things that make me go hm...

I used to ask for signs. Lately I've had so many coming at me that it's been difficult to remember them all. However, for many, many years now the signs have still been pointing in the same directions, even though they're on two separate sides of the map -- Windstar in Old Snowmass, Colorado and New York. WTF???

First, I have one thing to say before I get into any of that. I LOVE TAOS!!! I love being here with Tammy. I love the house I live in. I love the places I work. I love the people here. I love the energy. I love it all. I'm going to repeat myself here -- wtf???

So, here's a few things that have happened this morning. While drying off after my shower, a thought hit me (as they often do...) that since singledom I've apparently made it a habit to move every two years. Now, let me just say that all morning I was thinking about how much I love Taos and how much I truly enjoy serving the people here. I am so excited about being able to provide meals and coffee and desserts for them next week. I was even thinking about how much fun it would be to run a restaurant with Tammy here with her magnificent recipes. And then I get out of the shower and am knocked upside the head with the idea that I've moved every two years since being single. Two years ago today I arrived in McKinney, Texas with my U-Haul. Hm...

While living in McKinney last July a friend of mine who lives in New York came to visit me and see my studio. While looking at all my stuff, he was quite taken with a little piece I made with dragonflies on it. I gave it to him, and he has since asked me to make him some dragonflies to put on his own art. That's what I've been doing lately instead of doing it last August when he asked for them. Oh well...

Now I'm obsessed with them. I've been making them like crazy, and this morning I decided to look them up in Ted Andrews' Animal Speak. Here's what jumped out at me immediately:

Dragonflies are very territorial. They will lay their eggs within their territory near the water. The egg eventually develops into the nymph stage of metamorphosis in this insect, and remains as a nymph for almost two years before it transforms into an adult dragonfly or damselfly. This can reflect a number of possibilities for those with this totem. It can indicate that an approximate two-year period of change is about to reach its culmination. It may reflect that you are coming into a two-year period of transformation. It may even reflect a need to institute changes that may culminate in the colorful transformations you desire within a two-year period.

Well now... I know I'd be crazy for trying to figure out what any of this means. God knows my interpretations in the past have sent me up shit creek, so I'm not going in that direction now. I'm just noticing patterns and synchronicities -- 2 years, dragonflies, moving, New York...

I just read those words I typed and am surprised at the order I put them in... again, just noticing patterns (I'm telling myself this...)

When I opened Animal Speak to the page with the dragonfly description, I noticed a notation I had made. On June 24, 2005 I was at John Denver's Windstar Foundation in Old Snowmass, Colorado where a dragonfly landed on me. According to the book, in some Native American culture the dragonfly represents the soul of the dead. Really... Just read that.

So, 36 years have passed since I saw this guy I went to high school with (the NY guy). He comes to visit last July and loves my dragonflies. The day he came to town changed everything, and I didn't know it until he left. First of all, he met some of my friends in McKinney. We went to a friend's home where she was putting on a dinner party. My NY friend couldn't stay, but there was something that stuck with me after he was physically gone because that night I could no longer participate in my usual McKinney routine. Every person at that dinner was a very dear, wonderful  friend of mine, but I couldn't stay. I kept leaving the party, walking to the square to just be alone and think. Looking back on it now I realize that there was something between my NY friend and I that was exchanged on a soul level. I have not been the same since. It was that night that I was ready to leave McKinney even though it didn't happen for another two months.

In my life, energy plays a much bigger role than what my physical world looks like. As Ted Andrews says, "Dragonfly can help you to see through your illusions and thus allow your own light to shine forth. Dragonfly brings the brightness of transformation and the wonder of colorful new vision." I don't look at what's in front of me and believe that's all there is. I listen to the words spoken to me, and know that's only part of the story. I watch people's behaviors and know that there's so much more going on. I feel the fabric that ties us all together. I know there's a huge picture developing no matter what shows up. I don't pretend to know what is going on; I just know that if I let go of trying to figure it all out then "the wonder of colorful new vision" appears.

So, that being said, what I'm trying to get at, successfully or not, is that there is a magnificence unfolding in my life and it feels like this man who now lives in NY has had some part in it. Where does it go from here? Who knows? I know that information is showing up for me now, and it's opening me up to more possibilities.

And with that being said, I'm just going to work on dragonflies today. I'll probably go to the store and pick up some groceries. I may even walk to the Plaza to talk to some friends about my artwork. But I know one thing for sure, no matter what it is I do, magic will be involved.

chop wood, carry water

For the first time I'm alone in the house. There's embers glowing in the fireplace. The mobile on the front porch is still. Coffee's brewed, and a raven flew past the window. I hear the humming of the refrigerator and the keys on the computer, and that's it. Silence otherwise. I've been chatting with a friend of mine who's in Aspen til Friday. I just saw a video on Facebook of Jimmy Stewart reading a poem he wrote about his dog named Beau. Back in 1975 I went to visit Aspen and stayed with a college friend who had a dog named Beau. I still have a picture of Beau. Got to love that dog for the weekend, and have gotten to love his owner for years.


I went to Aspen for many reasons that weekend, one of them was to see John Denver. I did see him, and then in 2006 I met and worked with someone who had been a very good friend of his, and he was the one I had been chatting with this morning.

I've always had a love relationship with Aspen, and to be able to hear about the goings-on this morning was priceless. I could see the mountains, the snow, the highway down the Roaring Fork Valley, the brick pedestrian mall...

Aspen, my dream winter wonderland. I used to go there when I couldn't take my life anymore. I would drive to Aspen/Snowmass for a reprieve, and then be able to go back to what I left behind until I could go back no longer. I thought I'd move to Snowmass after living so long in Boulder county, but instead ended up in the northwest part of the state. Interestingly enough, I did end up going to Aspen several times to work with my employer. I met new people and fell in love with it all over again.

Will I be going back again? Who knows? I never thought I'd end up in New Mexico either.

I chop wood, carry water now. I just be. This is home for now. This feels right, right now. The ability to chop wood and carry water is exhilarating really. It moves me, literally. I move, and I accept whatever's on my plate at the moment. I am so grateful for whatever shows up because whatever it is, I know it is more than I could've imagined.

Perhaps Love - John Denver & Placido Domingo

I've been working on my new website while listening to this song. John Denver's singing takes me to a place that absolutely fills me, but this song in particular just floods me with massive quantities of love. And... it could be from memories that certainly skyrocket to the forefront of my mind when I hear it, and maybe that's why I've been playing it almost nonstop these couple of days.

This song takes me back to a morning when I awoke to birds singing outside the window. I was hunkered down underneath a white down comforter and what seemed like twenty pillows, and upon opening my eyes, I could look at my Aspen lover. We'd fall asleep in each other's arms, but soon I'd need to be turning over and stretching out across the bed, leaving him lying behind me, my naked butt scooched up to his hip.

One morning in particular the song lyrics were playing in my mind: "The memory of love will bring you home..." My leg was splayed across his, and this went through my head: "If I should live forever, and all my dreams come true, my memories of love will be of you." When I rolled over to look at him, his eyes were closed, mouth slightly open, and his breathing was solid. I put my hand on his chest, and spun his hair between my fingers. Slowly his eyes opened. There was this instant recognition of seeing me beside him and being so pleased because of it, that when he wrapped his arms around me, pulled me close, and kissed me, I knew my love memory bank was full of him.

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.

McKinney Creative Community

John Denver has a song with the lyrics: "It's five o'clock this morning and the sun is on the rise." Well, I now know for a fact that at three in the morning, the sun is nowhere to be seen.

I decided to stay up all night to get a lot of work done that's been needing to be completed, so what better way than to get it done when everyone else is sleeping?

Well, just about everyone else was sleeping. Here it was still dark out and COOL, and I was just moseying around the square, checking out the new places and window shopping at the old ones when I turned the corner at Square Burger and saw the owner, Brandon, still working. WTF? Who is awake on the square at three in the morning??? (Okay, besides me...) He wanted to know what I was doing up. Trying to stay awake.

So today, Brandon let me know that when he left the square (sometime after we discovered we were probably the only two people awake at that time in the morning), he saw me standing in my daughter's office in front of the computer typing on the keyboard. "Do you know what time that was?" he asked me when I was in his restaurant at lunch.

Frankly, I didn't know. I was on a mission. I had work to complete, and, baby, I was getting it done. It felt good, and I love feeling good. I promised a man that I would send him 300 words a day on my next novel, and I was cranking those words out. I had an ecourse to catch up on, and I finished all the lessons. And today, I designed the commissioned work that was due and got it to my client. Sweet jesus! It has been a phenomenal day and night.

And right now I'm bursting with happiness. The girls here are laughing at my craziness because I can't stop talking and typing. Caffeine late in the day probably has something to do with that, as does lack of sleep.

So now, it's time to head home and shower. Way too many people have noticed I'm in the same clothes from yesterday. I'm getting dressed and even putting on makeup. (Yes, miracles do happen!) And then it's off to Cadillac's to snag musicians for the McKinney Creative Community. My friends, Tom and Silky Michero, told me today that our community needs to have more men, and musicians would be fabulous, and since I've been known to have a few of them in my life (male musicians), I'm talking to them about this new adventure.

There's a Facebook page called McKinney Creative Community, and anyone can join. We're beginning monthly potlucks in September so we can all come together and create a community of creative people. Right now there's all kinds of artists -- musicians, writers, painters, and we want to include anyone in the healing arts also. Who's not an artist? Who doesn't create a work of art with their own lives? Get creative, have fun, and join us for the time of your life.

Tom and Silky Michero working on plans for our McKinney Creative Community in Square Burger today at lunch

brain vacation

My brain has decided to take a vacation and not invite me.

I'm in my studio for the second day this year because I've been residing in bed since New Year's. My brain started hurting last week when I was working on a new design in my studio. On New Year's Eve after seeing It's Complicated and laughing my ass off, I went flying with a friend over McKinney until it became the new year. I'm not sure if my brain landed with me.

It was a full moon and a blue moon. It was also John Denver's birthday. We took off around 11:48 at night. I was in the back seat clicking pictures of the lights and the moon, when the pilot told me to take over. There went my picture taking, at least the shots that weren't blurry.

I love to fly. I love to take off. It's one of my greatest highs. It's the landings I'm not so excited about. I'm not thrilled about taxiing slowly down the runway turning towards the hangars. I don't enjoy undoing my seat belt and taking off my headset.

Takeoffs are exceptionally orgasmic for me. There's not a cell in my body that's not turned on and tuned in. There's something so amazingly seductive about being above it all, seeing the ground below, the ant-sized people until they are nothing but dots and then nothing at all.

This is freedom. This is unadulterated freedom. This is mind-blowing, breath-taking, and well, for lack of anything better to say, just far out! Thank you, John, for that.

The point I want to make though is that I don't think my brain came back down with me. I've been floating and unable to comprehend the simplest of tasks since. Is it because it's been so long since my last flight in a single-engine? Is it because it's been even longer since I had my hands on a stick? (And I mean that in oh so many ways...)

I am meant to live above it all, above the pettiness and drama that resides here. They are not my friends or my people. My people are lax and loose and free. My people see no boundaries or reason to blame. Situations and people in their lives are clear mirrors to their own thoughts about themselves. They are grateful instead of blaming. They are in joy instead of in sadness. You ought to feel their excitement when I'm up in the stars. When I'm steadying my camera lens at the blue moon outside the cockpit.

It's the stars and the clouds and the sky and the moon and the sun that's home to me. Coming back down, feeling the tires land on the runway, and the propeller slow down makes my brain take a vacation without me.

Next time I'm going with it.

A well-traveled road

As soon as it was time to go to college, I left the state I'd spent most of my life in -- Texas. I fled to Colorado. It was a place I had thought about and dreamed about for years. My every waking moment was spent fantasizing about living there. I imagined everything I'd do, how I'd live, and who I'd love. Ask anyone who knew me during high school. John Denver and Colorado were all I ever talked about.

Looking back on those 14-year-old's memories, I realize how few of those fantasies came true. So, what's up with all this hype about the law of attraction -- we attract to us that which we think and feel about? I thought it; I felt it; and I still didn't move to Aspen and become friends with John Denver. That was probably my biggest fantasy. I wanted to travel with him, to help run his show in some way. I didn't know what that would be. I didn't care. I just knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could work and travel with this man.

After moving to Gunnison, Colorado for college, I took guitar lessons and learned how to play John Denver songs. I probably still have the music somewhere for "The Eagle and The Hawk." I was a music major playing the piano, and John Denver was not allowed in those classical music halls. Confined in my small room with a captive piano I would play for hours -- Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin, but never John Denver.

I was sitting in a room alone with a piano instead of outside in the Rocky Mountains that John would sing about. I was running my hands up and down a keyboard playing a long-dead musician's piece instead of picking "Rocky Mountain High" beside a river. I would spend hours and hours in a confined room playing the same arpeggios instead of traveling with a band that introduced John Denver to an audience so many nights on the road.

It didn't matter. I knew so strongly that this would come true that I didn't waiver. I kept playing until I was asked to leave the program for lack of a tolerable singing voice and for being tone deaf. I picked up my pen instead and became a writer. I ended up with a degree in English. I use it every day.

One of the first guys I met in Gunnison was from the Aspen area. I even hitchhiked to his mother's house my freshman year and spent the weekend with him there. He was a friend that I never forgot over the years. When I ran away from home with a six-year old daughter, I ran to him, and then again 18 years later when I struggled with a failing marriage and a buried identity.

Just a few short years ago in 2004, I left Boulder county where I was living to go to a symposium in Snowmass near Aspen. The symposium was put on by a John Denver foundation called Windstar. I never made it to the symposium, but I got reacquainted with my college friend. He flew me back to Gunnison where we'd met. We walked the main street where we'd been all those years ago. We talked about all the places we'd gone to there, the people we'd befriended, and what happened in those buildings. But most importantly, while walking down the street we remembered who we once were and who we thought we'd be. It was painful to see the incongruency in it all. It was a turning point, a defining moment for me like none other. It was my 48th birthday, and I was so disappointed with who I'd become.

The dichotomy of who I dreamed I could be and who I had become was such a chasm, I couldn't fathom a way to make it to the side I wanted to be on. The distinction between the two were so evident, so in my face, that it was too painful to not do something about it.

The drive back to Boulder county that day took me two extra hours and I don't remember it at all. I never stopped thinking about how I had to make changes. I didn't know how; I just knew I had to, and one of the first things I wanted to do was learn to fly. My Aspen friend flew me over the Maroon Bells and Pyramid Peak to Gunnison, and it seemed the world opened up to me. There was something inside that blossomed and turned me into someone who could no longer be that simple wife that did what it took to keep peace (in an angry sort of way).

Taking flying lessons was out of the question, according to my then husband. To me the only thing out of the question was to continue being his wife. So, after 27 1/2 years I became single again. After living near Denver and Boulder for all those years, I went back to the mountains in search of me. I went back to the mountains to hibernate for a couple of years and grow into someone I could be proud of.

One of the first people I met was a shaman that I worked with for months before finding out that he and John Denver had been good friends. We worked together in Aspen for a while, driving from Steamboat every week. I met many John Denver friends that way. I still get calls from them. And then last September I took a 5-day workshop with one of John's dearest friends, Tom Crum, on the Journey to Center. It was a John Denver lovefest. There were many participants that had been good friends of John's. I heard so many stories about him. We listened to his music, and his energy was so prevalent that it was palpable.

Within weeks of that workshop, I had moved back to Texas.

So, did all that visualizing/fantasizing mean nothing? Did I really not have my dreams come true? Did I not travel with John?

In the past when I've declared something as mine -- visualizing it and claiming it with affirmations, vision boards, etc. -- it has always shown up, but just not how I think. I've traveled all my adulthood with John Denver. I moved to Colorado in 1974 because of him. I spent many nights in the Aspen area because of him, and I moved back to Texas because of him. Every major event in my life has had a John Denver connection. Every trip back to Aspen has been a defining moment for me. Every experience there and every experience with his friends have helped shape my life into what it is today.

I thought I'd be lugging around guitars with a backstage pass around my neck. I thought I'd be hearing his music live from behind the stage. Instead, I heard him within. I followed the tiny nudges that kept leading me to the next step, and those steps led me to McKinney, Texas in 2008, 34 years after leaving Texas the first time.

I've learned to make my wishes known to the universe. To voice them in the ways I know how and then allow the events to unfold as beautifully and perfectly as they always have. I've learned to wake up to the possibilities in every moment and see the finer connection to all that there is. It's a lovely way to live. I am so grateful. Thank you, John. It's been a well-traveled road back.

I am so grateful

I awoke this morning to a phone call from a dear, sweet friend telling me about her nephew's accident. She asked if my chiropractor daughter, Dr. Alyssa Summey, could phone her sister, the mother, and give her information about what her son's doctors were suggesting.

After telling my daughter about this request, she told me about her friend/patient that was broadsided by an SUV while driving his motorcycle after leaving her office on Monday. He was airlifted to a hospital in Dallas where he still is.

These two events helped me remember how grateful I am for every single person in my life, how very precious they are to me, and for all the greatness that is showered on me every moment.

I am so grateful.

I got a beautiful email from a man who has altered my life significantly. When I opened up yahoo and saw his name there, tears came to my eyes. He's Tom Crum, an amazing being who taught me so much last September at his Journey to Center workshop. I feel the effects of his teachings daily. Thank you, Tom, from the bottom of my heart for blessing my life with your gracious teachings.

I am so grateful.

And then I met a friend, Michelle Barr, I'd lost touch with for coffee this morning. We poured our hearts out over coffee and tea, and suddenly the day was brighter and lighter. We took a tour back to my daughter's office on the square so she could look at the potential use of the office space for herself. We ran into another piece of the puzzle, Molly Jones of Molly J & Co. and ended up having lunch together and discussing the vibrant connection and possible joint ventures of business on the square.

I am so grateful.

I received a phone call from an Aspen friend who was a close friend of John Denver's, as was Tom Crum. After that conversation, I turned on my computer to see John Denver on my FB page. I am blessed with serendipity and miracles. John Denver always has shown up in my life during a major change. I look forward to seeing what's next.

I am so grateful.

I opened my email and read a long one from a beau, and it hurt to read his pain, but also felt good knowing that what he's suffering through cleanses him in the end. It'll bring him into such beautiful light. One day.

I am so grateful.

Tonight I fixed a delicious chicken dinner for my wonderful daughter before we leave to check out another office space. We're planning on going to Lone Star Winery for glasses of red wine, before heading over to Cadillac's to hear our favorite local musicians.

I am so grateful.

A whole new world...OMG!

My life erupts, catapults, excalates. It doesn't just gradually transform. I do massive movement. I enjoy speed. I intend ease and grace. Really, I do. I learned that from my shaman, Rob Wergin, but somehow or another ease and grace looks like volcanic eruptions. A dear friend of mine, Bee Herz, who I've just reconnected with (thank you, GOD!) told me that no matter what shows up, I fling the door open and usher it in. Fascinating concept. Looking back on life as a single girl, I have to agree with her.

I've said it before -- I'm a leaper. I jump without looking. I fling myself headlong because I can. I open my heart and love passionately because I know no other way now. I had lived a life of stagnation. I call it a 27-year marriage that looked like one day because every day felt the same. And now? It's as if when leaving that marriage, I left behind the cocoon I metamorphed out of and soared freely. Here's a list of some of the wild adventures I've participated in since being on my own --

1. knelt on Wall Street
2. made love in Manhattan
3. moved to the mountains
4. worked for a shaman
5. traveled to Aspen on a regular basis
6. gave blow jobs over the mountains in a private plane
7. did everything but intercourse in a restaurant in Steamboat (no, I'm not saying which one or with whom, but I'd be willing to do it again with him...)
8. ooh, this is a great one -- helped a "ghost" cross over
9. created a magnificent family
10. moved to McKinney, TX
11. discovered the internet
12. got back to writing daily
13. developed a career on my own
14. met corporate people in NYC I had been working with for years
15. co-piloted an experimental plane over the mountains
16. met many of John Denver's friends in Aspen
17. took a workshop with the magnificent Tom Crum
18. met James Arthur Ray and attended two of his events so far
19. had many experiences with men that will go down in infamy, at least in my memory
20. okay, I cannot leave this one out --I was enjoying myself in the back of my Subaru with my pilot at the Steamboat airport when a twin engine came barreling towards us since we were parked beside his hangar. With my pilot's naked butt in the air, we scrambled to locate clothing and with bare breasts flapping, I jumped into the driver's seat to zoom out of there before the plane parked right beside the car. This, my friends, is priceless. This memory stands out soooo much. We laughed our heads off after we got out of there. I could never drive by the Bob Adams Airport without thinking about it.

But, what I really want to talk about today is what happened yesterday. So, if you've read this far you'll now get the coolest juice.

I spent the day with a new friend of mine, DeDe Murcer Moffett, who showed me this virtual world that she and a team had created. I watched her move her virtual self around, flying, swimming, leaping, whatever she chose to do. This virtual world is exactly how this "real" world works. Her virtual self didn't know where she was going next or what she was getting ready to do. However, the "real" her was pushing the control keys on the keypad and made her swim, fly, walk, etc. What was interesting though was that even though DeDe was pushing certain buttons, her virtual self didn't always follow through. Hm, sound familiar? Our higher selves knows what's best for us, leads us towards the "right" path, but our conscious selves may choose a different way. And so the struggle continues...

It was just so mind-blowing that I haven't been able to get my mind on anything else. It reminded me of Dorothy on the yellow brick road thinking she was going to see the wizard, but instead, discovered the man behind the curtain. I feel like this has been my life. I grew up believing the world I lived in was one of absolutes and certainty. I was told that I could not break boards with my bare hand, or walk on hot coals without getting burnt. I was also told to get a degree, work for a good company, and then retire with a healthy pension plan. I was also led to believe that marriage was sacred and that there was no such thing as divorce. I discovered though that I could break a board like it was tissue paper. There is no security in the job market, and that a college degree doesn't guarantee you diddly squat. And truly, the biggest illusion/delusion was the marriage game. Marrying someone because I couldn't live without him was the biggest farce of them all. Not only could I live without him; I soared without him. My greatest breakthroughs have been these past 2 1/2 years on my own. I've discovered the fantastical illusory world that has been built around me, and as soon as I changed my perception, my world shifted.

And so it is with this virtual world. It exemplifies how easy it is to create everything that you want. You build your own house with ease. You want to go from one point to the next, you can teleport, fly, swim, heck you can even walk on water. When DeDe wanted something or to go somewhere she didn't wonder how she was going to do it, she just did it with full knowledge that anything was possible. She could walk through doors, which she did, when she wanted to get somewhere. No matter what she did she was okay. Whether she was under water, in the sky, or standing on the ground. She was okay. She was never in any danger. She was always provided for. Everything she needed was within her reach.

This, my friends, is the key to the kingdom. It's the knowledge that we can do, be, or have anything that we want -- ANYTHING. It's one thing to know it intellectually, but it's certainly another to embrace it emotionally. Yesterday I was able to embrace it because at one point I couldn't tell the difference between the virtual or the "real."

So, today is like a birthday for me. This is the new me at this moment. The me who recognizes for the first time the real unlimited potentialities. This is all just a hologram that we create. This is our virtual reality. No one else in the world is going to see things as you do. You have that uniqueness that no one else does. You came here to play. See the life you live as that virtual world, because that's exactly what it is. Pick the players you want to share your playground with, and enjoy them with blissful abandonment. Open your heart. Open your arms. Allow the eternal joy to flow in no matter what because you are creating everything before you. What a master you are!

Breaking open my heart -- again

I looked at pictures of Aspen and John Denver today and cried. When I was fourteen years old I knew I wanted to be in Colorado and meet John Denver. My dream of moving to Colorado occurred three years later. I saw John quite a few times, spoke with him once, and last September worked with a dear friend of his and co-founder of the Windstar Foundation, Tom Crum. It was easy to fall in love with Tom, his wife, and his daughter, not to mention all those on his team.

Two years ago I moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado and one of the very first people I met, if not the first one, was a shaman who worked on me and then I worked with him. It was months into our relationship that I found out that he and John had been really good friends. He had pictures of John. We even worked in Aspen together in 2008 and met many of John's friends. It was great hearing all the stories about him. People who knew him really loved him. And, of course, being with Tom Crum for five days last September was really a John Denver lovefest, among many other things.

I moved back to Texas last November after living in Colorado for 34 years. Looking at those pictures of Aspen broke open my heart. I remembered...I remembered how I fell in love with it as a young teenager and later as a woman just a few short years ago. I remembered walking the pedestrian mall, having lunch at Little Annie's with my shaman and talking over our day. I remember kissing under the street light with a lover, having a secret liaison in his condo, talking with the director at the Aspen Athletic Club to get my shaman into their facilities, setting up a TV shoot, and riding in a client's Porsche. I remember watching the lunar eclipse downtown with him and another client, freezing but not daring to leave. I remember the Aspen airport, removing chocks from the wheels of an airplane, wrapping up the bungee cords that tied the cloth around the wings and tail to keep ice from accumulating on them, and climbing up on the wing and sliding into the cockpit before takeoff. I remember the feel of the wheels on the runway as my lover pushed in the throttle. When he pulled back the yoke and raised the landing gear, we flew over the single-engines and the jets, and to this day it's still one of the most amazing memories of my life.

Aspen is my place of many secrets. My secret love life, my secrets with my shaman, my secret longings, my secret life with John Denver that very few know. It all has to be that way. Those experiences are too magical to put into words. It's all secret. And it's all so beautiful.

So, today I cried for Aspen. I longed for Aspen. I long for Aspen. Again. Will it ever stop? Maybe it's not supposed to.

It was an experience over Aspen that changed my life forever in 2004. It was John Denver that got me there and a friend's belief in me that took me to new heights. It was a starting point that led to another leap, leaving everything familiar and moving to the mountains.

It has always been Aspen that has moved me. It has always been John Denver that touched me. And today seeing pictures of both broke open my heart because it was too full to stay in one piece.