Empowerment

THE WAYS OF THE WINTER SPIRIT: SURRENDERING TO THE STILLNESS

My photograph for this Christmas was taken last year in Idyllwild, California. The moon star lit up the sky so beautifully silhouetted by the tall trees. When it’s so dark that I can’t see the forest for the trees, it’s definitely time to look for light sources. I looked up and there was this bright burst. Photo credit to Kathleen Dana Haine.

THE WAYS OF THE WINTER SPIRIT: SURRENDERING TO THE STILLNESS

It’s Christmas time again, but this year is distinctly different for me. Although I had a lovely visit from my goddaughter and family last weekend. Christmas time itself and New Year’s Eve will be alone time this year.

Health challenges are rewarding me by staying home, though. It’s giving me time to pause and reflect on the meaning and purpose of life. To look at what things I choose to change and which things I desire to keep. While I love socializing and frivolity, it’s a necessary introspective time right now.

My Christmas wish was to be well enough to physically attend the children’s Christmas Eve mass at my local church. Singing harmony on all the beloved carols in the congregation brought tears to me eyes…happy ones. The angels are still singing in my home: Silent Night and a chorus of “Gloria in excelsis Deo.”

This week I had a visit with my alternative doctor who gave me good suggestions and some encouraging recommendations. One major recommendation to help me stay on the planet was: add sugar to the no-no list along with calcium and protein foods I have already given up. The addiction to the sweet stuff may light up the pleasure center of my brain, but it also amplifies inflammation, causing some very non-pleasurable effects.

Along with other physical homework, like massaging the scar area of my arm to get feeling back, I still require healing on the scars that don’t show.

Grief, loss and loneliness keep sneaking back into my veins. It’s harder to full-on heal when it’s cold inside as well as out. Internal snow seems more resistant to melting. However, there are many effective remedies for these recurring feelings. Sitting down by the hearth and having a fireside chat with each one is my favorite techniques.

Grief is the emotion that’s easiest to flip for me. Grief is really just love that’s blocked by loss and loneliness. I counteract it with a memory that could melt a blizzard in the dead of winter. I have MANY of those memories and basking in them brings back the feelings intensified over the original.

I also reframe memories that are not so easy or pleasant. I rewrite the past in my mind. Somehow it changes me in the present so I can accept a better future. The mental matrix is a hologram to program and reprogram. I am getting to be a master of tweaking the system to my advantage.

Sometimes even physical pain can be reversed. I feel my cells regenerate. Epigenetics switches on and then anything is possible. (See the works of Bruce Lipton for more understanding of that phenomenon.)

Alone time is now different for me than loneliness. When it’s accepted, surrendered to, then the stillness becomes the unseen friend, an access point to answers, a connection to God/Source/Creator. the gateway to possibilities we miss with our busy “monkey mind.” Even if nothing SEEMS to be happening, linear time has opened up to infinity where the possibility of miracles makes a template for the wonderment to unfold.

Sometimes I feel like meditation and prayer put me in an unlit room, but then a door opens and there’s a surprise party inside for me with all the loved ones and gifts I have ever dreamed of. When I meet them in real time the faces may have changed or details of the gifts. But it’s often even better than I imagined.

Whether I meet the gifts immediately, or in the future of divine timing, I am still grateful. The notes of the symphony are impressions before they reach the heart, the mind, the ear, the music sheet, the instruments, the stage. To negate their existence with self doubt or non-acceptance of their beginning invisibility would be a harsh destruction of a joyful outcome.

I hope your winter dreams yield a springtime harvest. I am already hearing angelic arpeggios for healing songs when the stillness turns to melodies I will write for my mandolin and me.

DIAGNOSIS: END STAGE RENAL FAILURE PROGNOSIS: FULL-ON MIRACLE HEALING

The porch of our family home in Idyllwild is the photograph for this blog. It was a place to sit contemplating big decisions and savoring moments of solitude. It lives in my memory now, a part of the collective of our life together.

I’ve been dancing through different stages with the kidney issue for some time now. Fourteen years on an inappropriate

prescription drug left me needing a kidney transplant back in 2008. Through a strong mix of motivation and miracle, I got up to

30% function and maintained a GFR (globular filtration rate, the measure of renal function) until 2016, after my husband and I

relocated to the central California coast.

While Bob developed a series of illnesses, I had my own health challenges including two failed dialysis surgeries in my left

arm. The three years of caregiving my husband through open heart surgery, Parkinsons and dementia yielded lessons in patience,

faith and unconditional love—for both of us.

After the passing of my soul partner in 2019. there were three more years of difficult decisions: the sale of our mountain home, the

reconstruction of the beach home, the strange times of Covid………..

Then came a time of soul searching the summer of 2022 while having informative flashbacks and moving through PTSD.

I had reached a crossroad on my birthday. I learned who and what I truly was— full disclosure on that later.

I had to be in a healing cocoon for a few months before I grew my wings back again.

This time the wings seemed to be made of stained glass on steel. But even steel breaks under pressure. There were many pressures.

I had become a spiritual diamond from hard core coal, yet there was a definite crack in the system. I was reminded of the poetical

message of Rumi and Leonard Cohen…The Crack is the way that the Light gets in.

Stage five symptoms have caused more than a few cracks. However, my path does not include another surgery which will lower

my kidney function with no promise of improving it. I do not choose “status quo” with a few more years of declining function with

a nightly artificial support system. ( I honor those who do choose it but I follow a divergent direction.)

I CHOOSE LIFE FULL ON.

The fear of death does not intimidate me. If it did, my near death experience in 1979 pretty much dissolved that. I share the belief

that the body is an amazing vehicle of the spirit with guidance from an extremely intelligent Source.

I may live alone, but I am not going through this alone. I have been assembling an impressive support team of alternative and

regular doctors, magnificent healers, intuitive therapists, and am receiving the compassionate assistance of the local Hospice of

San Luis Obispo and their wonderful counselors and volunteers.

I have informed my new friends at hospice that I am going to get well, surpassing the normal expectations and becoming the

vibrant being I was meant to be.

I have started up the blogging again for a two fold purpose: to keep an account of my journey to wellness and also to encourage

others to follow their true heart’s desire, to lead them to the joy of life however they picture that.

My picture is still not complete but I have put the pentimento of my scars on the paper and am adding colors daily to the design.

CATERPILLAR DREAMS: BUTTERFLY REALITY

This photo of a peaceful pair of butterflies was taken by my husband, Bob Haine. The  background of a white flower gives a tranquil setting for the two, a respite from flight and a chance to refuel. Caterpillar days are over as they take their place in the sun.

CATERPILLAR DREAMS: BUTTERFLY REALITY

It has been awhile since I have posted anything. Not because I had nothing to say or no time to say it. I have been very busy, cleaning and downsizing our home of over thirty years for a big move.

Moving to our dream home near the beach in central California was not an easy move. But we have arrived, here and now.

I have not posted anything lately because, as the caterpillar might say, “When you’re in a chrysalis state you keep still, until you’re ready to emerge as the butterfly.”

I’ve spent the months after the new year preparing to grow wings. It has been my caterpillar stage.

Nobody delves much into what the caterpillar is thinking and feeling as it hangs in that fragile cocoon. We like pondering more on what the beautiful butterfly is feeling as it floats across the sky, manifesting those gorgeous wings.

However, the ugly caterpillar stage is the most critical part of the butterfly’s development. Without this nitty-gritty formation stage, the butterfly would not exist.

It takes time, a darkened time, to formulate the butterfly. Somehow, the caterpillar knows and accepts this.

It must be frightening, at some level, to leave the only world you know, to reconstruct the body you have had, to live on the precarious edge of a branch, yet have the quiet knowing that this is the proper sequence of things.

I admit that I did not have the natural intelligence of a caterpillar when I chose to pack up my former life, leave our longtime home and move to a totally different locale.

I did not realize that not only would the structure of my home change, but that I would not be the same creature after re-establishing myself somewhere else.

The metamorphosis from a caterpillar life to a butterfly life is not easy. During the preparatory times, there are lots of questions if one is a human caterpillar. Questions like:

When is my escrow going to close? I’ve sold my home; when am I going to find a new one? What do you mean when you say that I can’t get a loan on this property?

The list goes on and on…..

Finally, there is an ah-ha moment, a time of surrender. Like the caterpillar, it is not resignation as much as the sheer acceptance that there are bigger, more mysterious forces at work.

Go into the cocoon. Dream the beautiful dream. Let the feelings of discomfort, fear, even despair, pass through like a mist. The dew is settling on the bush, and one fine day the realtor will call and say, ” The perfect house for you just went on the market today.”

You know the minute you walk through the door that this is the home you’ve been  waiting for all your life. Much like the butterfly coming out into the light for the first time, you realize this house is not just a house. It is the repository of your feelings, the carrier of your dreams. In short, it is not just a house; it is your forever home.

My husband and I were fortunate enough to find such a home, our house of love and light. I have enjoyed the rebirth, making this place a structure with our unique imprint: the blue, white, and sand colors of the beach, the blend of my art and my husband’s photography, our shared music and instruments, my touches in the surrounding garden.

I have planted butterfly bushes and “save the bees” flowers. The hummingbirds, hawks,  and finches come for visits. On the ground, a line of quail stroll by in the morning.

The coyotes, spiders, and snails are welcome here, too. If you exclude the so-called negatives in the natural ecosystem, the system collapses. We all need a home in this interdependent world.

Has the transition from city life, to part-time mountain life, and now the rural bay life been smooth?

In a word: NO.

We human butterflies are beautiful and freed from many things. But the world outside our inner world is still throwing us curves. The wind currents and earthquakes are still slamming us:

Why do we need a cardiologist, a pulmonary expert, a nephrologist, an x-ray, a CAT scan? What do you mean we may not be covered by our insurance since we moved? What if, how can, must I…?

And the wise monarch butterfly that floats past me in the yard is whispering, “Let go. Just breathe.”

When I wake up and realize I am the spirit in my body more than the body is in my spirit, I will know my winged friend is right.

It may be hard to be a butterfly in a caterpillar world, but as more and more wings open to the light, this becomes a beautiful place to be.

I am so grateful to have my part in this world and to share  life in my new homeland with my wonderful friends and neighbors.

LOVING MYSELF: I SING THE BODY PERFECTIC

Before the rain yesterday, this is the vision Bob and I saw in the clouds. I see a woman blowing a horn if I look at the photo from far away. Others see a man looking right at the viewer. I wish we could show this as a vertical shot because the cloud  looked so spectacular hovering over the rooftops and trees.

LOVING MYSELF: I SING THE BODY PERFECTIC

I have recently been reflecting on the perfection of the body and how little love we tend to give it. It is our first and oldest friend. It is the final companion we will bid farewell. More than a garment that houses our spirit, it has a life of its own that depends on us to help shape it and protect it.

I am grateful that my body did not give up on me when there are so many times I have not been that kind to it. I am inordinately kind to others around me and sensitive to their needs. However, looking back, I have seldom given the love and respect to my own body that it so richly deserves.

Every body deserves love and respect. Every body is a gift from God, on loan to us for this lifetime. Having free will, we can choose to treat it however we want. Many religions tend to downplay the importance of the body for a variety of reasons. They talk about temptations of the flesh, but it is really the mind that makes the choices.

I choose to honor my body as much as I can, for as long as I can. That does not just mean giving it good food and taking it for a walk. A dog owner knows that this protocol will keep a dog in shape. If the dog is to thrive, then another ingredient must be added to the mix: LOVE. And in return, the dog is happy and glad to serve its master.

How many kind people would yell bad names at the dog for being “ugly”? Would they stop loving him if he got too fat? Would they quit loving him if he were in pain? Yet these same people (myself included) repeatedly think bad thoughts about their less-than-fabulous-Madison-Avenue bodies, and the aches and pains of aging.

It’s time to STOP… CHANGE THE COURSE OF OUR THOUGHTS.

Regardless of what has manifested in my body, I choose to love my faithful companion. The longest marriage of flesh and spirit in my life deserves my affectionate attention. The body communicates with me, sometimes in ways I don’t particularly like, and I have the option of a loving response.

When I was put on the kidney transplant list, I did not blame my body. I tried not to blame anything. I realized that prayer work, positive thinking, and some unusual measures could help what appeared to be a desperate situation. My mother suggested a solution. She said to sing to my kidneys and visualize them up to 25% function and loving to work with me.

It seemed like a weird idea, but both my mother and I are oddballs, so I started to make a simple, happy song for them. When I reached 25% function and up to 30% function, I was not surprised. My kidneys knew I loved them enough to sing for them and they returned the favor.

Yes, the body does have an intelligence. And more importantly, I believe the body (right down to the cells) responds to the healing power of love.

Now, I just need to get over prejudices that keep me from helping the rest of the body to heal. Since I am a singer/songwriter, my idea is to write songs, love songs, for other areas that would benefit from improvement. Actually, what would be even more effective and less time-consuming would be to write one epic song: “I Sing The Body Perfectic,” and sing that on a daily basis. I love Walt Whitman’s poem on the same idea, but adding music would make the feeling more energetic.

As for what constitutes perfection…I cannot say what that means for everyone. I only know what it means for me. I can choose to have love for my body-buddy regardless of what the doctors say or what others think. I am the only one who has to live in it and I will program my thoughts and feelings accordingly. I take direction from God, my insights and angels, and those that love me regardless of my body’s condition.

And I can choose what constitutes my perfection on a daily basis as long as my eyes and heart are focused on love.

As a postscript, I might add that I met the love of my life 38 years ago today. We are working on recording more songs for our fourth bobandkathi CD today, and then we plan to CELEBRATE.

DROPPING DEADLINES: PICKING UP LIFELINES INSTEAD

The photo shown here is a lovely spot on the Oregon coast called Arch Rock. My husband got the light shining with the perfect angle. We were slated to check into a motel miles away, but we lingered at the sunset  to enjoy the moment.

DROPPING DEADLINES : PICKING UP LIFELINES INSTEAD

I had planned to do this blog as soon as my three week road trip was over. After listening and feeling “mizzle” (misty drizzle) on my face in the rain forest of Washington, I dropped the need to meet deadlines. Especially since I was the one making the deadlines. In my experience, people do not die from deadlines, especially self-imposed ones.

Most timelines can be extended, negotiated, and if missed, it’s my guess that something ever better might be around the corner. I’ve never been much of a linear thinker. I tend to be circular. I find that opportunities come around, just like some cosmic merry-go-round. I can still catch the brass ring if I lean at the right time, the moment I choose.

I am more into lifelines these days. That’s not to say I’m on a sinking ship or fallen overboard. I am not looking for a life preserver in an emergency. I am finding more and more alternatives to what I thought were rules set in stone. Stones sink.  I’d rather aim for walking on water, or at the very least, learn a better way to meet the tide.

I made a promise to myself to practice those things that are life enhancing. Daily meditation and prayer, moderate exercise, healthy food, good music, and gardening: those are my lifelines. I like to share them with my husband because that increases the pleasure.

If I ignore these necessary pleasures, the red warning light goes off. It keeps blinking until I do something about what’s causing it.

Case in point…. Before I left on vacation, I had three whiplashes, two concussions, and was struck by electricity from a rogue appliance after an earthquake. One might argue that these were just coincidences . People do have car accidents, hit heads on cupboard doors and a blue streak of electricity can strike if something is faulty.

I got the message: I was the one who was faulty. It took me awhile to learn the lesson. SLOW DOWN OR YOU MIGHT BE DEAD. That’s a deadline I did not want to meet, so I changed my ways. I bowed out of some commitments, extended some time frames, found some recreational activities that I enjoyed. I even got my first degree certification in reiki to help heal myself and others.

At this juncture of my life, I have decided it’s time to fulfill a life-long dream: to have a home on the beach. I have visualized a one story house in a quiet fishing village on the central coast of California. My husband and I both love the area. Our city home is lovely, but it’s time to find something more natural, like our mountain home. We can have the best of both worlds.

I do not let finances or the process of moving deter me. Letting go of “stuff” we have accumulated here has been refreshing for me. The house is just a reflection of our inner life as well. My husband and I have been clearing out mental things that no longer serve us and replacing them with what we truly desire.

“Today is the tomorrow I dreamed of yesterday.” That is what I will say when I cross the threshold of our new dwelling. And we will know that we have come home.

NO: IT’S THE NEW “YES”

This picture of an archway in the Alabama Hills of California was taken by my husband on a recent photo expedition. It suits this particular blog because it is a natural bridge. I see “no” as a bridge leading to “yes,” when the proper intention is applied. Although the arch is stone, it seems softer in the early morning light.      

NO: IT’S THE NEW “YES”

In spite of what Webster’s Dictionary has to say, I don’t view “no” as a negative answer when the question or situation does not have a positive energy. I have been a people-pleaser most of my life. My therapist told me that this behavior is typical for childhood abuse victims. I have volunteered (and been volunteered) for thankless jobs that no one else wanted, agreed to do time-consuming projects for others at the expense of my own time, and have even considered suicide on more than one occasion when one simple word would have saved me: NO.

I am a changed woman now. I still maintain a compassionate heart, with one strong addition; my compassion now also extends to me. It is not healthy to hangout with energy vampires or people who have no intention of helping themselves. Being an enabler does nothing to help either party, if either person is not making independent choices and accepting the consequences of them.

I have also had to learn to say no to myself, the ego part of me that would love having a piece of chocolate cake, skipping yoga or a walk, watching reruns of Murder, She Wrote instead of meditating. Sandy, a dear friend, said it best: “Never give up your power to food, another person, or any idea.”

I do believe in surrendering to God, because that is saying no to the part of myself I would like to cast off in favor of something greater. Some of my best friends are angels, which I will blog about at a later date. When I listen to their advice, I find I don’t have to say no as much to others or myself.

It’s hard to make a Heaven on Earth if I don’t feel it myself. I like to grow my own “Garden of Eden” and invite others to join me. (I even wrote a song about it.) I can accept some unpopularity with popularity, because this is a dualistic world. I also allow others to say “no, not interested in joining at this time.”

Recently I found that I was overbooked for my life. I had too many writing contests to enter, too many singing engagements to do, and too many events to attend. Instead of losing control, I took charge and made some choices. I chose which contests I really wanted to win, what gatherings I felt happy to join, and I left the rest for another day. I even postponed my blog for a couple days. There rarely is a “one and only” time to do something, and seldom a “one and only” person to meet. That is a grace I am grateful for in life.

This week, I also learned that when doors say no to me, I have options. Do I have the right key for the door, or do I need to learn something more? If it’s an unfriendly keyhole, can I find another like-minded door that is already open? Even if I have a handful of keys, how do I know what doors they unlock? Are they doors I wish to enter?

Closing some doors may also be necessary to get to the vista I wish to see, the person I wish to become. Sometimes saying no is saying “go” to the person, the situation, the plan that is not working anymore. While this can be a step into the  unknown, it is the only way I know of to get to the new “yes” for me.

 

 

 

FINDING BALANCE: SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO LET GO TO KNOW IT’S ALREADY GONE ANYWAY

The peaceful picture at the top of my blog was taken by the love of my life, Bob Haine. He shot it in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park last March while I was attending a Hay House convention where Doreen Virtue was the keynote speaker. The photo is a beautiful lead-in to my first public writing of my very private life. The green of the old oak and the green of the stream present the balance I look for in life. That is the theme of this blog.


FINDING BALANCE: SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO LET GO TO KNOW IT’S ALREADY GONE

I did something rather amazing this week. I changed my name. No, I did not make up a new one, or create a pen name, or even change my name that much. I decided to go back to using the name that I was born with: Kathleen. Not Kathy or Kathi, the names I had picked up along the way. But my real name, the name I was meant to be.

Why do this, one might ask? Simple. I realized why I had changed the name in the first place. It was an unconscious attempt to get rid of my past. Many people have a past they would like to forget. My mind was very accommodating in that regard. Except for a few, limited memories, I had pretty much forgotten the scenes of my childhood. This week, however, I started to remember. More importantly, I learned how to put it in its place, pick up the pieces, integrate it, dump out the garbage, and claim the parts that I still loved. Nothing was wasted in the experience.

I have two reasons for sharing this in text. I find it cathartic for me. But I think my main motivation is to help others who may have had similar situations in their life, or are going through it now, or who are really earnest about getting empowered to be the person that they were meant (and CHOOSE) to be. I realize that I am mainly writing for women, because my experience is from the female point of view. Yet, I speak to the needs of everyone, because giving and accepting love, being peaceful, having boundaries, and knowing we are powerful beings who are never alone, are things we all need.

If anyone is offended by what I have to write, let it roll off their backs like the rain and water someone else’s garden. The people who would be most upset or embarrassed by my words are dead and buried. I wish them nothing but love. Forgiveness costs nothing but the peace of mind is priceless.

I was given a “rose” of a life. Roses have thorns. One just needs to learn how to cultivate a rose while avoiding getting stuck. And every true gardener knows the oldest, thorniest roses have the very best fragrance.

Back to my title…finding balance. To live life completely NOW I have decided to put the past away, keep the lessons and love I got from it. I plan to restore harmony to my life in my way of seeing things, doing things, and being however I choose to be. I know that accepting who I am now is the first step toward becoming who I want to be. Others will benefit by the ripple effect of this change. Even if everyone else doesn’t notice I am different, I will know it. The inside relationship is what really matters.

Yesterday evening, I did a little ritual to finalize my departure from a previous life and entry into a new one. I burned some old photographs in a pretty abalone shell, I buried the ashes in the dirt, I said a few prayers, took a warm, salt bubble bath, and had peaceful dreams all night.

This is not a journey that ends here. Perhaps you would like to take it with me. I invite you to do so. I will be writing every week in the coming year. My birthday is next week. Writing is the present I give to myself. I will be sixty-two, a senior citizen. As far as I am concerned, I was just reborn and I am very, very young at heart.