feels like home

I just finished doing an energy session, and the most prominent feeling I got throughout the whole session was for me to surrender, to just let go of everything. I feel like I've got that mastered until something else comes along in my life, and wham! I learn how badly I suck at surrendering.

I want to be this enlightened master, this totally detached observer of life. And I can do it for a while and then the human Jill kicks in and wants something. Right now I want to be with someone in Colorado. Last night I told him what I really wanted in a relationship. My first time ever to stand up to a man and say exactly what I wanted. It was huge for me. I had always settled before, but with him it feels like it's too important, too substantial to want anything less than the absolute best it can be between us. Yay, Jill! I stood up for myself, and he honored that. He listened. He told me how he felt. He told me everything he could. And again, it was the first time I had that experience from a man. He didn't run, and neither did I.

Then this morning I let him know how I was feeling him energetically, how I could feel this deep connection between our souls, our truest essences. I could feel it so intensely that I couldn't tell where he began and I ended. It was a swirling of the truest sense of oneness. It was so beautiful and calming and home. I knew that however our relationship turned out, I would be better because of it, and so would he. I felt warm and fuzzy and cozy and just so good all over.

And then the day wore on, and so did I. I haven't heard from him since 12:30 my time, and it's now almost 6:30. I think this is the longest stretch of time we've gone without communicating, and I'm not enjoying this so much. I am missing him terribly, and I hate that. Because you see, I do energy work. I've worked with shamans since 2006. I've done a lot of work on myself through workshops, books, seminars,etc. I know better, and it really just pisses me off sometimes when I just can't stay in that enlightened and lovely state. Well, fuck it! I'm human too. I have this human body that longs for being held by this man. I ache to hear from him. I imagine him in his home working on his computer, fixing his dinner, getting ready to go work out, sitting on his deck, and I long to join him.

So there, I've said it. I am enlightened. I am awake, and I've given up drinking the Kool-Aid, but every now and then I just want to be held and touched and loved on. Every now and then I miss hearing from him. And really does any of these desires make me any less enlightened? Or are they times that my human body just wants some attention? When I was in communication with him on a much more regular basis, it was fun. I smiled more, definitely laughed a lot, and so looked forward to flipping my phone open and seeing what he sent to me. It made my days and nights lighter and happier. I miss his texts, his sense of humor, and the smiles all of it brought to my face.

So, how did I do standing up for what I wanted? I'm glad I did. I altered the playing field quite a bit. I deserve to get what I want, but what I discovered today was that if I was going to ask him to do what I desired in a relationship, then I had to do the same. Not that he asked me to, but because when I change me, I change everything. I want the best in my life. I want the best for me, and what I've experienced with him so far has been the best I've ever had. I don't want it to end. I want it to be even better for both of us. Being in a relationship with him has upped my game. I want to be a better person because he's in my life. And what it means for me to have it all is to be able to love him completely without losing myself and to allow both of us the latitude to be who we truly are without judgments or attachment to outcomes.

I recognize in him a place that feels like home, a place that's comfortable and safe, and as I found out, a place where I can pee freely. I just think going 6 hours without any texts from him is just too long. Just sayin'...

At last...

Settling in on a friend's couch with book in hand, I felt this shift within me as if there was this whole other Jill residing on the surface who moved just a little differently than the Jill I was accustomed to being with. Just a twinge of separation and then there it was, a complete and utter knowledge that I had cut ties with Texas.

 Again.

I am ready to move back to Colorado.

Back in '74 when I was moving there the first time, I had consciously planned the event well in advance. This time all I was doing was settling in for a night of reading, and then I felt it. I looked at my cell phone to see what time it was. 7:17 was on the face.

The rest of the story is up for grabs. I just know that I know it's time to move on. When it occurs, how it occurs, and where I move to is certainly not in my realm of knowledge at the moment.

I was raised to believe that you go to school, get a degree, get a good job, and then retire. I thought I'd marry one time, stay married til I died (or he did) and remain in Boulder County forever. Not once in all those scenarios was happiness a factor. Not once did I ask myself what I really wanted. Not once did I contemplate what my role in life was going to be. I just did what I was told with a very heavy and sad heart and repeated it day after day after day. So, I wasn't used to switching places to live or careers or friends or lovers until I became single again.

Now, uncertainty has become one of my closest companions. I feel the energy and go with it, and I'm not saying it's that easy for me either. I've felt some very strange energy within me for awhile now, and at 7:17 tonight it felt that it moved dramatically. I'm calm right now. It's been a few days since I've felt that way. I should've known something big was up for me because I went ballistic while texting a friend today. He had texted that he wasn't that special, and I lost it. Let's just say I learned something more about me at that moment. It wasn't until I let go of another old, old, frickin' old belief about myself that I realized how crazy my text back to him was.

He's either a very kind man or just great at bullshitting because he let me know that it was all good, and I hadn't scared him off yet. Well, he's also 900 miles away so I'm sure he's feeling very safe from my craziness. Believe me there are many times I wish I could be 900 miles away from me too.

"As you begin to release the constraints that bind you to circumstances you have outgrown, you will discover that the direction of choice is found on a road you must travel alone. As you gather the fragments of the structure that crumbles around you, and as you cease trying to 'make sense of it,' you will come to embrace the peace of knowing that the struggle is, at last, coming to an end. And you will experience a sense of sweet detachment from what was and an openness to what is yet to be."
-- Oneness by Rasha

I'm curious as to what is yet to be. I'm curious, fascinated, and totally intrigued. Sometimes I lose my head and try to figure things out, and by doing so I get caught up in drama and lose sight of the magic. And that's what I did today.

"It is crucial that you attain a state of detachment from the energy charges that have magnetized you, habitually, throughout this lifetime. It is crucial that you recognize the common thread in the web of dramas that you have woven -- that continue to ensnare you. And it is crucial that you allow yourself the grace of your own humanness in responding to these recurring situations -- and love yourself for it."
-- Oneness by Rasha

That's what I learned about myself today: I didn't think I was that special. My friend was a mirror to me. I didn't want to wring his neck; I wanted to wring mine. I am that special. I am that wonderful. I am. Another human experience that I get to love myself for. Just another opportunity to grow, another chance to expand. Oh, yay for me...

Now, I'm going to take myself on a walk. It's finally cool outside, and as I walk through familiar blocks of beautiful historic homes I'm going to get the chance to experience another level of detachment because as I stroll through these neighborhoods, I know that one day soon it will be my last.

About last night...

A guy I went to high school with had a birthday yesterday. After 21 comments back and forth to each other on Facebook, we continued with texting on and off throughout the day and night, and into early morning for me. We texted a lot about metaphysics, which led to past lives and Indians. Anyone who knows me well, knows how strongly I relate to those subjects. Indians became a constant topic of conversation and transformation for me while I lived in Steamboat, and apparently it didn't end there.

To make a really long story as short as I can, this friend yesterday brought up specific things that related to what I had seen during my shamanic journeys. It has since put me in another place mentally and emotionally. I haven't stopped thinking about it. When I least expected it, when I was so focused on possibly beginning a new relationship with someone local, this man in Colorado plugs into visions I had not even thought about in a long time. The energy that rose while texting each other is still ramping up. I pace the floor like a caged animal because it is so powerful. There was a connection made last night through the help of technology that has shifted everything.

"When you least expect it, from the most unlikely place, he will show up." This is what a psychic told me May of '08. Well, let me say that it is the most unlikely person and the most unlikely place. I thought I'd never leave Colorado, and here I am back in Texas after a 34-year absence. Reading his texts last night about how he sleeps with the windows open year round flashed me back to wonderful nights snuggled under covers with a breeze wafting through the room. I can't do that here. It's too hot, too humid, and way too many bugs. As he was texting me about his first trip to Gunnison, his desire to be in the wilderness, and a place with a creek running through it, my heart remembered why I moved there in '74.

I've been very happy here in McKinney. I've met the best people in the world, creating relationships beyond compare, and lately I've been feeling open to moving again. Listening to my friend talk about why he had to move there last year tugged at my heart. I remembered sitting by the Roaring Fork in Basalt listening to the water rush past me; the night I spent at Woody Creek Tavern with two very good friends of John Denver's; the many times I've taken off from the Aspen airport in a friend's Bonanza; the daily walks I took along the Yampa in Steamboat; the hikes up Emerald Mountain; climbing W Mountain in Gunnison; feeding horses naked during a snowfall...

Even though I had lived in Colorado for 34 years, I'm remembering only those times when I was single there. Those were my most amazing times, because it was in being single that gave me the latitude to awaken to what really jazzed me.

And now, this man reawakened in me the deepest, most profound part of who I really am using his own desires for the land where he now lives to help me remember what drove me there 36 years ago. I can live anywhere and still be a Colorado girl. People tell me all the time that I dress Colorado. No matter how hard I've tried, I'm not a Texas-girl dresser. I am not bling, big hair, or high heels. I am a t-shirt and blue jeans girl. Give me my Keene sandals, and I can stay on my feet walking or hiking for hours.

I love McKinney. I love the people here. It's magical, and yet, there's this other part of me that remembers the colors of the aspen leaves in September and the sound they make with the wind blowing through them, or the mountain to the left of us when taking off from the Aspen airport, Starwood to our right, and all the Gulf Streams under us. It's funny that I've never felt the desire to fly here, but thinking about take-offs from the Aspen airport makes me want to jump in that Bonanza right now.

I feel my life in waves, one wave of this great desire to be in Colorado, and another wave of loving life here in McKinney. Back and forth these waves undulate, tide rolling out and then coming back in. One foot in Texas, the other in Colorado.

And then I did an energy session with an intuitive who gave me a reading afterwards. What she told me was what I had been feeling: my heart, my home is in Colorado. She said I would be going back there this fall. She said this man is a stepping stone to my being open to doing just that. She said a lot of other things about him too, but I'm not sharing that information.

The guides that showed up were Indian grandmothers. They asked me how far will I take myself? They told me that all I needed to do was put one moccasin in front of another. I make my path wherever I go. They also said I was still connected to my shaman, Rob Wergin, that my work picks up where his leaves off. Not sure what that means, but they said that I'm not done working with him. Well, thank god for that!

So, Monday morning when I woke up I had no inclination to move back to Colorado. Within hours my mind was a tad bit open to the concept, and now... Hm, let's just say that I make my path wherever I go.

Kneeling on Wall Street

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY3ZEvOfD1w&feature=related

I came to the spa this morning to take care of some business I needed to attend to, and this video was sent to me. I haven't stopped listening to it yet. I spent two years working with a shaman in Steamboat Springs. I showed up in Steamboat after spending 32 years with the same man. I never intended to be in Steamboat. Aspen was my town of choice, but everything fell through there, every place to live, and every job/career opportunity. Steamboat fell into my lap one day after my last Aspen venture.

The first person I met in Steamboat was Rob Wergin. I saw his interview in the local paper, and couldn't stop looking at his picture or reading his information. Finally, I made an appointment. When I walked into his treatment room we both looked at each other and almost simultaneously asked what the other was doing in Steamboat. We both arrived at the same time, and neither one of us had "planned" it.

That was November 16, 2006. Exactly one year later I found myself kneeling on Wall Street with sacred tobacco, hawk feathers, and prayers. I was headed to NYC for a romantic weekend with a lovely man and a business meeting with Working Mother Media. Kneeling on Wall Street hadn't entered my realm of any possibility until he directed me to do just that.

Rob has this connection with "The Boys" as he calls them, and when we were out to dinner one night I saw the look on his face. It was the look that told me that he was listening to the Boys. Rob knew how to mess with me, but I knew that look all too well, and knew that when he had it, I would listen to whatever he had to say, and not only that, I would follow the directive to the "T".

Before he told me what they had to tell me, he made me promise I would do it. "Say it," he told me. "Say you'll promise that you will do this." I agreed without knowing anything.

Once I told my friend in NY what I was to do upon arriving in Manhattan, he asked if I'd wait until Saturday morning and he'd do it with me. He was concerned I'd be arrested. Since I'd never been to Wall Street, I had no idea what to expect. However, I was soon to learn his reservations. There were security and police everywhere, not to mention men and women dressed to the nines. Oh sweet jesus! What did I get myself into?

I'm still not sure. I did kneel on Wall Street -- 55 Wall Street to be exact. There seemed to be 800 doormen, women in ball gowns, men in black, and just way too many uniforms with guns. I sprinkled sacred tobacco in a circle, laid out the gifts I had been given just for this purpose, and knelt. Everyone disappeared and the energy that emanated from that circle of tobacco blew me off my knees.

I don't know what happened. I don't know how that affected anything. This I do know: Rob told me that I did good and to go enjoy my weekend. I did. I had an amazing meeting with Working Mother Media, and an even more fabulous weekend with a beautiful man. The magic was palpable. I carry those memories with me to this day.

And another thing I know is that Wall Street is no longer what it used to be. My friend told me recently that he thought about my trip to Wall Street and the changes afterward. Life is a magnificent mystery. I may never know what the purpose was, but I relish in every memory I have of that weekend.

Thank you, Rob, for sending me on that journey. Thank you, Jim, for sharing in the magic with me, and thanks, Working Mother Media, for all that you do.

nax nok

A week ago Friday I was unable to work on the computer, so decided to head to my studio until the heavens opened up and a river flooded the streets, so I sat in a chair and discovered something new. Energy that went from me to another, back and forth in an infinity symbol. It filled me so full that I had to expend it, or I was going to spontaneously combust. The next person that stepped into my sight was Cindy Goldman who just finished with a client.

Laying on the table with music playing and candles lit, she experienced the ride of her life, as did I. I still don't understand what it is or how it rolls but I know it's powerful, intense, and life-altering. I was trained many years ago in energy therapy. I even did a double-blind study on how it affects people with chronic pain. The results were astonishing. In spite of that, I soon dropped out of the energy scene. I was taught to look for something "wrong" with the person on my table, and that felt wrong to me.

This time it's different. I do not give out information on what happens during the sessions because I don't join my clients on their trips. I stand in the midst of the most amazing energy soaking it in, filling up, and sending it out. It's a lovely exchange. The more I do this, the more real it is to me and the less real the physical world becomes. I bask in energy that feels good and scoot away from that which doesn't.

And that brings me to what happened last Friday night. I was over at Square Burger with my friends, Tammy and Sonja, when I was telling them about the name of this energy, nax nok, and how it came about.

A friend and I were at the American Indian Museum in Manhattan when he found the name in one of the exhibits. It means supernatural power. The exhibit's description was this:

"Our ancestors inhabited a universe of powerful spirits. They understood that people and supernatural beings coexisted, and that interactions between them were frequent. For our ancestors, all success came from nax nok, a cosmic being who gave strength to deserving individuals. Nax nok could be revealed in dreams and visions, or through encounters with animals."

After leaving Manhattan that day we went to his house in Connecticut and eventually Googled nax nok. While doing that, there was an animal in his back yard that caught my eye. It walked along his rock wall but stopped right across from us long enough for him to take pictures. He'd never seen anything like it before or since. It was a black mink, and that's how nax nok was revealed to us.

It was an amazingly wonderful and magical weekend spent with him. We watched The Last of the Mohicans. He played the soundtrack while giving me a massage in his bedroom, and before I left he burned a copy of the music for me. That's the CD I play in my energy sessions, and all of these are reasons that I began to think of this man again after almost two and a half years. I am in awe of all that has transpired since then and how it's led me back to him. It's such a surprise but yet when I look back at the magic of it all, it appears perfectly orchestrated.

So, after all these years I'm doing energy work again. I'm creating jewelry with an essential nax nok oil blend. And every moment spent in this energy envelopes me in the energetic being I call Jim. It feels so good that I don't want to do anything else.

Napkin Notes

One of the many things that happen to me when I'm out with friends is someone says something that needs to go down in history. Since most of the time I'm at Square Burger, I have a plethora of napkin notes that I use to dictate snippets of conversations.

The other night Tammy Davis and I were sitting with Marley, a bartender at Square Burger. We were watching Kym and Katy pushing the pilsners onto these black grate-like things that shot water into the glasses. I asked Marley what in the heck they were doing, and he said they were getting the glasses ready for the beer. Tammy said, "What if the beer needed to be ready for the glasses?"

The owner, Brandon Horrocks, stopped by our bar stools, and I posed that question to him. His response was, and I wrote it down and had him check it to make sure I got it right because it could end up being in some beer encyclopedia of some sort some day, so here it is. Please be seated because this profound answer could knock you off your feet.

"Why can't they be mutually attracted to each other and get together?"

And then there was the night in our Square Burger booth that my friend Jeremiah told me this one: "You're like the tide of McKinney. You're either in early or out late."  The "in early" hasn't happened this year yet, I don't think.

And here's one today, copied from Facebook: "The human experience can never be healed because it's a figment of our imagination. The human experience is what we wake up from." Michael Beckwith

And on that note, I'm finishing up this blog and walking across the street to Square Burger for a glass of wine with the best company I know.