents at public schools. Finally, we sorted out that I had dialed a wrong number and we got to chatting and I discovered they had an opening that I was perfectly qualified for. We both agreed this could not have been a coincidence so I went in for an interview and the rest is history. I began as Director of Special Projects and ended up as As Vice President and General Manager of the foundation. I was responsible for producing large high-profile charitable auctions benefiting low income families in Northern California. Later in conjunction with the Russian National Orchestra I produced auctions bringing art and music to children in Moscow orphanages.

So the girls and I were living in gorgeous Napa Valley, California. In terms of beautiful surroundings, great wine, prestige, fun, making a difference, loving one's job, etc., it just didn't get any better, and along the way I had spent time with Sophia Loren, Steve Martin, the Getty family and others.

Then I met John De Ruiter, my spiritual teacher, in April 2000. In our first meeting, we conversed for three hours and my entire life shifted. He saw into the core of my being and spoke to me from that place. He spoke in a highly specific way about how I view reality and what my abilities are as a being, things that I knew were true about me and had never spoken of to anyone. I flew to Canada twice after that to speak with him.

I'm not someone who gets guruitis, meaning I do not give my power to someone just because they are awakened/enlightened, etc. Over the years, I have spent time with powerful awakened people and I knew no one who could begin to touch what he is, so I packed everything and the girls and I moved to Canada (I'm Canadian). Of course, it wasn't quite that simple because one daughter was 13 at the time and she adamantly refused to go insisting for a month that I find her another family to live with. My 18 year old was thrilled to be off on a new adventure. Stewart, was upset because as far as he was concerned I was leaving him and we had only been dating for nine months. Jacques, the girl's father, insisted I pay for him to fly to Canada to see the girls every six weeks or he wouldn't sign documents allowing me to take them out of the country. It all got worked out and we left on August 1, 2001 for what I thought would be one year.

I walked away from everything except the girls and the family cat. Jacques came to visit once in August and then had a massive stroke and died in December 2001. Stewart and I went back and forth for awhile and I still thought I would go back to the U.S. in a year, so we got married in March 2002, three months after Jacques died. I ended up staying in Canada for 10 years. Stewart and I only lived in the same country at the same time for three of our first 10 years together. The rest of the time we went back and forth seeing each other as much as we could. At times, it was extremely difficult to keep our marriage intact. All I knew was that I could not leave what I was learning until I was fully baked. I could not cut short what I was becoming. I had to do what I had to do at any cost. Several times our marriage almost came apart and I don't blame him at all for sometimes wanting to get out of it. Yes, we are still together and having a great time.

It took 10 years for me to shift my identity from the personal and self to what precedes this. I gave the entirety of me and all of my loyalty to a place of deep profound knowing of what is true within. I completely let go into what I can only call God. I came back to the U.S. in 2010.

Years whittled down to two pages can only provide a thumbnail sketch, but I think it gives a flavor of what occurred and a little of my process. Life simply tuned on a dime and took new directions, which cost me almost everything in order to follow what I knew was true within. And... I was willing to pay the entire cost of everything.

So I ask you:

What are you willing to sacrifice for what you know is profoundly real?

If you give yourself over to living a superficial life of comfort, a life just for you, would you be willing to die without ever really knowing what your life is for just so you could preserve your comfort?

Little by little, wean yourself.
This is the gist of what I have to say.
From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood,
move to an infant drinking milk,
to a child on solid food,
to a searcher after wisdom,
to a hunter of more invisible game.

Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo.
You might say, "The world outside is vast and intricate.
There are wheatfields and mountain passes,
and orchards in bloom.
At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight
the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding."

You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up
in the dark with eyes closed.
Listen to the answer.

There is no "other world."
I only know what I've experienced.
You must be hallucinating.       -Rumi

"However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?" ~ Gautama Buddha 

Peace and love...