Our Hearts Can Hold Us

The mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses over it. Love is the bridge. ~Stephen Levine

I begin right here, right where I am. I won't ignore this terrible night or the pain and horror it inflicts upon so many lives. It's devastating to look into the eye of war and global crisis. There's so much heaviness and sometimes I can't help but be overwhelmed by the constant heartbreak. Other times I feel hopelessly numb or caught up in fear and anxiety about what's to come. But I know I can't fight against my feelings; they are simply messengers telling me what is wrong or unjust. I let them have their say and I let them be. It calms me to have a space where I'm allowed to voice my fears and anxieties without needing to fix them or appear put together at all times.

This writing comes through many days of silence, frustration, desperate prayers and seeking for answers on what to do or say at this time. I keep coming back to my journal as a witness to my own process and healing journey. That's more than enough right now. I don't have to have everything all neatly figured out or in order. I have every right to feel confused by catastrophe. It's also normal to have a greater need for love, warmth, safety, and support, particularly when confronted with shadows beyond our control.

It feels nurturing to come closer to my heart and know that this beautiful organ is built to hold so much. The most subtle layers of the heart space are fine tuned to perceive wellsprings of wisdom beyond our personal understanding alone. According to Sufi philosophy, the heart is a deeper level of the mind. It contains vast awareness, higher forms of consciousness, spiritual knowledge, as well as our human suffering. It's wide enough to embrace all pain and confusion, as well as our shame and intense fears about the future. Our heart perceives beyond the known world and guides us through our passion, intuition, and sparks of inspiration.

The mind of the heart is an intelligence that makes it possible for us to receive Divine aid and inner resources such as courage, resiliency, and most of all, mercy for ourselves and others. It's a threshold into our capacity to love and be loved. The heart teaches us to have compassion for our wounded selves and to trust we have enough room to reach out to others with the same grace we are given.

Right here, right where I am, I pray to be held by my heart's unbreakable mercy. May it extend across the world and touch all who are in the greatest need of love at this time.

Mystic and Mediumship Pathways (Soul Yearnings for Divine Love)

All loves are a bridge to Divine Love. ~Rumi

Mysticism and mediumship seek to awaken our soul's spiritual journey. Not only is there a reunion with the Beloved or a passed loved one, but with our own being. Our truest essence exists within our relationship to a Divine Source. We may find hidden spiritual qualities developing as the soul is nurtured by the power of God-within. Yet in this relationship, we become more ourselves than before.

This is the same power we demonstrate in mediumship. It’s what holds our hands together when the two worlds make contact. An understanding of the Divine is deepened by the experience—is hopefully touched or enlivened in some way, when we know life, like love, continues after death.

Experiencing a connection with Spirit is holy, and holding a reverent space, rather than a performance, is so vital when bringing forth the felt presence of our loved ones. These reunions are most profound when we can sense Spirit beside us, when we know we’re not alone on our path, but in fact made to be in relationship with a Higher Power, God, Source, whatever we choose to name it. The Divine is already there waiting within us. There’s nothing we need to do or strive to become, only gently awaken to more and more.

The mystic and the medium are both channels for higher forces of love and communion with what is seen and unseen. They are pathways to discovering our soul's gifts as they both realize our individual potentials for self-development and genuine spiritual experience. There is often a growing heart desire to serve as a devoted messenger between the two worlds.

According to these sacred paths, precious life is lived within both worlds--one is not greater or less than the other. Both the material and spiritual exist together and fulfill and uplift each other. As mediums and mystics, we discover God’s presence in all things. God resides within the earth no matter how much devastation surrounds us. This innate, eternal force cannot be removed or destroyed and cannot be separated from us.

Divine Love is the source of all Spiritual contacts with the Spirit World. No matter who we may bring together, God’s loving power is in the blend and in the reunion of two souls who can never part. God is there. The more a medium unfolds the light and power of their own soul, the more open they are to the Divine. Again, they can’t be divided.

For both of these mystery paths, personally experiencing the transformative power of love is more meaningful than following an intellectual pursuit or a prescribed set of beliefs. The soul’s unfolding story is inherently valuable and deserves to be celebrated and respected. We recognize and cherish our soul as a divine creation, an embodiment of our own unique union with God.

Mystic and the Medium Intro (Soul Yearnings for Divine Love)

All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name. ~André Breton

Being estranged from my mom, as well as my family, is a painful type of grief and a deeply painful part of my story that I try to keep boxed into a safe compartment within my mind. It feels too shameful and complex to bring out of hiding. But in my heart, I am screaming out for my mom to love me again. To love me for the first time perhaps. To see me as the child and the daughter I truly was. But I also know she never could and probably never will. In many ways we were strangers. I remember one time she told me she had no idea where I came from. I guess it’s not too surprising that we’re estranged now.

Maybe someday I’ll have the courage to tell that story. Today, it feels healing to write that she wasn’t a safe place for me. She was physically present, but a genuinely loving bond was missing. As my spiritual journey unfolds, I live with an absent presence. On the mystical path, God is always present. The invisible, or the unseen, nourishes me with a soft strength and reassurance, telling me I am loved as I am.

My mother’s arms were empty, and I grew accustomed to being held by her emptiness. Now I find I am held by an invisible embrace, as John O’Donohue calls it. This invisible embrace is My Beloved, Divine Love, Creator, and my best friend. I can see how a preparation was made for our reunion by not receiving my mom’s love. Of course, it doesn’t excuse her actions, or transform all of my trauma, but it definitely made me seek for the Divine at a very young age (although I didn’t know exactly what that meant at the time). I knew I wanted a love I could count on and that didn’t come and go based on expectations or conditions.

The “present absence” of my parents laid the foundation for me to unfold as a mystic, a medium, and a lover between worlds. It made me seek for what I might one day find. A love that is everlasting and can never die. I realize this may sound unrealistic or like a delusional fantasy, but even so, I’m okay with that. It’s honestly how I feel. There was a part of me that knew this kind of love existed. If I yearned for it, didn’t that mean there was a love also yearning and searching for me?

Was this the God, a Higher Power of my own understanding? The Lover and Beloved reunited within my soul? I craved to know the answer. I was hungry and holding on to a flicker of hope that beyond all conditions, love and I would find each other. Then, I found Mediumship.

Although unique in the type of pain and grief that’s experienced, the yearning for a Beloved’s arms or for a passed loved one’s physical presence, seems to spark a desire within the soul for communion and communication with Divine Love. The soul journey of the Mystic and the Medium is what I’ll be discussing in future blogs/writings. Stay tuned.