Into the Cave

I grew up in California for the first 25 years of my life...many years spent just a half a block from a private beach. I dream of "Black's Beach" often and frequently the dream is characterized by huge waves coming toward me. Sometimes I am helpless in the water and drowning.

Winter was a time of duller colors, less warmth in the sun, but still, a temperate climate...so much so that I literally did not own socks for most of my childhood and adolescence, sandals were my only footwear.

Winter in Virginia means golds and browns and trees devoid of leaves...the river is a muddy brown and the temperatures range in the 30's to the high 50's. For a California girl, it's just plain cold and unpleasant. It is not a time that I enjoy being outside and for many years now, I've been affected by a disorder that has come to be known as "seasonal affective disorder" or SAD. Doesn't that seem blatantly obvious that when the sun doesn't shine as much and rain and snow are prevalent that people would be sad?

I become introspective in the winter, like a bear heading into the cave to curl up and rest; I journey into the symbolic cave in my mind and power down my energy to just "be". It is not a time of creativity for me, but a time for charging my battery and storing energy rather than exerting it. My greatest challenge is being in present time with the season. It's so natural to want to live in the future...visualzing the plans that have been made, anticipating a warmer and happier time. But it's important to experience this down and low time and that is what I am in the process of doing.

So perhaps I'll be silent here for some time. Perhaps I'll find lots to say. Perhaps I'll emerge in the spring from this cocoon, a brand new butterfly.

Namaste`,
Connie

Tears

Saturday I cried.
Christmas I didn't.
Monday sobbed for two hours.
Tuesday was dry.
It's Wednesday now.

Beautiful Women

The most beautiful woman in the world is the one who isn't afraid to be herself.

Living Out Loud

There is no doubt that living out loud carries with it a certain measure of humiliation. Perhaps that is the lesson in being one of those people who isn't afraid to put herself out there and experience fully the wonders of this life we've been given.

Today feels like the first day in months that I've had my spirit fully intact and back in my body. I've got a hold on my heart again, having let it go flying about, unprotected by this body that was entrusted to contain it. I am deeply relieved and feel like I've experienced some great inititaion into the second half of my current life.

Emile Zola said, "If you ask me what I came here to do, I will tell you. I came to live out loud".

And Connie says, "If you ask me the reason I came here, it is to live with an open heart.'

Blessings to you.

Connie

The lesson that just keeps giving.

When I am experiencing anything (new) intensely, it's a given that a
valuable lesson is being taught. I hope this is true for most...when
you find yourself immersed in whatever joy or trauma or thrill or
pleasure or adventure your soul has been seeking to throw you into, and
you can't think of anything else and you wonder if you're actually
going to survive this intensely felt experience, well, you can bet that
a teacher is walking right beside you.

For me, in these past four months, my teacher has been the man I sleep
beside every night, Christopher, my husband. He appeared as a teacher
16 years ago and his lesson is the one of love. Ten years ago, he
said, "you can't make me not love you". This fall he just kept saying,
"I love you, I love you, you are worthy of love". And even though my
heart had left my body and landed deep in tortured territory in
California, he kept loving, even in his pain. And he showed me through
his example that there is no situation in a marriage that throwing more
love at won't improve. Now I see that the only cure for heart ache
is more love. Heartache, not hate is the flip side of love. Hate
certainly isn't the flip side. Hate resides in the 3rd Chakra, right
there with your ego. But love...

For some of the broken, the heart was shut down so long ago, that it's
power is no longer accessible. Pain and humiliation and suffering got
dealt with in the manner of shutting down the center of love in the
human chest, and all the choices to be made in this life begin to be
made from lower chakras...perhaps first integrity and ego, in the
third, start making choices that ego thinks will make us feel better.
Then creativity in the 2nd, gets confused with producing income and
then sex gets confused for real connection on the heart level and sex
becomes the focus; the heart continues crying out to be unlocked and
acknowledged for it's incredible capacity to heal itself and others,
just by being OPEN!

Yes, open-heartedness can hurt. A lot. But no pain is worse than the
loss of the power of the heart. Love is the ultimate healer. Every
moment that love and heart ache are experienced, felt, glorified, is
the penultimate moment in this universe that not only CHANGES the
energy in a room, it magnifies itself and ripples out into the world to
create huge waves of love that are absorbed into the greater cosmic
energy of divine mystery.

So go out there and give your heart! Just give it away. You'll
survive the painful part. You'll learn how to stop hurting and start
loving. We are all broken. We are born naked with open hearts, and
may it be naked with mature and ancient hearts that we find ourselves
moving on from this current incarnation whose only purpose is to
experience love.

May Divine Mystery reach out and grab hold of your heart and may you
not be afraid.

For these lessons, I am truly grateful.

Connie

Wisdom of Black Hawk

ON MOTHER EARTH

"We must let our roots grow deep into Mother Earth. Look at that tree that reaches high, the old tree that has grown its roots deep. It stands tall and touches Tunkashila. But the tree that rushes its growth and makes a shallow base, what will become of it? The first big wind will push it over. And that's what your people have done. They don't root themselves in the earth first. They don't appreciate the earth for what it is. They don't believe it is a living thing. They must touch the earth. To touch the earth is to appreciate your mother, your true mother. For it is She who keeps me alive. It is the She who kept my mother alive."

– Black Hawk

What that Kundalini taught me:

I'm going to assume that this first raid on my body by the kundalini infused 88' wave I've been riding since my 47th birthday on September 20, IS NOT MY LAST, however this initial experience proved a valuable teacher in the art of managing the power of the fourth chakra.

One Google in early August and I got swept up in a wave of regression and nostalgia, romance, and wild speculation about the actual orientation of my sexuality. Let me tell you, I had a lot of fun. Integrity was the cost for which I have paid my measure.

I learned:

My past is steeped in love. I have known all my life, what love feels like.

Women do not become saner as they age. Wiser perhaps, but never actually sane.

The power of love is where magic lies. Even when the heart breaks, love is it's flip side. Love is this close.

The lovliest and safest pleasure I can acheive is in loving myself. And I do.


My most thankful praise and gratitude to each of you I encountered this late summer and fall.

Goodbye to the spirit most recently known as George Hanna. Twas an honor to sing to ya, sir.


namaste, love
connie

My God Tree

When I need to feel connected to a God image, I need only look to my backyard, where this mighty oak reminds me of what we are here to do...reach down with firm roots and raise our arms to heaven in praise of this glorious world we've been given.

For this I am grateful.

The beginning of the journey

Buddha

According to the Buddha, all human suffering is based in desire. To let go of desire is a means to the end of suffering.

I dreamt last night of cobra in Hindu mating rituals. The message was, "beware when your lover becomes the cobra." I have no idea what to make of this, but it seems somewhat ominous and forboding if not down right very clear guidance. I'm not sure that the cobra is an energy I want to rise up against. But then again, am I meant to embrace it?

Happy Soul Girl

This is a version of me that I have had the tremendous honor of reclaiming in the past three months. I was 13.

For this I am grateful.

Passion

Passion is the fuel that gets my motor running to rocket me through space. It's a lot of fun. Try it sometime!

Third Chakra

The third chakra, manipura, is located in your solar plexus, between your naval and heart. The color association is yellow and the elemental association is fire. The third chakra is where your second brain lives. Your second brain is known as your intuition. The wisest sage in the world is nothing without intuition to guide her in her choices on a daily basis. We are faced with choices and decisions hundreds of times each day. When we allow our intuition to make choices based on the need of the soul to experience love, rather than the need of the logical mind to order and control chaos, the quality of the choices we make are of the richest kind.

The third chakra houses your intuition, your self-esteem, and your sense of integrity. Your ability to endure suffering also lives here and as the Buddha said, we are all subject to a measure of suffering in this life.

Intuition, regardless of knowledge, is a divine presence in each and every one of our bodies. Kids have it. Animals have it. But somehow, through our processes of "education", intuition is slowly shut down, invalidated, disrespected...we are taught not to trust our instincts; we are taught to leave choices and decisions to adults who know better. Intuition is a God given gift that we are all born into. However, our western culture is not particularly interested in what it is to "know" that around the corner there's a snarling dog, western culture is more interested in selling us a gun to protect ourselves from the PROSPEST of a snarling dog. It's a tragedy of epic proportion in our culture and I'm telling you, if we let the kids make intuitive choices for this entire nation for just one day, we wouldn't recognize the beautiful world we woke into the next morning.

Issues of self-esteem and integrity are located in your third chakra. Why is that? Because without integrity, your self esteem is woefully left wanting. Integrity means "walking your talk", doing what you say you are going to do and then doing it. It's that simple, but we make excuses for ourselves every day and it chips away at our sense of who we are. How many times have you said, "I could feel it in my gut that this or that wasn't the right thing to do, but I didn't listen." START LISTENING! If you desire a closer connection to Divine Guidance, then find a way to pay attention and make choices based on what you are sensing from your third chakra.

Sight

A few years ago, I had just gotten new glasses, a next age version of bi-focals called progressive lenses. As a person who experiences the world through the symbolic language of the world created behind my eyes, it was a revelatory symbolic message when I dropped my glasses, unbeknownst to me, in a parking lot and drove away. I realized my mistake and was back in time to watch a woman in a black Jaguar running over my glasses. I flew out of my car, whisked them into my hand and VOILA`, they were not broken!! Run over by a Jaguar and my glasses didn't break.

In retrospect, I see this as turning point in the process of shifting my perspective into a progessive way of seeing the world, and my life began to be experienced from a symbolic level rather than one trapped by illusions of "reality". I'm forever asking, in a new situation, "what is the message'? For instance, yesterday, I had a brilliant inspiration for a concept store that would teach people how chakras and energy work to create health or disease in the human body. I had a huge flush of energy around it and my first question of course was, "where would the financing come from?" Do you know that within seven hours the person with finances and willingness to venture with me walked through the door of my studio and said, "it sounds great. I've got the money. Let's do it".

The symbolic message in this is that when you get divine inspiration, move forward with it. Don't question it, don't shut it down because you can't imagine where the money would come from, or the partner, or the right space to do it in, or the support of your community. When divine inspiration calls, MOVE WITH IT and hold on for the ride!! You will be amazed in what you can do when you get out of your own way and let the ethereal plane be your guide!

For this I am truly grateful!

Out of Body

"All the jewels in heaven, they don't look the same to me." Beck

For this I am grateful.

Happy Soul?

The exquisitely beautiful spirit known as Elizabeth Gay says this is one of her favorite questions: "Soul, are you happy? Listen for the answer, and then take action as need be."

Or don't take action. But notice what your soul is seeking and perhaps do some work at manifesting what it desires. Above everything else, the soul seeks only to experience love.

What it's Like

INTENSELY ALIVE IS WHAT IT IS.

For this I am grateful.

Kundalini, again

I wrote earlier about my experience of Kundalini awakening at a GOMEZ concert in D.C. What I've only just realized is that although the energy had awakened, it remained quiet and unmoving until my 47th birthday. I was awakened one night and went to use the bathroom. My next conscious moment found me on the white tile floor in a cold sweat, heart pounding with excruciating pain like a column of fire in my root chakra. Moaning, I considered the prospect of death. My beloved Christopher was in the other room, praying me through it.

The next morning when I woke up, I fully expected to see a different "person" in the mirror.

Kundalini animated in me that night. Kundalini started moving up and down my spine, clearing out energy in all my chakras. It was a death of sorts. A death of old tribal ways that no longer serve the common good and my purpose as a healer on the planet. It was certainly a rebirth into a realm where illusion is broken down a little more and much becomes infinitly possible because so much excess has been cleared away.

Next to death, it was the ultimate healing. For this I am truly grateful.

Connie

Ordination of the Rev. Connie Hanna

On October 21, 2005 I was ordained as a minister of the Universal Life Church in California. Hooray!

"As a minister, I am authorized by the church to perform the rites and
ceremonies of the church (except circumcision), including weddings,
funerals, baptisms and blessings, subject to the laws of my country,
state, or locality.

I am entitled to all privileges and courtesies normally offered to
members of the clergy.

My commitment is to always do the right thing. It is my responsibility
to peacefully and sincerely determine the right course of action, and to
avoid infringing on the rights of others. I alone am responsible for
my actions as a minister."

My specific mission in becoming ordained is to draft myself as an agent for healing
the broken hearted through the energy of loving kindness in the name of the God
of Love and Forgiveness.

Please let me know if you are in need of my services.

For this I am truly grateful.

Be well, do good work,
Rev. Connie Hanna

My Guy Al

Albert Einstein
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.

Language of Energy Spoken Here

Tears

Because the second chakra is aligned with the energy of water, eveything that flows in and from our bodies, originates here. In healing work, the second chakra processes blood, sweat and tears and all the manifestations of sorrow and desire they stem from.

Image the tree of life, carrying water and nourishment up from the roots, hydrating, nourishing, the entire system of "tree" with it's life giving powers. And what the tree doesn't need immediately, it stores in it's trunk, above it's root system that pulls the energy up.

The same is true with your second chakra. Like the compact disc, it can hold a lot of information and energy, but if any of that information is tainted, or "sick" it can have a profound impact on your health. What I want to say to you is that if you have unresolved pain or hurt or trauma in this area of your body, find the courage to deal with it, forgive and let it go. It's really essential to being fully conscious. Be not concerned with the legnth of the journey, just get on the path. You are loved.

Water

The second chakra is aligned with the element of water. I asked a practioner of healing touch today what the source of the sound of water was. He said, "is that a buddhist meaning of life question?. I said, 'Yes, I suppose it is.".

The information I was seeking however, was the physical place of the water element I was hearing, lapping, lapping. I was seeking a fountain. I did not find one, only the sound of water, lapping a shore.

Note to self

If you don't think you are enlightened, at least try to act like you
are.

Second Chakra: Svadisthana

In my mind, Anna Nueva Villanova defined the second chakra with this poem:

Settle for:
Settle for nothing
Settle for nothing less
Settle for nothing less than
the object of your desire.

Desire. The weight of. The weight of our desire.
Then laugh. Cry. But laugh more than you cry and when you hold the world in
the palm of your hand, love her.


~~~~

The second chakra is called the Svadisthana Chakra which translates loosely to "one's own seat or base" and is located in the area below the navel, and even though it is physically located on the spine, it encompasses the pelvis, hips, lower back, reproductive organs and genitals and lower intestines. The second chakra processes all feelings of desire and want inherent in the human experience, consequently, it's a very active area of the body. Particularly for the woman, whose womb is the symbolic vessel for incubating creation, the Svadisthana energy center is the seat of all need to create. One of the most basic truths in this chakra is that we MUST create or die. Whether it's a beautiful garden, a work of art, a turkey and avocado sandwich or a cup of tea, everything we do and every thought we think is an act of creation.

Given that the lessons of the root chakra are related to survival and influences of a group mind or "tribe of origin", the second chakra has everything to do with one-on-one relationships. Your self-esteem lives in your second chakra, your relationship with your spouse, partner and friends live here. Your sensual and sexual experiences of the world live here. Your fears or faith with money lives in your second chakra as well, and in our western culture, money issues can take up a huge amount of energy that must be processed by the second chakra. It goes without saying that the healthier and more vital you are in this area, the same will be reflected in your relationship to income and out flow of resources.

Letter to a budding creative artist:

I can't tell you how thrilled I am to hear you brought in $650 your first time out. It takes tremendous courage to do what you did, which was put your creative ass ( i.ei. root chakra) on the line and invite the acceptance or rejection of your work in a public venue. As I said in my most recent missive, measure your success by the joy you experienced in the creation of a work of art that reflects who you are to the people that encounter you and your product.

I'm very impressed by your acumen. I see you as a highly intuitive creative artist with a lot to say in very few words. This is the true beauty of the whole "patchwork" genre. Your market is to those who recognize that on a cosmic level, we are only a sum of our parts and experience. For me, that is symbolized in stringing beads together in an endless circle....no beginning...no end: for you that is manifested in the patching together, with great precision, the fabric of our lives, (oh christ, I'm sounding like a cotton commercial!! ;o}) into these gorgeous vessels of what we are capable of carrying in terms of JOY! and LOVE! (in a tote on your shoulder).

My prayer for you is that this journey will reveal to you that the qualities of JOY and LOVE are completely capable of transforming your world and those who are touched by it. You are a mirror to what you encounter; whatever it is you are creating is defined by those who are attracted to it. Look for the beauty there, it is infinite and what you give to it is unfathomable in this amazing world we live in.

You've been handed the magic wand of LOVING WHAT YOU DO. Use it.

BUY ART!

painting by Will Corr


Perhaps you can help me identify the person who said that when they had a little extra money they bought books, and if there was any left over they bought some bread. I'm thinking this was Simone deBeavoir, but I could be wrong. This most certainly seems a feminine sentiment, dont'cha think?

When I have a little extra money, or even when I don't, I buy art. I started my business in the world of flea markets and crafts shows in New York City. If a dozen people out of hundreds stopped and looked at my work, that felt good. If a few of them traded me money for my work, that felt great. Chris and I would always go out for a nice dinner after a show, regardless of the day's income. I am so grateful to those New Yorkers who first purchased my jewelry. I hope a lot of it is still walking the streets and drawing stares!

So now, I want to tell you to support artists every way that you can. This weekend, just down the street from my studio is the Stockley Gardens Fall Arts Festival. It's the show that supported me and put me on the arts map in Norfolk for over ten years. It is the very best in art that our lovely town has to offer and the proceeds from the event benefit Hope House Foundation, which is a non-profit that provides independent housing and guidance for the disabled. HOPE HOUSE IS PART OF WHAT MAKES NORFOLK AN AMAZING PLACE TO LIVE! Please get down there and spend some of your own hard or easily earned money supporting the work of an artist.

And if you don't have an art show to go to this weekend, then go on eBay and search for "outsider art". You will find a vast pool of very talented individuals who aren't part of the bona-fide "art world". Many are good folks who just like to create and express themselves with paint and wood, clay and collage and many are thrilled just to be moving their work along. Don't expect to spend a lot of money. One painting I got at a winning bid of $10 and I sent him $30 cuz it didn't feel right to "steal" it from him for $10! If you aren't an eBay member, then go on as a guest and send somebody a comment telling them you like their work. Make an artists day! We all just want to be loved and make a little money doing what we love!

Be well, do good work,
Connie

The prayer that turned me around

When I was pregnant with Jesse, I created a mantra:
"Jesse and I are going to have a smooth and easy birth".
I repeated this mantra to myself dozens of times a day and
as I was falling asleep each night. Jesse and I, indeed, had
a smooth and easy birth experience. Seems your
mind will believe and create anything you tell it to.

After he was born, I felt a void in my mind where my mantra had
previously been. I wrote this prayer to fill the space:

I, Connie, have complete and total faith in the universe
to provide me with all that I need for a full and happy life.
Thank you God for my life.
And to the source that dwells within me, I honor my higher self.
Guide me gently through night's dreaming until dawn's light comes streaming.
And through the day, please make me aware,
of all the wonderful things available to me here,
on Earth.
Amen.

Kundalini Image

Root Chakra and Kundalini

The Root Chakra is located at the base of the spine and is associated with the earth element. If we were ever sensient beings on four legs with tails, the site where the tail meets the body is where the root chakra is located. Imagine an invisible root extended into the earth from the base of your spine...this is the place that connects us to our earth home and all the survival issues inherent in our presence here. Your needs for food, shelter and clothing, warmth and community and nurturing are all located here. Any issues you have with those basic needs for survival are located in the root chakra.

For instance, the survivors of Hurricane Katrina are dealing with very extreme root chakra issues. The conflict and fear created by their experience of hunger, thirst, and depravation will be stored or "recorded" in the first chakra. It's possible that if those conflicts and fears aren't resolved, then disease may be created in the body. Knee, feet and leg problems and all many of illness relating to the elimination system might manifest themselves as symptoms of a blocked root chakra.

On the emotional level, the root chakra is where the power of fear and courage, anger and anxiety are located. For the Katrina victims, a natural outcome to the emotional crisis of being betrayed by a "tribe" or nation that failed them in their basic human rights for survival is going to have a profound affect on their collective and individuals root chakras. The black people of our nation will all experience that betrayal to some extent or other, or so it seems to me, and that betrayal is experienced physically by the first chakra.

A very cool and important aspect of the root chakra is the energy of Kundalini. Just as our earth home is considered a mother, so is our first chakra considered a female energy. Kundalini Shakti (sanskrit for "energy"), in Hindu mythology, is represented as a serpent goddess coiled three and a half times around the root chakra and contains the energizing potential of life itself, a living goddess who enlivens all things. Kundalini lies dormant and sleeping in many people. There is no mistaking the force of Kundalini when and if it wakes up in the human body. Kundalini animates and energizes all the chakras, undulating upward, piercing the chakras and releasing all kinds of powerful and stored energy. Therefore, the experience of Kundalini can be very intense, very uncomfortable and may look like full blown life crisis to some.

In my own experience, while attending a GOMEZ concert in Washington, D.C. Kundalini woke up in my own first chakra and took over my physical body in a way I simply don't have the words to describe. It was like being plugged into 220 volts after years of 20. My whole energy field shifted to such a great extent and suddently I could FEEL how energized and intensely connected to the entire univeral life force I was and in a way I'd never experienced before. I started to dance and move in a manner completely unfamiliar to me: ecstatically, blissfully, and unbelievably ALIVE! Kundalini ignited a tremendous passion and great love of life in me. When you are around people with awakened Kundalini you may experience them as animated, intense and very exciting. However, depending on where you are in your own journey, you might find them frightening or draining. Ultimately though, Kundalini is a force that accelerates healing and when the heart chakra is on board with the first, that healing can be experienced as miraculous.

And in the name of miraculous healing, I send you my blessings of love for your own healing.

You are loved,
Connie

Chakras and the rainbow

A chakra is a spinning disc of energy located on the human spine. If we were mere skeletons walking
about the earth, without our tissue and organs, what we'd see might look like seven holographic cd's or dvd's, each with a color assoicated with it, located in a vertical line from the base of our spine to the crown of the head. I think we'd be able to tell alot about a fellow being by the intensity of the color we saw radiating from each whirling chakra. Chakra's are like an auto-biographical audiobook recording and storing your soul's life experience.

Perhaps you've heard of an "aura". An aura is an invisible energy field that surrounds our body. To some, who can "see" auras, this energy field may appear as diffused white light. Imagine the "halo" that many artists have attempted to recreate on canvas when depicting a holy person or setting. That clear light is what we associate with divinity, isn't it? Well, imagine that we are the prism that the Divine One shines it's lovely light through: we become a rainbow that is recreated in the chakra system as whirling discs of color and light.

Stay tuned: Tomorrow: The root chakra is the color red.

California Home

The trip to California was such a
gift in so many ways. Most importantly, I was able to travel to the
past, plug into all the love that I left behind and bring it with me
into the present and future to use in my healing work. Like you, I
am a mere vessel of humanity and all that comes with it, but truth
says that love is the highest power we are blessed with on this
planet. It's the magic wand that each of us has the capacity to
activate. If you want to create change for the better on this plane,
love is the key and the more you use it, the more powerful and potent
the essence of your work will be.

As a youth, I created a great deal of damage when it came to heart
break. I was not a conscious or awake individual and bounced from
one person to the next, hoping for some connection that felt
authentic. I did not respect my self nor others. I couldn't see what
others saw in me, and I did not know how to forgive myself for the
choices I made that caused pain and suffering for others. So when I
left, I left with shame and embarrassment and very low self-esteem.
And so the journey from that departure back to the geography of the
pain; to the site of my own woundings and those inflicted on others,
was an epiphany of profound importance for me. I contacted Lisa and
Justin and Kim and Laura and Tom and Dave and Kort and Linda and each
of them reflected back to me the qualities that have always been
present in each of us: beauty and sorrow and optimism and tolerance
and humor and good wine and LOVE. And so I return to Virginia, energized by the love that I felt for
those people and the loving kindness they offered me. I am humbled by
the brightness of it all.

Time Travel

I am happy to report that I learned the art of time travel over the weekend. Last Tuesday my intuition told me to GO TO CALIFORNIA. I have learned well enough that when my intuition speaks, it's best to follow rather than resist it. So, Friday I got on a plane in Norfolk and then I was in California. With the help of Buddha's teaching, I was able to power down my energy and just BE in a state of forward western motion. I arrived intact, refreshed and revitalized. This is what the Buddha said:
"Thus shall you think of this fleeting world as a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, an echo, a rainbow and a dream." For me, the dream is real.

The teachers

It seems completely plausible that our souls make promises or contracts to one another before we incarnate, whereby we make agreements to support the souls evolution toward the highest power: love. One of the most obvious contracts is that of the teacher, and in my mind, this whole beautiful planet is a classroom with playground attached, so a most obvious way to support each other is through the teacher archetype. 
For instance, my third grade teacher, Mrs. Stark,  was under contract to teach me the multiplication table.  While I was learning it,  I had  no sense of how the information was going to impact my life, but indeed, as an adult, I realize that the rest of my education could not have continued effectively without the lesson Mrs. Stark taught me.    She was a lovely teacher, full of love and nurturing energy; never harsh and always with a vile of smelling salts to keep herself from fainting. We parted with a fond farewell, her contract to teach me a specific task accomplished and the eight year old me in love with 8 x 9 = 72.

Once we are no longer in the academic environment, the teachers are not so obvious. But isn't it possible that we are all teachers? And the best way to figure out who YOUR teachers are is to reflect on those people in your life for whom you have felt the most emotion for, those people who have infuriated you, or broken your heart, or killed your father or healed your wound. Those are your teachers and even though you may not like or even recognize the lesson, I always ask myself when my emotions are fully on board with someone, "What is the lesson here?".

Scary Now

Now that I've told a few trusted friends about this blog I'm scared to death of hanging out here in cyberspace and y'all going, "she has finally lost her mind". Judge me not, my mind is usually within easy walking distance!

Virgo Galaxy

In the New York Times today:

"In a telescope or in ordinary pictures that capture a cosmic instant, the 2,000 or so galaxies of the Virgo cluster glow like pearly city-states, isolated and smug agglomerations of starlight. But astronomers know these galaxies are really buzzing about like bees confined by gravity in a hive some 10 million light-years across, careering back and forth at 500 miles a second, banging into one another and splashing stars and gas across space."

Funny, this seems to match the personality traits of myself and many Virgos I know. I seem to career around between my intense need for isolation juxtaposed against the thrilling vibration of a humming community of like-minded pearly and smug stars, sometimes crashing into a slower moving Aries that stumbled into the wrong hive.

I am however, attempting to temper that tendencey to come on strong, do some damage and move on out; my lesson learned and knowledge stowed under the belt, unconscious of the blinding and disorienting cloud of dust I leave behind. Truly, I have been a force of nature all of my life and now it is my intention to be a force of Divine Intention.

My Son Jesse

Ten days ago I said to my son Jesse, "It is my intention to experience our relationship without anger." He said, "I'd like that too." I haven't gotten angry at him since. It is such a releif to not experience the tension that has been so prevalent in our 11 year relationship. I recognize that I have talked way too much in the past 11 years and not listened nearly enough. I am so very grateful for the new awareness.

We are Mirrors for One Another

And since you know you cannot see yourself,
so well as by reflection, I, your glass,
will modestly discover to yourself,
that of yourself which you yet know not of.


William Shakespeare

Soul Blueprint

At the tender age of five or so, I had a mystical experience that on the symbolic level "opened up" my world for me. My sister and I shared a bedroom, two twin beds with a chest of drawers between them. I grew up in Santa Cruz, CA and at the time of the experience, my mother, brother, sister and I were living in a huge old Victorian house. I've often wondered what a family so small was doing in a house so large on "Plum Street".

One night I woke up and the walls in the house had disappeared. I could see through the entire house. When I woke up in the morning, the chest of drawers was no longer against the wall, but turned toward me, blocking my view of my sister. Although the two events could be interpreted as dreams, the memory of this has never felt like a dream. In hindsight, I think this was my first experience as a mystic who can see through the veil of what appears to be "reality". Every night this week, waking up many times during the night, I get the sense that the universe has opened up to me and that the walls of reality have retreated a little more. When it first happened a week ago after the first day of Dana How's workshop, I was a little frightend by the vast expanse before me, but now it doesn't scare me. I think I've reached a new level of consciousness that allows me to go deeper into the world behind my eyes.

And speaking of the world behind my eyes, it is overwhelming sometimes the amount of stimulation we are bombarded with in our culture. For me, today, just the 94 shades of green outside the window is more than enough stimulation! Add the sound of the CPU and the keys clicking on the keyboard, the blower of the a/c unit, the television on two rooms away, and solar chimes tinkling. That's about all I can handle at 8:02am on a Saturday!

Thank you to Elaine McFerron of the Writers Studio for inspiring me to create this Blog. Her website is: www.thewritersstudio.us

Above is my Yoga Chakra Necklace, featured on my website, www.conniehannajewels.com. I dreamt of rhinestone chakra colors all last night. Everytime I woke up, there were the seven chakra crystal colors beating a path around my brain.

I was fortunate enough, in 1989 to be handed a book with the instructions, "just hold on to it until you're ready". In 1991, I tucked the little tome into my jacket pocket to read while riding the NYC subway system. The book was Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain. The book became my bible, the subway car my church and the wisdom contained within the experience an inspiration to define, in specific language and images, just what I wanted to manifest in my life. I have Mimi Eisman to thank for putting that experience into my hands at a time that I wasn't ready.

In 1991 I was living in a basement apartment with my husband Chris, in Park Slope just off the park on 6th street. I was a budding jewelry designer, cutting my teeth in the world's most competitive market at outdoor flea markets, street fairs and art shows. It took guts, it took patience and it took tenacity to not be intimidated by all the other jewerly designers trying to do the same thing I was doing. I paid my dues, standing for eight hours in 30 degree weather, selling two to three hundred dollars worth of jewelry that would be our cash to get us through to the next week. No matter what my sales, we'd always go out for a nice dinner on Sunday night and toast my success, in whatever form it took that day.

Donna Karan was a VERY big time designer in NY in those days and I decided that that's where I wanted to be. Because I didn't get too specific with the image, I had no way of knowing that landing at DKNY was going to look like getting my foot in the door with a sales executive who set me up in the coffee room on the 7th floor where I sold most of the inventory in my sample case to the sales staff. They were so supportive, so thrilled to see something new and different and unique. I was a very happy girl when I left there that day.

That particular success made me realize that I was truly capable of visualizing just about anything that I wanted and getting it, even though I was living in a two room apartment and literally working in the bathroom with my beads stored on the top of the dryer! It was at that point in my life that I did my first surrender to Divine Will. God said, "you make the jewelry, I'll take care of the rest". So that's what I've done. And it's been fourteen years of making a wagon load of jewelry with these two hands. 1000's of earrings...1000's of necklaces and bracelets, I've literally created treasure troves and jewelry. When I see it all collected in my minds eyes, the output is overwhelming.

Are we the dreamer or the dreamed?

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.

Mahatma Gandhi

I was born 47 years ago. If my understanding of "time" is accurate, that moment is still occuring because there is no such thing as time, just layer upon layer of infinite moments spinning around the nucleus of what I perceive to be "my life". Time, apparently, is a construct of the human mind and has no actual basis in reality. Time is an illusion humanity created once they learned how to count. If I suspend my beleif that time is actually "passing" then I am no longer attached to the concept that life begins and ends or that aging is a natural fact of "life".

There is an infinite world that we are each capable of creating behind our eyes. I find myself closing my eyes more and when I do there is a vast universe available that has nothing to do with the tile on this table, the chair under my butt or the shoes on my feet. The universe behind my eyes is weightless and my mind and spirit are free to travel where they feel compelled to go, where the energy of my loving heart can be experienced by others as healing.