January 2014

“For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice.” 

— T.S. Eliot

In what has now become a tradition, I hosted my annual New Year’s gathering; a lovely brunch and women’s circle, complete with a preparatory assignment and a ritual of release. As we sat in an opening meditation and prayer, I felt a powerful energy surging through the room as these women, all amazing in their own unique ways, joined their intentions.

The closing activity was to write a letter to your self, just as we did last year. Because I already had given it some thought, I knew the overall tone of what I would be writing, but first things first; I needed to read what I wrote January 1, 2013. I tore the envelope and gently unfolded the paper, unable to remember what I had to say to myself twelve months ago.

As I read the first paragraph, my heart began to sink. “What?” I said to myself.  Much to my surprise, it was in many ways the same letter I was going to write myself this year. How, after what felt like a year of growth, could that be? Had I made no progress whatsoever?

 When my guests were gone and the kitchen had been cleaned, I sat down with the letter, the journal I had started last winter, and began a “year in review” through my writing. As I read my inner thoughts and feeling states in my journal entries, it slowly became clear that the overarching themes pressing me forward at the beginning of 2013 are, in fact, the same as they are today. But I also realized I am not the same person I was when I wrote a year ago; my insight has expanded, my understanding has deepened, and my joys were many.

So, now I must find next year’s voice. Within the context of those consistent overarching themes, who do I want to be? What do I want to accomplish? What dream can I bring to fruition? As I sit down to write my letter for 2014, I am not quite sure what the answers are to those questions. But I can say I am excited to find out.

Many Blessings in this New Year,

Sheryl

Manifesting Our Lives

                 “A core belief is invisible only when you accept it as a fact of life.”
    “Seth,” Nature of Personal Reality

The notion that that we create our own realities and the laws of attraction are ideas that many of us embrace, at least conceptually. Our thoughts create our realities. It seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? But time and time again, we find there are certain elements in each of our own lives that stay the same, or replay themselves over and over again like a worn out recording.

Could it be that there is a little more to it than the simple notion that our thoughts create our realities? 

The answer, I would say, is yes.

Last month we began to discuss that, until we better understand the “lenses” through which we view our reality, we won’t be able to fully understand the realities we are personally creating. In order to do that, step one is to acknowledge that perhaps we are wearing “glasses” that color our perceptions. If at this moment you are thinking that your perception is true reality and that you don’t wear glasses, think again; we all have them.

So where do these “lenses” that impact not only our perceptions, but also the realities we are creating,  originate?

Conscious thoughts: This topic is well covered so no need to expound. Rather, let’s give thanks for the many teachers that carry this message into the world!

Beliefs: There are some beliefs you know you hold, and others you don’t know you hold. In a sense, they are invisible. As stated in the quote at the top of the page, there are some beliefs we don’t realize are just ideas about reality because we think they are reality.

The mystical: By definition, this means “beyond human understanding.” If you believe in other lifetimes that impact one another, it goes without saying that the very lives we are living in the present are touched by lifetimes we are completely unaware of.

It is by becoming aware of these three levels of manifesting our lives that we can begin to not only change factors which may not be to our liking, but also begin to gain  broader understanding of  the totality of Self. “Believe” it or not it is possible, if we are willing to do the work.

Blessings,
Sheryl

Look for Sheryl's workbook "You Hold the Key to You: Understanding Self and Your Incarnational Past" in 2013.

Do Something

I’m personally a believer that the important thing in life is to just be doing something; anything, really. I like shaking it up; my exercise routine, health and nutrition, form of meditation. You name it. A dear friend of mine once said in response to my most recent report of something I was trying was “you’re always into some crazy thing!” My answer back was “all that matters is that I’m doing something.”

The same philosophy applies for personal growth and spirituality. There are many paths to self awareness and living a more balanced life. Do I believe there is a holy grail of how to do that? No, I don’t. Life happens. Our life lessons are just that—life lessons. We will be faced with them throughout our lives. Self awareness is like an onion peeled back one layer at a time, and you often find the same issues in the first layer are going to reveal themselves to you in a different form in the next layer, all the way to the core.

Over the course of our lives, we may be exposed to multiple spiritual modalities and disciplines. Should we find one and hold that particular viewpoint for the rest of our lives? Well, that depends on if your personal viewpoint stays the same for the rest of our lives. Expanding experience has a way of expanding the way we look at the world, which includes the way we interpret our spirituality.

For some, this ever changing world view may present a problem; we as humans do have a tendency to want the “right” and “true” answers. But I find it exciting, and I imagine many of you do as well. It may look to others like we are frogs jumping from one lily pad to another, desperately in search of the “right” path. But we know better, don’t we? We change, our lives change. Our understanding of universal truths reaches new depths, and we gain new awareness of our place in the universe. What matters is that we are doing something.

Blessings,

Sheryl

Patterns

           If you have read Timeless Waters, you are already aware that it is a story of what felt like a space-time convergence leading to the discovery of three different lifetimes. These lifetimes spanned several hundred years and were all related to a specific location in New Mexico. What an experience it was! And while finding clues and documentation supporting my dreams and intuitions is what made the ride so unbelievable, it was the recognition of reincarnational patterns that has impacted my life the most. The stories, while relevant in their own right, are simply the backdrop; they are the vehicle through which the patterns are demonstrated. The patterns are what we carry with us through space and time, beckoning us to seek understanding.

            What I am still learning, however, is that just because I know about the patterns, and have detailed knowledge about other incarnations related to those patterns, it doesn’t mean I get to be finished with the pattern. The older I get, the more I see that life patterns are like an onion. You make your way through one layer of the human experience and shed your skin, only to find with the passage of time that—oh, there is it again in the next layer! And so it goes over the decades.

            One of my patterns is loss. It has come up over and over again in a variety of forms. Success in dealing with this pattern is not going to be demonstrated by the eradication of loss in my life and a cheer from above that I finally figured it out. Rather, it is about how I respond.

            I once heard someone say that life lessons are just that; for life. They are the crux of the work we as individuals are here to do, and no one is exempt. The challenge then, is to recognize what is happening when faced with your own particular pattern and each time you are, reach deeper understanding of the wisdom that can be gained from the experience—even when it renders you a pile of rubble.

            I write this as a reminder to myself as much as anyone else, as I am yet again faced with the challenge of one of my patterns. I know the past lifetime that the pattern relates to, and I even know the players. Yet I still struggle, as do we all. Does this mean we are failures or somehow less evolved? I don’t think so. It means we are here, having a human experience, engaged in the work we came into this life to do. 

Blessings,

Sheryl  

Message from the Author

Bless my dear friends who urged me to get this book out, because without the urging of the many in my life such as they, I may never have had the courage to put Timeless Waters in writing. So now that this page is in place, and a book is in final form, I need to do something with it. But what exactly?

That question causes me to go back in my memory to eight years ago when the story itself began to unfold. Many words describe that time: unbelievable, remarkable, exciting, challenging, difficult, and maybe a little toxic. But I knew it was significant. If someone so average as myself could have such an experience, anyone could!

So I took to task, in the midst of raising toddlers and running a non-profit, to writing about the experience. My reason? Evolution of consciousness is inevitable. The rate of that evolution may vary depending on the threads that are woven together to form the tapestry of our lives. But regardless of the nature of an individual's tapestry, the first step in evolution of consciousness is within one's self. That is what the book is really about.

I make no claims of a literary masterpiece, nor did I strive for it. What it is, however, is a small seed. If the ground of your mind and soul are fertile, you may find yourself on your own unique journey to a heightened awareness and understanding of Self. Therein you will find something wonderful--your own timeless waters.

Blessings,

Sheryl