The Smoldering Fire of Relationship Anger—Dealing with Depression, Sadness and Fear

The Battle Scars of Soul Contracts

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh

My scales are shedding. I can fly high and far now. I can see the sadness and destruction among the trees and the barren lands that once were a beautiful deep forest. I connect with the species of the Earth that are now being eliminated by selfish and profit-hungry humans. I see the faces of the children in Africa and the Middle East, Asia and even in North America who are huddling in makeshift shelters and crying for lack of food. I cannot feed or care for them all. It is not within my power. It pains me and my heart sends me back to my cave to gather strength for my next flight.

As I return to my own shelter, both physically and in my mind, I am attacked by those around me! In spite of my strength, I am not strong enough to protect myself from their blows, especially their words or their actions. As I matured in my youth, I often returned from these trips of understanding to find those around me so blind to their own behaviors. I respond to their fire and claws with my own defenses, baring my teeth, screaming and returning the fire. Then I retreat to the cavern to mourn the encounter. I have spent years in my reflective, “Hermit” times collecting these memories and analyzing them for what they are: my attackers are reflections of my own Ego. Thus I must retreat and go deep within the cave and find out what I can do about my own kind.

Hurt attracts hurt. Anger fuels anger. I attracted selfishness, depression, sadness, guilt, shame, blame and fear. These are the fires I battle, the lessons I challenge. I honor my faults as a part of my scars and growing pains. I have endured many swords and arrows, licked my wounds, hid deep within the mountain, and recovered. But I will always be grateful that I can go back into these memories and see them as Soul Contracts with those I attracted. Truly, I have found that my deepest wounds, those times when I was injured the most and the cuts run deepest, were the claw marks and tears from those that I loved the most.

You may be surprised to find out that we all have Soul Contracts. If you haven’t heard of them, we can spend some quality time addressing yours if you wish. But I believe after reading this section, you will be able to recognize yours and start to heal them when you are ready. It is in our relationship contracts during this lifetime that we learn our lessons and grow into the beings we are supposed to be.

Simply put, Soul Contracts are the Soul Mate relationships that have significant meaning in our lives here on the planet, including our parents, our children and our closest loved ones, including friends, significant dating relationships and/or spouses. If you believe as I do that we are Spiritual beings here having a Physical experience on this planet, you will agree no matter what flavor of belief you adopt, we meet the ones we are closest to for a significant reason. We are here to learn and grow. We are here to fly and dive and swim and play and laugh. We are here to mourn and hurt and suffer as well. This is why we are human!

Many believe we choose our parents before we are born. This I understand to be a most important Contract because they are the most influential members of our lives early on, whether as a positive example for adulthood or as a significant challenge to outgrow and learn what not to do any longer. Regardless if you believe we were connected with any of our Soul Mates before this lifetime or not, we know that environmentally, our families play a major role in our development in all aspects of life. Most often, our parent, sibling and additional familial relationships influence our choices whether we are education-oriented, whether we pursue careers or are complacent in a workplace job, and where we worship our Creator or if we choose to believe in one at all.

Once we are in our Sacred Initiation, our choices for friends, our mentors and teachers, and our activities and goals are influenced by additional, long-term Soul Mates. Often, we make our life plans based on our peers, our dating relationships and how we choose to leave the proverbial nest. We often choose formative Soul Mates in our post-high-school years as well, both as potential long-term partners and long-term friends. I have seen a pattern sociologically that the majority of adults stay in touch with their very closest friends in high school and college specifically and then they choose to loosely connect with acquaintances from other life encounters as needed or in social situations (e.g. coworkers, community members, etc.) I am more social than almost anyone I know, so thus I have hundreds of friends and acquaintances. In fact, on my social network sites, I actually know the majority of the people that I am “friends” with on those sites, other than the business acquaintances I keep on the business-related ones. I believe it is important to maintain healthy and long-term friendships.

Our deepest Soul Mate relationships are in our private, romantic connections with significant partners, spouses and lovers. The influences they have within our psychic sphere are strongest because, just like our parents, there is a strong emotional attachment to these relationships. With the exception of those who are unable to attach emotionally (whether because of a mental disability or a social phobic disorder), the majority of us crave to be in a community. The basic need to be met in our Soul Mate relationships is the need to love and be loved. We are not meant to be alone, but everyone’s idea of a partner relationship differs by sex and gender, gender preference, belief system, environmental upbringing and connectivity level.

I definitely don’t mean to come across so academic when I write about what I actually have a lot of passion discovering and teaching myself. I am truly reflective and grateful for all my Soul Mate relationships, even the most difficult. And I have learned to be who I am because of each and every one of them. Again, the Dragon self must see his or her reflection in others and actually understand or be aware of that reflection in order to learn from the experiences. I can see parts of myself in every dating partner and marriage relationship I have had—both positive and negative traits. This is so important for me to be able to relate all my experiences in my coaching, training and student development as well. But this also has given me a humble perspective on my own behavior and how to set strong boundaries with others in order to respect and love myself as the Creation of the Universe that I am. I may have reflections, but I am my own being. All of us are unique. It is the beauty of the dance of humanity.

Relationships—the Catalyst for Pain and Drama

A majority of my psychological and sociological studies have involved the ideas of archetypes. This is both a Jungian-based academic concept and a sociologically patterned Spiritual concept to me. Archetypal studies and understanding these patterns gives me the basis in which I can become a character/persona of depth and meaning. Archetypes, simply put, are behaviors that are categorized and build a specific personality type. Every human role is an Archetype, from the Hero to the Magician to the Bully and to the Slave. To become a great actress, one must be prepared for a life of tragedy and sadness. This is somewhat a prerequisite to become the best of the best in both storytelling and in performance. How can one become a true lover, a mother, or a divorcee if one hasn’t been through those archetypes as I have? My life has been given the mosaic path of constant pain and drama of these Soul Mate partnerships to teach me my soul’s strength and life’s passion. I can’t have the perspective of gratefulness without the horrors of remorse and regret. With all my extreme experiences, I am just so glad I survived!

I wasn’t always a psychologically-aware individual. And even now, I can’t say my relationships have shown that I am actually a “healthy” woman or not. You see, most of my attractions and Soul Mate relationships have been tragic, destructive and explosive in some way, leaving the debris of broken dreams and severed family connections, either with my partner’s family or within my own. Add a healthy dose of “dysfunctional,” alcoholic-style behaviors on both sides of my family and the likelihood of a successful partnership was just sabotaged greatly by the attractions of others with similar family backgrounds. I heard once from a counseling friend that we can be in a room with 100 potential partners and we always attract the one unhealthy attraction over the potential 99 other more healthy relationship choices. It took dozens of these unhealthy relationships to finally see and break the attraction patterns. Starting early on, I allowed myself to become derailed from my original passions but it ultimately led me to where I am today.

Instead of reflecting deeply upon the hurt from each relationship, I can tell you that I have experienced many facets of these challenges. I will expound only upon the most challenging of all the Soul Mate relationships in my life. In 1999, I lost my children in a terrible and destructive custody battle that left the three of them and my Soul scarred for life. I fought back and regained my rights as a parent after two years of preparing for the battle, experiencing great rage and an insatiable driving force to protect my children from the same destructive belief system that was imposed upon me during the marriage. My kids’ father never knew how to love anyone but himself. This was not completely his fault, as he was raised to be narcissistic, yet it carried over into our family. I was content not to be in a relationship, desiring greatly to be a doctor. Yet the day we met, I knew he was the father of my children. Thus we were meant to meet as the Soul Parents of the three wonderful beings I call my Angels.

Unfortunately, this Soul Mate relationship ended worse than you can imagine. Those individuals, such as my ex and his family, who can never admit they are wrong and find that in order to support their own ideologies, they must find someone to hate and blame. I have even recently known of this continued anger and abuse by this family because they systematically and illegally kept my two younger children from having any contact with me. My ex-in-laws are the principle offenders, perpetuating a cycle of fear and hatred they started in order to control those around them. And they do it in the name of their god Jesus. But this too is a Contract I have faced. Unlike them, I am saddened by their inability to break free from the pattern and I am even more saddened that it has now poisoned my own children. Yet truth be told, we all have the ability to break free from these scenarios, often at a great price. I will explain further in another chapter, but those scars they inflicted upon me and my family run very deep. I am truly and humbly grateful for my own path, which allowed me freedom from such fear-based ideology and from the pride that comes from being stuck in such a terrible and infective dogma.

I also dealt with physical and emotional abuse from a partner who was bi-polar shortly after the divorce. I attracted this partner because of my self-loathing after such a traumatic event. With all the lies that the family aforementioned spread about me, I truly degraded myself and my worth. Now I realize it was a symptom to a greater problem and I am free from the degradation. Between the allowance of this relationship and the one with the kids’ father, I am amazed I am not vengeful or bitter. I am grateful for being able to let go what is not my battle. I lost my path and my way home during those times because of anger’s stronghold on my drive to fight for a better life and to battle abuse and control. I have experienced numbness and great loss. I have a deep and unending love for my children that will never die. And in spite of my true closeness to my oldest daughter who lives near me, my other two children are not allowed to know of this unconditional love I have for them and always had. And at the time, I was truly not able to express these emotions to them because I was so caught up in the sadness of the situation. Once the abusive and controlling relationships were broken, however, I was able to find new paths and new happiness.

I have been truly in love. I believe out of all the Soul Mate relationships I can honestly say that it happened only three times so far, and because of the controlling nature of the aforementioned Soul Mate relationships, I didn’t truly love either of them. Infatuation is not love. Placing one’s self in a position above or below another person is infatuation. True Love between Soul Mates is that connection from the Higher Self that leads two Soul Mates to connect on a Spiritual and Equal Level. I mean the kind of love that binds you and holds you together in a permanent connection with the other person. Soul Contracts are not all truly loving ones, but those that give us True Love are meant to change us as well.

I truly fell in love for the first time when I returned to Colorado from a year in Spain. I was in a short-lived relationship and ended up at a resort area. I met this love when we worked together at a hotel. We lived together almost right away, and it was always loving and generous and mutual, for almost two years. When it ended, it took years of sadness and remorse because he was unable to break free from his first Soul Mate contract with his children’s mother—I thought we would be married, but he was not allowed to make that commitment to me. I felt as if I lost my best friend. I had to let him go and it was one of the hardest experiences I have ever encountered, especially because it came suddenly. To this day, I still hear from him occasionally. I became a better person because of him. And he was the one that healed my heart from all the pain of the divorce and the separation I felt away from my children. To him, I will always be grateful.

The second of my deepest Soul Contracts was the tragic suicide of my partner (aforementioned in other chapters), bound together like Heathcliffe to Catherine, and tragically he was unable to let me go. I truly felt there was a Soul Connection, even though he was dishonest, unfaithful the entire relationship by committing to many other women, and he had no true love for anyone left when he took his own life. It started as an infatuation on both of our parts, and once he was on a spiral of self-destruction and gave up all the other women, I finally felt true love for him for the first time. But in spite of my deep love, my role was as a Rescuer and his was as a Saboteur, the destroyer of both my life and his. However, this was the Contract that broke the Pattern of unhealthy, controlling relationships. Once I realized he was not meant for me, I could actually see who he truly was as a human being and I felt all the love of the Universe for him. That being said, I truly understand the loss of someone close to such a tragedy and can be there for others who are and have gone through the same. And I am more than relieved that any of my own self-deprecation Archetypes (Victim, Martyr, or Damsel) had all been confronted and I broke through those patterns as well.

Then a strange occurrence happened last year at this time. I had spent years asking the Universe for a Soul Mate that was kind, that would share complimentary interests, and genuine. The day after I discovered my ex had taken his life, I went away for a weekend and met the man I truly can now say with whom I am on the right path. I desire this relationship to be a deep and long-term love. We are not perfect. I have had a fantasy idea of what I wanted and realized I actually have everything I truly need right now with him. We have been travelling extensively and now that we are settled for a short time, we can spend the time together to find out if this love will be true and genuine. I truly feel in my heart that I was finally given the opportunity to find that Soul Mate relationship with whom I can connect to the Divine. Finally, after years of attracting control to my independence, I am finding a balance and a calm and loving partner with whom I can see myself and I am so grateful.

Soul Mates, Stereotypes and the Impact of Change

Soul Mates are the reflection or complement to these Archetype selves in the Mirror of another Soul. As I have alluded to above, if we are a Victim, they are either a Bully or a Manipulator or something we attract so we remain a Victim until we are ready to change. But if we are a Shaman or a Healer, we attract a Student, a Seeker, or on the opposite side, an Addict or a Martyr. The Liberator attracts the Slave. The Artist attracts the Muse. It all depends what we have set up for ourselves in our own world. Many believe we set these Soul Contracts before we are born—thus we choose our relatives, our mates, our challenges, our teachers and our children. In my studies and my meditations and channeling, I have found that these ideas resonate with me, but they may not with everyone. It is each of our life path’s responsibility to uncover the mystery of what we believe and why. And we ask our Guides to let us know the truth.

No matter what that Truth may be to you, do not limit yourself to believe that one group has the market on such a Truth. It is in the connection of humanity itself, in the love and community and not in the separation, that you will find such a Truth. So when you look at your Soul Mates, present and past, family or partner or friend, look in the mirror and see yourself in their eyes. All humanity has the same ability to get beyond the faith of their parents and find the truths for themselves. Then that Soul Mate relationship that troubled you for so many years will actually be healed.

I have been so fortunate to have made some amazing friends and have reconnected with so many people after all these years. As I have expounded upon these changes in my life, I find it so refreshing that the karma we build early on can be the saving grace of one’s rebirth. In this lifetime, I have created many of these archetypal characters of myself. I have been given many of these Archetypes just by the connections, environment and relationships I have had. Like a diamond with many brilliant facets, these faces are all different sides of the same stone. I have experienced the Archetypes of the Curious Child, the Evangelist, the Samaritan, the Femme Fatale, the Saint, the Martyr, the Eternal Mother and the Sage all in one short lifetime. I have also been given many titles that correspond with my life’s work, including Teacher, Mother, Leader, Advocate, Actor, Visionary, Mentor, and Friend. I am truly blessed to have been through such pain, so many transitions, and yet in spite of myself, I have become the woman I was meant to be all along.

Archetypes vs. Stereotypes

Now, if you look at your own life, you may be reading these chapters and either feeling grateful that your life has been so much less eventful, or you may be mortified at my attractions or what I have been through. I have one word of advice for all readers and all friends and family: Judgment of another’s character and experiences is a limitation to one’s true understanding of one’s own Journey. Let me explain a little. You see, if we choose to create a judgment or a stereotype for someone we know, and then we label that person as being only that stereotype. But we know that all humans are much more than just one archetypal persona, so how can one be just one stereotype?

Here’s the difference: A stereotype separates us from others by lumping all characteristics into one archetypal persona. Archetypes are multi-faceted, with many positive and negative traits. A stereotype is usually a negatively connotative and shallow label that is created by a lower-minded ideology. An archetype can actually cross all stereotypes. But a stereotype limits the inclusion of most archetypes to its definition. For future reference, I can include a list of all known psychological archetypes in my appendices, but for now, just know that there are hundreds of facets to choose from regarding the archetypal patterns. Archetypes, after all, are traits common but specifically found in one individual as a part of their personality makeup. However, stereotypes are common references to a group, race, gender or living environment.

Most of you probably feel I was oversimplifying something you already know. This may be true. But these ideas are a lot more convoluted than they appear. In acting, I discovered early on that a stereotype for a role is only a blanket covering of the role. Remember, most playwrights and screenplay authors alike develop story arcs and characters that confront each other in some way. We have a Hero or Heroine who is chosen by the gods to be a leader and warrior. We then have a protagonist, an arch-nemesis if you will, whose goal is to harm or challenge the Hero in some way. Almost always there is a Sage or Wise Person who comes in to lead the Hero into a higher purpose. And it is always enjoyable to watch in a journey when the Hero encounters his or her Lover. Finally, there’s always a second level to a truly classic writing when there is a Comedian or Trickster thrown in for comic relief and to teach a lesson. The Jester or Fool is still by far my favorite character to write and to play. Each of these Archetypes can be a part of your own life and journey if you find them.

No matter how you find and recognize personas, they are there in front of us to teach us to change. We can often learn to be a stronger character by emulating those characters found in literature. However, the majority of the best writers and entertainers of our time have experienced these relationships as well. I challenge you to write down everyone you know who is in your circle or used to be. I recommend you write as many Archetypes next to their name as possible and see if you see a reflection, an Archetype you also possess, in the other person.

Now go into yourself and find out where you are hiding your depression, sadness, anger or fear. Why do you have these feelings? Are they specifically related to another person, especially to one of your Soul Mates? Do you have an anger that won’t go away and you can’t pinpoint where it is coming from? Do you suffer from depression or anxiety related illnesses? What or whom are you afraid of? Write down all of these answers as well and match your lower-minded feelings with those who caused you somehow to feel this way.

Finally, you are going to take all those traits and see them in yourself. Who saw any of these traits in you? Can you pinpoint why? Who in your life would you consider a Soul Mate? Can you actually identify the Contract you have to learn with this person? Is there a challenge or conflict associated with a Soul Mate? Are there stereotypes that caused these confrontations such as religion, race or age? And do you see every person you consider a Soul Mate to be a mirror of who you are? These exercises will help you identify where you need to grow, what you need to confront, and how you truly feel about yourself and others. If you need additional help going through this exercise, feel free to contact me or attend one of our classes about this center-based discovery.

Depression, Anxiety and Fear – Emotional Battle Scars that Stunt Our Higher Purpose

Do you have any scars? What do they look like to you? Are yours deep wounds or superficial cuts that need some TLC? Where do you want to fly next to find out if you are ready to confront or challenge your next Soul Mate? Are there any Soul Contracts you have or are in the midst of fulfilling that are painful or cause you to withdraw or retreat? Do you still have conflict with a parent or a sibling? And what do you choose to do when you are confronted with these conflicts?

I have had long fits of depression and anxiety. Anyone who has to fight for their own children does, no matter which side of the battle you are on. Those that control and abuse cannot actually become happy or find happiness because they will always be unfulfilled by the longing to control the other partner. Those that are victims of control will too never find happiness because they cannot release themselves from their victimhood long enough to be whole and complete without the oppression. I have been in the latter role several times, thus the Soul Contract pattern I had to break, first with my mother, then with my partners as described above. I too have gaping scars and sometimes painful sores that are reopened with the arrows of anger and hatred.

But depression, anxiety and fear are only mechanisms that hold one back from growth. In a recent lecture I attended from the world renowned Dr. John DeMartini, I had a revelation that led back to my first discovery of his material and those of my other mentors (both alive and long since passed). I realized that I have been right all along knowing that the past bouts of depression and anxiety were fantasies: they are nothing more than my expectation to be attached to the outcome of a situation. Yes, as a wonderful mother who lived my entire life for my children, I had my highest priority on their health and well-being, but did not have the capability and means of acting out these priorities because I was controlled and subjugated by my husband, his money and his family.

At the time, during the divorce, I attempted to take my own life. And when I awoke to realize that I was not truly the horrible person they wanted everyone to believe I had become (because I started rebelling against the inappropriate behaviors), I knew it wasn’t truly all my doing and definitely it was not all my fault. Promises were made to me during the matrimony that were not honored and most of them just flatly refused—many of them were fantasies because he was incapable of keeping these promises, such as equality and allowing me to be independent and have my own career. He was not able to live this way, but it was a lie going into the marriage that I did not foresee.

Also, I was a passionate artist, writer, actor and singer. These talents were actually neglected and I was “told” I was not to continue them. In fact, at one point right before the divorce, he turned off my phone, sold my car and cut off my computer access to the outside world. These acts are considered abusive by any belief and law. However, they are also reflections of a controlling system that wanted me to be the fantasy as well, to be “content” to be stifled and stay at home to do nothing but raise children and not let anyone else know of my anger and sadness at the failure of the marriage. To admit that one is wrong then would allow one the freedom to allow change in order to grow. I will whole heartedly admit I made a poor judgment and chose to marry the wrong partner. He was the Soul Mate father of my children, but our relationship was never meant to last under these false pretenses.

Do not be misguided by my words. If you chose to give up part of yourself in order to be content in a marriage, then you have chosen to change your priorities accordingly. My fantasy was that I had no intention of giving up my career plans or my acting and artistic passions, but was expected to do so and actually told to do so by my mother-in-law at the time, who actually controlled much of our marriage. Do not feel horrible about my history—I chose to be a Victim and a Damsel in this lifetime in order to break free from this role. I wanted nothing more than independence and was faced with the true challenge of being a Slave. It is an important part of our growth to wake up and be aware of this pattern.

You Have A Choice—Let It Go

Yet I can see that millions of people today still remain in these roles and these dogmas. I know women who convert to Christianity or Islam in order to please their idea of a God and a spouse, only to find themselves trapped in these situations. In the movie “Not Without My Daughter” the main character also faces this when she is trapped and kidnapped and taken far away from her family and to a Muslim country where she was not able to leave and return to the U.S. with her child. She eventually found a way. In my case, I had to leave the family without my children and fight to have them again, only to continue to be painted as the “bad guy” so they can justify what is still happening.

I know other women who don’t survive these scenarios. I met many of them in my lifetime. However once I met one of the strongest women I have ever known, Wendy Titelman, who lost custody to her husband who was molesting her children. To this day, she hasn’t seen her children since they were babies. And this was here in the U.S. Her case has gone to the Supreme Court, but the outcome has not been a victory. Hopefully, one day her children will too find out how much their mother sacrificed to fight for them.

I have every right to be angry. So does Wendy. So do my friends throughout the World, men and women, who have to challenge a domineering and unfair system. But the only True Freedom is that given to us when we realize we are all part of the Collective Consciousness. We all accept these battles, these scars, and these tragedies. Losing a child to drugs, alcohol or suicide cannot be any less tragic than one lost to divorce or religious oppression. Losing a parent or a spouse or a sibling to a needless accident, disease or war is horrible. Yet we all feel the pain together. How can we alter these relationships? We can’t. We can only alter the one part of us that is the factor within the relationship: Ourselves. How do we get over the depression, sadness and fear once and for all? We accept them and then no longer allow them to control our lives.

Let go of the fantasy. Let go of what should be. We know if this was a “fair” world, these tragedies and losses would not be happening to wonderful and spiritual people. But because of these atrocities, we have wonderful and spiritual people waking up and being born every day. Do your daily part instead. Stand up for someone you see hurting. Allow yourself to grieve and recover from these scars. Love your children and your spouses for who they are, and if you cannot, let them go. And if you have it in your heart to change anything in the World, change the one thing that will open you to the next level of Consciousness: Be grateful for what you have and where you have been, for all of it, because you are the beautiful Soul that was given these gifts and challenges to make you the very unique person whom you are. I am grateful for all of you, my friends and family, who have taken the time to read this and reflect upon your own lives. Do not live in fear, for you have everything right in front of you.

Taming the Dragon – Righteous Fire

Igniting the Righteous Fire

In this chapter I will explore the awakening of the Righteous Fire within myself and our society. If you will allow me to give you some background, I have explained more about myself and my childhood awakenings. If you read through it I hope you can understand that my journey, like so many, has been challenging and because of these challenges, I have become a strong leader but also I have created a strong outer shell. Like most everyone, I have been directly attacked by those around me, but it doesn’t stop me from loving humanity or those that are in true need of love, guidance and are willing to change. Thus I see attacks by others specifically toward me as a challenge and as a learning experience. I hope you can all have these same revelations.

From my earliest childhood memories, I knew I had one specifically strong, powerful and yet debilitating gift: Righteous Anger. I know now it is part of my makeup, possibly my past life accumulation of experience, but it comes from the childlike attitude that the World is an unjust place because there are too many injustices. I was not one of those girls who would burst into tears when offended. Instead, I would become enraged, often with bursts of loud, angry expressions of “that’s not fair!” and other times resorting to a wrongfully appropriate behavior, such as hitting the offender (usually my brother or one of the neighbor boys), or freaking out (usually reserved for my mother and father). I am now slow to anger and rarely allow it to get to me. Not that this is 100 percent guaranteed….

Many of my life’s relationships realized early on that I was the “strong” one. I carried a large stick it seems. I was a “tom boy” in grade school, though the label is subjective. I wanted to do what the Cub Scouts were doing, not what we were doing in Brownies. My mother was one of our Brownie Troop leaders, but my father was into hunting and camping and was excellent at carpentry and fixing up the house. From my earliest memories, my fondest recollections were doing activities like sawing wood and hammering nails. Between third and fifth grade, I started to become passionate about being able to do anything the boys could do. I had a train set and a microscope and a guitar and a plethora of collectible animals. I loved riding horses and I kept a detailed diary that was about how someday I would travel to all the cool and far-away places my aunts and uncles travelled. I wanted to be a doctor and I was determined to do it.

At this time as well I was cast in my first musical—“The King and I”—at the local high school. I was bit by the acting bug! I had a few parts in third and fourth grade in school. But this opened up a new ballgame for me. I religiously participated in church choir as well, which was such a gift and opened many doors for me throughout my life. I was a natural “ham” and a natural leader, so this was my outlet to shine. It was also a strong influence on my siblings because I encouraged them strongly to be a part of this world. I had a feverishly active imagination as well. At one point I decided I wanted to be a pirate and taught my sister how to be one too! I scarfed up books every summer as if I was starving for stories. I read all types of fantasies, from the Narnia series to the Dark Is Rising. I couldn’t get enough of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. And I loved any adventure that took me to a far-away place.

I also realized by fifth grade that there was a terrible rift between my parents and me, but specifically, I was always fighting vehemently with my mother. The anger started building when I would see her do things I thought were unjust. I am the oldest of five siblings, and by the time I was 10 I had a brother and two sisters. I could go into detail about all the stupid fights we had, but it’s not necessary since most of them were sibling rivalry. But my brother was also very angry and we fought almost daily. After studying sociological behaviors, I realize that because my mother had been so openly angry at my father and the injustice she felt about her own life, her projection toward me specifically and the rage she outwardly expressed on us as children trickled down to our own behaviors. As the oldest, I was always told by my parents that it was my fault if we misbehaved because I was supposed to be the good example. This was so wrong to me! This created a lot of the mindset I adopted on how to truly understand fairness and rightness in my world.

Friends, I implore you to know that this was a common dysfunctional pattern among parents at that time in history. I am not excusing it, but even cinema at the time showed how there was a strong divide between adults and children. There were the wars many fathers fought in Korea and Vietnam. The country was openly rebellious against the system and these wars. In the 70’s as a child, these sentiments were also rebellions against the system of gender roles, with feminism and women’s liberation. I was definitely a rebel and a critical thinker. My mother was a traditionalist. I resented the role as a subservient wife. I wanted nothing more than to be a career woman with high goals to help save the World. I wanted to join the Peace Corps like our neighbor did. I wanted to become a missionary like our friends’ parents. I wanted to heal the sick, travel the world, and get away from these systems. I dreamed about this almost every day.

In my childhood, we were also actively involved in a Christian environment. And I grew up in Wheaton, Illinois, the home of Wheaton College, the alma mater of Billy Graham and several other famous Evangelists. The town was infused with Christian principles and thus the hierarchies that come with it: Religious Oligarchic communities, supremacy of men over women through patriarchal conditioning, ultra-traditional roles and invisible ceilings, and children were to be seen and not heard. The community was also very wealthy as a whole and very conservative. This actually enhanced my chances to get a better and more competitive education. But it also gave us naivety, closed-mindedness and being closely monitored and sheltered.

I am grateful for the aspect of my youth that allowed me to be protected for such a short time so I could learn voraciously and know that someday I could accomplish these goals of becoming a doctor and a missionary. I chose the path that did not allow me to do either of these things, but now I see that my path is not less important by any means. I just had to go through the fires to get here.

Walking Through the Sacred Fire

Initiation in most cultures involves some sort of sacred fire. Coming of age for me was also of a sacred righteous fire burning deep within me. I had been connected to the Spirit at an early age. My deeply loyal love for the Creator was my own, not taught to me or ingrained in my environment. In fact, growing up where we did showed me that the majority of believers in a particular faith were human in nature, not actually believing what they subscribed to be practicing. And I saw many leaders fall prey to “sin” and “temptations.” There were Christians in my community who were unfaithful to their spouses, many of whom were pillars of the church. I have learned that many of my peers also endured hidden sexual intimidations from leaders of all faiths. I was fortunate—I only encountered my hypocrisies among my own family system and among my friends’ families. But nonetheless, it was the awareness of these “do as I say not as I do” encounters that led me to be more high minded.

There was still a strong propensity for bullying in school in subtle and outward ways. I was a “nerd” and one of the smart kids. My initiation into puberty was a dichotomy of blossoming knowledge and a growing distance between those of us who were adamant about our grades and the “popular” kids. It was fine with me. I had the long-term goal of getting as far away from this environment as possible. Meanwhile, I also had a strong desire to protect the bullied, the underdogs and the downtrodden. I couldn’t stand to see anyone suffer from harsh words, especially because secretly I endured so much of it at home with my mother. I also learned to “rescue”—this led me to many years of protecting those less fortunate and eventually led me to my current career choices.

Middle school was the hatching of hormones and discovery of the opposite sex, which I had no issues being around as a child, but suddenly I felt awkward and unable to approach with these newly discovered feelings and biological changes. As the Dragon hatchling, I needed a strong example to my rebellious nature and I found that in my aunt in New York. She was a doctor. She was my idol. But she was also very far away and disconnected. I wanted to be just like her, but I also wanted to honor the Creator of my childhood, whom I saw through the eyes of my faith. And I needed more than anything a guide to get me through the wading guilt of our belief system as well. Parents chided us, teachers scolded us, we heard the messages of guilt from the pulpit every Sunday, and we even perpetuated systems of shame and guilt amongst ourselves.

The Sacred Initiation of most teenagers of my time involved alcohol, sex and rebellious behavior. In our community, however, this was either less prominent or more hidden. I knew of things like marijuana and the psychotropic adventures of many of my aunts and uncles, distant relatives and what we saw on television. But we were in a bubble in our community, so I never saw anything. But the guilt-and-shame system of our adolescence forbid us from open sexuality, gender identity differences, discussing things like domestic violence or child abuse. We were socially forbidden and internally driven to be “perfect.”

High School, however, was my Sacred Initiation into adulthood. Besides my obsession with learning and becoming a top honors student, I was actively involved in acting and theater, student counsel, Spanish Honor Society, and anything academic. I found this diversity helped me connect with peers and friends from all backgrounds and I could see myself in the reflection of everyone. I was mostly devoted to Speech Team and became an accomplished speaker and performer. I am eternally grateful to my teachers and peers for leading me there. I was shaped to become the higher minded person I am because of them. I loved competing in events, spent hours memorizing scripts and perfecting my characters. I learned method acting, which obviously led me to my studies in social psychology, anthropology, political science and religious studies, all of which I incorporate into my leadership trainings and life coaching today.

To be fair to all my friends who know me, I could have easily adopted any belief system and become a strong leader in that faith. All my years of leadership training within my church, youth leadership, camp counseling and club organizing in school could have been translated into any system that honors a Creator element. I have studied intensely Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism and the Wisdom Texts of many beliefs. I subscribe understanding and commonality with all of them. I am open to all the understandings and ideologies of Shamanic and Pagan leadership—they just come at Creation from a different angle.

Indulge me to explain briefly a little further. You see, all my studies have come to the same conclusions about this Righteous Fire:

1. There is a Creator or Creative Force.

2. We are all connected on this planet Earth as a part of that Creation.

3. We are all made of the same organic materials that permeate the existence of us as a part of that Creation as well at the atomic level.

4. The nature of all humanity is to create order, community and find something to believe in, whether it is family or religion or politics or corporate capitalism or nationalistic identity. We are all part of a greater tribe. And we will protect our beliefs and our tribe and our deep-set systems at all costs.

5. We naturally rebel against our Creation when we feed our Ego and commit thoughts and acts of racism, classism, and social separation because we believe only our system of belief is the correct one. We actually feed into the nature of destruction and create more anger and rebellion than we purport to be fighting against. It’s the age old Cain and Abel story—brother against brother--Ego-based anger and jealousy. And outlying acts of socially unacceptable injustices, such as child molestation and serial killing and excessive violence, are often glamourized in our American society today. We feed into the fire with an excess of horror and violent films and video games. We create archetypes of these injustices through the internet and cartoons and we spoon feed them to our children. So of course we are dividing our society based on the one element that separates us from our Creator: fear.

6. Righteous Anger is a normal system of purging injustices by utilizing the tools we have to educate and incite change around us. Though many historical and religious accounts claim that God or the Gods are responsible for this kind of purging, it is actually a collective human philosophy to administer these changes among our own tribes and family systems, whether by law or by rebellion. In our country we essentially have Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, and the ability to change laws to protect the weak, punish the criminals and honor the changes of socially acceptable and not acceptable behaviors. Of course, take this one with a grain of salt--this is not always possible or allowed by the higher control systems. Unless you are a member of Congress, a public figure or an outspoken famous person, a lot of these thoughts and injustices go unnoticed every day. However, it is truly possible to be part of a larger fire and create a movement to alter the social system. Often lives are threatened or lost in a rebellion, but it does change the course of history.

7. There is also one other trend in the World today. The more groups of us become educated and enlightened, the more there are groups that become hateful, promote prejudices and separate themselves from the natural progression of thought, community, technology and fight so adamantly against Oneness. The bully still exists to control the people. The underlying message of faith and hope among those who truly love and believe in the Higher existence is often undermined or altogether pushed down by those that want to stay in power, have resources to lord over others, and refuse to look at their own atrocities or behaviors. Folks, guess what? This is not any different from the earliest beginning of human civilization. But it has become super-intensified and blatantly obvious. The common citizen is well aware of the oppressors.

What is most fascinating is that I was angry at the World, not at my system around me. I became educated on foreign affairs and war crimes and human injustices and abuses. I saw killings in Africa, Communism in the U.S.S.R. and China, and human rights abuses in South America all as horrific atrocities to which I wanted to fight. I also joined a group against Apartheid in South Africa while I was in college for the same reason—I was aghast at how human beings could belittle and destroy each other so terribly based on race, class and governmental corruptions.

Now my fire is strong and I breathe it hard. It is the age-old fight against corruption and hierarchy and the desire for peace and a Common Consciousness. I am one of many. I am humble that all my life lessons have allowed me to see these truths. The “ah-hah” moment of enlightenment comes for those of us who are aware of who we are and know we all have a Shadow side but choose to live in Love and Light. The more I read, the more I see, the more I come across daily information from the internet and in my studies, the more I want to shout out to those around me about what I have learned.

Modern Cases of Righteous Fire

Today, we have seen thousands of wars in human history and a large number internationally in our own lifetimes. We read about bombings in train stations and in crowds everywhere in the World. Our friends and family are losing loved ones to major diseases and illnesses, such as cancers and AIDS and auto-immune disorders. We see the population of the World at an all-time high, but the incidences and crimes against humanity and the Earth are thus just as prominent. We have WMDs and military technologies that far exceed and cost more of our resources than medical care, feeding our people and education combined. We are relying on pharmaceutical companies and nursing homes to take responsibility for our elderly and their conditions. We are watching a record-number of children being born with genetic and environmentally-based abnormalities. The future looks very bleak.

You should be angry. I am. I can say this: be grateful for our current freedom of connection with the internet, by cell phone, and even connecting openly in person in groups and social clubs. Free speech can be poisonous, yes, and divisive, yes, and can corrode our society. So don’t allow it. Instead, keep your own personal connections with others. Continue to spread the words of hope and community. Remain loving and brag about your family, your children, your friends. Connect with those who you don’t often hear from online. But don’t allow this “box” to be your only source of connection!! Please, reach out and be a part of the bigger picture in your groups. And not just as a sports fan or an entertainment junkie. Be an actual member of society. We can continue to spread our knowledge, call out the leaders who are corrupt and unfair, and reach out to a hurting and fearful world around you.

Most recently, here in Colorado, a young man, seemingly “normal”, walked into a movie theater and gunned down 58 people, killing 12 innocent victims, including a 6 year old child. I am flabbergasted. He apparently tried to reach out, sending his entire plan and manifesto to his university that apparently was never opened or read by anyone. How could this have come to pass? Crazy thing is: he could have been any of us. Or one of our children. Is it so unlikely that with our 3D video portrayals of blood and gore that it is any less likely for someone that plays an obsessive game like World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto could easily find a way to transfer hate and fear into using real weapons and take out real people? But this incident has superceded all current injustices and the most news-worthy of the day.

But there are so many more injustices. I recently left Chicago and found out the average rate of shooting deaths is between 20 and 40 people per month in the City!! We also learned that in the city of Chicago, you are not allowed to have a gun to protect yourself and often concealed weapons permits are not honored. We are arguing gun control, but in reality, who is watching what our children’s minds are absorbing from film, television and the internet? What are we mentally feeding our youth?

In our travels this past now-7 months, we have lived among the homeless and there are an inordinate number of them that have served in our war with Iraq and Afghanistan and have severe PTSD. Why is this phenomenon not addressed? We also saw a plethora of families that lost their homes to the banking system’s corruption of taking our tax payer money but not forgiving debts to starving families. Food bank and meal lines are packed. Yet our U.S. Congress continues to cut back financial aid to the poor and downtrodden. We were lucky. If we ever needed help along our journey, I would ask the Universe to provide it and it came in so many different forms. And I am grateful that for many years I helped and volunteered and provided for others because I honestly believe that is why the favor was returned. But I am angry and hurt for others.

On the flip side, we met a number of people with plenty, many of whom we were able to become acquainted. We met other networkers like ourselves in our producing and filmmaking community. New Orleans is teaming with work because of the tax incentives Louisiana has provided for feature films. This came about by the vision of the community. We were on set with many amazing people, from lawyers and doctors to those who were retired and now act as extras in films. And I often encouraged any of the homeless families we met along the way to apply for positions in Louisiana as extras and crew. We were blessed to be in movies and television shows. And we were able to make a little money along the way to help our own cause. As a filmmaker, I encourage everyone to write to their Congress members to include tax incentives for other states as well. It can really help bring jobs to a community. So there is a solution for every little injustice, like our increasing unemployment rate, if we just find those answers among ourselves.

Igniting Your Own Fire

What can you and your friends do in your own community to create jobs? What are we doing to help the homeless and the displaced in your own backyard? What can you do in your own family to help an elderly relative? What can you say to encourage someone around you during a hard time? What can you offer in your own social groups to educate, provide for or ignite the passion of those around you? What are you teaching your children about the World? And what are you willing to change within yourself to ignite your own Righteous Fire?

As I come to the end of this treatise today, I realize I could easily spend my time on a soapbox and stand on a street corner and yell “the sky is falling” and it won’t do any good. We already know the dire situation of our own country, the poverty and the depression and the bullying by large corporations that led to overseas hiring and unfair trade practices…this didn’t happen overnight. I could go on about pharmaceutical price gouging and insurances not covering wellness and GMO food production that is destroying the nutritives in our foods. But you can read about these injustices every day, sandwiched between the massive press coverage of reality television stars and who in Hollywood is getting divorced this week.

So regardless of my good intentions to expound upon Righteous Anger, it is inevitably a part of our human nature. Power and control and abuse are an everyday event in our World. So the best thing to do is pray to your Higher power/Creator and to continue to connect with the Spirit and with your community. Inform everyone about these injustices in your daily world on the internet, in the office, in your mother’s groups, or at the gym after work. Do not hide from them. Do not ignore them. Be grateful for them.

Whatever you do, feel the fire. If you have gotten to the end of this reading, do not ignore the call to do something. Allow it to transform you as it has me. And we can all connect together to break the cycles of anger that are ingrained in our humanity, one person at a time.

I Am Made of Precious Scales - The Dragon Grows and Sheds Her Skin

This is going to be the next part of the book I have started. Any feedback or interest in the writing, please let me know.

One of the elements of passion I will begin to explore more in this journey is that of humor. After all I experiences of Tragedy, I find myself drawn more and more to humor, to Life’s Comedy, and this is reflected daily by my partner. He has a great voice for his cartoons and often he can mimic famous actors or movies in jest during conversation. As I chose the title for this segment, of course, I can hear his voice laughingly doing Buffalo Bill from “Silence of the Lambs” as he says, “The Dragon Grows and Sheds Her Skin” in his creepiest voice. So I put the lotion in the basket…and we go back to the story after a fit of laughter.

The burning in my lungs when I began this reflection took a long time to heal but finally subsided. The virus or whatever it was that slowed down my momentum is no longer hindering me. Now it is just blazing hot and I am in the middle of one of the hottest summers on record—we have been burned in Florida, stifled in Chicago and now overheated and lethargic in Denver. The return to the Foothills of Colorado was not a cool and calm welcoming to me like my past returns. We are blazing hot! My partner and I have had some crazy ups and downs while we were on the road, but now it is time to take what we have found on our adventure and bring it home. Our Journey together is not over, it is just beginning to take root.

The flight of this Dragon has been a powerful force, not just in me, but in the reflection of the man with whom I have found friendship and affection. It is funny. I gave up looking for a partner and he appeared right when I needed him. This is by no means a fairy tale ending. The seven months we have been travelling has brought the two of us together but it has by no means created the powerful production company our earthly partnership had intended to manifest---not at the moment, not yet of course.

The wounded Dragon has come out of her cave. She saw her reflection in the pool of water before her and she was frightened. She knew that in spite of his appearance, and that it was just as fierce as hers, she was not ready to look into the face of the Mirror. She soared high, gathered speed, shrieked loudly, and perched atop a high mountain where she shed her skin. She was growing in strength but it was only the first part of her growth. And when she returned to the pool to look again, she realized that in her own reflection, she caught his eyes as well and they both had grown.

This is truly how I have pictured my last two years of rapid change. I am finding my voice again. And have found my fire. This is where, once I finally realized where we had been, that upon looking back at our friendship, our joining forces, and our travels, there were really two trails of smoke behind us the whole time. We have grown together. And in spite of the pains, I am grateful he truly was there with me.

I began this path of growth and rebirth when I moved away from Colorado, but I have returned so many times because this is where I am drawn. About three years ago, when I was living in Miami, I thought that once I was geographically free from the torrid relationship I had left, I would find the “one true love” of my life. (I will describe the meaning of the relationship in subsequent chapters—after all, he too was one of my soul mates. Thus the quest to solve why I am here began). But finding my partner didn’t happen. I was sorely disappointed. I had opened many psychic channels which gave me the knowledge of the destruction around me but also gave me the hope of a partner to come along and join me. I have felt alone so many times. I remember often walking around South Beach or even riding the buses in Denver or the Loop in Chicago and I would stare aimlessly upward and beg for an explanation: had I become so tough from my life lessons, so removed from the possibility of a gentle relationship to break through these hard scales I had been given?

Around the same time, I met an executive producer in Colorado who helped to pull me out of the ashes after I left the destruction of my broken dreams behind. He gave me a purpose and I learned everything I could about the entertainment industry, specifically about how to produce a feature film. I have been on stage for years. I picked up acting after the divorce again, playing a lead role in a major performance that set my soul on fire again. I auditioned for many additional roles and felt the stings of many rejections. But I have found a path in film from which I have found comfort in my age and my appearance. Yet it was behind the scenes, dreaming and setting goals to create these beautiful entities called films, that I have found a higher level of passion. I am grateful for his part in igniting this fire in me.

Playing with the big dogs of feature filmmaking is not a walk in the park. You can’t pee on a few trees and expect to find the miracle in such a safe and landscaped environment. Yes, anyone can pick up a camera these days and make and independent film. But it is in the details of producing that the real magic happens. So I set out to learn everything and be the best top dog I could be.

The miracle didn't happened. Nor did the money. Nor did any of the films I worked so diligently to peddle for over a year. And the executive producer moved on to another female intern and refused to pay me what I was worth. So I left to start my own ventures. I then partnered with a new and exciting filmmaker and close friend in Chicago. We started the dreaming process again after we had a separation—the relationship of course got in the way of progress. The renewal happened about the time I had returned to Colorado for the last time from Miami, and when my world fell apart, I hung up that hat for a long while. So I didn’t work for the executive producer any longer and the partnership with the filmmaker too had dissipated in time. I was not ready.

After a year growing and working in the Spiritual community, I built a solid foundation of friends and networks for a youth program for other sensitive and psychic kids. My gifts at that point had been new, like the growing Phoenix I had become. So, I figured, we could all grow together. This was my blessing in disguise when the one I left years before suddenly took his own life. It was my community that held me and cried with me and was there for me. My sister in Texas was empathetic and for most of our lives, we have strengthened each other and I commiserated with her on many occasions. She knew all about my life. And she and I both share that Highly Sensitive personality. Thus we also share that propensity to choose destructive relationships as well as that conflict we call addiction. So many of us exist on this planet—the downtrodden and the lost and the single mothers who have had to fight to survive, especially for some reason in this supposed-modern day and age of reason in the U.S.A. The system never fails to hold down those who try to crawl out of the hole. So I figured, why not build a ladder and we can all crawl out together?

This ladder, or ascending path, is both the Spiritual one and also the career path that I am creating. How I see it is this: when the visions of our dreams succeed, both in reality and financially, I will be able to bring alongside those that we choose to honor for their part in our lives….actors, producers, writers, creators of all sorts. And we can create these visions together. So sure enough, my sister and I have joined forces to write out stories before and we will continue to do so. This is what sparked me to write in the first place, and our first screenplay together is still going to be our best story.

My filmmaker friend in Chicago has also had the Vision. She too has had the rough experiences of divorce, betrayal, raising teenagers and fighting against the odds to create solid films that will become legends. The filmmaker has succeeded where many have failed. Her vision is strong and that is why we went to Chicago as part of our recent journey, to join forces and create together. Businesses don’t happen overnight, and we helped to start the foundation for what she is building, but our company and our vision is to plant roots in both the Spiritual community and in the movie industry right here in our home territory. And we plan to combine the two.

So there are paths to show all sorts of enlightened ideals through film, television and media. We have the anarchy of the internet—that is enough to get out messages, one viral stroke of luck at a time. And it works. But this method doesn’t work for everyone. Fortunately, we all have a niche we are trying to fill so we will find like-minded souls to help us with our journeys. For instance, my filmmaker friend is American Latino, so her entertainment preferences and filmmaking choices will revolve around creating quality and celebratory pieces for her market. My partner and I have a mutual love for science fiction and fantasy (you would never guess with all the Dragon references, would you?), so our goals are aligned together with many other partnering filmmakers, writers, producers and artists. We have several of our productions set to be animated, because that’s what we desire to see immortalized and on the big screen.

My scales have grown strong and they are shiny. I am blessed. Many only look at their scars as hideous flaws or monstrous outgrowths of fear. Often growing a tail or horns is considered abnormal for a dragon. But if one thinks they are a beast of a different sort, of course that makes sense. It’s not all fluffy unicorns and angel wings that grow out of strength and courage. And not all fire-breathers understand their gifts either. Many forget what they have endured and jump right into the same fire over and over again. I am guilty of that myself obviously—I am an expert at repeat mistakes. But it doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate my scales, my scars, my tail, my claws and my fire.

In the same way, not all filmmakers have to have a happy-ever-after ending and not all good guys get the girl and save the day. Not all producers have to use blood and gore and zombies either, but heck if that isn’t the most popular genre of our time right now. If I could rationalize zombies becoming enlightened then maybe I could fit in to that trend. Meanwhile, I will stick to what I know, allegories and Dragons and fantasy. So creating visual fireworks with a camera, a green screen and CGI is real to me and my world. I would love to share my prolific world with others. And I am doing so one step at a time. My partner and I are writing and creating fantastical tales and sharing our vision. And we have agreed to keep going until someone sees our vision and helps us run with it (with or without zombies). So our tenacity will feed our hunger and we will shed our scales to grow greater and stronger with each experience.

My partner and I have had many firsts together on this trip. For the sake of our fans, present and future, and for the edification of our children, I will have to delineate these adventures thoroughly in blogs (chapters) to come. Since this series of writings comes from my heart and my perspective, I will do my best to fairly portray both sides of each story as much as possible. That being said, remember, I am not easy to get along with as a partner, wife or whatever I am called to those who are with me. And my stubbornness to be independent has been the death of many relationships before, so it was a Fool’s leap to get into a small vehicle and drive from Colorado to Texas to Louisiana to Florida and then up to Illinois only to find ourselves on our way back to Colorado. And as I mentioned, all this travelling took place in the last seven months.

So we will tell you of our experiences, our revelations and our voluminous collection of stories. But many you will have to wait and see on film. Meanwhile, as we are writing and producing our films, I will reflect on these lessons while elaborating on our newest adventures as well.

Now the Dragon is ready to take flight! She spreads out her enormous wings and cries joyfully as she dives from the rocky cliff where her fears were left behind. She knows she is her own being, her own reflection, but she seeks out the others just the same. The strength is not in her solitude but in collecting her family around her. As she soars above the dry and wasted land that once was lush and cool and green, she is saddened by the destruction. There were many fires, many souls lost, too many dreams dashed upon those rocks. Many have tried to blame the fires and the destruction on her and her kind. But every being is responsible for his or her own path and choices. Her flight is short—she must land to strengthen her wings before continuing. When she finds her own inner strength and her own power, she too can join in the healing of the land. She realizes, as she descends into the valley, that this is why she is here.

Death and Rebirth: The Body and the Spirit

Written June 2012, Chicago, IL

Today is a new day. Actually, every day is a new day for me. I am a blessed woman. I have discovered my own power and I know who I am. But in that, I am constantly in a state of awareness, heightened learning and change. I live in the moment. I am aware of this world around me and those connections within my Soul and with my Spirit and the Universe. So why am I stuck? Literally, I am grounded and sick in bed. I feel like the Phoenix—my body is about to implode and I am ready to start tomorrow born in a new flame. I am counting on that “new beginning” to be free from allergies and this terrible spring cold.

I am writhing in pain as I begin this writing. My lungs are on fire, my throat is convulsing, and this microscopic entity called a virus has found its way into my sinuses and has caused me immense grief. At first I thought it was all allergies, which I never experienced here in Chicago before. They say the pollen count is at an all-time high. But my lungs are throbbing and don’t care where the source of irritation has birthed, and that they are still keeping me awake and making me aware of my human form constantly. So you know what? I am stuck home and have time to reflect on my life. Very few events have grounded me. I have a habit of making every day an adventure. So these experiences are all new for me—middle age and illness and the unknown. So this experience is teaching me to slow down and stop and listen.

I have always been a wanderer. I spent most of my life plowing through obstacles and creating roller coasters. Not literally, I’m a business woman. I negotiate contracts and I am starting up a major corporation. So a major illness is not on my agenda. Nor is death, or tragedy, nor any additional factor that might derail my progress. I am driven. And every experience I have had up until now has led me to this moment. I have never lived more than a couple years in one area, but I keep coming back to my home sweet home, Chicago. I loved my ten years in the Denver area, but I won’t miss the cold, the dry air (my hair dislikes dry air), and the memories attached to my wild years and raising my children as a poor, single mother. Thank goodness my darling oldest daughter graduated and went off to college to study engineering—one of us is creating a stable career—and I am free to explore the world once again.

I have spent the last 6 months at light speed and in a very small car. So this is my chance to reflect. I met a couple of great financial investors, and continued to create the life we have imagined living. And we will see what happens next. This is one of my stops—where will the Universe take me next? My idea of camping is a 2-star hotel, so living a nomadic life for the last 6 months, on-and-off, was fun and exciting, but way outside my normal travelling criteria and comfort zone of pleasure. My partner, on the other hand, is very comfortable in the great outdoors and makes a killer meal on a campfire. I love to visit places, but with flight schedule, a full suitcase of clothes for various fun activities, and a map to all the cool places to go. He likes to relax and fish and wander. If I had known that the unforeseeable journey would include moments of homelessness, living out of the car and replacing tires--all of them--I would have stayed home to prepare. He also mentioned post script that if we had known how difficult the trip would be, we would have stayed home (in Denver) for a few more months to save additional funds. Instead, we dove into the trip and navigated this great U.S. of A. with a GPS, a worn car atlas and a couple of bottles of Sailor Jerry’s. And I loved every moment of the journey—even at the toughest points of learning.

Until recently, as I will explain in further detail, I was content to stay home and work on my spiritual growth. I had run away and travelled far, but I found myself back home in the mountains and foothills of Colorado, where I have been on and off for twelve years. I have been focusing on the Universe and its mysteries for several years now, as I will further delve into explanation. I lived my life on my own Zen path, in spite of those around me and their journeys. My family, children and partners never truly understood. I was pleasantly creating a life around me that was solitary and yet in a group of enlightened healers, much like myself. I made a plethora of friends. I surrounded myself with those that could feel the strength of the connection between us and our Creator, no matter from which source of dogma or mythology the thoughts had come.

The idea that there is a God, or Creator, or pantheon of thought forms, or alien higher race, has come through a form of a Higher Self in order to connect us together in this pool of what we call Humanity, has been my source of inspiration since I was a child. I have spent countless hours studying and connecting and searching. I came close to joining an Ashram a year ago. And now I have come to a place where it doesn’t matter where that source comes from, but that it is threaded throughout the daily life I live that counts. And it is reminding me that I must depend on that Higher Self for guidance, for both the healing of my burning chest (temporary) and for the direction I must take my next step (long term). I am born of fire! Yet, explaining that metaphor to my swollen sinuses is currently pointless and aggravating. In this fire, however, I am seeking the flame of my Higher self and I am not alone in this quest.

The Shamaness’ Path of Experience and Awareness

After years mismatched partnerships, I finally met someone with whom I have been connected and I knew right away that it was the path I was meant to take--to travel across the country, for months on end, to find a way to create a life together and work together and create entertainment together. It hasn’t been easy. We are producing a series of TV shows and movies. We were planning to retire and dreamed about finding the right investors, but that immediate fantasy was short lived. I have allowed myself to be “responsible” for everything. I have had to decide where we go and who we see and what paths to take and with whom to network. This has created a burden of imbalanced control. So after several weeks of intense works in Florida that ended unsettled, I returned to my original plan to join forces with another strong-willed woman to create a powerful business model. I have come to work for another entertainment company so I can finish what we started, but from a different angle.

So I am older and wiser. And I attract younger men; well, actually now, I have attracted one younger man, but he is so much like me. I have a childlike spirit. But it is easily derailed when I have to be the task master in business and in a relationship. I am impossible to live with; I know that. But I am also the hardest worker I know. I am independent to a fault, which has deep roots I will explain. I have overcome the worst of any type of relationship: betrayal. I have survived and conquered post-traumatic stress disorder from years of mental and emotional abuse. In the past, I attracted and take responsibility for settling with a series of abusive men, most of whom resembled my psychotic and immature mother, and I have had to profusely apologize for my temper tantrums.

Yet I am still here. I beat the odds and somehow the battle scars work in my favor to make me the Warrior that I have embraced as my masculine “Emporer” side. I don’t know if I like it though. I would rather be gentle and innocent and kind. I would love to go back to that first day I stepped onto a stage and just embrace the Innocent and the starry-eyed youth I once was. I want to be that happy little girl who wants to grow up and be an actress. So I became a producer instead. And now I play hardball for a living. And I won’t stop until we have succeeded in producing what we have created. I am embodying Kali, Baba Yaga, The Chrone. I am a bit too young for the Senior Discount, but I am fully aware of the Dharma and Tao of the Warrior Soul.

I have analyzed hours of data and studied mountains of materials to find out the way to raise money and become successful. I am an entrepreneur. I manage all my time to seek out the right balance of market study and making connections. I have a massive network of connections, both in business and in my spiritual life. And I have been pursuing these dreams of mine and making them into realities and goals for years now. I started with just an idea—I want to become a famous actress—and I built that dream through hours of study and hard work throughout high school and into college. Actually, I caught the acting bug, much like this virus that is making me hack up a lung, and it was a hard and fast transformation. I knew it was what I wanted to be. That starry eyed little girl, the one with the painted face and tragic stare, grew up to become the anti-hero of a Greek mythos.

Truth is this for anyone who is an entrepreneur: The payoff is wonderful but the path is not for everyone. I am seriously tired of living out of a box or a backseat. And I am tired of being at the level of poverty. So I have taken my experiences and have started the process of changing them into leaps of faith. I am grateful for what I learned. And now I am ready to accept the rewards of the hard work we so diligently forged into place. All those traumas, experiences, and obstacles have created a life now of great reward. And I have had many. Some say I have been given the lion’s share of drama and sadness. But it is in these lessons, however painful they seemed at the time, that I have found my greatest gifts: thankfulness and compassion.

The Spiritual Journey and the Return of the Goddess

So this is where my story picks up: this was the end of the rebellion and start of this spiritual life that had been tickling the back of my neck for the last few years. The Higher Self won. The Spiritual path was there to lead me out of the fire. I am now the Dragon. As a spiritual leader of sorts, I have lead many and yet I find myself humbly removed from any kind of fame, power or glory for any of my work or achievements. In my career now, I stay behind the scenes for the most part in my quest to create entertainment—films, television, animations and even as a writer. Yes, on this last journey for six months, I did a little acting as well. I love being in front of a camera! And slowly all my dreams have been coming true.

Finally becoming the actress is not the happy ending of the tale. The roller coaster I am now experiencing has led to a new path that has fueled the fire I am finally getting off my chest, literally, before my lungs collapse. Yet, this fire I breathe is only painful when I don’t use it to purify my own way. I must be patient with this new Dragon. The Phoenix has died and risen in a new and improved form and I am not yet comfortable in these scales. I manifest what I desire. It is like a gift from the Universe that bears great responsibility yet produces great outcomes. I practiced using this fire when I returned to Colorado the last time, but I remained studious and learning in spite of the end of the last relationship. And in that time of awakening, I was ready to fly. That is where I was both spiritually and in my career when I met my Dragon reflection with whom I have traveled and returned to start the fire.

You see, maybe someday when one of my friends or family or children read this story, they will know that it was my conscious choice to change and allow the Universe to come in and intervene on my behalf. I did it for myself, for my children, for our future and our destiny. I was the prodigal, but also the prophet. I was given a new message and I had to create and grow in spite of those around me, not because of them. I still have to deal with my mistakes, the greatest one being that I gave up fighting for my two children because I had given up on myself. Now, however, I am thriving and I know that one day they will come back because they will want to know who I am and what had happened—the truth, not the contrived perception of reality they swallowed. I wish the best for them, and will welcome them with open and loving arms. But my path is set and my goal is to create the way for greater wisdom.

So you may ask, why the Spirituality? Why would a highly educated woman, raised in a conservative and evangelical environment, bound to study both Western medicine and American law, choose a life path so far in a different direction from where she started? Actually, I have found that all paths of higher learning lead to a Higher Consciousness. I have discovered that, in spite of all my experiences of community, of hatred, of passion and of piousness, the original belief I once held has actually been only a part of the larger picture of Oneness to which I subscribe. That being said, I am still the same person, just more enlightened and enhanced, but this is a subject for another story…

There are many ways to connect to the Universal Consciousness. Some use prayer, others use chanting, and often others verbalize their connection in writing or aloud in some way. Many use music or some connection to sound to enhance their connection and bring emotion into one’s Faith and Spirituality. I often listen to music to change my mood. I find strength in connecting with other Spiritual people. I am what we call a Highly Sensitive Person—I am an extrovert, but I feel the emotions and often connect to the thoughts of others. It is in this connection with others I find my greatest strengths, not in solitude or in isolation. Therefore, I have come full circle. My fear of being alone has actually dissipated and my longing to be with others has replaced that fear. I welcome the mirror of humanity.

My Spiritual journey, like Dorothy’s adventures in Oz, made me realize it was with me the whole time. I find solace and wisdom in all things higher minded. I crave chapter upon chapter of knowledge, everything from the Tao Te Ching to the Quran to the Zohar and the wisdom texts. I have learned from Solomon, Rumi, and Kahlil Gilbran. I laugh with Buddhist teachers and cry with the Shamans. I have soaked up texts from the Torah to the Greek and Roman tragedies. I find nuggets of wisdom in fairy tales and children’s stories and shamanic journeys. I have astral traveled and channeled higher beings. I have seen visions. And I have accepted my sensitivities and allow myself to be a beacon of light right here in the middle of humanity, rather than a lost and lonely star far off in some distant land. I love children and animals and discovering new places and creating a life of wonder. I keep myself open to the wisdom from those that have come before, my guides and my rainbow people—my ancestors. I have journeyed within, deep within oceans and high in the trees. I have danced the sacred dance. And I am still here. And I am forever grateful.

Remembering the best of you, my Soulmate, Zachry

It is a strange time for a woman when her soulmate dies. There is not just a feeling of loss, but of overwhelming unexplained grief. I have only been grieving for a week. The love of my life died by his own hand on August 3, 2011. Our 5 years together was tumultuous and life-changing, to say the least. As I learned from the book Soulmates by Thomas Moore, it is usually with the ones we love and are attached the most that we are most challenged and bonded in Karma and Soul Contracts. Today, as always, I will continue to love him unconditionally. But today, I want to tell the world about what an amazing man he was, not focus on the sadness and self-destruction that took him from us.

I was struck with surprise yesterday momentarily by the stories and photos of happiness that surrounded us at the memorial service. His happy demeanor always reflected his joy for his life, sports, family and eventually his children. His active childhood was painted in picture to all by his constant wonderment, familial love for his father and his childhood classmates who all saw him as the child he was. But his journey into adulthood saw him pull away and change his outlook to one of solitude and rebellion. I could tell his stories--all the high school memories he shared, but it would dishonor what I am attempting to portray here.

I am not saying it wasn't difficult. Nor am I going to sugar-coat the fact that we were not always on the same page. Soulmates are often the MOST challenging and LEAST likely to be partners. It is not an easy road. All who knew him and me knew that it was only a matter of time before the world imploded or a nuclear bomb would explode. That is the kind of energy we created. Sometimes that energy, harnessed and yet unbridled, could create a whirlwind so great that it became love and healing. But now that it is gone and settled, I want to remember what was good about Zachry.

Creating a Picture of the Man I Adored


Zach did share so much of himself with me. His music was his life--he loved so many genres and had so many memories attached to his favorite bands and albums, from the Cocteau Twins and New Order and other 80's alternative styles to Chillout and Trance and eventually hard acid rock and modern alternative music. One time he made a CD for me that was riddled with new and upcoming bands and remixes of old classics by punk or alternative artists, from MGMT to Shiny Toy Guns. It was always a surprise when he put on Etta James or old soul albums, much to my surprise. His tastes varied based on his moods and interests--but in all, he had thousands of cd's and downloads in his collection!! I could never keep up.

What struck me though was when we first met and I took him to see Imogen Heap (from the Frou Frou's). My daughter and her friend ended up getting tickets to the show, so we drove together. But I had no idea that he had a fear of crowds and wondered the whole time if he was having a good time. But from what he told me, he had seen so many bands! There was a local Denver band with whom he was friends with the singer, called Twice Wilted (then the Tarmints and now the Overcasters, if you want to listen). He knew Kurt and told me how he loved to go to the shows. His love for music reflected in the way he communicated as well--some days, we would be listening to Kill Hannah or the alternative station in FC, the next we would be enjoying his thousands of songs on his ipod, in no way shape or form bottled into a single thought. When we first met, we listed often to Ibiza Beats, which I will always listen to for him. Even in my grief, I find that I am comforted by his sadness--Joy Division was his music when he felt like there was no hope.

We both loved movies. This was a passion for both of us, but it was a disconnection for us as well. We almost always watched something "different", whether it be a TV show, a film or a documentary. He loved the same ScyFy shows I did. He was an avid Doctor Who fan!!! (For Christmas this year, I got him a book on Doctor Who and Philosophy). Our favorites together were Ink, Formula 51, The Broken, and both of us loved James Bond. He preferred mindless but fascinating fantasy to my adoration of the deep indie film. But we both were just getting into Game of Thrones! I remembered seeing Inception and how moved I was by the movie. He thought it looked stupid, but eventually came around and told me he'd seen it. That's how he was--skeptical, often abative, and yet so intellectual and fascinating. He was also into a lot of horror films I could not endure--he loved the Saw movies (first 2 at least) and he often told me of others, like Hostel, that I would never watch.

He was really into cars and Top Gear, a passion he shared with his son Quentin. His favorite, he always told me, was the Skyline. When the kids were younger, I heard about all the movies and shows they watched together. Many were the same as the ones I also watched with my girls. But as they grew, their tastes grew as well. Zach was into No Reservations, Iron Chef (Japan), and Bizarre Foods. We watched marathons of all kinds of things, especially with his love for the BBC. He was passionate about their shows being "superior" to American versions of the same thing. Plus he always loved and remembered England as his favorite place to live and visit.

Zach's favorite passtimes with me were eating and drinking. We both loved great food!! He talked about his adventures and his travels and how he had tried so many things. So we started on this adventure to try new and strange foods. My favorite, of course the most unusual, was here in Denver at the Superstar Asian Cuisine restaurant. We had a meal that consisted of jellyfish, chicken feet, tripe and pig's blood soup--I have never seen a man close to fainting with that one! We had squid and octopus in ink out of the cans in Miami. We both ate dozens of raw oysters together. Once we were at Monty's in Miami and ate at least 3 or 4 dozen! We ate at all the hot spots of Denver. Last winter, we went through Westword's Best of Denver and started hitting places down the list--the Best Dive Bars of course were our regulars. He told me about all his years living in Denver and playing for Queen City. And his travels in Canada and England and playing for ERFU the Barbos. But he was always excited to cook as well. We would reminisce about friends he played with and his funniest stories.

We both love beer--the real microbrewery stuff too! My goal, I told him, was to try as many Colorado beers as possible. Our first date was at Mountain Sun in Boulder. The first place we went to visit in FC was Coopersmiths. We tried the new Fort Collins Brewery restaurant, Estes Park Brewing Company on New Years' Eve, Oskar Blues, Pints' Pub and Bull and Bush, my personal favorite! And on his birthday this year, we went to Leopold Brothers Distillery to have a tour and try some of the best tasting liquors I have ever tasted. He loved his absinthe too, Pernod was his favorite until Leopolds came along. And we frequently loved Lion Stout, Elephant and Paulander--all some you should try! I had to quit drinking so much because it was too much fun and too many calories, but I will always have fond memories of the times we had together.

Zachry had a special place in his heart for animals, especially with his daughter Qyra's fondness of them. So one time when I came back to visit, he had this little fluffball, Willow, who spent many nights keeping me awake by biting my eyelids! She became his "familiar"--she was always waiting for him to come home. She was the consistency in his life. I remember for years as well that the kids would want stuffed animal toys and there were so many of them! He really did have a passion for parenthood and he was a loving father.

Being A Great Father

Zachry adored his children. I know his two step-daughters were still in close contact with him. He also had a renewed bond for his oldest daughter, with whom he was attempting to spend more time. And yet it was his adoration of Quentin and Qyra that kept him going. I can go on and on about his weekends with his kids. How he was a stay-at-home dad for a short while. How he would purposely only spend time with them when he had them. But he was very stubborn in his raising of them as well. The frustration I had was after 5 years, I had hoped to see them more as well, but he kept his lives very separate. It was for the better to deal with his kids' mother, but in the end, it was the conflict within him not having them in his life that sent him into a state of despair.

You have to know that it was his love for his children that was his lifeline to this world. He created it this way, however, and it was not sufficient to help him stay with us. I do believe that his lack of self-worth was in the way. I thought he would be stronger, fight for what he wanted to be as a parent, but he usually would fall into sadness when he could not be with them. It was a rough road. I know I was a catalyst for some of his sadness, but it was truly his love for his children and his questioning himself as a worthy man that he struggled with daily.

I do remember that he took pride in Quentin's sports. He was always bragging about how great his son was as an athlete. I also know he was passionate about Qyra's Girl Scouts. He bragged about being the only dad actively involved in the cookie sales. I am also grateful that he had time with them at his parents' farm. He was truly wanting to give them the most of himself when he was with them. He was proud of the other girls' accomplishments as well, telling me about how strong and independent they had all become. I am hoping that they will know someday what he felt.

I cannot tell anyone why he would not try and create a more positive life for himself. I had always encouraged him to get a bigger house, or try and find a way to have more time with them when he was free, or to start learning about how to better himself and build his self-esteem so he could be stronger. I know that all five of his children knew they were unconditionally loved by him. I know that he was proud of them and maybe should have said it more. I know his wounds were deep and it was difficult for him to express. But they were his inspiration.

The Man I Loved

Destruction happens in a relationship when it breaks a threshold and cannot get back on track. Our relationship was one that was never truly "on track". It was fast, passionate, loving, abative, pushed every boundary and broke too many. I know a lot of the pieces didn't fit right, and it cannot be easy when one partner cannot be fully open, even after so many years. But I would not trade what I had for the world.

I am somewhat old-fashioned and believe that when a couple is 100% honest, it can help both sides to heal and forgiveness can be gained along with growth and wisdom. But it wasn't truly that way. I shared all of my life with him, my past, my hurts, and my struggle also with being a part of my children's lives. I too have been a wounded parent. But I am different--my two younger children are on paths that are not inclusive of me because of the imbalance they are experiencing, but I am aware it is not my issue. My oldest daughter is my best friend and the love of my life and has been with me for years, even when we didn't live together. Zachry and I went to her high school graduation this last May. But even in that, there is an element of sorrow because we struggled so much as a couple and it affected our children. So no matter what honesty we lacked in our relationship, it was a huge overhaul that gave me the strength to be 100% honest with myself to who I am.

We self-destructed in 2008 and I moved away. Even when the relationship was over, he still called me everyday. He never wanted to lose me. I begged him to be honest about what parts of himself he separated. I never knew what or whom I was competing with. But I do know now that he loved me with all his heart, and as I did love him with all of mine as well. In 2010 I returned from Miami expecting a warm welcome, and it was met with distance. It wasn't until we ended it again in August that the reality of our separation sunk in. I still don't know why I couldn't get the square peg into the round hole, but the old relationship had to go. We started counseling, every other week in FC. I didn't want to be together any longer, even after my return, but then again I thought it was still a possibility.

I moved back to Denver and I have been working in a spiritual community since then. I am grateful for my path! I have been called to return into working as a teacher, healer and community leader. It was the path I started long ago back in my childhood and teen years. But it took the renewal of the relationship with Zachry and its change to get me back onto this path. For that I am grateful. So with that in mind, and will all the changes in my life, I was open to renew our relationship. In October 2010, we started seeing each other every weekend. It had never really been "over"--it just started picking up the pace. The end of October, we had another downfall and I decided not to move back to FC--the only way this would survive is to plan to move in together closer to our work and with space enough for his children and my daughter, so the plan began to form.

Often with the Phoenix story, a new creature being born out of the ashes, the fragility of such a creature is often tested by its environmental challenges. I knew we would struggle starting over, but I am the ever-hopeful one that saw him open to new ideas and learn to change the way we talked and worked with each other. But there must have been other influences that sent him back down into his cave. We had an amazing time on his birthday weekend, but ended up in a fight, which could only be explained by the past resurfacing and whatever was hidden was getting in the way. After spending lunch with his children that Sunday he turned 40, it was never the same. Within a week he was withdrawn. And by the beginning of July, I had to find a new place to live and settled permanently here in Denver. He begged me to move to FC but I couldn't--it would put an end to my work here. I still returned to visit FC and he would come to Denver. Our short vacation together the end of July was difficult, since I have been sick for a month at that point. And I had so much to do between work and the youth organization I am starting that I was not there or available for him.

The end came suddenly. He had been to that point many times before, several with me there to bring him back. But it wasn't until last week when I wasn't there to work it through with him that he lost his footing. I had no idea I had become his only lifeline, but I had always hoped this would wake him up. I had the greatest faith in his ability to be rational and find a way to excel. I praised him for his willingness be open and change. And I always begged him to come to live between Boulder and Denver. We had been talking about moving here together, but I don't think he truly ever wanted to leave his sanctuary.

Zachry died last Wednesday night or Thursday morning. I knew that after 5 years of talking everyday that when he didn't call, he was gone. I finally had my affirmation Thursday afternoon in Spirit and called the FC police to check on him. Friday morning, his phone called me and I heard the entire conversation with the police and coroners that were there. I am devastated, but I am finally now able to let him go and be at peace.

I am so grateful that since that moment, my eyes opened, the Universe has given me a chance to work on what I need to do in my life. My daughter, my friends and my family have all been very supportive. Zachry's friends too have been a great encouragement and inspiration for me. I want to thank everyone for being a part of his life. I know that he has been blessed and has moved on.

I heard from Zachry after the funeral twice. Both times were through friends who are mediums and both times the messages were loud and clear. I am processing through them and would be willing to share them with anyone who wants to hear. I hope that in the weeks, months and years to come, he will be fondly remembered and his children will understand his love for them. As for me, I am busy building a community, adopting new "children" into my life. I am looking to start a self-sustaining farm. And one day, when I am settled in, I will plant a tree for my soulmate.

I will always love you, Zachry. You are truly missed.