I Love You.

I love you.

A simple statement.  Most of us reserve these words for those nearest and dearest to our hearts - family, loved ones, very close friends.  We'll often say "I love this" or "I love that" about stuff or situations that we like... but think about how often you hear the words "I love YOU."  We know by now it is not only romantic love.  The power and energy of LOVE is something much greater.

This past weekend I picked up a book that was sitting on my shelf staring at me as I sat on the couch, for some reason it caught my eye.  I really felt the need to pick this book up and start reading it, even though I had purchased this book over a year ago, was already in the middle of two other books and had plenty on my to do list.  Following my intuition, I picked up the book and started reading it Saturday afternoon and by Tuesday I had finished it!

The book is called Zero Limits by Joe Vitale.  It tells the story of Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len who cleared a ward of the criminally insane using only the Ho'oponopono prayer and never actually seeing any patients in a therapeutic setting.  The ideas shared in the book are quite simple and amazing.  The suggestion is to take 100% responsibility for our life, and everything we encounter in it, and constantly "clean" our life experience and what we encounter by repeating the words of the prayer, addressing it to the Divine, or God. The words are simple but strong...

I love you.

I'm sorry.

Please forgive me.

Thank you.

So simple!  The power in these words is that they speak to the Divine in each of us, in everything really.  If each and every one of us were to take 100% responsibility for our life, bless everything and everyone with love and forgiveness, live life treating each other as the Divine expressions that we each are, imagine what a beautiful world we would live in - a world that truly works for everyone!

Now I find myself saying "I love you" to absolutely everything.  EVERYTHING!  People, places, things, situations, conditions, circumstances.  I choose LOVE.  I choose to be love, give love, recognize love, love love.  I am not even sure what that means sometimes but that doesn't matter.  When I simply repeat "I love you" quietly in my mind I am changing my consciousness, slowly but surely change is taking place.

Why bother doing this?  Maybe there are some things going on in your life that you don't like... doesn't matter what it is.  It could be your job, where you live, your body-perception, your relationships... we all have something that bothers us or we don't like.  My new practice is to simply repeat "I love you", quietly in my own mind, when I see or think of these things I don't like or don't want in my life.  I've heard it said that when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.  Miracles happen!

Peace begins with me...  With you...  With each and every one of us...

I love you.

(Repeat often for an improved life experience!)

(collage created by my cousin Nicole and her two lovely daughters, Tegan and Maslyn)

For more information on the prayer, the book, or the author... Google it!!

2013 Behold the Sentience

As I contemplate the people, events, experiences and ideas of 2013 I would name this the year of Sentience. A year of recognizing something I never really believed in before, not really.

And now I know it to be true. I can feel it and that's why I use the world behold in my title.

1. “Thank you water for the bath.”

When the water drains from the bath Kate says “thank you water for the bath.”

It’s a direct result of a call from a friend and a July afternoon at the beach with a most extraordinary group of healers.

Included in this group of healers was Dr. Masaru Emoto, known best for his book "The Hidden Messages in Water."

Dr. Emoto used the Ho'oponopono blessing

Water, I am sorry.

Water, please forgive me.

Water, I love you.

Water, thank you.

And it is from this that we began to say as the water drains from the tub "Thank you water for the bath."

The blessings from the day of the Water Blessing at San Onofre stayed with us throughout the year. The teachers continued teaching and as I look back it has profoundly changed how I think about things and more importantly it has changed what I know to be true.

2. Recognizing Our Earth as a Sentient Being
At the Water Blessing was another healer named Ruben Saufkie. His message of unity was so powerful.

Following the Water Blessing I kept thinking about how disconnected many are and how people, myself included, don't think we matter in the large picture. We think we are too small. Then I found "The Blue Jewel."

You Matter.

That which you are matters.

It matters now.

It mattered before now.

It will matter more tomorrow.

3. Recognizing Our Fellow Sentient Beings
This year I attended the “Blessing of the Animals” put on by our Animal Ministries. It really moved me. The prayer Kathy Storey shared and the individual blessings of our pets by Toni Sparks were so real and true and full of love.

A most amazing example of sentience was found from another new friend from that Water Blessing. And I thank Gary Christmas for all the amazing shares of all the remarkable things going on in our world and beyond.


4. Grounding and Experiencing the Healing Properties of Our Earth
I’ve always giggled a little at the iconic treehugger but now I am ready to hug trees at will ... did you know it's great for your health?

My childhood friend Naisha Ahsian, director at Crystalis Institute, brought this amazingly interesting documentary called  "Grounded" to my attention. She always finds ultra groovy stuff and has a blend of cutting edge science and spirituality that I have come to adore.

Direct contact with the earth is a powerful healing modality. Walking barefoot at the beach is especially good for you as the salt water has conductive properties. So take off those rubber and plastic shoes and get grounded. We are going to be spending even more time outdoors and even more time playing in the dirt.

Even though the documentary is no longer posted at YouTube you can find more information here http://shiftfrequency.com/dr-mercola-documentary-grounded/.

It was truly a remarkable year and I thank all those who contributed to that remarkableness.

I thank my spiritual community for their love and support and I can't wait to see what this year brings.

So Many Blessings!

Dr. Emoto and I  after the water blessing

On Thursday I joined fifty or so like-minded people to participate in a water blessing of the ocean at the south end of San Onofre Beach nearest to the nuclear power plant. The blessing was given by Dr. Masaru Emoto, whose molecular pictures of water we studied in our Beyond Limits class earlier this year. For those of you unfamiliar with those pictures see his book Hidden Images in Water. 

Dr Emoto spoke briefly in Japanese, then his speech was translated into English. Due to the close surf and the large circle, it was difficult to hear his entire message but we felt it in the blessing. He asked us all to face the ocean and pray for the water between San Onofre and Japan. Then he did a call and response chant in Japanese. (We all did the best we could but I think our English-speaking expression did not very accurately reflect his intentions.) We all om'ed together. Then a minute of silence. Then he asked us to repeat after him, the words of the Ho'opononpono Blessing of Ihaleakala Hew Len that Joe Vitale made famous.

Remember the story of Hew Len who was a director of an asylum for the criminally insane.  The inmates were violent. The workers were stressed, fearful and watchful. The staff had no morale. Everyone feared for their lives. The workers were drug and alcohol addicted. When they walked down the hallways they would walk with their backs against the wall so they could see everything on either direction. The staff were often absent due to sickness.

Dr. Hew Len was a new director. When he had only been there for a few months, the staff started relaxing and enjoying their work. The patients seemed to be calmer. Then the patients started to get better. One by one they were released from the institution until finally they closed the institution.

What kind of miracle work did Dr Len Hew do? What kind of psychological techniques did he know? How did he accomplish this huge turn-around?

He never saw a patient.

He didn't do any therapy.

What he did everyday was to take the file of each patient and bless the patient with the Ho'oponopono Blessing. This blessing is very easy. It is the same blessing Dr. Emoto used for the water that Hew Len used on the mental patients. In Dr. Emoto's words it is:

Water, I am sorry.

Water, please forgive me.

Water, I love you.

Water, thank you.

We repeated it three times. Then he sang a song to us and asked us to sing something into the circle. Nobody seemed brave enough to do it. He said that there was a melody everybody knew. He asked us to just sing La-la-la to "Ode to Joy." He kept the pitch low and sweet.It was beautiful, simple and transformational. 

How blessed I felt that I had been invited to the blessing, that I had time on my calendar to do it and that we have further proof that in this Universe (uni-verse, one song)we are all connected.  Our positive thinking and feeling not only effects us but the world in which we live.

If there is anything that you are troubled by, I recommend chanting the words of Ho''oponopono silently for five minutes or so. You will know when you are complete because your energy about the situation will have changed. You will see with the eyes of Love.

To find out more about Dr. Emoto's work, check out his book on Amazon.com. 

To find out more about Ho'oponopono,check out the book Joe Vitale and Hew Len co-authored entitled Zero Limits.