2010 August | The Journey of Story

Allowing things to be easy can be hard

August23

There’ve been a number of major things in my life recently which have all been leading me back to a focus on consciously including the divine in my life. This isn’t a new idea from, since around the end of my senior year of high school I’ve explored spirituality and connection in lots of different ways. Today I consider myself a “mystical freelancer.”

I guess the resurgence really started when I wanted to try the Resident Pricing Exercise which Mark Silver teaches at the Heart Of Business. Mark talks about starting this exercise by performing something called The Remembrance. This is a wonderful practice, which comes out of the Sufi tradition. I had never done anything like it, and found it to be remarkably profound. It’s all about “remembering” our connection to the divine, and really feeling that inside. This quickly led to me starting and later finishing Mark’s 14 day challenge.

At the same time I’ve also been taking the Grace Blessings Mastery class which my dear friend Erika Rock teaches. If I was going to summarize this class in five words, they would be:

Letting Go and Letting God

It’s all about discovering how magical and how easy things can be when we let go and let the divine work through us.

Problem is, I was having a lot of trouble letting go. I really felt for the last several days like I was in the hard. I felt frustrated, as if whatever I did wasn’t enough. I felt adrift.

“But wait, there’s more!”

And on top of all of this, I had a session tonight with spiritual alchemist Melody Kiersz. We explored what I’ve been experiencing, and she helped me to really feel it, which created the opportunity to shift. Things started to become very clear as I realize that I was not very open to receiving from the divine.

I recognized this as programming, something which was entrained into me, not something I really believed.

Then, all of a sudden, I felt very strongly that receiving from the divine is, in fact, a form of recognition, of worship.

I realized that to receive gracefully, open, fully is a gift to the giver, and the divine really wants to give to us, to me.

And that realization changed everything.

I have to say, that I post this with some trepidation about how you, my readers will respond. But I’m really feeling called to do it, and so I will answer the call and push the button.

Share and Enjoy:

Print This Post

posted under Personal Development, spirituality | 24 Comments »

Barbara Cook – Brilliant Storyteller of the Musical Stage

August22

I’m not sure how I was first introduced to Barbara Cook’s music. Actually, that’s not quite true – I first heard her a a kid growing up listening to the broadway cast album of The Music Man she was the original Marian the Librarian. I clearly remember not liking her all that much – her voice was to “legit” sounding, too “operatic” for my 8 or 9 year old taste.

Barbara has had an amazing carier in musicals, but that’s not where I was reintroduced to her – somewhere I got one of her more recent concert performances – she’s been doing her own cabaret shows for at least the last 30 years or so – and at age 82 she’s still brilliant – maybe better then ever. Just listen to this – recorded a few years ago in Melbourne:

Listening to Barbara I feel like I’m not hearing words or notes, but more like pure story and emotion. She doesn’t tell you a story, she weave’s it around you.

Here’s some more

And the grand finale (at least for the moment)

On Friday one of her songs came up in shuffle on my iTunes – and it just stopped me – I stopped working and just listened. She does it to me every time.
Now that’s brilliant!