Recently I had a total facepalm moment. You know what I’m talking about. It’s like Homer Simpson’s “D’oh!”s but stronger. More like the moment you realize that all your life you have been Doing It All Wrong. There is a better way. So you slap the palm of your hand to your face. Yeah. I could have had a V-8.

That’s what has been happening to me about Wants. About saying what I want.

I figured out I have been going about my Wants all wrong. Well, not wrong exactly, since nothing is ever “wrong” in the larger sense (it’s just a learning opportunity, right?). But certainly inefficient. Here’s why.

I was never saying what I really wanted.

I suspect I am not the only one doing this. Hey, I lived on the planet for many years not realizing what I was doing. Or, rather, not doing. Do you say what you really want? Really?

"Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that’s all that’s happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness — life’s painful aspect — softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody’s eyes because you feel you haven’t got anything to lose — you’re just there. The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We’d be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn’t have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.” ~Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chödrön.

It is the 4th day of the month and I have not yet published a Monthly Message. This weighs heavily on me for a number of reasons, but the weight, the crushing weight of the water that covers me slows me down, leaves me gasping, and caused me to spend the better part of my day clicking links in my Facebook stream, is a stronger source of concern.

Wait, what? Facebook? Oh, did you think I meditated for five hours a day? Ahem.

I am not the only one feeling this inertia, feeling like I am under water as thick as molasses, upside-down, trying to get somewhere. Friends feel this too. Clients. It is as if we collectively dropped down into low gear, slow motion. In the past I would have persevered, pushed on, kept up like a bulldozer. Sometimes that works and you break through, but sometimes it is more like repeatedly hitting your head against a brick wall. Ow. I would rather look at what gifts the feeling of being under water is giving me -- I know there are some, but since I am still immersed I cannot yet see them. Still, it would feel better to be productive and to change the flow of energy gently, if I can. So I thought you would like to know what I am doing about it.

[Note: if you haven't already seen the controversial article that quotes me extensively over at Yahoo! Shine, about Rahna Reiko Rizzuto who says she abandoned her children, read this and then go look. More than 14,000 comments as of this writing.]

I have four children. On the summer solstice in 2008, I drove away from them in a car packed with everything I owned, leaving my three younger children behind to live with their father (my oldest already lived on her own). It was the hardest thing I have ever done. It was also the best thing I have ever done.

How can someone do this? How can a mother leave her children?

I was supermom. I did all the things you are supposed to do as a mother — except a hundred times more. I sacrificed so my kids could have a great life. One problem — I was married to an abusive man. After years of being unhappy, depressed, isolated and alone, I finally left the marriage to save myself. But the abuse got worse, this time through the court system. My ex even went to the state supreme court to keep our children from attending their school. I tried everything I could to make it better. Finally, I did what hardly anyone has the courage to do. I went against what society says to do, but I listened to my heart. I stepped back so my children's father could step up and be a better man. I moved 3000 miles away so my kids would have one home. I sacrificed being with the people I love most in the world — my children — so they could have a better life.

I rocked the supermom thing. Organic, attachment-parenting, stay-at-home Super Awesome Mommy Extreme. I left a ten-year career in upper-level property management to be at home with my babies after marrying an airline pilot. (My older daughter, from my first marriage, didn't have it so lucky; I loved my work but hated that I missed out on her early childhood, so I loved that I could stay at home with my younger three.) I threw myself into stay-at-home motherhood with gusto. A sample:

The energies of the eclipse and the Solstice have been intense for many people. I have seen and felt ghosts of my own past rise within me, and I feel grateful that I possess the tools I need to remain mostly balanced when confronted with these reminders of my former self. I have friends who are engaged in a deeper struggle, and it is for them I feel a familiar knowingness, understanding and deep compassion. It is for these friends, and for you too, if you also struggle this week in releasing what binds you from your past, that I share this beautiful poem by Derek Walcott.

Names are our most personal possession. It is through our name that we announce to the world who we are, bringing what's inside us outside and allowing people to find a connection into us. Many cultures around the world reserve the first name for family and close friends, believing it to be a private thing shared only in intimacy.

Names carry energy. Our names not only serve as a way to identify and differentiate us from others, but they have energy of their own. When you change your name, you avail yourself of a change in energy and identity.

When I was 12, I wanted to change my name. "Karen" did not define or describe me, I felt. True, I was still finding out who I was and as a result I had just begun writing nightly letters about my life and thoughts to my cat, Sheba, inspired greatly by the passion and earnestness of Anne Frank, but I knew deep inside that I somehow had the wrong name. I tried playing with the spelling — for a few months I wrote my name as Karyn — but that seemed like a meager compromise. My parents were no help: "You can change your name when you're 18." I was crushed. I knew that Karen wasn't ME.

Has this been an intense week or what?

My experience of this past week, not yet resting from the urgency of September and with the energies of expansive Jupiter and the Full Moon Equinox breathing down my neck, has been one of explosive movement and color. You, too? For me, this has manifested as what will end up being a very big personal shift, the exact shape and size of which is still yet to be determined, plus other fun goodies like deep, deep sleep punctuated by a plethora of vivid nightly dreams. I ran an informal poll tonight at a party I attended of mostly energy healers, and every single person I spoke to admitted that they, too, had been experiencing more than the usual number of dreams this week.

What does this mean?

For me, the dreams have largely been relating to my personal life. I'm undergoing a transition, and I'm still on the road (still in Tucson for now and heading to Houston next week), so working things out within the context of my dreamworld makes sense to me. And yet, there is something larger here. I suspect that my informal small poll reflects a larger trend that is occurring now, which is that more and more people are beginning to move into a space of more frequent conscious awareness of the connection between the waking world and the dreaming one. In other words, we — as a global whole — are beginning to move towards a new sense of awareness.

I had a wonderful summer, which in my part of the Pacific Northwest starts on July 5 and lasts about five weeks, so we make every summer day truly memorable, stretching the days into the long evenings.

As always, I've been working on myself this summer, and I'm now in the midst of another shift point that will take me through this week's Equinox into Autumn and beyond. The energies of Jupiter, now at its closest point to the Earth until 2022, have been strong for me: expansive, yet inwardly so (Jupiter is retrograde right now), and wonderfully charismatic in a way that invites seeking an infinite space within. I've been breathing with this since last week.

I'm on the road now, in Tucson for now where summer seems to extend into forever. I wanted to go where it was warm and I got what I was looking for (maybe even a little more than I expected): 100-degree days that turn into brilliant sunsets that invite you to look at the changing displays in every direction; nights swimming in a warm pool under a star-filled sky. I'm not sure where my car will want to go next but I'm open to what comes — as long as I have wifi and my headset I can work from anywhere. (Maybe even your town — if you're interested in creating a group channeling event, let me know.)

It was a huge pleasure speaking on July 15 with host Jennifer Hillman on Abstract Illusions Radio — AIR — on BBSRadio, and I'm pleased to be able to share the archived show from July 15, 2010 with you in its entirety. Enjoy!

Click Here to Download or Subscribe and download via iTunes

Thanks to BBSRadio and all the listeners! I'm looking forward to returning.

I am like you.

Like you, I get caught up in familiar patterns and dynamics. Like you, I feel pain at times that feels unsurmountable. Like you, I resist the pain and wish it to go away. Like you, I sometimes become immersed in the frailties and illusions of being a human being on this Earth.

The past few days have been difficult for me. I am hoping that yours have been better — because, truly, what I have felt these past few days is a disintegration of Self and that always makes me feel off balance and insecure — but I have to believe I'm not the only one. I know I'm not the only one with these feelings. That is not to say I wish discomfort and pain upon anyone or wish to belittle my experience by forcing a joining upon anyone else, but I know that my feelings are universal.

We all feel.

In the past few days, I've been exploring a number of concepts.

These past few weeks have been amazing, haven't they? I've ridden the heights and plumbed the depths in that time. I felt a bit of the Dark Night of the Soul concept but then moved into expansive energy that provided me with insight into the exciting new directions I am headed personally and professionally. (More about that to come!)

Last weekend Matthew and I drove down to Portland and had an amazing time doing a group channeling and some powerful personal sessions. A theme emerged, and I'll be talking about it tonight on the radio — I'm a guest again tonight at 9pm PDT at Abstract Illusions Radio at BBSRadio with Jennifer Hillman. Matthew will be joining me this time as well to talk about the importance of humor, a subject very close to his heart. I'll write more about this soon but it became very clear to me that the way I approach what I do and how I live my life is very connected to the direction we are headed socially and culturally. I am calling it "Do What You Are vs. You Are What You Do," and I'm excited to see how quickly people intrinsically understand this concept. If you can join us tonight, wonderful! The show will be archived for later listening and download and I'll post a link when it becomes available if you can't listen in tonight.

All those thoughts about doing what you ARE, and the sense of community that arises when you realize that all that you do is an extension of you, led me to embracing this weekend's global Conscious Convergence collaboration. It's focusing on events taking place around the world this weekend, July 17-18 2010, but I think this speaks to something we all are craving and needing in our lives — true connection.

I've been meaning to write about my tai chi discovery for a while, but this week turned into summer here (read: above 60 degrees) and I've been distracted by 10pm sunsets and the sunny bench across the street that beckons to me from my window.

I've always been right-handed and right-footed, as far as I know. Left-right dominance is an interesting thing to see develop in a person. I know we equate "handedness" with brain hemisphere dominance, but I have to think it's more complicated than that. After all, we are more than just "analytical" (left-brained) or "creative" (right-brained).

For fun, have a look at this video and see which direction the dancer spins. I figured out how to make her change direction; can you?

For an even more interesting exploration of the brain and how it behaves, take a look at Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor's TED Talk from a few years ago. She describes what happened to her awareness when she experienced a stroke.

Last week I resumed my tai chi practice. I was a little nervous about it, thinking that my practice was still new enough that in more than a month away all the elements to the long form I do would drain away and I’d have to relearn everything again, but no. There it was, stored within my body, waiting. I readied myself, dropped my awareness into my dantian, and began. It all flowed from there.

Surely there’s a metaphor in there somewhere, right? Trusting the body — the inner awareness — to hold a space even when we feel we’re unable.

Healing has been a long road, a road I’m still on. I am impatient when it comes to things like this. My way in the past has always been to push. Push through the pain. Push myself into doing and being, even though my body or heart was weary. I am finding I don’t want to push any longer. I can allow things to simply Be.

It was a huge pleasure speaking last week with host Jennifer Hillman on Abstract Illusions Radio — AIR — last week on BBSRadio, and I'm pleased to be able to share the archived show from May 27 2010 with you in its entirety. Enjoy!

Click Here to Download or Subscribe and download via iTunes

Thanks to BBSRadio and all the listeners! I'm looking forward to returning.

[Blog (Non-channeled) May 2010]

I’m a big proponent of the Slow Food movement, which encourages mindfulness in eating. According to Wikipedia, the Slow Food movement “strives to preserve traditional and regional cuisine and promotes farming of plants, seeds and livestock characteristics of the local ecosystem.” This is all about making conscious choices in food while providing an avenue to truly connect to the natural world around us and bringing that world inward into our bodies with the foods we consume.

It struck me, through my recent feelings of discouragement with my personal healing, that there is something to be learned from slow healing as well.

I’ve mostly felt good with my process. Joyful. But the other night someone asked me, “Aren’t you frustrated about not being able to get out much and get around?”

I'll be appearing on the radio Thursday, May 27 2010 at 9:00 pm Pacific time, on Abstract Illusion Radio on BBS Radio with host Jennifer Hillman. I'm really excited about the appearance, as I'll be talking and channeling about all the huge energetic changes that have been happening lately.

• planetary vibration changes
• things you can do to move through these shifting times
• how to engage further
• your next steps

So many people are affected by the changes we've been undergoing lately — if you have been also, please come and listen! Jennifer will be opening the lines for questions for Polaris, so bring your burning questions. I know it will be a wonderful and thought-provoking show. Abstract Illusions Radio explores and exposes the different aspects of the human experience through the healing arts and self-expression, which is totally up my alley and something I wholeheartedly support.

Again, THIS Thursday, May 27, at 9pm Pacific on Abstract Illusion Radio on BBS Radio. Hope to see you there!