Hold My Name

I sat down several times over the last few weeks, ready to write. But facing the blank white screen, I would think: “Not yet. I’m not ready. I have nothing to say.”

But here I am tonight, ready.

I did something that makes no sense (which are the best kinds of things); I bought a gigantic bag of charms. Jewelry charms for making bracelets and necklaces. (I don’t make this type of jewelry.)

I had been eyeing this giant bag for some time. And every time I would think…what a silly purchase that would be.

But I wanted them. For no reason.

And finally, I took the plunge and ordered them.

I discovered something that maybe my heart knew before my mind knew – the importance of PLAY.

I dumped my new charms into 3 bowls.

And I plunged my hand into each bowl, swirling my fingers around and hearing the satisfying, metallic swooshing of the charms rubbing across each other.

I closed my eyes and grabbed a few, tossing them on my desk and seeing what I pulled.

Keys and gemstones, animals and insects, shapes and colors. The totality of what this gigantic bag of charms holds is still a mystery. I examine each one, weaving a story between the charms if I can find one. Otherwise, it feels like something I’d completely forgotten…PLAY. And playing “pretend”.

I used to love playing with fake food on the fake stove, ringing up imaginary customers on my plastic register. Relishing in the cut up pieces of paper “money” and bottle cap “coins”.

I tried to decipher…what is it that is so FUN about these little pieces of useless silliness?

But I couldn’t tell you. It brings up a joy in me that bubbles up from somewhere I’ve long forgotten.

Every move as an adult is decided. A patterned behavior, or something done with good reason. Even my play feels calculated. “Acceptable.” It has reason.

But this is reasonless. It’s colors and shapes and symbols, that I bought for no reason. And they bring me reasonless joy.

Yesterday I pulled a key, and then directly underneath it I pulled a heart with a keyhole inside of it. And my friend said, “maybe someone had the key to helping you open your heart.”

Not that they still hold the key. Maybe they just reminded me where the keyhole was.

The title of this blog entry, “Hold My Name”, is the title of a song by Ocie Elliot. A video of them came up on my Youtube and it made me think, okay, time to write.

The song itself isn’t my favorite, but it reminded me of how I’ve changed in such a short time. I listen to music that moves me these days. I hadn’t listened to this kind of music in years. Indie – folk, singer/songwriter type of music.

I’ve always related it to having deep human emotions, especially deep love for another person. And it’s felt so irrelevant for so long.

But recently, I’ve been sitting inside soulful, raspy words and the low hums of a stranger turning poetry into melody. And I’ve let myself be calmed and wooed by the softness of it all.

If I could describe love, the kind that intimately exists between two people…

I would say it feels the same way this type of music makes me feel. It makes me think of rinsing a bowl of white rice before cooking it. Seeing the grains turn the water a cloudy white. The sounds and the feel of the rice in my hand, being washed by the water.

Or the smell of open fields in the fall, after a harvest. The texture of corn husks and hearty winter soups.

This love lives on the ground, on bare soil. Warmed by the sun and held in the gaze of an open sky.

Tonight, I’m going to see live music that feels just like this. With added violins and notes of wet texture and fluidity. So I’ll end this entry here, so I can go get ready.

I won’t edit this one or check it for errors of mishaps. Let’s just leave it as is. Let’s see it as an invitation to sit again another time, and write.

See you soon.

❤ ,

Heba

Wild Things

It’s a wild thing trying to escape the ghosts of your past.

And as you learn and experience and grow… you wonder who were the monsters and villains, and who were the victims?

A fuzzy blur of twisted memories, seared into your skin by another’s hand.

“Remember.”

And you wonder, how did these scars get here? Which monsters lured me in, and which did I run to like a child running to catch the ice cream truck?

At last, it doesn’t matter.

Because all that you run from comes to meet you somewhere in the future.

You look back to check, “am I safe?” And turn around to find that twisted memory, smiling at you through a new face.

“But I ran.”

“I  changed.”

I begin to wonder how long I’d been running.

Was it from a past life right into this one? Looking behind my shoulder to see…just to check.

I used to think, some day it’ll all be for something. It’ll mean something. It’ll make sense.

It’s hard to face a monster, or a faceless ghost. Because you’re facing your greatest fear, as well as the part of you that created that fear.

No longer can I hide behind my youth or my innocence. When you stop being a victim you have to face the monster inside of yourself.

The one that doesn’t seem like a monster, but it creates debilitating fear and will sabotage anything to protect and hide.

It’s hard to be abused for a long time and to be told that it’s your fault. You are the reason that someone is mistreating you.

That the truth you see before your eyes is not truth, that you should abandon what you know and observe and quietly and blindly follow another’s lead.

It makes your mind twist in strange ways, it makes you question everything that you are.

And countless years of untangling and re-tangling and untangling. It makes you weary.

I can say absolutely that all that is buried and ignored will rise again. And that one by one, all that is hidden must be faced.

Maybe then, as I face these ghosts, the past will recede into the shadows and not return.

As I pack up my things, I wonder if a ghost will follow me again, to my new beginning.

Or if I’ll be free at least.

I don’t know.

But I’m doing my best.

The Bank of You

Money doesn’t come TO you, it comes THROUGH you.

Looking outward into the vast distance of life’s possibilities, squinting to see if money is on the horizon, is a common misunderstanding.

Money does not come to you from an external source.

What’s most important here is a perceptual shift. If you think that money comes from far away and then makes its way to you, wiggling its way into your world, that perception can be refined.

Money comes from a well of golden light within you. At the source of you.

If I could point to this energetic opening to the well, I would say it’s near your lower abdomen, to the back, extending out behind you,  and into the earth.

It looks like a wide and deep ray of light. It’s full of golden particles.

Some pull from this well all the time, others may never pull from it in their entire lifetime. And there’s whole range of “well-users” in between.

How does money come from the well?

This type of money is closest to “source”, closest to its source.

That source is You, and your source is the Breath-of-all-things.

When your perception is, “Money comes from somewhere out there, from someone else.”

That money is far from its source. [That source being You, and your source being the Breath-of-all-things.]

I don’t have to describe the attributes of that kind of money, because I know that you’ve experienced it before. I know that you know what “money that’s far from its source” feels like.

Shift your perception to, “Money springs forth from the well inside of me, it flows through me in beautiful, soothing golden light.”

The light will write checks for you, it will pay off loans for you, it will take you out to dinner, it will build you a house.

One of those dollars stretches and expands, as though it’s made of taffy.

The next time you’re thinking of when or where money is coming from next, notice where you are looking. Are you looking “out there”?

Try something new for awhile. When that “looking out” feeling arises, orient to your lower belly, your lower back.

Say, “I’m bringing my loving gaze to this well, the source. I’m picturing golden, beautiful light that is connected to me. It actually streams through me. It is whole.”

Say, “Beautiful light, beautiful wholeness, beautiful me…I’m asking for something. I need [say what you need].”

“Deliver it to me in golden light.”

And whenever you can remember, for awhile, keep reorienting your gaze to that well. Say, “I accept money from its source. Beloved and whole.”

Anytime you shift your attention from “looking out there”, to looking inside, to this well, you are changing your financial world.

Money [the energy of] will flow through you [as all life does] and outward, following a curve [bending reality] and returning to you in a new form.

Take note of how you feel when you receive money. In general, in any way that it comes, ask yourself how it feels.

How close or far from its source does it feel?

Remember that this is *perceptual*. If you feel [perceive] its far-away-ness, it might seem as though it spends very easily, or that you’re not paid what you’re worth.

The attributes that go along with that might look like:

-feeling small in your work

-acknowledging a hierarchy of “upper ups” in your company

-feeling like you’re “pulling teeth” to get enough money to pay your bills

-imagining that if you left your work, your bank would dry up, because the money comes from there

This all comes from a belief that money comes from “out there” and you can only receive it from “people who have it”, and those people will only give it to you under certain conditions.

Since we can’t change our belief systems [and all the other belief systems that overlap with them] overnight, we have to move one segment at a time.

You have to work with yourself to reorient, and build new beliefs that are closer to truth.

Shifting one segment at a time from “out there and coming in” to “up and through me and back”.

Ask yourself, “Hey Me, please make it clear and obvious when the money arriving is the one I streamed ‘close to its source.'”

Say, “I need to know what that feels like. I need to take note of it, so that I can begin to connect these new lines of understanding. Thank you.”

Up and through. Beautiful, golden light. Curving back around, to greet you face to face.

Money that stretches, money that is whole.

I’ll leave you with this mantra:

“Money that comes on the wings of self-love.”

I invite you to let that phrase dance around in your mind, and see how it feels as you speak it out loud.

Say to yourself and to the universe, “Show me what that means.”

With Love,

Heba ❤

What I Don’t Talk About

I was watching a reader that I like on YouTube, and she was mentioning “low vibration beings”. I usually tune those parts out, but this time it had me thinking.

I don’t talk about those types of things because they can be entrancing. They seem fascinating or intriguing. And in truth, I would be in misalignment to lure anyone’s attention to a lower vibration.

In the same way that I don’t talk about people needing to “cleanse” themselves of evil spirits or anything like that.

Absolutely not.

When you look at energy, someone having a bad mood can look like a giant, scary monster. In reality, it’s a passing moment of “low vibes”.

You wouldn’t try to cleanse that person of their darkness, you might try to redirect their attention to the light. “Cheering them up.”

With light, kind words, or a treat, or a sweet gesture.

And poof, that energetic scary monster seems vanquished.

If someone saw that monster instead of seeing the external grumpiness on someone’s face, that someone might overreact unnecessarily.

I was noticing today how many people were cranky. And others on the road, driving without care or kindness.

I noticed how it stirred me emotionally. I wanted to fight their bad mood with my own bad mood!

And then I thought, what if that was a scary demon driving in that car? Would I want to fight it? How would I react?

If I saw that crankiness as its essence, a low vibrational state, how would I react?

Instantly, my mood changed. I thought, “If there was a demon driving that car, I would not engage! I would put a lot of energetic distance between us, and I would bathe myself and my surroundings in light.”

I thought of the other cranky people I saw today. And I felt the same way. I would not want to chase after them, yelling and screaming and shaking my fist.

I would want to dis-engage as quickly as possible. To give-no-mind. Give no mind to that low vibe.

If they were a grumbly demon…I would be running! I would right away put up a strong boundary, and raise myself into light.

It’s funny how when we talk about monsters and demons, people can be serious and afraid. But when it comes to the every day monsters, like road rage and being impatient with one another, or thinking mean thoughts about one’s self…that all seems more normal.

In reality, it’s all kind of the same. It’s just low vibes. Don’t be scared of the dark, and don’t engage with it either.

There is nothing to fear, only a signal to redirect energy. Redirect thought. Resurrect boundaries and light accordingly.

Don’t be lured in by the mystique of the dark. It’s no more alluring than the energy of being cranky or miserable. And there is no mystique in that.

Do not fear the monsters of your own mind or the monsters in others. Your call is always to rise. Because you are not your thoughts and you are not your mind.

You are the choice-maker. You choose where to focus and what to focus on. Do not battle, rather, rise towards the light so that you can see truth clearly.

The brilliant thing is, you have the ability to do so. You have the ability to feel fear, and then to disengage from that fear, and to rise into breath and light. Fear cannot move through you without your consent.

Fear has no power over you.  Anger has no power over you. And those every day demons surely have no power over you.

The next time you feel emotionally stirred to “strike back”, ask yourself, “Do I want to join them where they are right now? Do I want to hang out with this “demon” and rumble with them in the muck?”

And just a quick note that of course people are not demons. We all have passing waves of low vibration and high vibration.

We all have expressions that are icky and ones that shine bright. That’s normal and just fine.

We also don’t have to match another’s icky moments. We can put up boundaries and space and wrap ourselves in light.

And somewhere inside, we know those others will find those bright moments again [on their own terms and in their own way].

Love,

Heba ❤

The False, Powerful Gods

Outside my window, I heard a familiar grunting and shrieking. The ground rustled with clumsy, hurried feet that scurried across the yard.

I pressed my nose to the window screen and saw two opossums excitedly chasing each other.

The warmth of Spring was bringing all the wild creatures back to life; raucous birds in the early morning, fevered opposums late in the night.

I thought about them before I fell asleep. I prayed they would be safe as they rolled around and bounded through the neighborhood.

I thought of the precious beings that wander around, dealing with cars and humans and other destructive elements.

Maybe it was always like this. Maybe in the true wild, creatures still face threats of stampedes and predators.

I imagined giant dinosaur feet stomping through the lands, with small creatures below learning how to weave out of their way or run to safety.

I wondered into the mind of spirit…

“What do you think about the safety of the opposums?”

My mind was taken into the idea of Life. Life everlasting.

To focus on Life itself, the continual opportunity for consciousness to spring forth into living being.

Spirit doesn’t look backwards; it does not fear. If a chapter begins to close, the eye of life steadily moves to the new beginning.

In the same way, the opposum lives its life to the fullest, until its chapter ends. And then, just as fast, its spirit looks towards the bright light of a new horizon, a new beginning.

A breath, a pause, a new breath.

And so, Spirit smiles. Its eyes always pointed towards life.

I asked Spirit about death, and it didn’t seem to care. Its invisible finger pointed my mind towards Life.

I said to Spirit, “But there are a lot of people here who care about death. People who dedicate their lives to the idea of others living or dying.”

People will dedicate their lives to many things.

They choose what to think, and what to believe. They’ll fight to defend those beliefs.

Their convictions will be worn plain about them. In the way they speak to others, how they react in traffic, where they spend their time and energy.

The gods are not prayed to inside of temples, and their offerings are not laid upon shrines.

The gods have no names, and their distinguishable features and attributes are almost infinite.

The gods are the ones prayed to in every thought, word, and action.

Repeated daily, hourly, moment-to-moment prayer in every thought.

What do you pray to?

What you pray to is the god that exists for you. 

Every thought, word, and action an offering to a conjured diety of your own making.

So, in many ways, it’s best to focus on what you’re dedicated to. [Rather than focusing on what others are dedicated to.]

The gods of others are not your business. They exist in their own heart, they are fed by their own words and actions.

What do you feed? What has your heart?

Is it the god of “I don’t get paid enough?” Or the god of “Life is exhausting?”

Maybe you’re not sure. But if you look around at your life, you’ll notice the holy gods and the mischievous gods at work. The gods of fury and vengeance, and the gods of love and peace.

Notice yourself when you’re not noticing yourself. Notice yourself in your least holy moments.

What do you feed?

More pointedly, what do you dedicate yourself to?

It’s easy to change. Rather, it’s easy to give more offerings to causes that enliven your heart.

It’s easy to withdraw offerings to causes that dampen your spirit.

It’s just one small offering at a time.

A thought, a word, an action.

Do not worry about the gods of others.

Decide today to build a life of Truth and Awareness. See what you’ve been praying to, with eyes wide and willing.

And say, “Oh, I see.”

“Maybe today I’ll start praying to something different. Maybe today I’ll direct my eyes towards Life. Maybe today I’ll be intentional about where I lay my offerings.

And most definitely today, I will not judge myself or my life. I will observe with eyes of love. I will appreciate the variety that I’ve built around me.

Maybe today I’ll just be more aware of what I’m praying to. In my thoughts, words, and actions. One thought at a time. One word at a time.”

I imagine saying, ‘amen’, through out my day. Just to remember. Maybe after having a particularly fun interaction with someone, I could say, amen!

And after complaining and grumbling about a frustrating person, I could say…amen?

I’ll try to be more intentional, or at least more awake to myself.

Where do I leave my offerings? What gods do I pray to when I’m not noticing?

With Love,

Heba ❤