When my writing journey began in 2001, I was overwhelmed by a wave of language that flooded the banks of my consciousness. It was strong and it was determined, a soulnami of sacred purpose that absolutely had to be humanifest if I was to have any peace. When I resisted it, I lay sleepless in Toronto. When I honored it, I fell asleep, granted a little shut eye from the Divine Mother herself. Even when my shame and self-doubt obstructed the flow, I could feel the call to write right there, pushing up against the seams, readying for its next wave of expression. It was terrifying and it was beautiful and it was unstoppable. The nature of a calling once it has been awakened.
In the heart of writing Soulshaping, I constantly grappled with the meaning of grounded spirituality. I knew there was a model at the heart of the book, but I couldn’t quite find it, perhaps because I wasn’t yet grounded enough within myself. I had been tempted for years by everything ungrounded—the bliss trip, the head trip, the radical detachment trip. I loved the idea of finding the God-self independent of my pain-body and life’s challenges. But no matter how hard I tried to find it there, I kept crashing back to earth with my baggage in tow. It became crystal clear that my unresolved emotional material was determined to be worked through, both to create more space inside for my callings to come to life and because my emotional debris was the karmic field where my soul’s lessons were harvested. I couldn’t mature in my spirituality without it. The gift of falling down.
Soon after publishing my original version of Soulshaping, I joined Facebook. At first, I didn’t see any merit in it. It felt strange and isolating and oddly self-alienating. Projection Central. But I stayed with it, and it soon became clear that it was just what I needed. I began to work with my Facebook status, both as an opportunity to bring my writing to the world, and as a way of clarifying my perspective on grounded spirituality. My writing there became a kind of experiment, a way to play with concepts and ideas until they landed.
At some point, they landed. In the heart of playing with words, I stumbled upon a model of grounded spirituality that resonated with my experience and with my essential nature. The model—Ascending with both feet on the ground—is inclusive and embodied and honoring of all aspects of the sacred self. We are not just the light, or the mind, or the emptiness. We are not just what is comfortable and easy to digest. We are the everything. I call this Enrealment—the idea that a more ‘heightened’ consciousness is not all about the light (as enlightenment often implies) but is about becoming more real, more genuinely here in all respects—shadow and light, earth and sky, grocery list and unity consciousness. If non-duality means everything, it means that all aspects of the human experience are intrinsic to an expanded consciousness. It’s all God, even the dust that falls off our awakening hearts. This philosophy is threaded through the following pages.
Perhaps my most profound experience on Facebook was a relational one. As any author will tell you, one of the great challenges of writing is the isolation. Some are well suited to it and welcome the opportunity to be left alone. I am not one of them. Although I feel the presence of the God-self when I write, I do miss human contact. Being alone in a room for hours on end has been one of my great challenges.
As I deepened in my commitment to Facebook as a forum for expression, a soulpod of wonderful beings gathered to support my journey and keep me company in the trenches of self-creation. In Soulshaping, I refer to the soulpod as “that person or group of people whom our soul finds the most resonance with at any given moment. It can include anyone that appears on our path to inform and catalyze our expansion - our biological family, significant figures, strangers with a lesson.” On Facebook, I came into contact with a soulpod quite unlike any I had encountered before—a cadre of enheartened beings who shared my longing to both connect from the deep within and to support humanity in its liberation from the egoic ties that bind.
Over time, I came to love them and they became inextricably linked to my creative life. Time and again, they lit me up, carried me along, breathed air into my lungs when I needed it most. Just when I felt the most discouraged and drained by the challenges of writing, I would get an email that validated my efforts. Just when I would feel blocked in my efforts to clarify my own views of spirituality, an email dialogue with someone in the soulpod would crystalize my thinking. It always seemed to come at the perfect moment.
Their significance was never more obvious than in September, 2010, when I posted a note on my FB personal page called ‘Apologies to the Divine Feminine (from a warrior-in-transition)’. Much to my surprise, this piece was met with a profound response, traveling from soul to soul rapidly, carried on the wings of a love by a soulpod heaven bent on supporting humanity. It was a humbling and startling opportunity to witness the magic of social media when it is benevolently intentioned. That piece and two subsequent gender writings (Apologies to the Sacred Masculine, The Awakening Man) are included at the back of this book.
With the right intention, social media is the perfect way to bridge to humanity and to work together to enhearten consciousness. Out in the world, the unconscious elements of the media can muffle our message, but in the insuppressible landscape of cyberspace, they cannot stop the soulnami of goodness from spreading. As we expand in connectiveness, we are laying down tracks for a more heartfelt, humane world. And we are beginning to see ourselves in each other, to recognize our shared humanness, to realize that we are walking beside each other on the trailways of transformation. Hands held together, hearts intertwined, bridging our way to God.
May we all look beyond our habitual frameworks of perception and imagine ourselves alight with unlimited possibility. There is a sacred purpose alive in each of us, a chaotic magnificence of epic proportions, a fire that will not die until it burns through our doubt and our shame and lights our way home.
With gratitude in my heart, I dedicate this book to my friends and supporters on Facebook, the wondrous gathering of souls who have stood behind my work as it has unfolded, in-couraging me to believe in my voice and message, sharing my writing heartfully and without agenda. I include among them Susan “Birdie” MacIver, a brilliant healer with a heart like no other, and two wonderful authors who have lovingly supported my own unfolding—Elizabeth Lesser, who suggested the sub-title for this book, and Oriah Mountain Dreamer, herself a master of grounded ascension. Such a magical collection of wing-lifters, lantern holders, and truth workers. Such a delight to walk beside you on the path. Blessings everywhere you step…
TORONTO, CANADA
August 9, 2012