The Sun & the Stars

I’ve tried different styles of meditation for years. Sometimes I’m better at keeping up with it than others.

The last few months, I haven’t meditated hardly at all. So the other day, I had the idea to sit quietly with my eyes closed for 5 minutes before I left for work.

It seemed so simple and so easy that I couldn’t resist. The 5 minutes flew by, and I felt so good. I wished I could have stayed longer!

I decided to try to sit for 5 minutes to 10 minutes every morning before work going forward. I told myself there was no pressure and no issue if I didn’t end up doing it.

The next morning, the 5 minutes were terribly uncomfortable. I decided to get up and stretch, get cozy, and try again.

I set my timer this time for 10 minutes. I watched the storms of my mind erupt into lightning clouds and tornados. And I watched them subside. I soaked up the few scattered moments of relief, and I decided to set the timer for another 10 minutes.

This time, I wanted to go into the place where I go when I do my intuitive readings. It was interesting to me that my “meditation space” and my “reading space” were not the same.

I sat and pretended that I was going to give someone a reading. I knew exactly what to do. I completely relaxed. My mind completely quieted. I felt light, easy, and focused.

But there was no one to read. And without the intention, without the question, or the reason, there was nowhere to go.

I wondered, without a person to read, was there something else I could do with my gift of traveling? Maybe one day I would discover the answer.

I thought again of how I feel when I’m sitting there, about to read someone. I realized how they looked like a bright sun. A bright light.

I thought of all of the people I’d given readings to, and they were all beautiful beings of light.

I realized that we are all suns and stars. When my mind quiets and I have the intention to move into that beautiful, unique, and individual light and translate what it’s saying into words, I read the truth of who we all are.

At our core is a burning light that vibrates and emits vibrant and energetic energy all around.

And when things seem gray and hard and rotten, it’s good to remember that just a breath away…just a sliver of a membrane away…lies the bright truth of Life and of You.

We are light just as much as we are rock and earth and water. The next time you’re listening to someone speak, try to close your eyes and look at them without seeing. Can you feel the fire of their spirit?

Practice with people you don’t know or have no opinion on. Maybe it’s a worker at a cafe or restaurant. Or a stranger in the grocery aisle. Can you see them without looking with your eyes? Can you feel that energetic energy that’s enlivening their body with life?

It’s good to remember that we are dreary clouds just as much as a bright summer day. And all it takes is a small shift of attention and consciousness to see the whole picture.

<3,

Heba

The Pursuit of Perfection

Here, fill out this questionnaire to find your dream job.

Make this vision board for your perfect partner.

Sit with me and imagine your perfect workplace and perfect love, in your perfect home…

Ah, the elusive perfection that is never quite within grasp. And if it lands in our palm, it’s sure to flutter away far too soon.

“But wait! Don’t leave! It took me so long to get you!” (Even though I’m not sure I even want you.)

People trash seemingly perfect or “good enough” careers, relationships, even their own healthy bodies.

Strange behavior, coming from humans who are constantly striving tor the ideal.

Why do we destroy as much as we create?

Could it be that we as people are not perfect? How can we call forward perfection, knowing we can never sustainably rise to meet it?

As often as we rise, we also fall. (Or jump.)

Krishna Das has a beautiful kirtan song where he quotes Foreigner:

“I wanna know what love is,
I want you to show me.
I wanna feel what love is,
I know you can show me.”

If you ask life to show you Love, it shows you Wholeness. It shows you life as a pulsating, alive thing.

Part of us seeks what we think is perfect. That part is only looking at a fraction of Who We Are.

If you could look at the Whole of who you are, or at least feel into that whole…you would seek something else.

It would be “perfect plus”. Not just what our mind considers desirable, but what appeals to our heart and spirit as well.

Let’s tune it to what is Alive. What experiences are full of pulsating life? What experiences accept us as we are? Where can we be cranky and unfair, and also generous and playful?

Don’t seek perfection or imperfection, seek Life Alive.

Say, “Life, show me all that I am.”

Your life will come alive with experiences that feel Full and Nourishing.

That “something missing” feeling will be gone. Because you aren’t missing anymore. You aren’t missing the parts of you that get neglected by focusing on an incomplete vision of your happiness.

Are you brave enough to accept all that you are? Are you brave enough to accept the mess that you are?

If you are, life will have an endless array of love to show you. Love will be in every nook and cranny of your life.

Not the ideal, perfect love…but the one that is full of breath. The kind of love that invites all of you to come forward and live fully.

Let me know how it goes.

🙂

<3,

Heba

A Story.

Life is so full and plentiful.

Sometimes you think you’ve emptied it of its contents.

That you’ve traveled the pages of your life’s book. You know the footnotes, you know the detours the stories take.

You’ve labeled each chapter and lived it; you’ve molded and formed to each letter of each word on every page.

And you say, I’ve done it. I’ve walked the paths. Here is what remains.

‘This is what I have to show for myself, for my life.’

Here are the results of all the things I’ve tried. Here in this field is where every beautiful thing came to life and here is where it subsided again.

And the field is empty.

– –
I looked at my hands, they were empty too.
– –

I sat down to do a tarot reading for myself for the first time in a long time. I had tried before, I would lay down the cards and then sweep them back into the deck without reading.

This time, I looked closer. I began reading the story, one letter following the other.

My perspective changed. Not from what the reading was saying, but in the act of reading itself.

I thought of the components of a tarot reading. It says, here is this person in their life, and here are the storylines happening currently in their life.

I realized that the page turns again. Within the empty field, paths begin to emerge from underneath the grass. The story doesn’t end.

Always a person, within a life, full of letters and words and chapters of story.

“But I thought this was the end?”

The story doesn’t stop writing itself. It slows and speeds and slows again. But one letter is surely to be followed by another. One word stretching into the next.

– –

I think that every once in awhile, we have to renew our contract with our soul. We remember why we’re here, even if the ‘why’ is only a feeling. We remember the fire that burns inside. The desire for Discovery of Self.

A question is asked, “will you rise?”

Will you stand again? Will you remember yourself? Will you remember the light within that wants to be discovered, to be spoken, to be experienced?

Every contract renewal is a solo journey that draws a path from the depths of darkness into the emergence of light.

The light says, “Look this way. Keep coming. Don’t look back.”

Every completion is an awakening. As though the sun is rising inside our hearts rather than the sky.

– –

I looked again at the field. The glare from the sun obscured my view. I blinked and squinted by eyes. I looked down and saw my feet resting on a path. Around me was lush, tall grass and a dense forest. The trees loomed overhead and I saw the blue of the sky beyond the tree tops. I spun myself around in a circle, searching. The deep, moist air of the forest seeped into my lungs. I breathed in deep.

How I’d missed those trees.

I peered through the vegetation and became curious. Where does this path lead?

I brought my palm to my chest and pressed down.

“Are you ready?”

I smiled and said, “Yes, please.”

With love <3,

Heba

Come Home to Yourself

I thought it was about time to write a blog titled with the tag line of this page.

Come Home to Yourself.

I’m finding that today, it means something different than my original intent.

Today I mean to say, you can come home to the safety within, even when you’ve traveled far away from there for too long.

For a period of time, I felt like I’d disappeared. The parts of me that liked to laugh and be silly. The parts of me that felt worthwhile.

I’d walked through hell’s valleys for too long, and my skin seemed to be stained with ash and sut.

I wondered if I would ever be myself again, or if a ‘new me’ would emerge.

I’m coming together as old, new, and weathered and refreshed all in one.

I remember the aching in my bones as I dragged my body through those valleys. I also feel the life inside those bones, rebuilding and remembering joy and vitality.

My personality is awakening, witty banter emerging from within like a newly erupted spring.

And I think, ‘Oh, there I am.’

I’m coming home…

To my personality. My fun. My playfulness.

Finding importance in the trivial things in life reminds me that I’m alive, I’m a ‘me’.

I’ve never been more grateful to care about silly things. Which barrettes to wear today, whether my outfit was put together well.

I’m coming home with stories woven into my flesh of where I’ve been, how I’ve healed, and with new eyes to see the world.

I’m thankful for these eyes, and this flesh, and all the parts of me that are coming together to rebuild and reawaken.

If you’ve been away for too long, make your way back home. Slow or fast, whatever works. Home is waiting for you. The parts of you that are full of wonder and joy are alive and well. They’ll welcome you with open arms.

And I’ll see you there.

<3,

Heba

I Am Not Myself [A Poem]

I am not myself,
I am the echo.
I am the echo,

Awakening
Revising
Revisiting
Reimagining.

I am not myself,
I am the gathering

     of that which has come before.

I am the echo

     of remembering.


The mutitude of layers

     of remembering.

I am the awakening of right into wrong,
And wrong into right.

I am the witness.

I am loss. I am birth.

I look into the experience, as I am.
A wave of endless memory.
I watch with pain trembling in my bones.

I am the witness.

I am the memory of suffering.

I am suffering, desiring to heal itself.

It says, “let me look again, with new eyes. Let me understand again, with a renewed heart.”

I am the broken, seeking to stand again.

Splintered wooden legs, striving to be remade.

I am the light of the sun, laying its warmth upon the earth.

I am the shadow, the cold of fear and emptiness.

I peer into life, I am nothing.

I am the retelling of a story. I am the weaver of new memory. I am the witness.

I carry the sorrow that’s come before, heavy on my spirit. I carry it close to my heart.

I look into the world through the sorrow of memory.

Shapes of pain and shadow erupting into form and dissapating. My sorrow reminds me of the memory from which I was born into this world.

My sorrow says “this is how we saw the world”.

I think of those that came before, that saw the world colored with darkness.

I say, “I see you. I understand.” I carry their weight as I look with my own eyes.

I see what they saw, I see fear. I look again.

I feel what they felt, I feel pain. I look again.

I see strength where there was silence. I see hope where there was emptiness.

I stand, exhausted. Pen in hand, shakily writing a new story. One small sentence, in a book that has no beginning and no end.

One small sentence at a time. One small re-write. One revision. One re-envisioning.

My voice is small, amongst the raucous cries of the past. My pen is small. My sentences are small.

My voice is small.

And yet, I’ll stand. I will witness.

Underneath the weight of generations of memory, I will write.

With every rewrite, a small path begins to open. A way. A chance. An opportunity.