Trust the Universe with your Life

"In some way which you know not of, through some process which never reveals its face, life has entered into you, and with it the irresistible impulse to create. Divine intelligence has willed its so, nor you, nor any other person, nor all the wit, science, or philosophy of any man, nor the inspiration of Saints or sages, can change one bit of it, any more than man can arrest the eternal circuits of time, the revolutions. Of the planets, or the desire of the fledgling to leave its nest, to soar, and to sing"
. ~Dr. Ernest Holmes from This Thing Called You

Whether Charles Fillmore, Ernest Holmes, Eric Butterworth, Carl Jung, Jesus, Buddha or the poet Maya Angelou, all are inviting us into a life which transcends the suffering most human beings endure. Regardless the suffering, fear, worry, doubt and loss are far more prevalent than what Fillmore calls “a life of jubilation”which means great joy, exaltation and satisfaction. Eric Butterworth implies that when a human being steps out of the suffering into an exalted life – God and the angels celebrate. Why? Because happiness, not suffering, is the Divine mandate for our lives.

All of the saints, mystics and sages speak about a way of knowing and being which  transcends  the worrying, doubting and fearing that keeps the world bound in suffering, violence and lack. There is a way of seeing, hearing and expressing that leads to trust, surrender and faith as a way of living. That way of living eradicates the conditions of suffering that plague a weary world. 

Trust, surrender and faith are however complicated. Most of us identify almost exclusively as a human being living life on planet earth. Living as a human being on planet earth, is for the most part, an evidence-based experience where what happens to us as we move through life, ends up tucked away in our memory and subsequently used to navigate our life experience. Living  life in response to or reaction to the past, is destined to feel like a rerun rather than an unlimited possibility.  

This living from the past forward is an impediment to what could be. As a child, were you safe? Were you surrounded by loving, kind, compassionate and helpful people? There is of course a spectrum of what our childhoods might have looked like. For some there may have been real neglect, abuse or other such behaviors. Sometimes, our parents, grandparents, and others were just fine, but in our young minds we concocted another story. As we grow and enter adulthood, we encounter friends, lovers, bosses, co-workers and many others. Did those ‘others’ provide you with evidence that it is okay to live your life from a place of faith, trust, and surrender? 

The second impediment is, of course, the problem of “God” Itself.  In my work as a spiritual counselor and minister, I have met many people who when faced with unkind, mean or crazy people, were told to took to “God” for help. For some that worked but for most it did not and still does not. This is not “God’s” fault really since “God” as a super-hero does not exist in exactly that way.

The alternative we are left with, is to live protecting ourselves, always looking behind us, while constructing a no-trespass sign for our hearts, and waiting for the next proverbial shoe to drop.  Added to our personal story, we bear witness to the madness, meanness and insanity of a world where hunger, abuse, war, and the rest, adds to the conundrum of our human existence.

Trust, faith and surrender as ways of being are accessible more easily if your life experience, or your memory of your life experience, provides evidence that the world you live in is safe, friendly and has earned your trust. In most cases, this does not happen. In most cases, there is the necessity of becoming aware of a reality that is transcendent to our earthly experience. Fillmore, Holmes, Jung, Jesus, Buddha and Angelou are speaking to us about transcending that experience. Not ignoring, pretending or in any way denying, but rather, understanding that there is another way of seeing, hearing and experiencing the world we live in. A spiritual way. Whether you call it enlightenment, awakening, or transformation it all leads to identifying more as an embodied Spirit then merely human.

I am human with a story that can match the drama and the trauma of almost any Lifetime Television movie. I certainly don’t know everything, but I am a person who over the past twenty-five years has discovered a lot about transforming my life from chaos and unhappiness to jubilation. At 73 years young that is really good!

Somewhere I learned to trust the universe explicitly and discovered a secret that gave me immense freedom. I learned by adopting a more mature idea about “God”. But even more importantly perhaps, I learned about the science of creation which is the knowledge needed to become the captain of your own ship, the architect of your own life and the manifestor of your own destiny. When known and practiced, this knowledge leaves us with power and confidence rather than as victims of circumstance. I learned that the world as we know is not solid but rather created molecule by molecule by the thinking of individuals in a shared co-creation. If we as the thinkers change, the world and everything in it will change naturally.

Leonard Cohen had a beautiful lyric which said, “everything is here for you.”  Your world is but a reflection of your consciousness, which means the totality of your thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and actions. Whatever you expect to receive you will. Whatever you feel worthy of receiving you will. Whatever you put in you will get back.

This leads me to share a few of my ‘golden rules’, which I have learned to use to guide my life of jubilance.

Golden Rule #1: The universe is inherently good.

My parents taught me that most people were to be feared, up to no good and perhaps even dangerous. I have sense determined through my own exploration that most people are inherently good. A person will almost always show you what you are seeing in them. If you lean towards giving people the benefit of the doubt, seeing beyond their behaviors, understanding their vulnerabilities, and the evidence of their upbringing and the suffering, straight into the truth of their innocence and divinity, you are likely to find an angel behind the devilish behavior.

Golden Rule #2:  Positive expectation leads to positive results.

Of course, the opposite must be true. Negative expectations result more often than not  in negative results. Because of the laws of spiritual science, which Jesus beautifully stated as, “It is done unto you as you believe”, you cannot separate your attitudes, behaviors and beliefs from what happens to you.  Dr. Ernest Holmes, said, “Change Your Thinking - Change Your Life”. These are not glib utterances.  They state a fundamental truth, which if you take seriously enough, and change yourself enough, will have an amazing impact on the quality of your life.

Golden Rule #3: I trust that all my needs are met, all the time.

The fear of languishing as a penniless bag lady on the side of the road is a foolish idea. For most of us, our needs have always been met and always will be. At any rate, I expect to always have a roof over my head, food on the table and people surrounding me who care. My expectation of that is reinforced by Golden Rule #2.

Golden Rule #4: Everyone and everything is working itself out on my behalf.

Whatever it is that created the cosmos, also handles the workings of it. The planets rotate, the stars shine, the seas ebb and flow and flowers bloom. Since I am a creation of life, I trust that whatever it is that is in back of all of nature’s creation and maintenance, IT also has my back and a blueprint for my jubilant  life.

 What I used to call miracles or good luck, I now understand are the natural and spontaneous demonstrations of a universe that has been designed by infinite intelligence. This includes me. Dr.  Ernest Holmes said, “There is a power for good in the universe and you can use it.” I am certain he meant that I could use it to create a life I love. A crucial understanding here is that the power of creation is always working. What it creates is in the hands of the creator. Dr. Holmes’s point is that it can be and should be used to create happiness, wealth, health and a meaningful and productive life – rather than suffering.

Using this ‘power of good” implies our knowledge of the rules and our conscious application of them. Even Ikea’s furniture is easy to put together once you understand the instructions included when your purchase the product. So, it is with life. You and I were never given the instructions, until now.

I suppose in truth there a couple of things we might need to deal with before faith, trust and surrender can become our natural approach to life.

The first is our relationship to “God” – or lack of relationship. As with everything else, we might have human conditioning, which is held within our memory, conscious or not, that “God” may or may not exist and that if He does, you may not be sure He likes you or is on your side. Many, if not most people, were taught some nonsense about a judgmental, angry and vengeful Deity. Who could trust that?

A new and more mature idea is that “God” is not another form of a person but rather a pure, positive, loving energy and power for good. It is self-evident, to me anyway, that we did not create ourselves or anything else in the universe. It is self-evident that the natural world is intelligent, orderly, predictable and amazingly beautiful.  Dr. Michael Beckwith, and many others have said in their words, “we have created “God” in our image and likeness. And as human beings we possess the qualities we accuse “God” of being, do we not?  When in truth we are made in the image and likeness of “God”, which is loving, compassionate, kind and creative. Humans unaware of their spiritual identity,  can be mean, vengeful, spiteful, judgmental and all of those things we may have been taught about “God”. Being made in the image and likeness of “God”, means that we are inherently created and designed by love, beauty and intelligence. Those who live their spiritual identity do not engage in behaviors and activities which cause harm  To believe in that is to be in right relationship to the Universe that created you.

The second is to forgive everyone you have encountered along the way for their mistakes, missteps, shortcomings and perhaps cruelty. This includes yourself. We are all pretty much on autopilot until we are not. This simply means that the tapes created by our experience and stored as un-conscious memories are running the show. The people you let off the hook for their transgressions, are just like you. Jesus said this best when he said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

The kind of trust and power of manifesting good in your life, is only possible when your ideology and personal theory of the universe matures enough to understand that you are a part of the cosmos – and intimately connected, guided, guarded, supported and maintained, as is everyone else. The universe is a matrix of connection so if you need help, money, food, purpose, friends, a lover ------ following the golden rules, will attract those who can provide these things for you. There is no universal resistance to what you need or want --- except you!

How can you begin to do the work of transformation?

#1 Become aware of your own mentality and emotions.

You can train yourself to become aware of your thoughts. There is within everyone, a ‘watcher’, which is an aspect of you that can observe that you are thinking, as well as the content of your thoughts. As you cultivate the capacity to watch, notice any degree of negativity, skepticism and pessimism.  Notice your resistance to good and happy things. Then consciously and intentionally shift into the golden rules. Find words and mantras which help to remind you of the truth so that you can move into a different way of thinking. Say to yourself things like, I feel happy , or all of my needs are met, or I expect only good to come to me, or the universe is for me and not against me. The new words and thinking come first, and the demonstrations and manifestations will follow.

Visualize yourself in new circumstances and feel into the fulfillment of them. Everything externally, whether stuff, conditions or circumstances all start in mind. Visualizing yourself happy, driving that new car, on that vacation or twenty pounds lighter  – may not be true at the time but doing this practice helps to create the internal environment for a new possibility to emerge.

Ultimately trust, faith and surrender are possible because you recognize the unique and individualized expression of Life that you are – and you know that whatever name or however you describe the Divine – IT knows what you need not by watching you but by BEING you.” It is for this reason that trust, faith and surrender are excellent strategies for a good life. In this your jubilation will arise.

Love, love and more love, Rev. Denise

PS Join me this Sunday Night for Sunday Night Alive at 6pm for our topic, Feel Your Way Into Bliss" at http://www.facebook.com/A-Life-of-Spiritual-Power on Facebook or YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@rev.deniseschubert4107/streams

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Today is Saturday, June 15th, the end of an awesomely rainy week here in Southwest Florida. Alligator Alley is flooding, and everyone is locked inside cooking, cleaning, reading – or writing a long overdue blog.

Earlier this week I was in a Zoom session with clients and one of them mentioned a movie called “The Girl Who Loves Giraffes”. I had never heard of it, have you? At any rate, I found it on Amazon Prime, rentable for $3.99. It is an exquisite documentary about a woman named Anne Daag who in 1956, at 23 years of age, went to South Africa on her own and stayed for one year to study and document everything about giraffes. Her work became a 'bible' for giraffe keepers all over the world, and continues to be that. She was the first person to take the time to do such a comprehensive study of a creature in the wild. Even before Jane Goodall. Her passion was kindled during a visit to the Chicago zoo when she was 3 years old and encountered her first giraffe. Can you imagine a tiny 3-year old standing next to this ginormous strange looking creature. This  young woman was so brave, committed and tenacious in her passion that it was impossible for me  not to be enthralled by her story. I encourage you to find it and see for yourselves. (Sadly, Anne just died this past April at the age of 93).

For whatever reason, watching this story gave  gave me what I have been waiting for to finally, after years of encouragement from friends and students, to write a book. I realized after watching this beautiful portrayal of her life, that my own story, regardless of what I think about it – may have something to add to the conversation about raising consciousness, following your dreams and fulfilling the longings of our souls - which I believe came with us in this lifetime. 

I was born in 1951, when rules and roles for women were much different than they are today.  Though my early years had moments of great meaning and inspiration,  my some great life-changing thing happened at the age of 45 and the past 28 years have been a ceaseless adventure of miraculous manifestations, awesome adventures and breaking through dozens of real and perceived limitations. Making big leaps and coloring outside the lines has definitely been my path.

The living of my life practicing certain principles, has proven to me that the power of Mind and Spirit is real. As Ernest Holmes said, "There is a power for good in the universe, and you can use it."  We really are inherently designed to navigate our own path, captain our own ship and architect a life that we love regardless of the past, statistics, or any external influences. Since learning that myself, I have been demonstrating and manifesting and want nothing more than to share that with you.

I am writing the book! "A POSSIBLE LIFE: BEFORE AND BEYOND AFRICA".

I am making a bodacious invitation to my world to support me in getting it done with excellence, accountability and in a timely manner. I am retired from pulpit ministry and though I have everything I need, the project will be elevated and escalated with funding.  It is my intention to raise money to get the book written, edited and published within a year with ease and grace. Here are the ways I can appreciate and thank you. I will mail to everyone who offers any donation, four signed prints of my favorite photographs from the 14  trips I have made to Africa since 2014. If you are inspired to be a major supporter by funding of $500 or more, I will send you each chapter of the book as it is written. The first chapter will be ready by July 31^st with each following chapter to follow monthly. Within a year, you will have the book in its entirety in its original form and I will also gift to you the final published illustrated book.

I am quite passionate about sharing what I believe is  necessary to live an authentic life - one that feels like you and one that brings you contentment, joy and the experience of wonder. We all know that happiness is elusive in our world - as is peace, generosity, joy and all of the qualities of Being that are possible. The restoration of sanity to our global family requires that we as individuals, awaken to the possibility of a different way. May my life be helpful in perhaps forging a different way for a few.

These are the working chapters, subject to creative licenses of course...
A Possible Life:Before and Beyond Africa
1- The Light Turns On (1995)
2- The Years of Domestication:  0-20
3- The confused years: 20-45
4- YES to Ministry, Massage and Yoga
5- Arkansas: Dark Night of the Soul
6- Chicago: Preparing To Leap
7- North Carolina: Unconditional Love and Community
8- Wonder: South Africa the first time (2014)
9- Kenya - My Mind is Blown (2016)
10- The Wild Earth Expedition (2019)
11- The Hip and the Stroke:  On God’s Time Now (2021)
12- Giving It All Away: The Joy of Nothing (2022)
13- Getting it All Back: The Joy of Everything (2024)
14- In the Name of Love: Willow Harper (2024 and beyond)

• These accountings represent profoundly sacred events, people and circumstances where the laws and principles which undergird manifestation are illustrated and highlighted. I am not a special person doing special things. I am a person who discovered the rules of the game of life  in 1995, took them to heart, and dedicated the rest of my life to proving to myself that they work. Today, at 73, still coloring outside the lines, still breaking the rules and transcending what is expected of a 73-year old human, much less woman, I hope that others are touched and motivated to step into the experiment of being not just a good human - but a deeply happy one.

This book is much more than my story. It is an instruction manual on how to shift from living from the outside in to living from the inside out. My platform in ministry has been practical spirituality where through practicing a philosophy, faith and way of  life, we can fulfill the deeper longings and intentions of our spirit - the aspect of each of us that is unique and quite separate from the self we may believe ourselves to be merely as the end result of what has been!

Thank you in advance if you are moved to fund the work with your love, money and prayers. As always, no pressure or friendship obligation. I just love to bring my world into my work as it inspires and motivates me more than I can express. As always, join me this and every Sunday on YouTube and Facebook for Sunday Night Alive. The topic this week is "You Get To Make It Up".

Love, love and more love,
Rev. Denise

Magnificent Male Kudu

"Joy is the ultimate insurance for life. To be happy is not the ultimate aspect of life. It is the fundamental aspect of life. If. You are not happy, what else can you do with your life? Only if you are happy, can other great possibilities arise in your life.” ~Sadhguru

If you have been studying with me for any length of time, you know my love for Chapter 15 from “The Untethered Soul” by the Buddhist author, Michael A. Singer. Chapter 15 is a transformative chapter exploring the possibility of ‘unconditional’ happiness. Happiness without conditions or happiness despite conditions.

“The Untethered Soul” is such a great title for a book and an incredible idea. Can you imagine your soul unfastened, disconnected and free from the restraints of your past, conditions in the world and our own limited thinking!  I know we get to do this when we lay these bodies down --- but wouldn’t it be awesome to do it now?  I read this chapter almost 5 years ago and I would say that my over-arching commitment to persistent and unfettered happiness has proven worth it --- Happiness despite losing my job during covid, my sisters health challenges, euthanizing both of my animal companions, my own health challenges, and so on and so on. The world did not stop being what it will be – but something in me shifted my perspective and capacity to hold adversity without losing my stride.

Singer says, “You only have one choice in this life and it’s not your career or who to marry, or whether you want to seek God.  In the end, you can throw all of that away and just make one underlying decision.  Do you want to be happy or do you not want to be happy?  It’s really that simple.  Once you make that choice, your path through life becomes totally clear."

He goes on to clarify that the question doesn’t include conditions.  ..  For example, I want to be happy if nothing bad happens.  Or I would like to be happy but I lost money in the stock market today. 

 He continues:  “Do you want to be happy or not…. If you decide that you are going to be happy from now on for the rest of your life, you will not only be happy, but you will also become enlightened. Unconditional happiness is the fastest path to awakening.”

Several of the spiritual teachers that I have studied over the years emphatically express the idea that happiness is the path to higher consciousness. How can you live fully, with an open and generous heart if you are mired in sorrow, anger, resentment, low self-esteem, or any kind of mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual unhappiness. There are many  occasional life circumstance which bring normal and unavoidable temporary sadness, grief, mourning or malaise. Our predominant state of being can be contentment and happiness anyway.

 Most of us have been taught that there is something unnatural or ungodly about being so happy. We have been trained by well-meaning people to lean more into unhappiness than happiness as we navigate our lives. Not merely unhappiness, but dissatisfaction and discontentment. We are slow to acknowledge the state of having, doing or being enough. Always wanting more, better or different. The media has been working on us since we were babies, convincing us that more is better, bigger is better and that we are not ‘okay’ without ‘their’ deodorant, beer, and pharmaceuticals.  It is not a mystery why we are so heavily dependent on outside resources having no awareness that our inside resources are sufficient unto all things – health and happiness. We really are okay just the way we ware.

Imagine a spaceship landing on earth in the United States and the aliens learning all about us by watching 24 hours of prime-time television. Can you imagine the stories they would take home to their people? After those 24-hours the conclusion would have to be that as a people we are violent, sick, angry, constipated, and depressed!

  You and many others might pose the argument against the possibility of ‘unconditional’ happiness by providing evidence of a miserable world. Who would have the audacity to claim happiness when there is so much that seems wrong? Everywhere we look, people are suffering from not enough money, love, friendship, food, or possibilities. There are so many of us that live in miserable and truly awful situations.

But there is a metaphysical problem with the argument. It ignores the relationship between us and the world.  Does the world reflect misery because we are miserable or are we miserable because the world is inevitably miserable? I would submit based on my knowledge of metaphysics, consciousness, and the creative power of our minds, we cannot separate what is happening on the inside of us and what is reflected on the outside of us – true both individually and collectively. The idea that our inner state is wholly dependent upon outer circumstances is living from the ‘outside in”. This orientation to life and living will keep happiness elusive as we wait for the right person, amount of money or circumstances.

Innate happiness and joy are qualities of the Spirit, and these qualities are imbedded within us.  A change in how we experience the world and ourselves in the world, requires an internal adjustment not an external one. Living from the “inside out” affords us the greatest possibility of living an authentically good life.

Think about the people in your life. Can you spot the ones who lift you up, enhance your experience of well-being, cause you to feel glad to be around them? And can you spot the ones who drain you of energy, having nothing good to say about anyone or anything, worry about everything and then spew all that negativity and you find yourself wanting to run away – even if that someone is your mother or your spouse?

Abraham-Hicks said, “In your pain you offer the world pain. In your joy, you offer the world joy.”

Jean Huston, author, and human potential worker says, “You are not just an encapsulated bag of skin dragging around a dreary little ego.  You are an evolutionary wonder, a trillion cells singing together, an organism; a symbiosis of cell and soul.”  This quote strikes a chord of jubilation inside of me.

Our path as ones who seek to live a good life, , is a path of transcending the ego’s way of viewing the world and rather practice dominion over our capacity to create our lives using the power of our minds. It was Abraham Lincoln who said, “I reckon people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

I am not really a bible person, but I love the quote from John 16:33

“In the world you shall have tribulation but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Tribulation means trouble and suffering. I don’t think there is an argument that living in the world does provide its share of trouble and suffering. Your cat dies, the world experiences a pandemic, you lose your job, your wife leaves you, or you have a bad hair day. “I have overcome the world” simply speaks to the idea that there is within us, an omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient something that is the Spirit of life and is that which makes us whole, perfect and complete regardless of that which occurs in the world. We are built with the capacity to rise out of diversity.

This striving for your life to be happy, content, excited, accepting, generous, peaceful ----- is not only good for your life – it is crazy good for your health – and crazy good for serving others as a generative and generous force in the world. This means we can be among the side of those who uplift and make glad, rather than one who sucks energy and happiness out of a room. Let us each be a positive influence on those around us. Doing so over time will establish new patterns of being together on this dust-ball hurling through space. It is the part each one of us can play to make a true and lasting difference. Commit to and practice “unconditional” happiness and see what happens for you as well as the people around you.

These ideas are not about turning our backs on suffering and pain. They are not about pretending life is better than it is. It is about choosing where to focus our attention. We always choose one thing over another thing. Love or fear. Happiness or unhappiness. These ideas merely acknowledge the awesome responsibility we have to direct the course of our lives – from birth to death. And as we do this with our eyes and hearts firmly gazing inwardly, we provide the foundation for being a living contribution to the raising of consciousness in the entire world. Perhaps the entire cosmos. Remember the quote, “In your pain, you offer the world pain. In your joy, you offer the world joy.” Which will you offer?

I am a 73-year-old woman living in America.  Not that long ago, I was a 20-year-old woman living in America. Then 30, 40, 50 and 60. It is unlikely I get another set of numbers like 80, 90, 100 and 110. I know that statistics don’t define possibility, but as a point of reference, in the U,S. the average man will live 73 years and the average woman 80 years. Doing the math, if I live to be 90, my last quarter began at age 67 and leaves me with about 17 years remaining to do and be. You can count on me to unceasingly argue with what the ‘world’ says I can or cannot do with those 17 years!

Most of us do not want to talk about these things much. But because of the inevitability of the situation, we must not be afraid to talk. I personally desire open-hearted, meaningful conversations with others about how to approach and execute these years with optimum everything. It is a fact that in 150 years,100% of us alive today will have left and another 8 billion of us will have arrived for the glorious ride that we call life on earth.

I have spent most my adult life striving to live with conscious and intentional awareness, experiencing and expressing authenticity, satisfaction, fulfillment, and happiness. I also desire to forever remain relevant in conversations about raising consciousness and doing my part to create a world that reflects increased emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual health. The world we inhabit, though awesomely beautiful is also a hot human mess. I would love to see a time when the elders of our world are invited to contribute all of that accumulated wisdom and compassion in meaningful and appreciated ways.

As most of you know, my spiritual awakening occurred when I was 45. It was a time of radical growth and self-awareness which permanently altered the course of my life. I am not exaggerating when I say that these last 28 years have been exciting, real, true, and profoundly rewarding. I can say that I am happier now than I have ever been even with the myriad of trials and tribulations. I would not go backward even if I could. Do I want to get even older and die? No. Is it a bit scary to think about how that transition might come about? Yes.

But the philosophy, faith, and way of life that I live asks me to embrace the inevitable changes in my body and life circumstances with elegance. I know my body is merely the vehicle for my soul. The body is temporary while the Spirit is outside of time.  We think of this life as having a start and an end. I think it more a process of experience and a journey of growth.

In America, aging is quite difficult for most people. We don’t take very good care of ourselves so by the time we reach the last quarter we suffer from many lifestyle dis-eases; heart disease, obesity, diabetes, addiction, and depression to name a few of the most popular. We are fundamentally a society without a significant spiritual foundation so the experience of meaning and purpose gets confused with materialism and consumerism.  We are a society that reveres youth, beauty, and money and two out of three of those melt away with age. We don’t honor and respect our elders and lack family and community systems that many other cultures have in place.

So many of us will end our lives in silence, shuffled into some back room –  perhaps in your children’s house, a nursing home, or a memory care facility. Maybe nothing that dire but merely feeling ignored, invisible or irrelevant. Regardless of the version, it isn’t right.  We ought to be able to create a new possibility for what it means to live happy and meaningful lives until the very end and then slide out of these bodies with dignity, peace of mind and some degree of anticipation for the good that is yet to come.

I believe that the good that is coming is not about a rewarding after-life in some mythical place called heaven or some long-suffering destination called hell. Rather, that part of us that is included in eternity, is a unique slice of consciousness, an ever-evolving spiral of becoming the more of who we are – never less. Energy cannot disappear.

So, this exploration of the last quarter of life is about making peace. With your life, your people, and yourself. It is about relinquishing the ego’s need to be rich, pretty, powerful, and influential in the worldly landscape. The earlier we do this in our life, the happier and more profoundly meaningful life can be. Every day a brand-new baby day, offering opportunities for love, interaction, and soul-blending with others. No matter how young or how old we are, we can learn to care for the holy temple that is our body, with sufficient, nutrition, water, and exercise. We nurture our Spirit with silence, nature, and meditation.

You are going to to die.  Why not do it the best you can do it.

You might even be facing a diagnosis or some ‘dis-ease’ in the body itself.  Even though the YOU of you is not your body, it can still be quite awful moving through pain and never-ending medical treatments. Speaking as one who knows. Fortunately, we live in a time where the management of pain is good and knowing that God is in the medicine, we can avoid the severity of untreated agony.  We are also living in a time where we can leave our bodies on our own clock should we desire to do so. 

Enlightened masters appear to leave the body with a kind of gentleness which I aspire to. The absence of resistance to death or pain, allows for the process to be easier.  Stephen Levine in his book, “Who Dies?” speaks about the correlation between how we live and how we die. The more open and yielding one is in life, the more open and yielding one will be in death. The more clutching and fearful in life, the more clutching and fearful in death.

Wayne Dyer said the awareness that our essence remains as our bodies are recycled is a great source of liberation; it is your ticket to eternity.  It allows us to not fear death. And to not fear death will allow you to live in an entirely new way.

The question I ask every day of my life is what is needed for me to stay on the green growing edge of my own evolution? I retired my position at Unity Church in Naples December 31st of this past year. Almost immediately, the universe blessed me with a beautiful home in Fort Myers and then I came to South Africa for two months. Asking myself, of course, what next, now what? I am glad to report that I have received the guidance to move me into the next chapter.

As the founder of of A Life of Spiritual Power, I have spent many years talking and teaching vision, commitment, and congruence. What does it mean to live as the captain of your own ship, as the creator of your own destiny? What does it mean to enter our lives living fully from the inside out rather than from the outside in? When practiced and lived, this culminates in a life lived with bodacious authenticity, peace of mind, joy, and meaning – at any age.

Carl Jung was right when he said he had never seen one single permanent healing from any kind of neurosis without a restoration of spiritual faith, and that it is impossible to get the most out of life while we are alive unless we believe in our own immortality.

My interests have changed over the past 25 years. In the last quarter of my life, I am blessed with relatively good health, sufficient energy, and the desire to do what I am inspired to do. And I am inspired to engage with people in meaningful conversations about what it means to live better, grow older gracefully and die consciously. I am giving some creative space to the idea of “A Life of Spiritual Power: Conscious Living, Aging and Death.” This idea fills me with zeal when I imagine what is possible for my next decade with this as the context for my life.

I am also feeling called to embrace the role of a Death Doula, also known as an End-of-Life Doula.  This involves working with individuals and families as they prepare for their own end-of-life or that of a loved one. This is a real job similar to  a Birth Doula which is the person who helps women to navigate the birth of their baby.  A Death Doula helps people to navigate the release of the body while providing love, comfort, and support to the one who is dying as well as the community of people in their lives. My experience in ministry, chaplaincy and hospice makes this a perfect fit.

I return home on April 11th and after taking time to move into my new home, I will begin the work. In addition to securing a Death Doula Certification, I will be conduct classes and workshops on Conscious Living, Aging and Death and create partnerships with local Hospice organizations. I hope you will engage in the conversation with me - for yourself and for the 20% of the population currently in this stage of their lives.

In the meantime, love your life. Draw a line between you and the world that allows for full engagement but not full entanglement. It is possible to have the news, politics, family, work, and wars swirl around you but not rob you of your right to peace, happiness, and joy. As a soul, your, natural state is a state of serenity. Why? Because the Spirit of you knows that it is birthless, deathless and eternal. Every single experience on this planet, in this body, is fodder for growth and soul-fulfillment.  It is why we came.

Love to you. I have been in South Africa for exactly one week and finally feel like a normal person!  Even with jet lag It is wonderful to be back in nature with the backyard menagerie of Warthogs, Kudus, Nyala, Guinea Fowl, Franklins, Hornbills, Monkeys and of course, Bush Babies. No Lions, Elephants, Leopards, Hippos or Cheetah yet, however we are going out on safari this coming Sunday and Monday, so tune in next time!

Each week while I am here in South Africa, it is my goal to experience and share at least one spectacularly inspiring idea. My first inspiration, surprisingly occurred on the plane ride from Miami to Dubai. It was a segment from the BBC special, “Big Little Journeys”. The series covers the epic lives of 6 tiny creatures which includes the Lombardi Chameleon from Madagascar. To summarize, the entire population of the Chameleon’s mate and lay eggs during the first rains of November. Immediately following the laying of the eggs, the entire population of adult Chameleons die. In March, all the hatchlings emerge at the same time, and begin their 5-month journey to find a mate so that they can lay their eggs in November. Once the eggs are safely planted in the soft soil, this entire generation of adults, male and female, go out in a blaze of vibrant color. Each year an entirely new global population of Lombardi chameleons are born and die. Remarkable!

My inspiration begins with the question - why? Why would the creator of all that is, create a species whose life, outside of the egg, would be a mere 5 months?  For what purpose? Being one who believes in an infinite something that we call Creator, or God, or the Quantum Field – I can’t help but muse about the purpose of such a life. Why?

After days of contemplation, I think for me it might be self-evident that maybe there isn’t any meaning or purpose – maybe LIFE is its own purpose. No matter how short or how long. Every living thing in nature knows this and lives it without any emotional, mental, or spiritual baggage. It is natural. There are no religions, no dogma, no anti-depressants, residual anger, resentment, guilt, or shame. Life for the sake of life.

If you have ever seen a herd of antelope prance and dance in a downpour after a long hot dry period – you will know there is an ecstatic celebration going on. Life for the sake of life. A pride of lions greeting one another after a long separation with nuzzling, soft growls and such obvious happiness at being together again. And of course, the Lombardi Chameleon, happy to hatched, to be in the world, ecstatic to find her mate and happy to have laid her eggs – and in that burst of color, apparently also happy to die.

If only humans could be so in the moment, so alive and so open?

All humans have two distinct aspects of the self.  A psychological identity developed through the process of learning, experience, and knowledge. This is referred to as the ‘conditioned’ self, the personality, or the ego.  For As long as we occupy these gorgeous bodies, this will always be the case.  Regardless of how ‘spiritual’ you become, the ego is still an ever-present asset or ‘hindrance’ to your life experience.

However, we have another relatively underdeveloped aspect, which is our real, true, or natural self.  That part of us which has been created by Creation. It is the larger container for the totality of our living experience in this dimension. Though it eludes most of us at this time in our human evolution, it is always accessible to discover, get acquainted with and ultimately identify as to a greater degree.  This is a very good thing because this spiritual aspect is our hope of unconditional happiness, personal and global peace, and higher states consciousness, which bring us the experience of bliss and joy.

. What if we are just confused? What if life is amazing all by itself without anything added, like money, power, prestige, or stuff?  What if it doesn’t matter one bit whether life expresses for 5 months or 100 years.  What if life knows how to live, lives what it knows and then, in a state of completion, dissolves back into the all-that-is?

As humans, we are unique in that we, unlike animals, find all kinds of ways to avoid experiencing the life that we are by thinking, planning, strategizing and the endless, perhaps pointless, search for meaning and value. Do we not have an incessant need for these as well as the compulsion  to acquire, accumulate, accomplish?

Of course we are different than insects, reptiles, birds, animals, and plants. We are a sophisticated and complex life form, capable of directed thought, designed to solve problems, build futures, and create into our world through the power of our minds. We are also capable of imagining ourselves in self-imposed prisons while mired in worry, doubt, and fear.  We are capable of incredible violence towards ourselves and others. We are addicted to almost everything from sugar to television and through our misguided behaviors and stress, seldom give our bodies the opportunity to express natural health and vitality.

Who you are as a unique expression of life is whole, perfect and complete right now. How you are called by your natural self to live your life, regardless of how long or how short, is perfect.

Every spiritual teacher I love and respect says that our purpose in life is to be full of the joy of life. Express. Express. Express. Create, create, create. And do all of that expressing and creating from a place of joy and love! What if we could just be satisfied with what is at any given moment?  Moving through our lives with the same kind of clarity and certainty that every other life form exhibits?

“Every moment there are a million miracles happening around you: a flower blossoming, a bird tweeting, a bee humming, a raindrop falling, a snowflake wafting along the clear evening air. There is magic everywhere. If you learn how to live it, life is nothing short of a daily miracle.” ~ Sadhguru: Inner Engineering

As a spiritual teacher and someone committed to living on the green growing edge of my own evolution, as well as being a conscious contributor to the human landscape, I absolutely love the big idea of releasing the constraints that keep us seeking and never finding. All stories about animals are about a life form striving for the fulfillment of its existence. Though the elephants, the chameleon and the rose bush might not be as sophisticated a form as we are, we are inherently like every other living thing. Like all of nature, from the moment of our birth something inside of us is willing us forward to express life into life.

Our sophisticated form plays in life by creating. In this process you will eat, wear clothes, buy things, own things. You might pick up a rolls Royce along the way.  The trick is to let these activities be like the antelope prancing in the rain, the lioness greeting her family or the Chameleon going out in a blaze of color and fulfillment.

The purpose of life is life. The meaning of life is to live. It matters very little if that life endures in physical form for 5 months or 102 years. Whenever your final moment comes – and it will come – let us be satisfied with our experience of life. Be happy.

Blessings everyone,

I resigned my position at Unity of Naples on New Year’s Eve and boldly stepped into 2024 with my declaration and an unequivocal YES to this year being the best one so far. It takes effort to continue to have the 'best year so far' because there is a lot of thinking in the world that in our 70's and 80's the best years are behind us and were we to believe what 'they' say --- in my 73rd year, I should be winding down - not winding up.  I say, let us use every ounce of passion, intention, commitment and vitality we have in us, to continue to create amazing years. They may be different than the 40th year but can definitely be equally as satisfying.

Every year during December, I open myself to what the next year needs to be about for my soul.  My 2024 word came to me on 12/2 at the Levi Kreis concert at Unity. The platform for 2024 is WONDER. I love the meaning of the word which is “ a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar or inexplicable.” 2024 has been a whirlwind of wonder thus far – a mere 31 days.

I leave for South Africa in just 10 days for a glorious 60 days at Bush Baby Haven at the Hoedspruit Wildlife Estates..  I can’t really describe the level of peace, happiness, and contentment I experience on African soil.  I don’t really know if it is bounty of natural beauty and beings, or because the continent of Africa is the original home of humans. But whatever it is, is profound.

You can join me on this soul safari by signing up for my “Zoom Safari Connection” which will be a face-to-face zoom connection every Saturday morning at 9am EST.  The Safari Connection will be 60 minutes of spiritual centering, life affirming discussion on some spiritual topic and my sharing  the sights, scenes and the encounters of the week - animal and human.

African Zoom Safari - Click Here To Register

The other wondrous happening is that I have purchased a new home back in Del Tura in North Fort Myers.  As a reminder, I spent six month  in South Africa during 2022 to heal from my hip replacement. When I returned, I ended up renting a house in Del Tura for 5 months.  The owners of that house have purchased another home and sold me that beautiful house for a GREAT price.  This is such a life changing and unexpected turn of events.  Yet another inexplicable demonstration of how creation supports, maintains, and sustains us.  I believe that the universe is always conspiring for my greater good and it proves to me repeatedly that my belief is justified.

My prayer for your 2024 is that every longing you have for living your life reveals itself to you with grace and ease.  Don’t hesitate to give voice to what you desire, what would complete your life, all of those bucket list things and every other good thing you can think of. You say yes first and then people and Gods will follow. If what Jesus, Buddha, Lao Tzu and the others tell us is true, which it is, we have every reason to move into the year with positive and joyful expectation.  Even if you are moving through some unpleasantness – fear not. Whatever it might be - it came to pass not to stay.

As Ernest Holmes said in his beautiful book, This Thing Called You:
"In some way which you know not of, through some process which never reveals its face, life has entered you, and with it the irresistible impulse to create. Divine Intelligence has willed it so, thus you, nor any other person, nor all the wit, science, or philosophy of man, nor the inspiration of Saints or sages can change one bit of it any more than man can arrest the eternal circuits of time, the revolutions of the planets, or the desire of the fledgling to leave its nest.

You belong to the universe in which you live, you are one with the creative Genius back of this vast array of ceaseless motion, this original flow of life.  You are as much a part of it as the sun, the earth, and the air.  There is something in you telling you this – like a voice echoing from some mountain top of inward vision, like a light whose origin no man has seen, like an impulse welling up from an invisible source.

Your soul belongs to the universe. Your mind is an outlet through which the creative Intelligence of the universe seeks fulfillment.

I hope you choose to join me in Africa but if not, watch out for the written blogs and the return of Sunday Night Alive in the summer! My phone and email will continue to work seamlessly while I am 8,500 miles away so don't hesitate to stay in touch. It matters to me.

Love and more love, Rev. Denise