Sunday, December 16, 2012

Welcoming the Age of Illumination: Choosing Love over Fear

(Dedicated to the memory of all the souls who kept their Sacred Contract at Sandy Hook Elementary School, who are now part of our Ancestor network, enabling us to grieve, to release and transform our ancestral pain. Thank you.)

The cultural transformation from the love of power to the power of love is the drama of our times.  Ours is an era that future historians will look back upon, marveling at the magnitude of the challenges and changes we are now experiencing.  They will call it a time of Great Awakening, a time when the best and the worst of humanity played their parts in the fate of human evolution.  But if future generations are alive to tell this story, it will only be because the best of humanity prevailed and pulled together with a love so profound that the seemingly impossible was achieved.   Anodea Judith, from “Waking the Global Heart”(2006)

A Long Awaited Event

This month on Friday, December 21st, a long-awaited event will take place.  It is the dawning of a new age of human evolution. It is called the Age of Illumination, by some indigenous people and me, and multitudes of people will be gathering all around the planet to celebrate the birth of a more enlightened era. (See website www.birth2012.com)  In preparation for the 2012 Shift, we have grown our collective consciousness by initiating a willingness to choose Love over Fear. Potent evidence of this shift is our learning how to release and transform the pain of the past rather than transferring it and resigning ourselves to a life of struggling and suffering.  It has become more socially acceptable to seek Forgiveness than to seek Revenge.

Mister Rogers Rides Again!

And who knew, that it would be Mr. Rogers who would present me with a powerful insight and teaching for navigating this Age of Illumination.  (Well, I really am not surprised because his teachings helped me transform fear into gratitude back in 2008. But that’s another story for later.)  A documentary was released earlier this year called, “Mister Rogers and Me,” that honors Mister Rogers for the amazing impact his gentle and powerful ministry to children had on adults. The film shows Mister Rogers as a true wisdom keeper, messenger and healer, and I was most affected by the following quotes:

“Deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex. Simple is not the same as easy. Simple is often very difficult. Simple is right.  Human life is very deep and our modern lifestyle is not. ”
 –Mister Rogers

Wow!  Ain’t that the truth!  And, I add to these quotes that deep and simple is hard to become because it’s about telling the truth, to ourselves and others. The Age of Illumination requires a conscious effort on our part to choose what is right, and to do it simply through faith, Grace, and gratitude.

Deep & Simple versus Shallow & Complex

The old paradigms that are shifting right before our very eyes are giving way to new thought patterns designed to enable us to experience our Divinity Within, our internal power, which Gary Zukav so elegantly popularized through “The Seat of the Soul” starting in 1989.  It’s so time for each and every one of us to fully embrace the truth, the depth of our human existence, and let go of our dependence upon the Matrix –- the illusion that power as external. For those who haven’t yet taken the red pill, the shift is going to help make that an easy and effortless choice because the Matrix is disintegrating.  So I’m going to share some characteristics of a lifestyle that is shallow & complex versus one that is deep and simple.  And, I’m not sharing anything you don’t already know!

The shallow and complex lifestyle is primarily characterized as a life devoid of loving purpose, with limited emotional intelligence, and having no viable connection to the Divine, to Source.  By viable I mean the ability to believe in the pure Love of the Universe and make right choices despite what others may say or do.  The shallow and complex lifestyle is rooted in fear/victim consciousness and fuels greed (you are never enough), promotes vengeance (you are unwilling to receive the grace of Forgiveness), and breeds domestic and all forms of violence and injustice (you transfer pain instead of being able to transform it). Common belief systems operating within a shallow and complex lifestyle are as follows:

“It’s not me, it’s them. The world is out to get me.”
Control drama and attachment: “If I don’t do it, it won’t be right.
“I’m not enough. What do I have to do/say/be in order to be liked or loved?”
“I’m better than them. I can’t let them win.”
“Why do things always have to change and make it harder for me?”

The deep and simple lifestyle is primarily characterized as a life full of loving purpose, with unbounded emotional intelligence, and having a viable connection to Divinity within and that which is beyond human capacity to imagine or know.  The deep and simple lifestyle is rooted in love/Grace consciousness and promotes gratitude and appreciation (you are enough), ignites compassion (willingness to ask and receive the grace of Forgiveness daily), and creates significant opportunities for personal and interpersonal peacemaking and reconciliation (you are able to transform your pain instead of transferring it).  Common belief systems operating within a deep and simple lifestyle are:

“All that can show up is what I believe about myself.  The world is out to gift me.
“I trust that my efforts are never in vain, but may not produce the outcome I would like.  I can learn to trust the process."
“I am enough, and people can love me exactly the way I am. I choose to grow myself to be in full alignment with my loving purpose.”
“I am unique and my difference is to be valued, not compared to others.  I believe in win-win, not win-lose because there are no disposable people on this Earth.”
“Change is challenging but inevitable.  Growth is optional, and I choose to embrace change as a growth opportunity.  I believe in the truth of my Sacred Contract.”

Choosing Love over Fear

Learning to live a deeply and simply requires a mental and spiritual attitude that is grounded in the pure Love of the Universe.  To master the Love Posture is no different from any other skill-building process – it must be practiced. And, a key ingredient of the practice is learning to regulate how we think, behave and relate to ourselves and others.  Below are 5 elemental Love Postures I recommend for deep and daily practice during the coming year.  I will discuss them in contrast to the 5 primal Fear Postures associated with the shallow and complex lifestyle, which must be transcended in order to support our human evolution of consciousness.  These Postures will be the foundation of my elemental rituals, radio/media communications, and writings during 2013.

Fire Posture - Acceptance and Faith: When I accept the truth of my Earthly existence, both the good and the bad, I can then impact the quality of my living through my Faith in my Divine existence.  As a human being, when bad things occur, I will go into denial (This can’t be happening to me!) and plunge into despair (There’s something wrong with me!).  But I can choose to transcend this reactive response and adopt a creative response, by going beyond the limits of my trouble box through asking and thanking my God for revealing the treasure that is always embedded in the challenge.  Immaculee Ilibagiza’s “Left To Tell” is an awesome example of the power of Acceptance & Faith.  She survived the Rwanda Genocide in a closet-sized bathroom with 6 other women, and taught herself to read English while enduring starvation for 90 days.

Water Posture - Trust & Unconditional Love: Trust can be easily broken, but it can be repaired, because the ability to trust resides within and is not dependent upon the actions of someone else.  And, people can grow and heal from their pain and fear, which is the belief of unconditional love.  The lack of trust in a relationship fuels the need for external control (Men/women/teens can’t be trusted!) and attachment (I need to figure out how to get that person to do and be what I need in order to trust).  Once someone demonstrates that they are untrustworthy a boundary must be set, but we can’t make someone change. What we can do through the grace of Forgiveness and unconditional love is to release our attachment to the victim role we played, and accept the person as an evolutionary teacher, come to reveal our pain so we can heal it. 

Earth Posture - Personal Sovereignty & Vulnerability: We must be grounded in the truth of who we are –- Divine beings on a mission to choose love over fear-- in order to have relationships that are authentic, loving and supportive of our truth.  Until we are able to believe that people can love us for our truth, our insecurity and co-dependency (external focus on what someone thinks of me and no internal consideration of what I think of my Self), are evidence of an undeveloped belief in our supreme and independent power/authority over and responsibility for our thoughts, choices, and resulting behaviors.  Authenticity emerges from vulnerability which comes from a willingness to feel and to experience “not knowing.”  In a numbed out culture, emotional intelligence is hard to come by, although in her Ted Talk video, www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Qm9cGRub0 that has over 800,000 views and counting, Brené Brown says, Vulnerability (tenderness) is the birthplace of love, joy, happiness, and fulfillment.” 
As we continue learning to appreciate the depth of our human existence, our connectedness to everyone and everything, we will stop denying our feelings and giving our power away under the delusion that these actions will insure our safety, our happiness, and our experience of love. 

Mineral Posture - Curiosity and Excitement: As humans, our natural curiosity and ability to learn is what makes life exciting.  Before standardized testing, a person was more able to discover and value their genius – like Phyllis Wheatley, Thomas Edison, and my grandfather, who could fix anything in and around the house. None of them took an SAT or an ACT.  Arrogance and our addiction to anxiety are the obvious results when the love of learning and discovery of loving purpose is overshadowed by competitive measurements of intelligence to determine quality of life. 

Education/learning has become a survival mechanism versus a tool for living on purpose.  People leave academia more afraid than when they went in because traditionally there are no conscious spiritual growth opportunities involved in the learning process.  Education/learning becomes an accumulation of knowledge in order to prove that one is worthy of “white collar” employment, and salary above minimum wage.  Education is not meant for achieving meaning and purpose in life, and it ought to be.  Education/learning is supposed to involve authentic communication, sharing of knowledge, practicing wisdom, and making a significant contribution to the community. How shallow our educational systems are for the emphasis on “making a living,”(math & science over wood shop and orchestra) or feeling superior to those who don’t have a college degree.  A deep and simple lifestyle is fueled by your ability to remain curious and excited about your purpose, that of all life forms, and the power of love until the day you die.


Nature Posture - Fulfillment & Gratitude: Fulfillment is the experience of fullness and satisfaction in the heart and soul, and gratitude is the attitude that enables us to live fully.  We feel fulfillment and then we act grateful. Then along comes some form of trauma that awakens our pain body which teaches us coping mechanisms for numbing and ignoring the pain.  And, when we numb our pain we also numb our ability to feel what is enough. Combine this with satisfaction overshadowed by competition, and the forgetting of the cosmic law that to everything there is a season, we will embrace greediness (The more I have, the better I will be), and envy (The grass is always greener on the other side) as postures for success. Of course we will only succeed at becoming more insatiable and frustrated by a no-win pursuit of happiness. 

Thank God we live in an ever-changing Universe that is cyclical in nature.  Thank God we also have free will.  Thank God we can choose to transcend these postures of fear and embrace the postures of love (acceptance & faith, trust & unconditional love, personal sovereignty & vulnerability, curiosity & excitement). The practice of Love postures not only greatly contributes to the transformation of our pain, but it will always manifest fulfillment.  This in turn will enable us to practice “gratitude attitude.”  Melodie Beattie, author of that classic self-help book, Co-dependent No More, says, “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough and more.”


In Conclusion:

 It is my hope that conscious awareness of the 5 elemental Love postures will enable you to recognize and shift away from the thoughts and behaviors of the 5 primal Fear postures.  The more of us who commit to walking the Awakened Path, the more our ability to choose Love over Fear will become as easy and natural as rolling off a log.

I leave you with this quote:

We stand at the dawn of a new era.  Immersed in technology, yet hungry for the sacred, there is deep longing for a story that balances masculine and feminine, progress and sustainability, order and freedom, power and love.  The stories we tell ourselves shape our world.  They guide our relationships to each other, to the environment, and to the future.  Life in the twenty-first century is spinning a new myth.  It is time to listen to the growing chorus of voices that make up this story.  Together, we are discovering and inventing a way to the future.
-Anodea Judith, from “Waking the Global Heart” (2006)


Saturday, February 4, 2012

The Dagara Medicine Wheel & The 2012 Shift


I'm very pleased to share with you my initial offerings for 2012.
It is a teleconference series (webinar) entitled,

The Dagara Medicine Wheel & The 2012 Shift: 
Living Higher Consciousness in the New Age.



This seven-part teleconference series will guide you through ancient indigenous wisdom from the Dagara Tribe of Burkina Faso in West Africa and teach specific technology for using this African medicine wheel to achieve a higher consciousness lifestyle. Through discussion of 5 powerful and soul-nourishing themes that characterize new age thought, conference participants will receive guidance, inspiration, and wisdom for addressing challenges in personal development, physical and emotional health, relationships, money, and right livelihood.

The 5 themes are: 

Divinity Within (What if you were born in grace instead of sin?)
Personal Sovereignty (Why do we so readily giveaway our personal power?)
Interdependence (Can we really transcend co-dependency through vulnerability?)
Sacred Contracts (How do fairy/folk tale and movie characters reveal life purpose?)
Unity Consciousness. (Can a telepathic ritual teach reverence for life?)

Each of the 7 sessions will be presented monthly on Thursday evenings 
from 7-8:30pm CST/8-9:30pm EST/5-6:30pm PST
beginning February 23rd through August 23rd.

The cost is $25 per session.


To receive a description of each session and instructions for registering and payment, please contact quanita@mynzuzu.org



I look forward to working with you in cyberspace!



Sunday, January 1, 2012

Enter 2012: A Fire Year, A Black Water Dragon Year, and the Dawn of a New Age

Finally, we have arrived at the most significant and long-awaited year in centuries! It is time to put into practice everything we now know about Higher Consciousness learning, living and loving. No longer can we be excused for our ignorance of the truth of the cosmos. We are firmly on the path of the coming together of all the races, eliminating that which separates us, and experiencing ourselves in authentic community with all humans, the animals, the plants, the Earth and the Universes that surround us –seen and unseen. 
We’ve crossed the boundary from 
the World of Separation and have entered the World of Illumination.

The Dagara Wisdom for a Fire Year
We come into the world in order to bring into completion that very plan which, as we are born into this side of reality, became our reason for human life. In order to fulfill our purpose, we need the a driving force of fire, just as a vehicle needs fuel to reach its destination.
--Malidoma Somé, The Healing Wisdom of Africa, p.210

In the Dagara cosmology, Fire is the primary element that animates all life and connects us to our purpose and our Ancestors – who provide us with unconditional love and support for achieving what we’ve promised to do. Fire has the ability to transform and transmute that which no longer serves our ability to be loved and loving. In Western culture, our biggest block to being whole-hearted and open-hearted to ourselves and others is the Ancestral pain we unconsciously carry. This pain is so big and so old that we find it difficult to believe that the love of God/ All That Is /The Universe is given to us freely, perpetually, and unconditionally. And so our challenge this year is to realign ourselves with the generative nature of the Fire element through Forgiveness, Dwelling in Possibilities, and Living the New Age.

Fire Person in A Fire Year
Fire people are gatekeepers between the Ancestors’ world and this world. It is for this reason that they seem to live in the future, always ahead ofor setting trends. They understand the dream world, have a facility for interpreting dreams, and are at home in mystical and supernal landscapes. Because fire energy is ancestral, Fire people have the ability to see and hear the truth –especially when someone is trying to hide and/or avoid
it. It s easy for Fire people to be in conflict, and they are disruptive to people and situations because of their gift. If you or someone you know was born in a Fire year (birth year ends in a 2 or 7, ie.,1942 1987) then this year will be one of intense personal growth and spiritual development as the Cosmos works it’s magic to bring you/them more into alignment with your/their essential nature and highest purpose.

Fire Out of Control
In Western culture, fire has been misaligned with the external experience of wealth, success and progress. The Industrial Age is often visually characterized by the 24/7 bellowing smoke stacks of steel mills, where fires raged and created our modern conveniences. Fire has brought us to a post-modern lifestyle full of comfort and vacations, but it has had a destructive impact on the animals, plants, waterways, atmosphere, and human health. The horrifying and tragic consequences of our use of war bombs and nuclear energy demonstrate how out of alignment we have become with the true essence of the fire element. It is way past time for us to reconcile our misuse of fire by utilizing its power to reconnect us with our true purpose for being alive –to love and be loved in return.

Challenges and Opportunities with the 2012 Fire
Fire has the ability to transform and transmute that which no longer serves our ability to be loved and loving. In Western culture, our biggest block to being whole-hearted and open-hearted to ourselves and others is the Ancestral pain we unconsciously carry. This pain is so big and so
old that we find it difficult to believe that the love of God/ All That Is /The Universe is given to us freely, perpetually, and unconditionally. Again, our challenge and opportunity this year is to realign ourselves with the generative nature of the Fire element through Forgiveness, Dwelling in Possibilities, and Living the New Age.



FORGIVENESS: Transforming versus Transferring Pain
The practice of requesting and expecting the grace of Forgiveness is essential for realigning with the generative nature of the Fire element. Forgiveness is not about letting someone or yourself off the hook for wrong doing. Forgiveness is about letting go of carrying and transferring pain.
All wrong doing is the transference of pain.
We hold onto the pain through
fear that it will happen again, judgment of why it happened, and the inability to accept the pain as a pathway to a happy ending. Forgiveness becomes trans-formative when we go beyond the intellect and accept that saying or hearing the words is only the beginning of a much deeper and more powerful energetic shift that can only come from our Divine Connection. It is a grace experience that is bestowed upon us at the right time and in the right way. Our job is to ask and to be willing to receive this grace without being attached to the outcome.

DWELLING IN POSSIBILITIES:
Honoring the Unpredictability of 2012

I dwell in Possibility
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –
Of Chambers as the Cedars –

Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –
By Emily Dickerson

According to Chinese astrology, 2012 is Year of the Dragon and it will arrive on February 4, 2012. Dragon years are traditionally associated with new beginnings and good fortune. The myth and lore surrounding the Dragon tell of its unpredictability. As Gandalf said to Frodo, “Even the wisest can not tell the ending.” So, it is very wise for us to stop ourselves from trying to know how our dreams will come true, or what dreams may come. During 2012, we are being asked to trust the process and keep our eyes on the prize. Everything that happens –good, bad or indifferent—will result in our Happy Endings!

The Black Water Dragon brings a balance to the Dagara Fire element, but doesn’t keep us from traveling through the deepest part of our emotional pool in order to support the healing of our old pain. Calling upon and/or working with the Fire and the Ancestors to transform that pain will insure that our new beginnings bring enormous good fortune. 2012 is a time for dreaming big, allowing our imaginations to run wild beyond our limitations concerning beauty, truth and love, while staying out of the Universe’s way in order for those dreams to come true. Let go and let God handle the details. Remain open to the possibilities of unimaginable joy and peace in your life.

LIVING THE NEW AGE: Through the Fire of a New Landscape In 2003, I was gifted with wisdom from a Thunderbeing named Kumelia regarding beneficial and detrimental beliefs in preparation for the 2012 Shift. Now that 2012 has officially arrived, we are expected to step fully into an entirely new landscape by acting upon these beneficial beliefs:
(1) power is internal not external so I am self-referred, not object-referred; (2) the World is out to gift me –not get me; (3) healing Ancestral wounds versus ignoring them brings freedom & joy; (4) being inclusive and compassionate towards others, versus exclusive and judgmental creates abundance; and (5) the daily practice of gratitude attitude overcomes my anxiety addiction.
The consequences of forgetting this evolved consciousness will be hard and fast, because after all, this is a Fire year, and the Truth will not ignore or hide from us.
Our Ancestors have been given a green light to help make sure that we practice what we preach, and walk our talk. No more practice time or going back for those who are awake and aware.

This is not a test. This is the real deal.
And, we are ready and able to jump into this transformative, disruptive, truth-filled, and most awesome time of our lives.

HAPPY 2012 NEW YEAR!