"Moonitor"

She walks in beauty, yes,
but not just like the night.
She moves through the day as well,
a knowing goddess not a guess,
divinely sure of what she tells.
Time and tide and blood
are at her beck and call,
measuring her journey
through the stars, responding
to her signs and phases
even as she points the way
to any heaven that is held
close to the heart,
any distant hell that needs release.
She gently shows us where we are,
whether in or out of sight.
We push back the curtain
or pull the covers to our head.
Either way her lady finger gestures,
lures us to the dreams, desires
reflected in her light.

So much is made of the Moon . . . in myth, in astrology, in magick . . . In astrology the Moon is our emotional self, our instincts, our memories, what we need to feel safe and to feel good in our own skin. Some teachers such as Abraham-Hicks talk about our emotions as guidance. Specifically, our emotions give us a reading at any given moment about where we are in relation to where we want to be. The idea is that our feelings tell us whether we are moving toward or away from our true desires.

So I found myself wondering, what about the Moon as Emotion? I asked the Shower Team, if emotions are guidance, why does it feel sometimes as though my feelings are feeling me—as removed from me as the Moon in the night sky?

The Moon is a perfect metaphor for the guidance that is your emotions. The Moon reflects the light it’s receiving, relative to its position in the sky, to the way it is turning and what it is facing. The Moon is always making its journey and reflecting a focus relative to where it is and where it is going. It is always telling you something about the distance between what is and what can be. The Moon’s phases are pictures of that emotional journey . . . pictures of desire . . . pictures of resistance to desire . . . You can see new desires being born . . . desires waxing and evolving . . . desires manifesting fully . . . resistance to desire releasing . . . waning . . .

As the Moon makes its journey through the constellations, you can observe and feel the desires and resistance relative to that focus, that topic . . . You have endless opportunities to observe your progress along the emotional journey toward any and every desire that is active in you. Or you have the choice to sleep through it all—to never look outside your window to see how you’re doing. The Moon continues its journey regardless of whether you are conscious of it or not. The Moon does its job whether you observe or acknowledge or respect it or not. If your feelings feel like they’re feeling you . . . all you really have to do is wake up . . . look through the window that is your focus and notice where the Moon is and how it’s doing. You can know then and any other time you choose, what your feelings are about and where they are taking you. Your mood is only a mystery as long as you are choosing not to notice or pay attention to its position in the sky that is your own cosmos of dreams and desires

Metaphor, like the Moon, can be a lovely and mysterious thing. While some of this continues to sink in, there’s something comforting about the thought that I can get a clue, no matter how clueless I’m feeling. That I can always figure out where I am—and in the process, find my way . . . if I’ll just look out my window, so to speak. It’s an idea that leaves me feeling a little more hopeful . . a little less lost . . . and for the moment, just as the Moon is every so often, complete

Email Dan!

Charming the Pants Off Pressure

I went through a period not too long ago where it felt like my dreams were sort of beating me up Instead of nodding off and hopping on the train to my happy place as usual, I had been dreaming hard and intensely and not so happily—and waking up feeling anything but rested.

It surprised me, given how beautifully most areas of my life have been unfolding. When I mentioned this to a wise friend (one I don’t shower with), he suggested that it had something to do with putting pressure on myself rather than really tuning into my desires and letting them lead.

So, I turned up the water pressure and as I was lathering up, asked the Shower Team about pressure . . .

You can give yourself a hard time even when you’re sleeping. Dreams are not an escape but a dramatizing of what is most active in your perspective and your focus—and how you are allowing or resisting what you desire. If you are making demands on yourself rather than allowing what you want to unfold, then the work never ends—even when you sleep.

What will help you relax and enjoy your dreams—both the waking and the sleeping ones—is to recognize that pressure is a lie. It is the lie that would try to convince you that anything you really want will emerge out of struggle or out of any trophy that anyone else can hand to you. It’s the lie that says, “If you want this, you better bust your ass to get it.” It’s a pervasive lie. Nearly everyone believes it. Sometimes it’s even a well-meaning lie, sort of like a parent who thinks they have your welfare at heart but who in their efforts to guide or protect you, are really just teaching you that life is hard and you’d better be prepared to sweat bullets to get anywhere.

We challenge you to look back over your own experience and locate anything you received or accomplished or created that came about through pressure. We promise you that anything that has come to you that you truly valued or cherished or were thrilled by came about in spite of pressure not because of it. We also promise you that the carbon resting in the Earth’s tight embrace is not crying out about how hard it is to become a diamond. That process is as much a natural and easy unfolding for those involved as the blooming of any rose and the fulfilling of any desire that you can relax into receiving.

So, you’re encouraged to think of Pressure as an Old Fool. Well meaning, perhaps, but clueless about how things really work, trying to look out for you but really best ignored if you’re going to get where you want to be. Recognize the wisdom and the charm of your desires. Feel how playful and perfect and compelling they are. Your dreams and desires are the coquette (or in your case, the hot stud), bidding you to come hither, to play this joyful game and to coolly and casually charm the pants off Pressure, leaving him (or her) exposed for the clueless curmudgeon that he/she really is. Remind yourself that there is no shortage, no lack, no brief window of opportunity, no door about to swing shut, no timecard about to be punched. Lose the silly scorecard and laugh about it, and the game will get so much sweeter . . .

Maybe in the end, the idea is to line up way more coquettes (or hot studs) than old fools. It feels like a worthy approach and reason to feel, for the moment, complete.

Who Comes First?

I seem to be rather focused on the subject of selfishness lately . . . or more precisely on what appears to be its opposite: the desire to please or serve others. I often joke about having a Pisces predisposition for a savior or a martyr complex, but I suspect that Pisces has no monopoly on the compulsion to put others first.

Growing up as a preacher’s son, I had service to others imprinted on me from within and without, so it is hard to say if it was a notion that was natured or nurtured. I only know that it took and that it has had its hooks in me for as long as I can remember.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” most people might offer. And my reply would be, yes, I do, because that has often been how it’s felt—like a burden, not a blessing . . . like an obligation, not a privilege . . . like a cross to bear, not a passion.

And so to the Shower Team I took the somewhat heavy-hearted question: What about selflessness versus selfishness? Who comes first?

Judging by the sheer number of participants this has to be one of the most popular games that you play as you inhabit your lives. You learn the value of pleasing others so early on that it doesn’t feel learned. You learn that rewards follow your “good” behavior and punishment follows your “bad” behavior. You learn that Mother’s smile or Father’s pat on the back is a worthy goal. You learn that your value is constantly measured in terms of the value that you add to another . . . and another . . . and another.

Pretty much every rule book that’s ever been written or any religion that’s been dreamed up and spread around or any established order of any sort has affirmed and reaffirmed the importance of this notion that your existence matters only to the extent that it
matters to someone else. Consequently you learn to believe that your worth must be reflected back to you from some external source. You must see that you matter by seeing how you matter to someone else. You must see it in their eyes or you must hear it in their voice or you must feel it in the way that they respond to you. And if that all fails, you must see to it that you obediently please the God who will surely get you if you don’t do the “right thing” and put your own desires at the bottom of your To Do list.

There is an enormous and powerful system and tradition of thought built up around this idea that your life can only have meaning or value if it is judged meaningful or valuable by those observing you. And so you all set out to prove yourselves. You work as hard as you can—most of you anyway—to meet this criteria. And whether you meet it or not, in your eyes or others’, you use it as your standard and more important—as your reward or punishment. If others are pleased, then you are a success. If others are displeased, then you have failed.

You rarely stop to question the logic in this way of being, much less to question your real motives. If you did, you would likely see that, first of all, it makes no sense whatsoever because it is an impossible task. You are doomed to fail because there is no way no how that you could ever possibly please all the ones who would need to be pleased in order for you to truly justify your existence in this manner. There is and always will be someone else out there waiting for you to prove yourself. Even if you manage to get your parents and your mate and your close friends lined up behind you, there are the neighbors and the boss and coworkers and the church and whichever political party has the right idea and then there is this cause and that organization and these poor sick and
downtrodden and that underprivileged nation . . . And so then you tell yourself, “Well okay I’ll never get around to pleasing all of them so I’ll just devote myself to pleasing or saving or feeding or clothing or taking care of in one way or another one poor soul at a time, because if I don’t do that, what possible purpose will my little life serve?”

And then even in devoting yourself to that cause which you believe must be noble, you miss the point of what you’re really up to. You completely miss the reality of why you ultimately do all these good deeds and why you so diligently go about trying to make everyone else happy: It makes you feel good.

It is the utterly selfish underbelly of the altruistic, caring, compassionate, self-sacrificing creature that you are. You do for others because it makes you feel good to do so. There is no such thing as an unselfish act and it doesn’t matter how loudly the world applauds and comments upon and rewards your acts of service . . . the fact remains that you did them because on some level and in some way it felt good to do them. Even if you didn’t want to do them and did them anyway, you felt better than you would have had you not done them at all.

The point of all this is not that it is wrong or bad to care about others or to want their health and happiness. Nor is it wrong or bad for you to devote yourself to activities that benefit others. What trips you up over and over is the way that you use the notion of service or of pleasing others as a smokescreen or a way of denying yourself a truth that would truly serve you if you let it—that how you feel about you is what really matters. You could fill up every hour of every day of your current existence with good deeds. You could labor to bring smiles and nods of approval to every man, woman, and child you meet—and if you have not understood that it was all for you, then you missed the point—and you have deprived yourself of the real joy available to you by recognizing that it is not the loving service that you manufacture for others that determines your ultimate worth, but the love that you allow yourself to receive and feel for yourself and others.

Even the prophets you use to reinforce your often mistaken ideas about service and compassion and pleasing others, spoke a truth in varying ways that you often overlook: that loving yourself is where any worthy loving starts. If you are truly loving yourself first, then you must also be pleasing yourself first—and in some way recognizing that you will never please enough others to truly prove yourself worthy. Pleasing yourself is the only way to get that job
done.

So you can continue to run yourself ragged in your efforts to make as many others as possible happy and well. You can live for the thunderous applause of those who will, of course, commend you for putting them—and them—and them—and them—ahead of yourself. But don’t kid yourself about the real reason you’re going about it this way. We would also encourage you not to kid yourself about it being the only or best way of bringing your life into joyful fulfillment. The fact is that the only one you ever really, truly are trying to please is you, no matter how loudly you may protest that to yourself.

For the record, We thinks thou doth protest too much. If trying to please as many others as you possibly can truly, genuinely, deeply, deliciously pleases you, then We say knock yourself out. Otherwise . . . you’re just knocking yourself out— doing all the work for some of the glory but far too little of the fun.

Nothing like a little paraphrased Shakespeare to lighten a heavy topic. Somehow the drama—and comedy—of all this makes it an even more fitting denouement. I know that putting me first is a process that still goes so against the grain of what I typically tell myself about what I’m doing and why . . . I have a feeling it’s going to take some practice.

But for now, I/We doth feel comfortably free of protest, and I/We art for the moment, selfishly complete.

Breathing Freely

I’ve wondered sometimes how much happier a place the world would be—or maybe how much happier I would be in the world—if money was not the thing that seems to make the world go ‘round. Or more precisely, I’ve wondered how much easier it would be to be happy if I had more of it or if I had saved and spent what I had more wisely. It seems to be an astonishingly common query. I hear people asking variations of the question all the time, particularly when they’ve found themselves in what feel like dire financial straits:

So I asked the Shower Team: How do we begin to free ourselves from the emotional burden of overwhelming financial obligation, of mountainous debt and/or the accompanying fear and shame of having created it? How do we look at what we’ve done and what seems to be always bearing down on us, and feel free?

The problem and the solution is inherent in your question. To ask “How do I free myself” is to miss the hugely important and absolutely unquestionable fact that you ‘are’ already free. Nothing and no one, no set of conditions, no outstanding balance, no
massive monthly payment, no deadly financial boulder rolling toward you can for one single instant change the reality that you ‘are’ free.

You are so free, that you can see yourself as bound. You can actually choose slavery to anything that you believe has power over you. You can even choose bondage to something that feels good to you. It doesn’t matter . . . bondage is always your choice.

We know that is very hard to hear when collection agencies are tracking you down and invoices are piling up and the fear is rising like flood water. But it is no less true when you believe you’re drowning than when you are basking on a beach somewhere. It is what you are choosing to see and believe—the thoughts that you are thinking over and over until they become “real” to you.

The irony is that the more you see yourself as bound---by shame, by guilt, by worry, by dread, by frustration . . . the stronger your chains become and the longer you keep yourself enslaved. So what do you do? When the payments are due or when the questions from onlookers are put to you: “How are you going to manage?”

Will you believe the lie that those “statements” say anything at all about who you are or what is yours? Will you agree with the deception that what you earn or owe or spend or save has anything to do with your freedom? Will you choose to blame yourself for some perceived failure to measure up to a meaningless standard? Will you accept anyone else’s criteria for what makes you worthy? Who gets to decide your freedom? Who’s in charge? To whom do you give that ultimate authority to dictate to you how you feel about you?

We encourage you to pay what you are able to pay in order for you to feel that you are honoring yourself—and as you do so, to tell yourself how irrelevant it is. We encourage you to see from the broader perspective how infinitesimal any debt you’ve accumulated really is . . . how it can disappear—and will—as you are able to see it for the speck in the Universe that it is—and see you for the worthy, loving and lovable, capable and competent, blessed creator that you are. We also encourage you to remember and believe that when you transition back to your blissful nonphysical state, any debt that remains will not be taken with you.

“He/She really screwed up. Blew big wads of cash on stupid things and then had to pay the piper. He/She probably died a broke and broken soul.. Better luck next time.” Is that the story you’re telling and believing? How’s it working for you?

If you’re feeling burdened, it is not because some big hairy monster is breathing down your neck. If you’re feeling shamed or guilty it is not because a bank has you by the short hairs. If you’re not breathing freely, it is not the smog or the smoke coming from some building or bridge that you burned. It is all about what you’re letting in and what you’re letting go of. Stop holding your breath. You’ll be amazed at how free you feel, when you finally exhale.

Sometimes even I have to sit back and chew on some of what I hear and even as I note that to myself, I hear “No rush and no worries”. So I/We are, for the moment--as I am taking deeper, easier breaths--complete.

Cats Out of the Bag

At the risk of being even more self-indulgent than usual, my mind seems to be wandering a lot lately to the topic of cats. Not lions or tigers or panthers or cougars or any of the other wilder, more formidable felines. I’m talking kitty cats.

They keep showing up. I’ll be falling asleep and with increasing regularity, I will find myself drifting into a meditative state where I am seeing a sweet, affectionate cat cuddling up to me, nuzzling me, or curling up on my chest. Sometimes they look me in the eye and purr or meow in what seems some meaningful way.

The answer to the inevitable “So what?” of this is that I am not a cat man. I’ve been a dog lover from way back. In fact, I initially inherited a fear of cats from my mother who was traumatized by one as a child. I wouldn’t have anything to do with them for most of my childhood and adolescence. And even as I overcame my phobia, I was still a little intimidated by them. Then as that hesitation around them gradually dissolved, I found myself developing increasingly severe allergic reactions to them: nasty, clog-all-available-passages, sneezing and hacking allergic reactions.

So the context for this suddenly sweet attraction to cats—real and imaginary—seems all the more curious. Being the diligent mystic that I am, I try to pay attention to recurring surprises, and so I finally took the kitty cat question to the Shower Team . . .

The animals on your planet are all wonderful examples of well being, but domesticated cats in particular are perfect conveyers of the message not only that all is well but that nothing and no one is needed—including you—to make things just fine for them. When a cute, cuddly cat comes close to you and looks you in the eye and purrs or meows, what he/she is really saying is, “I don’t need this, but you seem nice enough so we’ll see how it goes for a while.” While that might come as a crushing blow to some cat lovers, the fact is that cats understand completely their own self-sufficiency. If you were to put any of them out on the street, they would fend for themselves just fine. They indulge and permit this mutually beneficial arrangement that humans have with them because there is pleasure in it for them as well as for you. They are extraordinary teachers of the way to approach your connections in general and of the perspective that will serve you well in any conditions. Their message to you really is that all is well and that you need not do or say anything in particular to make that so.

More specifically in the case of your daydreams or meditations where cats continue to appear, they are offering an additional, specific message about where you are focused and what is active in your own experience. You do not dream only when you are sleeping. You are dreaming your life continuously. And those dreams are a continuous expression and reflection of your desires and the extent to which you are allowing or resisting those desires.

These waking dreams or meditations are expressions of what you are wanting where you stand and how you are responding to what you want. As you continue to clarify your desires and to release resistance to them, more and more of what you want flows into your experience. Cats have been a longstanding symbol of resistance for you. Initially you feared them and avoided them. Then you developed allergies to them and avoided them. Now you are waking up to a very felt desire to appreciate and enjoy them as you begin to understand that the Universe does not dole out favors or pleasures in some random or whimsical way. The Universe does not say, “Okay you and you and you and you can enjoy playing with cute cuddly cats . . . but you and you and you and you are not allowed to do so and therefore you will start sneezing and huffing and coughing and tearing up whenever one of these beasts comes near you.” The Universe does not operate on principles of arbitrary exclusion----some can have this and some cannot—nor does the Universe operate on principles of retribution---you kicked a cat in a previous life and therefore you must suffer in their presence this time around. There are no such rules.

You are beginning to understand that there are endless pleasures and satisfactions available to you, limitless and unrestricted joys and that the only thing holding you apart from any pleasure or satisfaction that you desire is your own resistance, your own belief that it is not available to you.

These cats appearing in your daydreams, cuddling up to you in your meditations are simply telling you that they are available to you. They are saying, “Come play with us, enjoy us—we’re waiting for you.” But more important, they are saying to you, “Come enjoy YOU. Recognize that only you can limit you, that only you can withhold from you whatever it is that you are dreaming of.

Your own desires and dreams are cuddling up to you, purring with a contentment and a joy that is as soft or sweet or comforting or quirky or compelling as you want it to be. All you need to do is reach out and stroke them.

Indulgence seems to be the name of this game. I am consistently humbled and exalted by the Universe’s indulgence of my desires, my daydreams, and of course—my questions. I have not yet invited a flesh-and-blood kitty into my experience but I am so enjoying the comfort and intrigue of their new place in my life. For now that seems more than enough, and it leaves Me/Us feeling, for the moment, purrfectly complete.

Getting What You Don't Need

There have been some striking examples in the recent past of things I wanted, showing up almost at the exact moment that I decided I didn't need them anymore. They’re those kinds of head scratching moments where it almost seems like the Universe is really yanking my chain, where the joke seems to be on me but it takes a while for me to appreciate the humor.

A while back I was flying home after visiting my parents out of state. A generous flight attendant friend of mine had given me a buddy pass for the trip so I was flying standby on a holiday and when I got to the airport the flight was already full. The odds of my getting on that plane looked slim to none and I immediately started fretting and giving the evil eye to all the people waiting in line with reservations. Suddenly, somehow a gentler idea occurred to me—that I didn’t HAVE to get on THIS plane. I started telling myself that there were multiple flights home that day, which there were, and that I would no doubt get on one of those planes. I started to relax and just look out the window as the frustration receded.

Not five minutes later, the gatekeeper called my name. Apparently there was one remaining seat on the plane. The couple ahead of me on the list, who were also flying standby, had declined to split up. The seat was mine. There are other examples—a deal on a car that I had walked away from because the price was too high . . . a friend’s house that sold shortly after taking it off the market . . .

So, I asked the Shower Team . . . What is up with this business of getting what we want after we stop trying to get it?

The key part of your question is the word “trying”. When you are “trying” to get what you want you are generally moving in the opposite direction of having it. That sounds counterintuitive because it is not what you learn to do and not the way you have
learned to be. You have learned that what you want comes about through your effort and that the greater the effort the greater the reward and that you can tell how well you’re doing with getting what you want by how much you’re struggling to have it.

Also, when you “need” something, what you are in essence saying is that something—anything—outside of you has the power to give or to take away your joy. When you “need” you are deciding that you cannot be at peace or content or in joy unless and until some circumstance changes. And so you go to whatever lengths necessary to obtain what you think you “need” to feel good. It all gets to be so “trying”.

The reason what you desire seems to show up the moment that you release the “need” for it, is that in that moment you are remembering that nothing outside of you is the source of your well being. You are remembering that joy or peace or contentment or passion or bliss or relief have nothing to do with any situation or any condition or any event or any other person’s action or behavior or response to you. And so in that moment when you remember that you don’t “need” this thing you thought you needed, then you release the resistance that holds back whatever it is that you’re desiring. Often the response to that remembering and release is immediate. The relief is immediate. And in many cases, the manifestation is immediate.

What you want is never as far away as you think anyway, and so you are surprised when it appears to show up as such an immediate result of your choosing differently, but the fact is that this sort of quick response to your desires is much more readily available to you all the time than you are generally able to see.

When you are “needing” you are not remembering how complete you really are. When you are“needing” you are not remembering the abundance and well being that is always surrounding you. When you let go of “needing” you flow right back into the stream where everything you want is flowing. You allow the Universe to respond to you in the perfectly loving way that is always yours for the asking, yours for the allowing—as soon as you relax back into knowing that there is nothing you need.

Word play with the Universe is such a fun game. When I’m immersed in the game there truly is no need for more. And in the needing-nothingness of this moment, I/We are complete.

We like you! We really like you!

I’ve always loved Sally Field. Aside from being a huge talent in a small package she has a way of being herself so fully and so unapologetically and yet so likeably. She still catches a jab now and then for her 1985 Oscar acceptance speech where she blurted out, “You like me!” I guess vulnerability has a certain charm as long as it doesn’t tip over the top.

One of the growth opportunities inherent in having a Gemini Moon is that I am frequently noticing how the thoughts that are thinking me feel. Sometimes they don’t feel so hot and I’ve come to recognize that some of the not-so-hot-feeling thoughts have to do with needing someone else to really like me.

Often it’s not pretty, and it can really rain on any parade I may be trying to launch. What has been especially sobering is the dawning awareness that other people really liking me isn’t the real issue—that in fact there is a chorus of disapproval waiting to raise the rafters all right here inside my own little self.

It sort of sucks, and so I asked the Shower Team to tell me how to fire the choir . . .

You learn this way of being at such an early stage of your physical experience that it truly becomes second nature. It actually connects you on some level to those you need, initially, to survive and it provides you, in some cases, with an image of yourself that is healthy and true enough to carry you forward into a more conscious, self-aware perspective. In this way, your learned need or desire for external approval serves a purpose.

It serves you less and less as you recognize and come into fuller remembrance of who you really are and how you are the creator of your own experience. You come to see that continuing to seek approval outside yourself has a point of greatly diminishing returns and that brings you to this spot you’re in of thinking and feeling that the whole business sucks.

What’s important to understand is that the more you focus on how it sucks, the suckier it will get. Whereas, if you can learn to laugh about it when you notice the choir assembling . . . say to yourself, Here I go again,” and let yourself relax with the knowing that this is part of what you learned to do . . . then as you are able to relax about it and even see the humor in it, the worry or fretting that you’re attaching to it will start to recede and gradually dissolve. As you become more able to feel okay with knowing that you do this, and to avoid the harsh judging of it, then you can begin to feel great relief around the whole idea and far less resistance to it. As the resistance fades, the choir will see that no one is paying much attention to them anymore and they will eventually either disband or start singing a more uplifting song.

Be silly about it because it lightens your mood around the topic. Tell yourself as often as you can hear it without gagging, “We like you! We really like you!” We promise that, more and more, you will come to believe it. And you will find your way to the same sense of confident well being that allows Ms. Field to enjoy her success, no matter what the critics are saying or have said.

Okay, so I’m no Oscar winner (yet anyway). I still know a winning speech when I hear one. I’d like to thank all my Guides and Teachers and Helpers and Friends, and on Their behalf, I would like to say that I/We are for the moment, adorably complete.

Why are we doing this?

Very recently a trusted and treasured friend who had just seen this newborn blog, asked innocently and understandably, “Why are you doing this?”

I just love it when someone asks an obvious question that feels like something I’ve never really thought about. Why indeed? Not much more than a year ago the notion of channeling still gave me the willies, even though I’d been pretty left of the center of the spiritual mainstream for a while. It was still a surprising turn, but it was so uplifting and inspiring and affirming—so cool—that I adjusted pretty quickly to the idea of this being a significant part of my life. Even so, it was one thing to put my Shower Dialogues in my journal—another altogether to post them in a blog for all the world (theoretically) to see.

I started asking myself about my motives for putting myself/Us out there this way. Certainly I like the idea of expressing myself—most writers do. Certainly I like the idea of adding value. Most teachers do. Certainly I like the idea of being appreciated. Most humans do. I wondered if perhaps I was just on some New Age ego trip or plumbing new depths of self-indulgence or maybe even on the brink of making some kind of meaningful contribution?

Eventually, I stopped wondering and started asking . . .

When you are feeling good . . . when you receive something that delights you or something happens to you that thrills you . . . there is always the accompanying desire to share that good news, to celebrate it out loud . . . to have company over to appreciate it with you and for you. Some might raise an eyebrow and comment upon the virtue of modesty but we say that modesty is highly overrated. Humans are the only creatures on the planet who worry about strutting their stuff. We say get out your trumpet and blow it so loud that it wakes up the neighbors. We say throw a party that goes on until all hours every chance you get. We say reach around and pat your own back past the point of looking silly. We say roll around in whatever you are enjoying and milk it for all that it is worth. We say that feeling good is the best reason in the world to open your mouth and let the reason for feeling good come out.

Understand that there is nothing really all that noble about trying to pass along wisdom or insight because however pure and shiny your intentions, nobody is really going to get much out of your wisdom or insight unless they’re already in a place of receiving their own wisdom and insight, and so the best you’re really going to do with any effort you make to teach is to strike a familiar chord in them or to sound a note that resonates with something that they already know or are on the verge of finding out for themselves. So call this what it is: you throwing a party for yourself because you’re feeling so good about what you’re getting. Recognize that really the only thing of true value that you have to offer is to be an example of how good it can get and how great it can feel and how available the good stuff is to anyone who asks and lets themselves receive.

Keep in mind that the birth and unfolding presence of joy is always a good enough reason to make an announcement and to pass out the cigars. Party on.

It is truly striking how I/We can feel simultaneously humbled and exalted. I/We are happy to hear that what feels good is good news and I/We are, with that news--for the moment--complete.

Dan-EL-ling: Guidance By Any Other Name

People get so hung up on names. It didn’t occur to me, initially, when I started getting guidance in The Shower, to wonder who was talking. But then I realized that most folks with a channeling gig seem to receive some spiffy name for the one or ones who speak.

I resisted this, partly because I like to avoid the appearance of being one of the herd and partly because I preferred to think about my guidance as just that: guidance from Me. Since I already knew my name, it seemed a moot point. Eventually, however, curiosity started to get the best of me . . .

You’ve asked, “Who am I hearing?” And we say, “We are all the ones that you’ve seen. We are all the names and faces in your dreams and meditations, all those and others—all available to you and to anyone who asks and then listens. We are all willing to communicate with you, to experience with you the magnificent realization of your desires. We are all prepared to work and play with you as you are choosing to work and to play in joy and delight with us. Ask and we will respond. In whatever way you truly want, in whatever you can and will allow.

That was all well and good, but I wanted a name, and so I asked for more specificity . . .

We/You are “Dan-L” or “Dan-EL” . . . that is, “Dan Elevated” . . . Dan speaking and perceiving from an ELevated perspective, offering ELevated wisdom and insights and answers, coming from an ELevated view in response to the most ELevated expression of your desires. So that, in effect and in truth, you are “Dan-EL-ling.”

Aside from the way it makes me sound like I’m from Krypton, I/We thought it was funny. I/We were amused and for the moment, complete.

First Words From The Flow

Not all that long ago, I found myself in the middle of (a series of) mid-life crises/transitions. I had left a successful, stable job as a leadership coach for a federal agency. I had moved clear across the country and was living with my parents while I labored to finish grad school. I was looking up at the curb financially, with a mixed bag of job skills and aspirations and interests. The spiritual back story was that I was a former fundamentalist Christian whose beliefs had morphed into a hybrid of Christian/Western mysticism, Eastern philosophy, meditation, magic, pagan and neo-pagan and New Age spirituality.

The faith of my father (and mother and grandparents and uncles and aunts . . .) emphasized a personal relationship to God and sanctioned spiritual gifts (speaking in tongues, faith healing, prophecy, etc.). After coming out/leaving the church, my continued attraction to subjective spiritual experience/understanding led to an exploration of alternative ways of connecting to Spirit. All this was converging with an educational background in literature and psychology and a evolving professional/work life focusing on creative writing and professional helping (counseling, coaching).

After almost three years of living with my folks, and all the mixed blessings and frustrations associated with it, they decided pretty suddenly to pick up and move back East. The nest was leaving me, and from a financial standpoint, I wasn’t sure if I could afford not to follow it.

In that context, I had this dream:

My dad gets some kind of letter that made it definite that he and my mother would be moving on or around June 1. When he tells me this, my heart sinks, even though I knew the move was coming. I feel this tremendous weight and pressure, as though I had no choice but to move with them. I was upset and couldn’t really speak or respond. I get up and leave the room. My mother sort of follows me into a kitchen or laundry room. As soon as I see her, I burst into tears and start sobbing violently.

It was a surprisingly intense, emotional response and a surprisingly intense dream about the move. I’d had no idea that any part of me felt that strongly opposed to the idea of moving with them. The prevailing feeling from the dream was one of powerlessness, of having no choice about the direction my life took.

After the dream, I decided to take a bath like the good, self-aware Piscean that I am. As I lay there soaking in the tub, I started meditating, asking for understanding of the dream’s purpose and its impact on me, for clarity about why it had hit with such force.

Very spontaneously, my meditation turned into this free-flowing stream of words and phrases that I was hearing in my head. It was in my voice, but the words carried a pointed, purposeful, yet gentle force as I heard:

Your heart is calling out to you, making its desires known by way of presenting you with pointed, focused contrast and a clearer and clearer picture of what you’ve been allowing versus what you have been wanting. Your heart is leading you in the direction of what you want and you are choosing and CAN choose where you go and what you do—and whom you please. That powerlessness and defeat that you felt in the dream is what you’ve been allowing but not what you want and not what you are being forced to choose or accept except by you. You can trust your feelings to guide you to what you want.

Okay. So it’s not like I was given a few pages out of Jesus’ diary or directions to the Holy Grail. What was noteworthy about this experience at the time was how empowering it felt. I could feel the immediate shift in my vibration and in my energy, from unease to comfort, from anxiety to hopefulness, from helplessness to resolve. I knew from that moment on, in a way I could feel, that I had choices and that they would be supported.

As for the meditation, it wasn’t the first time I’d heard a voice in my head offering support or guidance. But it was the first time I had more consciously invited it and then allowed it to speak to me so clearly, from such a loving and authoritative place.

It was both an ending and a beginning (imagine that), although I did not really understand this at the time. I had been accustomed to asking for guidance for quite some time—and even accustomed to receiving it, now and then, in a way I could appreciate. Somehow in the tub that day, however, I found a frequency that seemed to bypass the static of the past. Subsequent baths and then—showers—became visitations. It brought a whole new meaning to the idea of community bathing.

Something about turning on the water and letting it flow, then turning my attention to a question, and then letting the response flow . . . just clicked. Almost without exception from that morning on, the connection was always waiting. My guys and gals: Lord and Lady/God and Goddess, Angels, Guides, Helpers, Healers, Teachers, and Companions were just a turn of the faucet and a few deep breaths away.

It has taken relatively no time at all (at least once we got rolling) to enjoy easy, ongoing access to the Shower Channel. Not unlike dreams, once you start inviting and paying attention to Guidance, it just shows up, party hats and all. Or in this case, rubber duckies and back scrubber.

Abraham-Hicks repeatedly says, writes, and teaches us to “Ask and it is given.” That’s not an entirely new message, but it’s all about who’s listening. I ask the question, and the response is given. It’s always about me on some level and the response is always for me on some level.

What follows are transcriptions from the Flow. They are responses to my questions about topics of importance in my life, relevant to real situations and circumstances but perhaps also relevant to anyone with similar experiences having similar questions.

The messages are from Me/We to me, and if you decide to play, also from and to you. We/They don’t have a name because I prefer not to think of Us/Them as separate from me. They have not revealed themselves to be Zytrons from the planet Moleculor nor have They/We identified as Abraham or Seth or Emmanuel or any other currently channeled entity, although anyone paying close attention to such things will undoubtedly observe similarities. I am pretty sure that I am not possessed.

Ultimately, it’s about simple wisdom that is as available to anyone as it is to me. It’s about connection to who we all are from the broadest, most loving perspective. It’s about remembering where we come from and where we’re going and having the best possible time along our way. Danelling is invoking the Meity, one of the infinite many, the collective Us who are tuned in, tapped in, and turned on to that stream of well being always flowing and always accessible whenever we allow ourselves to let it in.

Call Them/Us my guides, my speed dial to Spirit, my connection to Source. Call them my Shower Team, since that's where I first started hearing from Them and where We most regularly convene. They/We don’t care as long as They/We get to play this increasingly joyful game called my life.

No dry rhetoric here--just one continuous wild and wet ride, so let’s get the water running!