The LEAP of faith...

On becoming honey.

A few months ago I received a divine download that I need to create a healing journey called the LEAP. When I say divine download, I mean intuition, inspiration, idea, call if what you will. I don’t know yet if it will be a workshop, a series, an in person experience, a series of talks, maybe all of it. But in this case, I heard clearly in my mind that L.E.A.P. is to mean: Life Experienced As Purpose. Life Experienced As Purpose. This, coming through at a time when I was, yet again, making my own leap of blind faith in my life.

I had decided, after months of contemplation, that I would leave my outwardly successful, fulfilling, well compensated, meaningful work of 8 years and step out again into the unknown. This leap was familiar to me, something I have done at several points in my life. Leaving a situation that to most would be a clear ‘must stay’ and returning to the risky void of not knowing what is yet to emerge. This leap always starts for me as a whisper. A nagging gnosis that while I am happy, I’m not capital “H” Happy. And a gnosis that life is meant to be lived in the realm of capital H.

I received this gnosis at the bedside of my father. As he passed from his body and into the beyond. From a cancer that took his life, too early, at the age of 59, and took my father away from me too early, at the tender age of 20. I knew then as I know now that there is no such thing as “why me?” Instead, I thought “why not me?” Who am I to assume that my life is going to be void of deep suffering? And who am I to assume I know what form that suffering may take? What if, in fact, the purpose of incarnating into a body is to experience both suffering and its beautiful contrast, joy?

When I saw how the body is left behind once a soul has departed, a body I had loved so deeply, I knew in such radically profound and simple terms that we are given the gift of being alive until we are dead. And if we choose to live in fear and worry, we have welcomed death into our precious experience of aliveness.

That day was followed by three more days of intense connection to the sense of universal oneness. It is a feeling I knew I would forget and one I promised myself I must remember. Holding this gift is one key component of how and why I leap. Because until we are dead, if we choose aliveness, then we are never finished evolving, stretching and growing into the future selves we have yet to become.

I was in a coaching class with an 80 year old man who was assisting the course. When he introduced himself, he shared that he was turning 80 and he was so excited because the 70’s had been the best decade yet and he couldn’t wait to see what the 80’s had in store for him. Just wow. Life-long learning, humility and grace, the gifts of true aliveness.

The leap that starts as a whisper always grows for me to a hum. Becoming more and more present and beginning to manifest as the unfolding future. I still don’t know what lives in that void, but once the hum is present, I know that something wants to emerge and it is important that I listen with faith that whatever it is, it will be right.

This morning I was reading the Gene Keys. The Gene Keys, for those unfamiliar, are a sacred transmission that has foundations in the IChing and Human Design. It is a contemplative life path and one I discovered about a year and a half ago. I’m kind of obsessed. I read every morning as part of my grounding and centering practice, and I wanted to dive into Gene Key 51. This key sits at the center of my profile, at my Pearl, the seat of my most divine unfolding.

Each key holds three frequencies, the Shadow, the Gift and the Siddhi. The shadow in the 51st Gene Key is that of Agitation. I wanted to dive into this because I had started my morning immersed in this shadow. Agitated that I had been woken up by a friend coming into our home without notice and barking dogs defending their turf. Reading in the Gene Keys book, I realized (by my copious notes in the margins) that the idea for the LEAP workshop had emerged through my contemplation of the 51st Gene Key.

The gift of the 51st key is Initiative. And the leap from the Shadow of Agitation to the Gift of Initiative is the leap into your highest self. What would it look like to leap if you knew that each leap brought you more in alignment with your highest self? What practices and experiences might help us take those leaps more regularly? Stepping into our genius, our greatness?

The 51st shadow of Agitation, in my life, is anchored in a deep, lifelong fear of unworthiness. What would it take to integrate the truth that the gift is found in transcending this shadow to dare into my greatness? I am here to become a beacon, an agent of positive shock. To help others lean into their own unique lifeprint because I know that it is so unique and the world is absolutely waiting for you to realize it. If we were to each, fully and unabashedly lean into our own unique lifeprint, the world would explode into a fire of beauty and love of such great magnitude that we cannot even imagine.

We have been sold a bill of goods that is rotten. Human beings are not by nature violent. Human beings are not by nature cruel. Human beings are not by nature destructive. For every historian or scientist or philosopher that tries to tell you we are, there is insurmountable evidence to the contrary. But violence, cruelty and destruction create the perfect environment for fear and anxiety to flourish. They create the perfect environment for ancestral traumas to persist and embed in our epigenetic DNA. And we are here now to break those chains of command. We are here to step into leadership and become the attractor fields for the beloved futures we know are possible. I know that collaboration is the highest manifestation of the human competitive spirit. I know that my work is to help you harness, embrace and live into your magnificent difference so that you may invite others to stand in their own unique excellence alongside you. I know this. I know this in my bones.

Which, in a spiraling cascade of truth, brings me to becoming honey… I want to slow down. Radically slow down. I want to make ‘radical-rester’ a highlight on my resume, playing with kids a top skill set, daily sunset staring the most important 2022 goal. Slowing down, I believe, is the only way to pay enough attention to be able to actually notice and see what makes up your unique difference. Make room for the quiet moments. Make room for the whispers of the fates. Make room for your heart to breathe into her true essence. Make room for your wings to unfurl.

Working with my amazing coach, Gia Storms, I played with different perspectives of my life through imagining different metaphors, and an image of honey showed up in my thoughtfield. What would it be like to become honey? Slow, sweet nectar of all the hard work that has been done by yourself and your collaborators. To sit and simmer in that place of restorative rest. To tend the soul’s simple desires like sunsets and hugs, warm coffee and slow walks. What would honey do in the face of change? I think honey would take her time, savor the sweetness of everything that gets stuck to her. Relish in the joy that her presence brings. Honey is healing. In Costa Rica, the tiny mariola bees create a honey that is so healing, you can put a drop in your eyes to improve your vision or heal an infection. Imagine that, honey so potent with healing that it literally helps you to see. Honey that helps us heal. How can we become the honey that heals with sweet softening surrender?

Just begin to imagine the genius of Gaia that creates all of this… that designed a world where the collective sacrifice of bees in their irresistible attraction to flowers might be some of the most potent healing salve available. Becoming honey for me means releasing the to do list in favor of the ability to feel my intuition again. Becoming honey means that I don’t have to do it all, just my part, and surround myself with others who share my values and are doing too. Becoming honey means that my curiosity, my attraction, my nuggets of passion are my flowers and I can devote myself to discovering their nectar because the world needs it. The nectar of my curiosity is medicine. The nectar of your curiosity is medicine. Where are your flowers, how can you plant more of them?

I imagine a leap in slow motion. Like a ballerina flying through the air with a stop motion camera. The grace magnified with slowness. The beauty intensified as you can actually savor the moment. Imagine if we had that level of courage to leap without a net in slow motion? What might we see and learn along the way? If life is just a journey, and all you have is living along the way, then why are we rushing past the scenery?

In America where I live, we have built complex and entrenched systems that privilege hustle. Systems and lifeways that tell us the only way to get to a slow, peaceful life is to go really fast, burn out fast, until you maybe, just maybe, get to slow down one day. That maybe you can rest, eventually, at a time when you’ve forgotten how to the smell the flowers, you don’t even know the scent of your nectar, and you can’t remember what it means to be just simply curious. To all of this, I say no. I simply and purely, disagree. Sit with that for a moment. And imagine the freedom of this sacred and solemn no.

In my contemplation and newly found slowness, I have been looking and noticing all the waste around us. And I don’t mean waste as we usually think of it. I mean wasted love, wasted passion, wasted intention and wasted desire. I’ve been seeing the waste, understanding the systemic ways in which it is produced by the specter we call modernity and understanding that the resolution of this pattern of waste holds within it the keys to a wholly new earth.

One morning in the small tourist town of Banos I took a walk at sunrise. The town was just waking up and shopkeepers were just getting into their shops to open for the day. As I walked past the old historic church in the center of town, I saw dozens of small tourist trinket shops all lined up next to each other in little stalls beneath the church. If you’ve traveled at all in developing countries you will know what I’m talking about. The stalls that line every tourist attraction with shitty plastic trinkets and souvenirs that were almost always made somewhere else like China (except maybe in China where they were made there!). Printed with the name of the place you’re in, upholding the common lies told by capitalism that define our economies.

Each shop owner had diligently woken at dawn to come and open their shop. Each shop owner was carefully and intentionally arranging their wares in their stall. Wares which are exactly the same as the wares of their neighbor. Each shop owner burdened by the stress of the reality that they are barely scrapping by with their small business. Each shop owner internalizing that stress as a reflection on themselves. Wondering if their neighbor is doing better than them. Wishing that they could find the elusive comfort of minimal material success that they seek.

I wanted to whisper, “It’s not you. You didn’t do anything wrong. The system is rigged. The only one making money here is the owners of the factory in China that sold the same shit to every stall.” I wanted to hug them and let them know there is another way. I wanted to let them know that they are not a failure, that they live in a failed world. That no matter how hard they work in that stall, they will never find what they seek there.

And in that moment, I imagined all that incredible resolve, dedication, hard work and intention channeled into something different. Something that could light them up, something that could bring them joy and fulfillment and love. When we understand our very unique difference, the unique life-print that is wholly ours and has no equal anywhere in the universe, then we realize that there is no such thing as competition. We are so incredibly unique, that there is quite literally no one like us. And there is no one who was born to do exactly what we were born to do in our lifetime.

I sat with the understanding of all that waste. Wasted hope, vitality, drive, hard work, dreams, disappointments, anger and frustration. It doesn’t have to be this way. Humans created these systems and humans can create new ones. Creation is as much a part of our nature as air and water. We cannot help but create. When we no longer create, we die, whether that is a physical death or a life devoid of aliveness. We are creations and we create. It is one of the few capital T truths that I know.

As I walked along the stalls lining the cathedral in the early morning glow, I contemplated this profound understanding, this vision of spiritual and psychic waste that manifests as physical waste destroying our planet, and I imagined in its place a world where all of the passion and purpose of each individual human was being used to serve earth and all her creations. Just imagine that reality! The freedom joy and celebration that would become as natural as breathing.

That level of radical abundance and joy is not only possible, I believe it is coming. I look around every day and see an awakening to the truth of who we are growing in palpable ways. Yes, darkness is aiming to take us backwards. Yes, there is imminent suffering all around too. And there is light. So much light. Be the light in your life for others. Take the leap that life is asking of you. Surround yourself with others who feed your light and then from that place of wholeness, help however you can when you encounter darkness and suffering.

This path of integrity is not easy. And it is the most natural thing a human can do. We were born pure. We were born only able to see light and to feel our way back to love. Our life’s work is a journey back to that pure essence of love. If this sounds idealistic, it is. Unabashedly. This is my prayer. This is my purpose. The writings in this space will be centered around this journey of re-member-ance. Putting ourselves back together in the vision of the divine abundance that I AM. I hope you will come along and contribute if you feel called to do so. Welcome home. Our circle is open and remains unbroken. Blessed be. And so it is.