It was pointed out to me recently that the words sacred and scared are awfully similar.  Put just one letter in a slightly different spot and you describe a whole different experience....

Or do you?  

I've been pondering this for a while now, and I realize that my experience of the words sacred and scared is pretty darn similar.

Let me be clear, this is not because I think God is some big fierce man with eyes of lightning who controls the express chute to hell.  

In fact, I do not think of God in the traditional personified sense at all.  My vision of the Divine is paradoxically both much less personal (it is Awareness) and much more personal (it is Awareness moving through Me). 

The awareness of the eternal is curious and compassionate.  Everything we experience is valued for the wisdom we gain.  From a human perspective, however, awareness can threaten what we think is true. 

Awareness seems scary when I’m trying to not be aware of something (because being aware of it would shatter my illusions).  For example, if I was a child visiting Disneyland, I really wouldn't want to see my favorite character, let's say that's Cinderella, smoking Marlboros and tossing about obscenities with her Surfer Dude boyfriend.  That would spoil the Magic.  

Now let's say I think I am Cinderella.  If, all of a sudden I realize I'm not actually the fair maiden, but rather the actor playing her, then the whole "Oh NO, my coach is a pumpkin, my slipper is dust, and I will never see my Prince again!" calamity suddenly loses its primal tug.  It doesn't matter in the same visceral way.  I will resist knowing this if I am attached to being the lead character of my story.  

When I realize that life is just a good screenplay, the passion driving our battles and fueling our goals kind of goes "poof!"  Where is the PURPOSE in being the protagonist?  Where is the MEANING in martyrdom and mayhem? 

These kinds of awarenesses can be very disconcerting.  In the worst case, life as you once knew it is revealed as an illusion and now feels like a pointless waste of time.  In the best case, you end up knowing there is something more, but you don't yet know what it is or have any idea how to get there. In either case, the North Star that once guided you is gone and you haven't yet found a new one.  THAT is scary.

Paradoxically, it is also sacred, because in moments like these we are being invited to realize we are the creators, not just the creations.  Yes, we are the character (temporarily).  We are also the actor playing the role.  AND we are the author of the story!  Now that is some scary responsibility.  We are so much more than the limited identity we perceive ourselves to be.
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I've started to think of the human life I am now living as one of many grand experiments that my Awareness has created to learn more about itself and gain experience.  I've had many lifetimes, worn many different costumes, and gathered many many experiences under my belt.  Each of the characters I’ve played has been an expression of me, a part of the whole of me, acted out by the grand actor (my consciousness) so it could accrue more wisdom.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

We will look at this a bit more deeply in the next blog entry.  Until then, let’s rest here with the paradoxical truth that expanding awareness can take us beyond our comfort zone into a much vaster perspective of reality.

In this blog we will be exploring the messy, magnificent, and mystifying journey of awakening to who you really are and living it in a fully-realized way.   Some call this "enlightenment."  I call it:
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​The Art of Awareness is how we learn to integrate and collaborate with our divinity to create in an unlimited way.  We are letting our Divine Self re-create us, and then create through us, as our personal Artist in Residence. 

Surrendering our limitations and pre-conceptions to be re-imagined by our souls can be a wee bit challenging (as anyone who has been there or is doing this knows).  The process will, in turn, demand and delight.  It will ask of you everything you are not so you can experience everything you really are. 

Fortunately, our mind doesn't get this memo at the start of this journey when everything feels golden and, like the prodigal son arriving on the doorstep, we catch a whiff of the great fatted calf and our dear mother's perfume.  Home beckons, but we think it is a place we will go to be honored.  We have yet to realize home is something we become, and this becoming involves a tiny bit of...reconstruction (*cough*).  

I personally believed I would become the Mary Poppins of Human Angels and that the whole experience of elevating my status to Practically Perfect would be FUN, an effortless glide into grandness, making my selfish little human ME even better.

If I would have been a caterpillar at the start of this journey, I would have been thinking “COOL!  I will have wings and I will be able to fly and this is going to be so fantastic, and ooooh, I can’t wait to tell my friends how to transcend their miserable caterpillar lives and I will be famous and everyone will adore me!" 

I wonder if caterpillars know what they are signing up for when they enter the chrysalis.  Do they realize what happens in there???  When they start dissolving in a classy little prison they built themselves, is there a revolt of epic proportions?  I can hear it now... "Wait just a minute! Where is the STOP button?!  I didn't plan on THIS!  I didn't WANT THIS!!  I wanted to evolve (gulp), but can't we just tape on the wings with some duct tape and call it good?"  

Much like a clueless caterpillar, I didn't realize the actual process of awakening and enlightenment looked much more like this:

We do this because it is doing us.  Awakening happens when our soul decides it IS TIME, and then, ready or not, it begins.  Our eyes start to come open after a long dark sleep.  There may be a tiny little hangover (from, say, lifetimes of unconscious revelry), and now it is time to wake up and take responsibility.  YAY!  

Our part is to choose our response.  Will we cooperate, allow, and trust...or, will we staple gun our eyes back shut and fight the process tooth and nail? 

We get to the fun freedom stuff when we surrender, face our dragons and demons, learn to love ourselves back together again, and turn the driving over to our soul who will happily and capably carry us through the whole process.  

I've been on this crazy journey for a little while now (I started to notice something was up when I was a kid, and it got pretty intense about 10 years ago).  I have a pretty functional relationship with my soul these days, we are on a first-name basis and all, though I confess, the little human me will still occasionally try to micromanage things.  I slide back and forth between serendipity and suspense.  It’s a delightful little dance; yet I know, the deed is already done, surrender has occurred deep down.  My life has changed tremendously, and more changes are surely on the way.  I've no doubt my mind will catch up with the truth that it is no longer in charge...eventually.

So know, I meet you as one in the trenches.  I’m fully committed and passionate about my realization.  I've held nothing back from it.  Along the way, I've taken a lot of notes, and I have some entertaining stories of how this process has rolled out and through me.  I have deep compassion and respect for others who are experiencing their own remembrance of, and reunion, with their divinity.  

Our soul holds the parts of us we have not yet faced in ourselves.  While the return to wholeness is an act of incredible self-love, the dark nights of the soul can be daunting.  I’ve developed this blog to Light the Journey home.  As I share with you, I hope you will see the road more clearly, recognize yourself in my stories, discover a helpful tool or two, get a fresh perspective, or maybe just have a good laugh (Lord knows, we can use as many of those as we can get).  While we always must take our own steps, it helps to know there are others who are walking too and understand both the sucky and spectacular stuff that happens along the way. 

Until next time, my fellow pioneers of consciousness...remember, you are the artist and the artwork, the inspired and the inspiration.  You are so much more than you may believe.

Love and blessings!
Donna