For someone whose prose gestates for days (if not weeks), I must confess that I am smitten with the immediacy of Substack video posts. That said, dear reader, I solemnly promise to refrain from overly inundating you with them, or replacing my written work with video, for that matter.
However! As I’ve made the channeled videos available to paid subscribers (thank you to new paid subscribers
, and !), it felt right to share a video message with you wonderful free subscribers as well.This week, the higher teachings have been coming in hot and fast1, so I’ve been spending A LOT of time next to the ocean (the former mermaid in me feels very soothed by the ocean these days2 — which also explains my newfound penchant for ocean cold-plunging).
Today was no different, with the teachings going all through the night, leaving me exhausted upon awakening.
“Follow the sun,” urged my guides, sensing my lethargy. “Go to the ocean.”
Though rainy and dreary out my window, I dragged myself out the door. Driving down our road, the rain pelting against my windows, I kept the faith that sun was somewhere close. And sure enough, rounding the bend, I could see a faint spot of light to the northeast.
I headed towards it.
“Keep going,” my guides urged. “You’ll know where to go.”
And indeed, the second I crossed the bridge connecting the Peninsula to Indian Island, the sun burst through the clouds and the rain stopped.
Sitting here on the white-shell beach overlooking the narrow strait, sun warming me to the core, rather than notice the beauty around me, I found myself fixating on — of all things — wanting to see a whale.
You see, I’d seen a gray whale here once before — so improbably huge in such a narrow passage! — and I really, really wanted to see one again. Truth is, my heart’s desire is to be able to communicate with whales. It has happened once in a moment of unexpected grace, and my ego-mind got very attached to it happening again with predicted regularity.
Because the ego-mind loves to try to control outcomes. It’s kind of its speciality.
Then — because this is another thing the ego-mind does — I convinced myself that my spiritual life would be lacking if I were not able to manifest a whale right here, right now.
After a few minutes and no whale had appeared, my ego-mind did another thing it’s really good at: assigning meaning
“I will likely not see a whale,” I thought. “Therefore” — my ego-mind concluded — “I must not be worthy of seeing a whale.”
Now, I know my ego-mind is trying to be helpful in its own, I-must-control-outcomes-or-die-trying sort of way, but one cannot help but see how much unnecessary suffering it is creating - !
But just as I teetered on the edge of losing myself to ego-mind completely, the ocean spoke up. She lapped at the shore in a most compelling way, and suddenly I awoke from the ego-mind’s spell and attuned to my surroundings.
Here I was, in the most beautiful place, breathing deeply of clean ocean air. Sun was sparkling on the water and warming my skin. The tide was creating a rush of burbling-river sounds right in front of me. Waves were gently lapping on the white shell beach.
Taking it all in, I began to smile, then laugh — oh, the absurdity of my ego-mind! How could I feel anything but gratitude! I was in paradise!
As I was laughing, I distinctly heard this message from the water (who clearly was laughing along with me):
What a wonderful thing to live in a Universe where all it takes to manifest anything you want is to be grateful for what you already have. This is the true meaning of benevolence!
So that, dear reader, is what I wanted to share with you: we live in the most benevolent of universes, willing to bestow us with everything our hearts desire. Our ego-minds, trained in separation consciousness, are trying to hold onto the familiar way of doing things by attempting to control outcomes and — when failing to do so — assigning meaning that creates unnecessary suffering.
But — as the ocean so aptly conveyed — all it takes is a change in perspective to see the abundance surrounding us.
And this was the lesson. With just a shift in perspective, I moved from a desire to control outcomes (and the suffering that comes from that) to an open-hearted place of gratitude and acceptance. I was restored to wholeness, and my suffering disappeared.
Suddenly I was not just witnessing the beauty around me, I was part of it.
And the whale?
“All in good time,” say my guides. “This is a lesson unfolding.”
I’ll be writing more about these teachings later this week.
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