Beloved

Beloved. We are the Beloved. In so many ways the Universe is letting us know how much we are loved. It custom tailors its messages to us so we cannot doubt they are ours. All we have to do is pay attention. In a mystical experience at Costco this week, yes, Costco, the temple of discount consumption, I received my most recent notification that I am the Beloved. I don't really care where I am when Spirit tells me that I am loved. I experience delight wherever it is and whatever form it takes.

Wow. One. There is one copy of Leila Meacham’s paperback at Costco, on top of one of two tables of books on display. Just to be sure, I circle then circle again, both tables, Doubting Thomas that I am, looking for another copy. Nope. None. Nada. Just checking. . . There’s only one, the one that is a love message of support from Spirit to me. It’s near the front, right by the aisle as I pass, unmistakable. The title, Roses, embossed in gold letters, is surrounded by a profusion of pink and red roses.              

        

How do I know it’s a love letter from Spirit? There are no accidents. It is a symbolic synchronicity, or “coincidence.” I encountered the author and book two weeks ago in person at the University of New Mexico (UNM) Writers Conference. Leila Meacham was the keynote speaker, her appearance another love letter from Spirit to me. She and I have so many things in common we could be twins. Both of us are retired teachers of similar age with first books who consider writing their job and follow spiritual practices.

Spirit told me, several times, starting with a bumper sticker, “Move forward confidently in the direction of your dreams.” At the regular, monthly meeting of SouthWest Writers, Spirit let me know about the UNM Writers Conference. Brochures were distributed and an announcement made that early registrants would receive a free, 10-minute “book pitch” with an agent or editor of their choice from New York. My book pitch was scheduled at the same exact time my writing teachers were presenting a workshop on their new book, Find Your Story – Write Your Memoir. My book is a self-help memoir. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink. Spirit keeps saying, “You are loved and supported." Keep moving forward.

Now, about that book pitch. As a spiritual mentor likes to say, “There’s one thing I am perfectly clear about. I don’t have the foggiest notion how to do that. But I didn’t know how to do puberty either. . . . .did you?” No. Fortunately, Spirit loves me through a fabulous, retired reference librarian friend who, without being asked, emails me thirty pages of the best information available on how to prepare a book pitch. It is totally relevant. Try selecting that sometime from 549,237,091 google hits on the topic. I email her a copy of the two-page pitch I labor on for seven hours. “I love it, outstanding,” she pronounces. This is high praise from someone who, for years, read book synopses and purchased books for her library. Spirit does indeed love me.  

Leila Meacham is a delightful keynote speaker - authentic, unassuming, charming and inspirational. She tells us it's her first writers conference and first keynote address. She tells us her story. She shares how the multigenerational family saga manuscript she worked on for twenty years almost ended up in the trash, rescued at the last moment by her husband when they moved. When the book is finally finished, a friend asks to share a few pages with someone. The someone “just happens” to be a very successful literary agent. The literary agent “just happens” to obtain a book contract two weeks later. The book “just happens” to make the best-seller list within eighteen days of publication. I’ll bet she didn’t know how to do puberty either.

After Leila’s talk, people of all ages thank her for being such an inspiration. Now Spirit has presented me with her book at Costco. For 624 pages, I can immerse myself in the consciousness of the 70-year-old, retired schoolteacher from East Texas, whose first published book easily and effortlessly reaches The New York Times Best Sellers list. For hours and hours, I can enjoy reading a dream come true. “If it can happen for her, it can happen for you,” Spirit says. “Here. Hold it in your hands as a tangible reality. You are my Beloved.”

Not Choosing Is Choosing

In a miraculous universe with an unlimited capacity to orchestrate events, how are we to make sense of bombings, shootings, mayhem, death, disease? What is it that seeks expression as violence, destruction, infliction of pain on innocents? How do we live in such a world? Do we want to live in such a world? Accept it? Transform it? How? 

What times we live in. How grippingly, compellingly real the appearances. Terry Cole Whittaker said, "Things fall apart before they fall together." We certainly are witness to that. Today, in Boston. Last week, in Connecticut, where the President said, "We must change." And yet, such resistance to change. "Be the change," said Gandhi. Is that enough? What is "enough?" Who determines "enough?" In the face of horrendous personal loss, their grief still palpable, eyes still wet with tears, but without rancor, Newtown parents lobby Congress, in the face of what seem to be insurmountable odds, for change. "Newtown chooses love," town banners proclaimed. How many of us must choose love, and for how long, before change can come? It is coming. Slowly. Painfully. At a price. Is our heart big enough to love one another? To create together a world that works for all, or is the task too big to try? 

In some way, individually and collectively, these questions are ours. We are here now. They are ours to address or deny, to contemplate or ignore, but both they, and we, are here now. Regardless of which we choose, we are choosing.

What I know to be true, from personal experience, is we are powerful beyond measure, whether we know it or not, acknowledge it or not, use it or not. I watched my son, Grant, do the "impossible" in the intensive care unit at UCLA while being treated for stage-four melanoma. He experienced all the side effects of his immunotherapy drug without taking the drug. The chills, fever, convulsive shaking, increased heart rate, vomiting and diarrhea were all compellingly "real." He did not want to be there. He was worried about his Dad, who was in another hospital nearby with a large blood clot in his heart. When the resident physician made her rounds the next morning, she asked Grant how he managed to have all the side effects of the drug without taking the drug. "I created that," he said simply, and she responded, "Wow. That's powerful." They released him from the hospital. That's how powerful we all are. We are the creators of our experience. What will we do with that power? What will we choose? Will we address or deny it? Contemplate or ignore it? Regardless of what we choose to do with it, we are choosing. Will we choose to believe in love, act from love, create from love, despite appearances, and continue to do so until we have a world that works for all? Will we let ourselves out of the hospital?

So Hum

So Hum is a cat.

So Hum is a mantra.

“So Hum” is I Am.

So Hum is a synchronicity.

So Hum is new to the neighborhood. He moved in with his human companion, Claire (“light”), a yoga practitioner, a couple of months ago. He is a Garfield-shaped, grey, short-haired embodiment of the divine. He roams the neighborhood, lumbers across my front yard and hurdles himself, more or less, over the morning-glory-planter fence between my garden guru’s yard and mine. Unsure of our relationship, as was I (Does he consider my flower beds a litter box?), he did not tarry in my yard. Gradually, we’ve come to know one other.

It goes without saying (until now!), Claire is a metaphysical thinker, or she would not have named So Hum “So Hum.” So hum is a Sanscrit mantra. It means “I am.” It is the name God reveals to Moses at the burning bush when asked his name. Ehyeh asher ehyeh (Exodus 3:12) literally translates as "I Will Be What I Will Be," however, most English translations render it as “I am that I am” (Exodus 3:14), in one of the most famous verses in the Torah, or first five books of the Bible.  

So Hum, the Sanscrit mantra, plays a large role in the Oprah/Chopra 21-day Meditation Challenge for Perfect Health the Spiritual Adventuress completed this week. The words “I Am” contain the mystical power of creation because whatever follows those two words. . . I am tired, I am sick, I am healthy, I am prosperous, describes a state of being that manifests, or takes physical form. Therefore, Deepak Chopra chose the words following “I am” with clarity and intention in these daily centering thoughts:

I am perfection. I am healthy. I am strong.

I am one with the breath of life.      

I am flexible, powerful, and balanced.

I am an exquisite expression of nature.

I am ageless and timeless.

I am absolute existence. I am a field of all possibilities.

Over the years, a great spiritual practice for me has been listening to myself speak and think, paying attention to what follows after I say, “I am.” I am claiming my experience, creating my life by speaking my word. Sometimes immediate editing is necessary! It can also be very revealing to listen to others speak themselves into existence. And, taken to the next level, to know you and they are one. “I Will Be What I Will Be” is whatever we state, whatever we create.

Creation does not take form from mindless repetition of positive statements, which leads some people to conclude affirmations don’t work. It’s much more complex than simple repetition. To manifest, or take form, the process must include not only embodying the thought, but also the feeling, that the statement is already accomplished. Creating from a consciousness of wholeness (as God,* or “I am”), everything does already exist. Repetition is necessary until the feeling is present and any subconscious counter-intentions are dissolved.  

So, So Hum as a cat, So Hum as a mantra, So Hum as “I am,” and So Hum as synchronicity. The dog chases its tale. Everything comes full circle in synchronicity. In the 4T class this week, heart coherence and the work of the Heart Math Institute were discussed. When the lub-dub sound of the beating heart was translated into “so-hum, so-hum, so-hum” or “I am, I am, I am,” the insight came that God’s name, the “I am” of the beating heart, is love. Metaphysically, your name is your nature. God’s nature is love. Every beat of our heart is announcing, “I am, I am, I am. . . love.” Sychronistically, the class assignment for the week was to make a treasure map, or vision board using magazine photos, to depict what we are creating in our lives. Alternatively, we could construct an “I am” board representing the qualities of consciousness we are focused on expressing. Mine included the 21-day meditation mantra So Hum.

Slowly crunching my way over the gravel driveway as I entered our community, I noticed So Hum sitting on his haunches outside his home. Stopping the car, I rolled down my window and greeted him by name, “So Hum, So Hum, So Hum,” now deeply aware of its meaning. He seemed attentive though unresponsive. Once I parked the car, he walked over, and, for the first time, rubbed up against my legs and let me pet him. I had seen his true nature, and mine, as expressions of the beating heart of the Universe. In loving recognition, we acknowledged one another, ourSelf.

“Notice the coincidences in your life. Coincidences are messages. They are clues from God or spirit or nonlocal reality, urging you to break out of. . . your familiar patterns of thinking. They are offering you an opportunity to enter a domain of awareness where you feel loved and cared for by the infinite intelligence that is your source. Spiritual traditions call this the state of grace,” says Dr. Deepak Chopra in his book Synchrodestiny: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence to Create Miracles. Coincidentally, I’m reading it this week.

*Interchangeable with Spirit, Energy, Universal Mind, Unity Consciousness, Field of All Possibilities, Allah, Buddha. . . 

You Must Die to Live: Good Friday & Forgiveness

The cranes are gone, the field where they gather now disked and fallow. Its hay is baled, stacked in the distance. Tomato plant stalks, desiccated ivy vines, dead leaves, raked from my garden, now fill white, plastic bags leaning against the brown adobe wall. Dried zinnia stalks and a dead rose bush will follow. Death is evident today, Good Friday, as I remember a dear friend who also died on Good Friday five years ago. I contemplate the ways I am dying.  

“You must die to live,” a spiritual mentor told me. Such a beautiful paradox. Allowing my old thoughts, beliefs, habits, experiences, ways of being in the world to die creates the space for new thoughts, beliefs, habits, experiences, ways of being to bring new life. I am always dying. New life is always beginning. Dr. Deepak Chopra says we have a new body every seven years since old cells that die are replaced by new ones. Iris and tulip bulbs have pushed green shoots through the garden’s soil. Bright yellow daffodils are open, new life accompanies death.

Each moment we expand our consciousness, its old form ceases to exist. Since consciousness creates, the person we were also ceases to exist, replaced by a new expression. Talking with a friend about forgiveness this week reminded the Spiritual Adventuress she is not the same person she was thirty years ago when she began forgiveness work on her father. In her dysfunctional family where alcoholism was present, anger and domestic violence were also present. Her father beat his three children. She viscerally hated him. Not his behavior, as a well-meaning listener recently suggested, attempting to spin the truth. She hated him. The spinner didn’t have to live with the father who handcrafted a butcher knife then chased their mother with it, kicked a hole in the front door in the middle of the night, forced his children to watch the bloody butchering of chickens while he smiled sadistically and kicked their pet dog and a cat.

Reading a letter at my father’s graveside after attending a profound personal growth workshop was the first step on a long journey of forgiveness. Over time, as my consciousness expanded, the depth of my understanding and my ability to forgive would ripple outward in concentric circles like pebble-disturbed pond water. Years passed. Layer after layer of understanding and forgiveness arose to be cleared in turn.

Hearing a mentor describe her own transformation, lessons of forgiveness, victimization and abuse, I realized that like her, I chose to take an initiation in the abuse of power. By experiencing how terrible the abuse of power is, how awful it feels, both of us learned how to be women of power and passion who could make a difference in the world without ever abusing that power. At a subsequent workshop, she opened my mind to the possibility that I not only chose the initiation, but also my parents and family. I accept two premises as true. First, each of us has free will, or choice. Second, life is eternal since quantum physics shows energy is indestructible, it simply changes form. Therefore, I could only conclude I am at choice - before I came here, while I am here and when I leave here. I then realized I chose my parents, my family and experiences as part of my soul’s journey. I took responsibility for my soul choices – the initiation and the father I had. Living in a consciousness of increased responsibility and decreased blame lifted me to the next level of forgiveness.

Meditatively walking on the beach in Santa Barbara, contemplating my family, I felt again my deepest wound. While mentally pointing my right index finger at my father, and saying in condemnation, “You didn’t see me for who I really am,” I realized the third, fourth and fifth fingers of the same hand were pointing back at me. I didn’t see my father for who he really was. He too was an expression of God. I acknowledged it’s pretty hard to see someone as an expression of God when they are beating the heck out of you. Waves of peace bathed me in these realizations. Surely I had finally finished forgiving my father. Once you know someone is an expression of God, where do you go after that? When I told this story to a woman at church, she said, “Well, you could love your father.” Oh.

The next ripple occurred during the ayahuasca ceremony when sentient beings asked me if I would like to acknowledge my father. “Yes,” I answered, realizing my father had never been acknowledged for playing his part. “Thank you, Dad,” I said. Surely now the forgiveness process was complete. But, no, there was still more.

When I returned to Peru the following year, I stayed at Willka T’ika (Sacred Flower) Garden Guest House in the Sacred Valley. The magnificent gardens, overflowing with beautiful, fragrant, flowers of every hue and variety, correspond to the chakras, or energy centers, of the body. Meditating in the Heart Garden, I had a clairaudient experience. The garden asked me, “Is your heart big enough to love your father?” “Yes,” I answered, feeling completely at peace in expanded awareness.

Gifted writer Anne Lamott says unforgiveness is ". . .like swallowing rat poison and waiting for the rat to die."  Perhaps resistance to forgiving someone else is actually resistance to forgiving ourselves. “Forgiveness can take place in the twinkling of an eye, unless you're addicted to suffering," says Edwene Gaines. What I know for myself is forgiveness takes place after anger has had its say and whenever it is ready.

My consciousness of forgiveness continues to ripple outward, deeper and deeper into the divine matrix. The people in our lives are reflections of us. We are looking in a mirror. When I asked myself, “How is what I say about my father true about me?” I realized I was not only the abused, but also the abuser, not only the victim, but also the perpetrator – I abused my body with food. When I saw what was in him was in me, all separation melted away. In meditation, the realization came, “I and my father are one.” This seventh expansion in my forgiveness process reminded me of a well-known teaching. Forgiveness is to be done seventy times seven, or until it is complete.

Last week, completing the fourth step of a 12-step program, I forgave myself for being unforgiving of myself. “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do,” is but one of the gifts of Good Friday.

Kissed by a Shaman

“Es un regalo para usted, con un corazon lleno,” I said to the shaman, holding out to him a dark green gift box of loose, pouch tobacco with both hands, bowing as I met him. With spontaneous, childlike delight, the ninety-year-old shaman kissed me on the cheek, the white stubble of his beard scraping my face. I awoke this morning thinking of the ayahuasca ceremony I attended with Don Ignacio, knowing the Spiritual Adventuress needed to write about it this week, still not knowing why. What I said to him in Spanish was, “It is a gift for you, with a full heart.” My heart was filled with gratitude for the spiritual journey he would take us on that evening in the Amazon jungle in Peru. Today’s quotation for the 21-Day Perfect Health Meditation Challenge with Deepak Chopra and Oprah is from Carl Jung: "Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."  We were with Don Ignacio to look inside, to see visions, to awake.

Ayahuasca is an herbal tea made from a jungle vine. It is called “the teacher plant” for the knowledge, both personal and cosmic, it brings with visions and expanded consciousness. Also called “la purga” for its purgative nature, it is almost always accompanied by vomiting and diarrhea. An entheogenic, (or hallucinogenic, or psychedelic), it connects participants with the divinity within. It has been used in sacred ceremony by indigenous people for thousands of years, but in the United States, it is a class-one, controlled substance, a serotonin uptake inhibitor that affects brain chemistry. It is to be treated with respect.

Eighteen of us, with our spiritual leader, Edwene Gaines, traveled forty-five minutes by bus into the jungle, over wood-plank bridges and streams, to reach Don Ignacio’s small village. When we climbed the steps of the thatch-roofed building where the ceremony would take place, we were handed a small bowl for purging. I decided I would release through breath instead. Thunder cracked. Lightening flashed. Rain began to fall. “In the Native American tradition, it is said that where spiritual warriors are gathered, thunder and lightening are present,” said Edwene. We would spend the night in the jungle. The bus could not navigate the mud in the dark.

We sat on the floor in a circle. The shaman’s assistant came around with a first, small dose of ayahuasca, and when it wore off, to check our reaction. He then asked if we would like more. “My teacher doesn’t recommend it,” I answered, without saying yes or no. He continued on around the circle, giving me time to process my response. I recalled she also teaches, “You must listen to your guidance.” Mine told me to take the second dose. Watching others receive the drink mindfully, prayerfully and with sacred intention, I touched the cup to each of my chakras and drank from it slowly.

While waiting the twenty to thirty minutes for it to take effect, I kept changing position and location in the circle, trying to relieve pain in my lower back. I ended up sitting in a white, plastic patio chair directly opposite the shaman. A Peruvian woman I met on Kauai selling timeshares told me she had done ayahuasca and recommended I sit up straight after taking it to avoid falling asleep. Her advice was prophetic. Everyone else fell asleep.

A woman in the tour group who was always putting her feet inside roped-off sacred areas at Machu Picchu, or on a shaman’s cloak, which I pointed out to her thinking it disrespectful, wound up at my feet that night complaining and saying she wanted to go home. “What about just being here now?” I asked. “It’s too painful,” she answered. “Embrace the pain,” I told her as a spiritual teacher once told me. Months later I realized it wasn’t disrespect, but great faith, that motivated her to put her feet where she did. She knew if she “touched the hem of the garment,” she would be healed. Feet represent understanding. My judgment needed to die so I could live from the truth of my being. She awakened me to humility, service, divine order.

The shaman began by shaking a ritual bundle of dried leaves and singing hypnotic icaros, rhythmic melodies, inviting the medicina to do its work. The visions came, visions of beautifully-patterned, undulating snakes, lush plants, tiny cartoonlike fear thoughts saying, “Tengo miedo” (“I’m afraid”) while peeking out from the folds of my intestines. Disembodied entities spoke with me as the teacher plant revealed insights, allowed me to make choices, create, heal. Jungle animals and birds outside squawked, called, making noises throughout the night. Just before dawn, the energy in the room shifted, like a motor winding down. A bat flew down from the rafters, circled the room three times, brushing the walls with its wings until it extinguished the flame of the candle in a wall sconce on its final pass, throwing the room into complete darkness. Soon, the glowing tip of the assistant shaman’s cigarette provided the only light. “It was good for me,” I said, asking, “Was it good for you?”

A glimmer at the edge of consciousness suggests writing about this now is apropos since the Peru trip was at this time of year, around Easter, a time of death and resurrection. After a guided meditation on another occasion, I told Edwene what I had seen: “I was on the Snow White ride at Disneyland, and the Wicked Witch, who had your face, held out an apple to me saying, ‘Have an apple, dearie.’ I did not understand why I had to eat a poisoned apple.” Edwene replied clearly, “You must die to live.” As I work now during this season of Lent to expand my consciousness through the meditation challenge and 4T programs, what is ready to die, what needs to be purged, is revealed. “4T” stands for Tithing of Time, Talent and Treasure for Prosperity and the Fullness of Life. It is modeled on 12-step programs, and this is the fourth week, the week to take a searching and fearless inventory of yourself.    

Through its wisdom and perfection, my body suspended all elimination and purging needs during the entire night with the shaman. Deepak Chopra said this week that the real secret to lifelong good health is the opposite of the conventional wisdom that we must take care of ourselves: “We must allow our bodies to take care of us.” It was an “aha” moment for me. My job, as I see it now, is to get out of the way, to suspend thoughts and behaviors that interfere with my body taking good care of me. This Lenten season, that is how I will die to live.

Meditation Invitation

Last week, the Spiritual Adventuress used the phrase "peace that passes all understanding" in closing her blog post. Synchronistically, Deepak Chopra, whom she also mentioned in the post, used the same phrase in his "Tips for Meditation" she received by email today to assist her in preparing for the free "21 Day Meditation Challenge - Perfect Health" he and Oprah are starting on Monday. So it seems appropriate to send out this special edition of Spiritual Adventuress to invite you to join me in establishing a new habit of Perfect Health in the next 21 days. You can sign up for free and download a beautiful meditation doorhanger depicting the Buddha at

http://www.oprah.com/own/First-Look-Deepak-Chopras-21-Day-Meditation-Challenge-Video

What is Meditation?

Deepak Defines Meditation – Everyone thinks that the purpose of meditation is to handle stress, to tune out, to get away from it all. While that's partially true, the real purpose of meditation is actually to tune in, not to get away from it all, but to get in touch with it all. Not to just de-stress, but to find that peace within, the peace that spiritual traditions talk about that passes all understanding. So, meditation is a way to get in the space between your thoughts. You have a thought here, a thought here, and there's little space between every thought.

According to wisdom traditions, this space between the thought is the window, is the corridor, is the vortex to the infinite mind – the mystery that some people call the spirit or God. We don't have to use those terms, but it's your core consciousness. And the more we learn about this space between thoughts, we find certain things to be true of it:

• It's a field of infinite possibilities – infinite possibilities, pure potentiality.
• Everything is connected to everything else.
• It's a space of infinite creativity, infinite imagination.
• It is a place where there is something called observer effect, or the power of intention, which means intention is very powerful when brought to this space and it orchestrates its own fulfillment – what people call the law of attraction – so those are wonderful qualities of your own spirit.

In meditation, we get into this space so we find ourselves infinite possibilities, infinite correlation, infinite creativity, infinite imagination, and infinite power of intention. That's what meditation is really about.

Where to Meditate

Since these are guided meditations, you can plug in, close your eyes, and go within in any safe place you choose where you will not be disturbed.

When to Meditate

Morning and evening coincide with our body's quieter rhythms. Our body knows how to be still; we just have to give it opportunity. Studies show that routines begun in the morning last the longest, but any time you look forward to meditating is the right time.

Body Position

Being comfortable is most important. It is preferable to sit up straight on the floor or on a chair to help cultivate alertness, but if you are ill or need to lie down, that is fine. The mind has been conditioned to sleep when the body is lying down so you may feel sleepier. Your hands can relax on your lap, palms up or any way that you feel most open.

Thoughts

Thoughts will inevitably drift in and dance around your mind, but that's normal. Don't try to do anything with them – let them be. If you find yourself thinking about what's passing through your mind, just return to focusing your awareness on the mantra or your breath – you will soon slip into the space between thoughts.

Breath Meditation Length

When we pay attention to our breath, we are in the present moment. In an unforced, natural rhythm, allow your breath to flow in and out, easily and effortlessly.

Meditation Length 

The effects of meditation are cumulative, and setting aside as little as 15 minutes a day to retreat and rejuvenate is beneficial. Many schools of meditation prescribe 30 minutes of meditation twice a day, and as your meditation practice evolves, you can extend your time. It's better to spend just a few minutes meditating every day rather than meditating for an hour a week.

The Five Things That Can Happen During Meditation

During meditation, five things can happen:

1. We can experience thoughts.
2. We can mentally repeat the mantra.
3. We can have thoughts and repeat the mantra at the same time. If this happens to you, place greater attention on the mantra.
4. Our thoughts and the mantra can cancel each other out, and we can slip into that place of stillness between our thoughts, the "gap."
5. We can fall asleep. If you fall asleep, when you awaken and if time permits, allow yourself about five or ten minutes to complete your meditation.

Mysterious Ways. . .

At the age of ten, more than fifty years ago, the Spiritual Adventuress lived in Albuquerque, NM for a year. Her father was stationed at Sandia Base. A career Navy man, stationed right in the middle of the desert??? Hmmmm. . . there’s got to be more to that story. A little internet detective work reveals that in the months leading up to successful detonation of the first atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Director of Los Alamos Laboratory, began looking for a new site for continuing weapons development, testing and bomb assembly. At what came to be known as “Sandia Base,” (now part of Kirtland Air Force Base) secure facilities were constructed as a primary campus for the forerunner of Sandia National Laboratories with a second location in Livermore, CA. We also lived in Livermore. Coincidence? It's amazing to discover how little you actually know about your parents. It's amazing to discover how little you actually know about your own life. There's also a lot more to New Mexico than meets the eye. What is the connection? Why am I here? Will it remain a mystery?

Over the Christmas holidays, when my son Grant was visiting from California, we stopped for lunch at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center on our way to see the “Sky City,” or Acoma, Pueblo built on top of a 367’ high mesa. “Why are you so interested in the Pueblo Indians?” he inquired. Intrigued by his question, I trust my answer will leave him with one less parental mystery. “When I was ten years old. . . (Oh! And living in New Mexico!), I read a book called Chi-Wee, Girl of the Pueblo, the story of a curious, adventurous, courageous girl, who, like me, had long, dark braids, loved her mother and grandmother, longed for a brother and had no father at home. I didn’t fully understand, until more than forty years later, why I loved that book so much. One of my real estate clients in San Clemente, CA, an attorney, mentioned his favorite childhood book was Chi-Wee, Girl of the Pueblo. I was astonished by our shared connection to and love for the book. I requested it from the library and was able to read it again, discovering the deep resonance in our lives. In a way beyond words, Chi-Wee helped me understand my life. After so many years, she was still alive in my heart. She let me feel the power of story. Now I’ve returned to write.”

"There are no accidents. . . there is only some purpose that we haven't yet understood,"  states Deepak Chopra, author of 65 books and one of the TIME 100 (Most Influential People in the World). Personal experience verifies the truth of his statement. It took more than thirty years for the purpose of a car-accident scar on my forehead to reveal itself. It was an integral part of the healing of Grant’s stage-four melanoma and our journey through it together.

How could a car accident before Grant’s birth prepare me for his illness? Only in an astonishing way. Bill King, yet to become Grant’s father, was driving me to teach school one morning in our metallic-green Oldsmobile Toronado, a large, 4,496 pound, front-wheel-drive car. The day was clear and sunny, the sky blue. We were stopped at a red light, when WHAM!! A school bus from the district I taught in, fortunately empty at the time, rear-ended us, crushing the back half of our car. My eyeglasses flew off my face into the back seat. My head hit the windshield, my forehead split open and blood ruined my brown suede coat. After the impact, I only remember sitting on the curb with my hand on my forehead. From the police report, I later learned the school bus knocked our car one hundred and seventy feet from a dead stop. The car was totaled. I had a concussion accompanied by a terrible headache with a metallic smell. The doctor had me lie flat on my back for nine days. The headache eventually went away, but the inch-long scar on my right forehead remained.

Thirty-five years later, Grant and I met at our favorite breakfast place in downtown Santa Barbara, The Cajun Kitchen. We slid across brown naugahyde bench seats on opposite sides of the booth, a dark-brown formica table top between us. Ice tea and coffee arrived immediately in this place for locals where everyone knows your name and your order. The conversation turned to Grant’s health and treatment. I told him about the car accident and the following story.

“Recently, I noticed an irregular mole growing on my right forehead next to the car-accident scar. It was dark and rough in texture. It began to change size, shape, color. I knew I needed to have it checked. Before I could make an appointment, it disappeared. Disappeared. Not only the mole disappeared, the scar disappeared too. I asked Janet, my writing partner who is a breast cancer survivor, to pray for your healing. She is a devout Catholic, very involved in her church, a person of deep faith. She even takes the eucharist, or communion, to shut-ins in her parish. Janet said she prayed for you to be healed. She told me, ‘I asked the Blessed Mother to give you a sign you could not mistake.’ ”

Reaching across the restaurant table, I took Grant’s hand in mine. Lifting my hair back away from my face, I rubbed his fingers back and forth across my smooth forehead. “It’s gone,” I said to him. “Gone.” And that possibility became a tangible reality for him.

Life works in mysterious ways. Sometimes we have the privilege of seeing its perfection and realizing nothing happens by accident. From our own direct experience, we can learn to trust that everything is always in divine order. . . and to receive a gift of grace, the peace that passes all understanding.