As bright as the light on the Luxor

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I woke up this morning on the final 13th of 2013, or more precisely the final Friday the 13th of 2013, with a very insistent image in my mind. Again and again as I tried to doze, I kept seeing the bright spotlight of the Luxor Hotel in my mind’s eye.

And then, I was reminded of something I hadn’t thought of in quite a while, one of the best compliments of my life.

In 1994 at the conclusion of a personal growth seminar, an aquaintance came up to me and gave me that gift. He was a fireman I knew of from my husband’s fire department, but we did not know one another well. As everyone was exchanging expressions of gratitude and goodbyes, this man looked me in the eyes with an immense expression of awe.

He took my hand and with a wonder and emphasis to his voice said,

“YOU are as bright as the light on the Luxor!”

Needless to say, I was stunned and humbled at his remark. It has stayed with me ever since. I saw him again this year, twenty years later and told him that he had given me the best compliment of my life. He blushed and smiled. I gave him a huge hug.

I’ve lived in the Las Vegas/Henderson Valley for 36 of my 43 years of life.  For the past twenty years, I have had various moments of driving at night and finding myself captivated by the luminous light of our landmark Luxor.  Those words speak to me yet again, “You are as bright as the light on the Luxor.”

I’m still humbled by that, yet many, many times it has empowered me.
It’s beam is brilliant, radiant, powerful and can be seen throughout the valley, and at times even from space. I hope that I may say at the end of my life that I managed to shine my light as brightly as that.

Waking to this very insistent image and hearing these words again this morning, more began to stir within me. Scenes of synchronous moments in my life came to the forefront and inspiring visions I’ve had over the years. I feel them beginning to align, to clarify and to point the way for me, much like that glorious beam of light.

Today, I’m reminded to shine my own light brightly without hiding or dulling it and to encourage others to do the same.

Afterall, we are all truly luminous, “as bright as the light on the Luxor.”

SHINE ON!

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Message and Luxor images (via iPhone)  by DeAnne Wolfgram

Will you hold another???

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Will you hold another???

It has been an especially tumultuous week for many that I know, and many more, in our world…. I’m sure many of you have felt this and witnessed it.

As Matt Licata shared in his poem of the ‘Beloved’, we are being called to dive into the depths of our broken open hearts.

No one can truly do this for us but ourselves. Yet, we are not alone, ever.  As we witness those dear to us in profound pain or confusion, we can hold them. This ‘holding’ of another is not always a physical act of touch, words or support.

It can potently be an act of energetically holding the space of deep trust…..
Holding deep trust that they will fall INto themselves in this process.

In whatever way we are called, may we ‘hold’ one another through our processes of awakening and becoming…. of owning and loving all of who we are. There is so much love here, within and around each of us. I ‘hold’ this vision with you. ‘Holding’ on to Love, always. DeAnne, Conscious Connections NOWSacred Circle Retreats

This post by Matt Licata stirred me today as I witness and ‘hold’ dear ones who are struggling and yet emerging into the fullness of who they are.

“Will you hold another who has been touched by the darkness within? Will you love them enough to allow them to fall apart in your arms? To unravel, to become unglued, and to feel unbearably lost as the wisdom of their process unfolds? Will you be the space in which they can finally meet the feelings and emotions that have been kept at bay for a lifetime? To love another in this way you must toucheverything that is unresolved within you – all of your own unmet sadness, abandoned shame, discarded grief, and deserted aloneness. You are willing to no longer stay safe on the sidelines. You are willing to get messy. Even gooey and drippy.

Will you set aside your need for the other to change, to be different, to be “cured,” to be transformed, and to be healed? Will you resist the temptation to talk them out of their embodied experience, to tell them everything will be okay, and to dishonor the creativity hidden inside the unwanted? Will you allow your heart to break with them, and endure the urge inside you to put it all back together again? Will you fall into the unknown with them, holding them close, and provide a home for their brokenness?

To care about others, yourself, and the world in this way you must stay radically embodied. You are no longer interested in transcending suffering, confusion, and neurosis, for you see these as thundering expressions of the path itself. Please don’t turn away. As your attention moves out into the conceptual world, return to the wild intelligence of your body, for it is there that love is working behind the scenes, giving birth to its sweet activity in this dimension.

It is in this factory of love, which is operating as the temple of your own body, where the sacred world is revealing its essential secrets of healing: there is no “other,” there has never been an “other,” and there could never be an “other.” There is only the reflection of your own being.

Love is taking the pieces of your heart and is using them to re-assemble the world in front of you, each as an invitation sent to reveal to you the preciousness of what is really happening here.” ~ Matt Licata

Original “Will you hold another” post and verse by Matt Licata.

“The beloved is alive…” by Matt Licata

The Message: Feminine Collaboration

Today the topic of feminine collaboration was at the forefront.  I journaled and the subject was top priority as the words flowed.  Posts on Facebook, an email with a friend, conversations on the phone, through it all the topic continued to rise to the surface.  On this day of a New Moon, it appears feminine collaboration is on the rise.  477906_10200865239649859_1525624570_oIn timely synchronicity, I also openly shared from my heart two potent messages in a group of women I value.  This included a vulnerable newer level of authentic transparency I had not offered of myself to them before today. It was at first unnerving to be that open, but before I pressed the ‘return’ button to share it, I breathed inward to the center of my Being.  I trusted myself to speak my truth and did it. The experience was empowering, and it did foster a collaborative essence among those women. When we are authentic, we truly do create the space for others to be the same.

In my collaborative work with Sacred Circle Retreats, this topic was right there today too. We have been planning an Awakening Woman series for a long while, and those plans have now materialized in a 5 week course being offered in early 2014. Illuminating-Essence-by-Lisa-KubikThe registration just went live this weekend. http://bit.ly/AwakeningWoman

We are readying ourselves to collaborate at a whole new level.

All around me I see this collaboration, or the challenge to achieve it, unfolding.  We are birthing a new paradigm.  And  today, this ‘birthing’ theme was evident too. As all these exchanges took place among women in my circles, a dear friend gave birth to her long-awaited dream-come-true baby girl. Another friend announced the birth of her granddaughter. The births were twenty minutes apart.

The simultaneous unfolding of all of these events today was awe-inspiring and even a bit energetically overwhelming. I found myself continuing to trust, open up, breathe and allow what wants to be born ~~~ in me, through me, among those I interact with, and in concert with those I collaborate often.  More and more I find myself trusting and allowing it all  to come to life in the world.  That was my additional birthing lesson today. What an extraordinary time we are living in now. Much is being born. Many are awakening to their power to create, and their ability to collaborate.

The day, for me, was full of momentous messages of many kinds, phone calls, conversations, announcements and deep open sharing among many women in my life.  I spoke with, wrote to or messaged with a wondrous array of friends today amidst much news and awareness.  One friend spoke of having a cold. I was reminded of my own process the past two weeks. The parallels were there. I mentioned having had strange shoulder pain and difficulty sleeping last night. She gasped and relayed that she had experienced the very same thing with the same shoulder and sleep issues as well.  I can’t say I understand everything that transpired today, but it was quite something. To add to the synchronicities, my dear friend Jackie L. Robinson shared this timely post at Sacred Circle Retreats, the virtual retreat forum where she and I collaborate with several wondrous women to offer a safe sanctuary for sharing, transformation and personal evolution.  Here is her post. It was all about feminine collaboration:

Sacred Circle Retreats

Awakening Woman – http://bit.ly/AwakeningWoman

I walked from the computer after sharing Jackie’s Sacred Circle Retreats message to see a Hawk perched on the wall behind our house eating her dinner. The sunset’s light was cascading, the mountain was colored behind her and she was illuminated. Image

Oh my goodness….. The hawk is symbolic of the messenger. Yes, I definitely received the message today, and I am taking it in.  And this too was yet another synchronicity, one of my dear friends shared on Facebook earlier that a red-tailed hawk had swooped close over her head hours earlier. She was overcome by the close encounter. I felt the same with my sunset friend and had yet another magical bird encounter earlier.  That one came via a text from one of my closest friends.  She had a visit from a roadrunner just as we began sharing our text conversation. The last time a roadrunner had come to the window of her Texas home was exactly two weeks ago today when she and I were having a Skype conversation.  She hadn’t seen one since then and here it returned again as we conversed. She and I marveled at it’s appearance. Hawks and a roadrunner… feathered friends of all kinds are making significant appearances. Native Americans and many cultures speak of animal encounters bringing teachings, lessons and messages.

So, yes, Winged Ones….of all kinds… I am listening… I am paying attention.  I am open to the messages you bring. I am thankful, and I am in awe…… The message today was to give birth to collaboration.

YES. LET US ALL COLLABORATE NOW.

Love Wisdom

The Love Wisdom  ~ of Mother Teresa & Princess DianaImage
 “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”
~ Mother Teresa

“I knew what my job was; it was to go out and meet the people and love them.”
~ Princess Diana

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
~ Mother Teresa”

I think the biggest disease the world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved. I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give. I am very happy to do that, I want to do that.”
~ Princess Diana

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” ~ Mother Teresa

“Every one of us needs to show how much we care for each other and, in the process, care for ourselves.” ~ Princess Diana

“…do small things with great love.” ~ Mother Teresa

“I touch people. I think everyone needs that. Placing a hand on a friend’s face means making contact.” ~ Princess Diana

“Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.” ~ Mother Teresa

“Helping people in need is a good and essential part of my life, a kind of destiny.”
~ Princess Diana

“Intense love does not measure, it just gives.” ~ Mother Teresa

This heart wisdom is shared in honor of these two divinely mothering souls and in remembrance of their passings so close together in 1997 ~ Diana, August 31st and Mother Teresa, September 5th 1997.

May their wisdom and example remind us how TO LOVE IN THIS WORLD. 
~ DeAnne Wolfgram, Conscious Connections NOW

At the time that Princess Diana and Mother Teresa passed from this world, I was living with cancer of the womb. I was aware of the legacy of love and the empowerment of mothering that these women represented at the very time that I was letting go of birthing more children.  There was a soulful feeling of significance for me then.  I continue to feel it. To this very day, I feel a calling to “spread love” everywhere I can. ~ DeAnne

A Broken OPEN Moment

“Let love guide you into the next broken open moment.”

One of my dearest friends, soul sisters and collaborators at Sacred Circle Retreats wrote this message this morning:

“We are all being nurtured and guided by Divine Feminine energy to expand our heart space. Let go of the idea we need protection from heartbreak…as the continual expansion cannot be contained.  Welcome the coming changes without expectations. Let love guide you into the next broken open moment. M*”

I am experiencing this today…Thank you for this message and guidance Melynnda, Edgy Mystic.

As I slowly take my time to place lights on our holiday tree and allow my entire body its healing assimilation from an extended cold, I was listening to a Super Soul Sunday episode. It features Mark Nepo. I had watched another with him yesterday, and I marveled at the timing of Jackie sharing her gorgeous Prayer post by him at Sacred Circle Retreats today. Oh how our lives so often parallel with our dearest ones. We all know that well.

Moments ago listening to Mark discuss his journey through cancer and how we have all experienced loss in some way my heart broke open even further. He said, “What opens us is never as important as what it opens….” I was awash in tears as the rain continues to cascade outside. For me, memories of the trials of cancer, the loss of bearing children and all those other seemingly overwhelming moments of challenge in my life just melted into right now. I AM HERE BEING.  I am here being more of who I always wished to be, accepting the constancy of change and flow, of uncertainty and fresh awareness, of it All. I looked down at all the colorful Christmas tree lights in my hand and felt that Christ that lies within us all. The blessed tears still flow… There are those moments when we truly bless the journey and where we are in the moment, and we feel the PRESENCE residing within and through it all. This was one of those moments.

“What opens us is never as important as what it opens….” ~ Mark Nepo

Yes, truly ~ “Let love guide you into the next broken open moment.” M*

Eternal Flame

May the eternal flame burn brightly.

May it spark more souls to Peace.

May it ignite more hearts to live their own “Profiles in Courage.”

May it forever remind us to honor and live our own legacy.

We honor this today, on this day, November 22, 2013 ~ the 50th anniversary of the passing of the torch, as visionary President John F. Kennedy left this world. May his eternal flame burn brightly forever….

.JFK's Eternal Flame ~ Arlington

~ DeAnne Wolfgram, Conscious Connections NOW

photograph: “Eternal Flame”, DeAnne Wolfgram 2008

Note: This blog post and message were shared at 11:11 AM PT, November 22, 2013.

Holding Hands & Hearts

Holding Hands & Hearts

This is a time like no other.  Holding hands and hearts is important and potent.

~ DeAnne, Conscious Connections NOW

Destiny, I’m ready now.

We are Ready!

We are ready to bring more of the fullness of our own unique “humble magnificence” to life. So many of us are feeling this surge of passion, purpose, courage and creativity.

What an EPIC time! What an extraordinary Life!
Ready to LOVE through every moment.

Thank You Destiny! We’ve Got This Now!!!!!

This fantastic post was shared this past Monday, November 18, 2013 by Melynnda Button, our Edgy Mystic of the virtual spiritual retreat forum Sacred Circle Retreats.

My fellow Sacred Circle Retreats guide Melynnda and I had just shared an immense, wondrous and even a bit intimidating personal session for me. I have felt the call to step up and step INto my soul purpose now. Together, we collaboratively discussed this and received insights. She encouraged me not to feel overwhelmed by what presented itself to and within me.

Less than an hour later, she posted this Destiny message.

I was smiling, tearing, beaming and KNOWING ~ this is true.

The days of following and playing small are done for many of us. It takes COURAGE TO BE all of who we are and who we came here to express and manifest in this world. Thankfully, so many of us are holding one anothers’ hands and hearts during this transformative time, encouraging each other to generate that inner courage ‘INcourage’, trusting our divine and inner guidance and following those nudges of our knowing within.

Lao Tzu said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

With inspiration, Melynnda shared this with me later the same day, “Each step forward strengthens the next.”

Step by step….. along our paths… the journey of life blossoms for us all.

Enjoy your journey everyone.
Your destiny is ready for you now, and you are ready to live it.

Claiming Your Power

Spiritually Centered' oil on canvas by Karen Zima. http://artscad.com/A.nsf/Opra/SRVV-7HP5TF Spiritually Centered

  • Given that many more people are seeking to empower themselves now, it is important to recognize and realize that power does not look like what we’ve been taught in the outer world. Empowerment is inner power. Empowerment is withIN us.

    Please read this gentle potent message by Sacred Circle Retreats creator and my dear soul friend, Jackie L. Robinson. She expresses this message of inner power beautifully. ~ DeAnne

“Our power is a quiet allowing of ourselves to be filled with all that we are, even as we are emptied of all we’ve believed ourselves to be.”

Jackie L. RobinsonSacred Circle Retreats

Gentle aware empowerment and Presence flow through every word here…. So very true. ~ Thank you Jackie for this message you shared at Sacred Circle Retreats. Love this so very much. DeAnne, Conscious Connections NOW

Claiming Your Power ~
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=662217807133531&set=a.462359287119385.103914.460902637265050&type=1&theater

Claiming your power isn’t about making a noise loud enough that everyone will hear you. It’s about turning inward to hear what is true for you, honoring the guidance and messages you are continually receiving. Standing in our power can be gentle and subtle and come forth in ways that only we see or understand. But that’s what our power is about – this beautiful, passionate, fiery heat that burns from within and spreads to every fiber of our being. As we stand true in who we are – from the simplest of choices to the greatest – we reclaim our power – our true power of Presence. And every choice ripples out into our world, touching our lives and those around us in ways we couldn’t possibly have conceived of on our own. 

‘Spiritually Centered’ oil on canvas by Karen Zima.http://artscad.com/A.nsf/Opra/SRVV-7HP5TF

 

GRACE ~ Gentle Awareness

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Grace ~ Gentle Awareness

What gifts these are.

We are now giving to ourselves what we for so long had so easily given to others.
No more holding back in our lives or in our love of ourselves now. 

It IS all moving into place with Divine timing. I do Trust.

Feeling an immense flow of grace as I type “I do Trust.”  
Mmmm… feels good. A deep breath goes through me….
Breathe that IN ~ I do Trust. 

Savor the Grace. xoxo

photo: “Light Through the Leaves”
DeAnne Wolfgram 2013 ~ Sedona, AZ