How many of you immediately recognized that the word nowhere is a simple joining of the words now and here? 

Being a nothingness freak and a serious word freak, this sort of thing rides around with me like a clue to the secret of life.

Be here now. Where, exactly? Now. Here. The present we are seeking, the moment, the oneness, that feeling of connection with all that is, the aha moment that happens when we let it all go and see what emerges, is where we want to be. And it is nowhere.

Nowhere man got a bad rap for being like nowhere, man. We were primed to be where it's at. Well guess where that is? Yep, something very much like the void. Which isn't a problem, because, when we examine the nature of matter and the nature of mind, there, um, isn't a lot there. The universe is a hologram, you may have heard. There's a black hole in the center of our galaxy.

The more scientific data confirms the illusion of separateness mystics, sages and shamans have explored for eons, the more we humans, right here, right now, can connect the dots and do the thing we can now do, more than ever. Break free from old programs and limiting, fear-based patterns and come from a place within ourselves that is in the oneness zone, the gap, the field. From here, or there, or the now here that allows this state, amazing things are possible, and preferable, to keep the orbs spinning in harmony and resonance. 

Now is the time for this heightened, transformative shift. Some made the jump eons ago, and throughout our rough history. But now's good for a big swing of many humans discovering, claiming and enacting their own way out of fear, pain and misery. In my own work and in the work I do for others, this is the thing that keeps coming up. And doing the thing is often precipitated by things falling apart, no longer working, whether it's health, wealth, relationships, or the world around us. How the world appears around us and what we have to do with the perception. It's tricky but again, that's the illusion talking. For those free from all that, it's not tricky at all.

As we navigate our personal struggles and plot lines to the tricky-free zone of joyful creation, we get to play with our now here dials, and how they dial things up. That's what they're for. How near–or if you're into anagrams, how neer–is the tricky-free zone of joyful creation, for you, at any given moment? Is it dependent on externals? For the sages the trick was not to be swayed by externals, including when it's happening directly to you, as in ouch. Remembering the aha during the ouch takes presence.

Reading how positive thoughts and projections create positive results can, on a bad day, incite a rogue wave of incredulity, cynicism, or even anger when things go wrong, on the news or closer to home. But what if it didn't? What if you held firm, here, now, in nowhere where all is, and continue the altruistic, openhearted vibe? I'm pretty sure this is not a new idea. Like that story of the Buddha getting fired at by arrows while he sat there meditating in the zone, and the arrows turning into flowers. Nowhere is a place in which the 3D rules and regulations don't apply. 

There's magic in the air, or to be more accurate, in the solar system, the galaxy, the universe , and we are part of it! We are needed, loved, and supported in raising our frequency and creating new direction for our lives. Moving into new light, new realization of choice, new self-knowledge and out of fear is fully supported by the heavens today, tomorrow, New Year's Day, and into the year ahead. The key is to know and to choose and to practice, so the outer appearances of the exact opposite lose their authority. A little info can really help us do that with gusto.

Remember The Wizard of Oz? All that way and all those trials and tribulations (all those scary flying monkeys!) to get to see the Wizard, and what happens? At first it appears he's the great and powerful authority, as he intimidates them and tells them to get lost. But that's not really true, is it? Same deal here, if we pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. And the Source of All is with us on this. It is us on this one.

Said another way, we are aligned with the Source of All That Is if we know we are. Aligning conscious choice and subconscious mind takes, well, alignment. It's key to disempowering the old conditioning, and it takes doing, but it's doable. And the alignment of the planets and the energies available to us now makes alignment the thing to do. This week we are getting a super boost with the Super Moon and other alignments. Here then are some ways of furthering that, for maximum uplift and forward motion in this turning of the year.

If you want to know more about the planetary alignments, one source is astrologer Pam Younghans, who writes her NorthPoint Astrology Journal weekly reports. This week is a corker! And might well put you in the mood to feel supported in removing the chains of fear and servitude from your personal belief system and taking your rightful place as authority in your own life. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain who is working overtime to keep you in the old paradigm. And boy is it getting old. Unsubscribe for the New Year!

Another boon to this important work, for your personal life, the care of the planet and all creatures, and the uplift of the human race, has just been published. It is the third channeled text from Paul Selig, The Book of Knowing and Worth. All of his work is of great benefit in this personal transformation call to rise.

And from my services, I suggest that now is a powerful time for divination work. Here we stand a moment in stillness, poised between past and future. When you think about it, we are every millisecond of every day, and that's a lively perspective to keep in your pocket. But on these last days, we are inundated with looking back at the year in review. And if we choose to go there, I suggest we focus on the positives; the negatives are hurled at us and obsessed over in our own minds quite enough. We have been conditioned to focus on what we don't have, what we don't look like, can't do, can't afford, haven't done, aren't allowed to do. To feel powerless and unworthy, not as good as those we imagine have everything they wish. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, and shift focus. You'll discover you did a lot of good stuff and have made progress. With what you learned, experienced, accomplished, or even failed at, you know more now what means the most to you, what you want for your self and your life now, what feels right and good and lovely, even if it seems a major leap from where you are. Even discovering your areas of deepest fear is work well done, because it's much more ready to be transformed. Now now now.

Now we look ahead and create what we are dreaming of. We choose to lose what keeps us in fear and servitude. Because we can, and we have a lot more to give that way. Journeys and divinations are excellent for this at this time. During this powerful Super New Moon, they are especially potent. What is your question? Ask the oracle. (To clarify: it isn't me, I am just the receiver.) A full strength divination can be done as a journey, or with divination tools, as an in-person or Skype reading. 

Another idea is a new service, just hatching. As of, um, this morning. It will soon have its true design and form on the website, but I don't want to wait for its official launch, because the time is so gonzo, and it could come in really handy for you or those you wish to gift. So here is a special offer, in this blog, for whomever stumbles on it. The oracle. A flash divination. Boom.

For this stupendous week, here's what to do. Email me or use the Contact Form on the Scheduling & Payment page to let me know you want a flash Oracle, when, for whom, and what about. Give me the email to whom it should be sent and your email as well if you are not the recipient. Pre-pay for the oracle by choosing the $40 Phone Conference service for each oracle ordered. That's it! I will do the rest, with my bevy of divinatory tools. No journeying in the flash oracle. Here's how the flash oracle goes.

I will pose the question, intuit the divination method, draw one answer or divine a single oracle. In a flash, the oracle is given. Photos are taken of the process, and the email with them is sent. Done! It's a flash path to guidance, done in a sacred state in sacred space.

Yesterday's inaugural oracle received this feedback from the recipient: WOW! This blew me away. Thank you so much for this thoughtful, useful, wise, wonderful, brilliant gift. Magical!

I offer this oracle service as a special offering for this powerful time, and am available for a flash flood of flash divinations through this Super Moon week.

However you interact with the universe this week, may it be magical, powerful, harmonious, and full of love and light.

On days like this when the sun comes out after days of cloudy rain, the river calls and I walk on down the road. I just took this snap of the Sandy River coursing down from Mount Hood fresh with rainwater and snow. Yesterday's big rain had it churning brown when I drove over the high bridge where I stood today to take this shot, now transformed into its frothy jade green look. Two ravens circled high above, giving an oracle that I heard interpreted as keep going, and variations including  perseverance furthers, and go with the flow. 

The Incredible String Band's Water Song came to mind and I sang the line wizard of changes, teach me the lesson of flowing back to the river, as I often am impulsed to do around flowing water. Being in flow as part of All instead of sitting on the bank with your worries feeling out of flow is an image I've received from others who work with invisibles, with assisting self and others in raising frequency, transforming fear to love, trusting and participating in flow. The way we assist each other, encouraging, inspiring, and sometimes directly transmitting information or energy through and to each other is reflected by the mirror all around us. Just then, the message from the ravens, the sound of the river swollen with yesterday's rain, the resonance of what I was watching with the metaphor from the written material on flow, and the welcome rays of the sun did their stuff and I received the benefit in mind, body and spirit, helping me sync with flow.

In doing shamanic work – and in many other modalities of healing, lightworking, wayshowing, channeling, dreaming up – part of the assist comes from the practitioner's connect, gifts, and medicine, certainly. But a lot of what is going on is in the connect in us all: the connection of the people working, but also the connect that happens within the person receiving the work. What information, inspiration, guidance, helpers, wisdom, energy, power you personally connect with that was needed, to return to flow and raise your hum. 

Sometimes I describe shamanic work as energetic jumper cables from one human battery to another. Sometimes each of us needs a jump to start up again and get back on the road, so we can go with the flow. Sometimes we need encouragement, support, information, affirmation, or a key energetic component we don't feel, can't see or locate. News we can use. The receiving of that is deeply connective and reflective, awakening parts of our soul that were fragmented, lost or sleeping, freeing shadow parts from the dark shameful closet we've locked them in. Helping each other through our helpers, our shared fragility, our innate insight and gifts, our connection happens in each moment, all around us in nature and beyond, throughout the universe. 

When we're in flow, the universe flows to us and through us. Our brains light up and we feel that sense of group belonging psychological experts tag as essential to a person's well-being. We can each connect with flow and allow it to flow through us as we travel through our day, in traffic, at the store, at work, with our peeps, or in nature, seemingly solitary as I often am, but never alone. When you're in flow you can feel you are one with Source, and things are easier, simpler. What you're looking for turns up, whether it's a parking space, that thing in the junk drawer you need, the name of the guy you were supposed to contact, or the next step in your career, home, or relationship situation. The phone rings, the email pings, the eagle flies by overhead. Ideas come to your writing or project and revisions are obvious, delightful.

Living so close to a river is an excellent mirror, or flow chart if you will, and I've been fortunate to find myself living near several through the years. Each day the river is different and fluctuates wildly. Each drop of water is unique and different than any before or after it. Yet it's all river, and all rivers flow to Source. And from the source, come to think of it. Conditions affect flow but flow continues, sometimes more than we think we can handle, sometimes less than we think we need. Learning the lesson of flowing is the work of many lifetimes, but in essence, simplicity itself. 

If you are feeling out of flow, what will help you return? It might come through stillness, movement, silence, or sound; words or dreaming or nature or love. It might be all of the above. How do you restore your connect? If you need a jump you feel I can assist with, let me know. Our work might be in the Lower World, in water flowing underground [yes, cue the Talking Heads], or emanating in Middle World from an ancient water bubble in a crystal, from a waterfall in a past life, or from a few drops of a flower essence, or from a celestial Upper World wash of light that jumpstarts your cells into resonance and healing. We might actually be working at river's edge in an intensive nature training session. Or you might be on the other side of the world. Maybe a part of you returns, carrying the heart medicine you lost in an estranging event, re-lighting the fire in your head after a bewildering situation, renewing your thirst for life.

Wherever we are, may we be going with the flow, awash in the ever-present universal glow. 

Not that there's anything wrong with dressing up and eating chocolate. More on that later. Tonight, as we all know, is All Hallow's Eve, a powerful night by any name, including one you might have seen and likely have mispronounced: Samhain. You wouldn't be alone in saying Sam Hane, like it's some dude, but the Celtic word is pronounced  SOW-hen. And blessings on all who get that right! What's with the blessings part, you ask? Isn't tonight about scary zombie types? 

You might know all this already, but if not, and are interested, let me refer you to Celtic seer and author Caitlin Matthews, who explains Samhain in full on her Soundings blogspot for us today. You may be familiar with her work, hyperlinks to which are found on my Resources page, and the About page. I've used her books and decks and divinatory tools for years in my work and personal life, had the honor of being a member of the Company of Hawkwood in 2008, and benefitted from private ancestor work with her in Oxford. Her insightful scholarship is eloquent on the subject, freeing me to do my thing here more willy nilly. And get to the chocolate part.

Being a liminal zone walker between worlds, tonight is totally in my comfort zone, and optimal for the work. This year is particularly outrageous because of the nearness to the New Moon on the 3rd, which is also a Solar Eclipse, meaning this whole deal here is a major power time of new beginnings. As a Triple Scorpio born at sunrise on the New Moon while Mercury was in retrograde (as it is again now) three score years ago, it's triple-y so for me, in all senses of the word. Creating new beginnings out of the release of the old, having a lot to do with dead people, is very much the thing at this time in my orbit. Maybe you are doing a new beginnings, old releasings thing yourself. Humanity is kind of pretty much doing that right around now, come to think of it, and there's lots of wonderful help coming from invisibles through the veil. One online channeling session that you can participate in is certain to be transformative: Paul Selig's Know Your Worth workshop. Yes! Tonight!

The veil between the worlds is indeed thin at this time, as you may have heard mentioned once or twice. In fact, this morning I awoke from a very powerful dream where I was talking on the phone with two people, in two ears from two different places, and realized when I woke up that one of them was dead. While I was listening to their mindblowing comments, the 'waiting room' I found myself in was filling up with people, one of whom answered her mother's impatient we've got to get out of here with a gentle it's about love I think, we just need to be patient. Along with the rest of the dream, including sifting through a box of old, brown crystalline stones and realizing they were valuable, I've already had one of several visits through the veil.

The crystal in the photo, below the Pictish Double Disc and Z-Rod symbol from the Scottish Highlands, found me in Arcata and called from a neglected bottom shelf behind a door of a tiny shop that's gone now. As soon as I walked in I heard it (or would never have seen it) say THERE you are! I've been waiting for you. It cost all of $8 and is my personal crystal. No one else touches it, and I only use it for my personal work. It usually lives in the medicine tools cupboard, but as you see, it is out and ready to work today. It knows more about our long association than I do, and tonight it will tell me more about what we are doing together through time and space. It shapeshifted into the group of brown stones I was neglecting in my dream to get my attention. 

In my view, the diversions of this holiday, now complete with paper plates and greeting cards, are all fine and dandy. The guy from the bank in Newport Beach, California, who just called to thank me for being such a longstanding customer, completely out of nowhere, like one of the dream callers, is apparently dressed as Austin Powers today, baby. It's all good! But for me, this night has been, for many many years, about the work. This, for me, includes honoring the ancestors, which I do by toasting the family portraits and thanking them for all they did and went through, for surviving and for my DNA and my life and all the bequests. Some of these, as in all families, have been in need of transformation, disentanglement, soul retrieval, extraction healing, the work of Isis, and a lot of cord and imprint wrangling. This work goes in both directions, helping the ancestors in the past, me in the present, and future family folk. Which, who knows, could be us again. I express love to those who left this mortal coil abruptly. We all do the best we can, and as the girl in the waiting room told her mom, it's about love I think.

So, I'll do that, and also will acknowledge the spirits of place around here, where I will be visited not by trick-or-treaters, but by wild animals and other beings. Coyote, elk, owls, eagles, who knows. A communicative crop of new amanita mushrooms sprouted by the fir circle near the barn this morning, and are powwowing with the trees as we speak. Yes, mycellium do transmit info to the forest in which they live: fact! Check out Mycellium Running for more on that amazing phenomenon. 

And, I will journey with and to my old friend, the etched Smoky Quartz crystal, and receive the transmission and do the work that is to be done. Past-present-future are in full swirl, the invisibles are near, and come to think of it, that room filling up in my dream is no metaphor.

For the chocolate bit, I'm making organic, vegan Almond Joys! I have to thank Amanda Hesser's genius Food52 again, for bringing a recipe from April into view just now. Check it out here! Mush pulsed-up honey, coconut, coconut oil together into the classic shape, push in an almond or two, chill them up for a half hour, melt the chocolate, dip each piece into it on a toothpick, let set for half a minute. Done. Yum.

Whatever you're up to tonight, have a blessed, big-ass fun, deep power time, and circulate that love thing through time and space, through and to all beings everywhere.

We in the Pacific Northwest are enjoying stellar fall weather! Day after day of blue sky, bright sun, golden leaves drifting down through green sylvan glades, woodsy ridges awash in color, Japanese maples of such brilliant vermillion they seem made out of stained glass or garnets. Through this panorama the full moon flies past the night stars, Flickers call their agreements, deer wander the lawn, and I take it all in as I cultivate the spiritual warrior within, and conjure the new hoop of the next chapter of my storied life, seemingly out of nowhere.

As you know, intrepid reader and fellow soul traveler, I receive a lot of guidance from all sorts of channels. This morning's comes in from 1) the congruence of a book I found in the back of a shelf I haven't seen since I moved here three years ago, 2) a medicine card I pulled without ado from a deck from a drawer, and 3) a quote that tied them both together. As I grok the wisdom and feel the assimilation energetically inside my body, 4) Flicker chimes in–yep, right on cue right here and now–flashes her pink underwings and affirms, as Flicker always does for me, that Spirit is here and knows I'm paying attention. During that entire sentence, Flicker has been voicing from the red cedar she flew to a sentence before. These synchronicities are vital to How Things Happen in my world, and fire my imagination. The photo shows my faux bird nest of stone eggs and feathers I've found here from Flicker and other species. 

The card I pulled spoke of the Spiritual Fire within, the Luminosity we carry–scratch that–the Luminosity we, and all things, actually are. We are Light. Everything's frequency, moving light. Mathematicians and Quantum Physicists have cool ways of notating that, and lots of fun words like quantum foam. These gorgeous fall leaves are shifting their frequency and we are onboard for the ride. Wow! What a light show. The card advised letting go of all drama and simply letting the truth of being Light inform my cells, my consciousness, my world. Flicker agreed.

I took the book, Sandra Ingerman's Medicine for the Earth, out to the sunny porch and opened to a random page. The beginning page of the chapter on Imagination. In Sandra's transmutation work, imagination is a key component. Within the chapter is a quote from Caroline Casey, Imagination lays the tracks for the reality train to follow. Ingerman advises letting that one soak in for a bit.

Dreaming your reality into being is using the creativity, the luminosity within you and your sentient connection to the light all around you to imagine, to 'cast forth enchantments' as 20th century mystic Neville put it (and Ingerman mentions). The power of the imagination directs light and frequency–Flicker agrees! Imagination sees the scene so completely it is shimmering in the light. The sounds, the smells, the tastes, the colors, the clothes... actually this is starting to remind me of the theme song to Green Acres a little. For imagination to lay the tracks for the reality train, you gotta get into it. Really dream it up big time, exactly as you want to see it. Do it, live it, be it, for real. Then when you bump into it you recognize it. Oh. Yes. There it is.

It's interesting to note what comes up in resistance to this creative work, this creative playbook, of imagination. All the authority figures who pooh-poohed the power of daydreams, who put down your abilities in the dreaming up department, or dissuaded you from the worth of imagination, the imaginary helpers and magical happenings we love to create from an early age, so naturally. These self-styled reality experts pop up from our wearied neural pathways to wag a finger or roll their eyes, give a withering lecture, certain of knowing better about what's what. That's not how things happen, they say. But you know what? These too are imaginings, reality-shaping ones as any other. If for such a mind, that's not the way things happen, well, for them it is not. Period. The reality train coming in on those tracks will look a bit different. And yes, Flicker is discoursing all through my final edit of this paragraph, in the little bubbly chirpy vocal patterns they do so well. You tell 'em, Flicker. Word.

It could be said that, frequency-wise, now more than at any previous time, we are able to use the power of Imagination, free and clear from old conditioning, to transmute trauma and toxicity within and without, and create something much more pleasant for us all. It does require getting some clarity, feeling our feelings and examining our fears, learning how to feel the luminosity within, open to influxes of light and circulate it through us. It takes a little practice to state our personal choice and empower our decision making abilities, choose love not fear, no matter what. It's only ourselves who can turn off old programs, give the old voices a cookie and a hug, rose-colored glasses, and maybe a security blankie for a lengthy naptime. As I just corrected a proofreading error in that sentence, hours after the initial posting, a quote box on the edit page delivered, from Walt Disney himself, this golden nugget: If you can dream it, you can do it.

Do you have an initial excited response to such a statement, followed by a negating 'well it's nice but it's not really true' type thought, or a 'that may be true for some people, but not for me'' thought? Sometimes it helps me to imagine a delete button, a mute button, or a lovely hamper in which I toss the old conditioning fears that pop up to block the Imagination in full swing. Sometimes I crumple up the curmudgeonly 'scratch pad imagination-stupifying thought' and toss it over my head into the imaginary metal wastebasket of some old classroom. A little movement, some sound effects, are fun sometimes. Whoosh! Zap! Or the vintage sound of the phonograph, or tape, winding down as the plug is pulled. The sudden clarity of a gong. Flicker calls also work, really really well. They cut right through.

My accountant says he tells his negative self-talk, Thank you for your opinion. Now shut up. Whatever your transmutation method, dare to dream, and ditch the downer dialogue with diligence. Enjoy your railroad building. Your reality train's looking beautiful already. 

Last night's Blue Moon – the rare second full moon in a solar month – lulled me early into dreaming, and woke me in the wee hours with its light and power. I don't think I was alone in responding to the 'whispers tucked into the turning of Earth's curve' as she flew across the sky. The title line of this blog post is from a recent poem I wrote, and felt apropos for this time, this moon, this subtle seasonal shift.

Morning flights of geese, calling to each other; a certain crispness to the air, changes of light at sunset, and the first few yellow leaves signal that the planet is at that place in her cycle where our hemisphere is tilting away from the Sun. My favorite season approaches, and with it the strong magical pull through space and time I always feel. It's as if time kaleidoscopes and the matrix of past, present, and future aligns and opens. I'm aware of all three at once, and of threads coming through the opening. The veil between the worlds thins.

One of the medicine tools I use to work with time is this Selenite Wand. Selenite is very good for journeying into the past and future, and seeing the threads that connect who we are, were, will be. This information can be very helpful for a number of reasons and in a plethora of circumstances. Dreams, body symptoms, subconscious emotions, premonitions are, like the whispers, telling us something we need to know, relocate, release, re-member.

This wand has a story. I had the selenite, and it told me it wanted to become a proper wand. So I asked one of my dearest friends, a master artisan of wood, stone, ash splint basketry, and darn near anything, if he would make the handle. He asked what I wanted on it, and I think I said a dragon or something. He took the stone away, and when he returned with the finished wand, he'd carved the triskele instead. 

A triskele is an ancient Celtic symbol, sometimes seen in this pattern, sometimes in other whirling patterns of three. It symbolizes the unending interconnectedness of past, present, and future, through life, death, and rebirth. In the triskele, the three are also one, with no beginning and no end.

My friend said, "It just seemed to be the right thing." I don't think he knew the stone's properties and main purpose, but on another level he realized it perfectly. Selenite sees the past, present, and future, and can illuminate information on the soul's path and progress, aiding understanding in the present, and showing connections that assist the onward journey. Bingo!

The carving is not an overlay. Yew wood has an outer wood layer that is lighter. Mark Kelz, the carver extraordinaire, created the triskele by carving away the wood around it. The entire handle, from its delicate petal-like top to its perfectly turned round end, he carved by hand, and gave me as a gift. The Selenite Wand resides in its own basket with preserved Flicker wings as its attending spirit. It seldom calls out to be used for the work, but when it does, I know we're going to be flying through time.

Yesterday was one of those days. The work fit the whispers, the V's of geese, the magnetic pull to the stones and green valleys of my once and future lives. I think I've been doing this a long time.