Awakening to the Mystical: 150 days of Inspired Transformation

A couple weeks ago, I woke up with the most excruciating pain in my upper back between my shoulder blade and my spine.  It literally felt like someone was driving a knife through my back.  And the worst part of it is that the pain radiates down my arm into my elbow making it impossible to move without pain.  I now have one sleeping position, (flat on my back), and it's not the way that I normally sleep--not comfortably anyway.  It's the only thing that relieves the pain, though.   I did see a chiropractor who said he felt like it was a pinched nerve which makes sense, but I know too much to accept that simple explanation.   About 10 years ago, I woke up with hip pain that was so bad that I ended up dragging myself and my leg out of my Bikram Yoga class.  I have only left the room twice in my yoga practice, but the pain was so bad I had to leave.  The gift of that experience was that it introduced me to the work of Dr. John Sarno and his ...

Last week, I was finishing up my morning visualization walk when I saw a man that had helped me tremendously during the time when I was homeless.  I was so surprised to see him just a couple doors down from where I live.  He was toting two grocery baskets filled to the brim with blankets and what looked like odds and ends, and he was walking down the middle of a very busy street with cars passing on both sides of him.   I wanted to stop and say hello and "thank you--your kindness is remembered by me always," but he looked like he was delusional and maybe dangerous.  It looked from a distance that he might possibly be in some sort of psychosis so I decided that I would just pray for him and his well-being and go on with my day as much as I had wanted to stop and connect with him.  I shared the story with a couple of friends and asked if they would pray for him.  He has a very special place in my heart.   When I met Chad, the man that helped me...

  Yesterday, while I was making my bed in the morning, I saw a crystal clear vision of a push broom.  It looked almost exactly like the one pictured above, and just like with the mystical experiences that I have had with many of the words or phrases that I hear, I decided to trust that more would be revealed.   Around 9 o'clock last night, I decided to pick up where I left off with the movie I was watching a couple nights ago: the Legend of Bagger Vance.  Even though I've seen it close to 20 times, it's one of the titles on the book list, and I am still finding it to be as profound as ever.  While I was watching, there was a scene that came forward with a man pushing a broom that looked exactly like the one from my vision.  It then suddenly made perfect sense.  The vision was actually a reference to one of my favorite quotes from the movie, which is set in the age of the Great Depression.  The little boy in the movie, who is actually the narr...

It was Day 10 of the project, June 14, 2023, and I was getting ready to work out in the gym.  While I was sitting on one of the benches lacing my shoe and getting ready to hop on the treadmill, out of nowhere came a song from the 80's by Kate Bush.  The experience of "hearing" this song was not like you hear other things externally.  It was as if the music and the words started playing inside my consciousness like thoughts would, and it so clearly came out of nowhere that I knew it had to be a message.  I didn't even know it was by Kate Bush; I only found that out by searching the words of the lyrics that I could make out while I was trying to listen to it.  A Course In Miracles refers to this kind of experience as the work of the Holy Spirit and defines a miracle as a "shift in perception".   By that definition, it certainly was a miracle as the experience yielded a complete shift in perception for me.     After I had listened to the en...

It's been almost two months now, and the project is going far better than I had ever imagined it could—And that's an understatement.  The book list continues to unfold, and at this point, it now contains 100 titles.  It amazes me still every time a new title is given to me in the silence.   This week, I was wrapping up some writing when I heard very distinctly, " The Language of Letting Go" .  It was a daily meditative reader that I used to read close to 10 years ago now, and as I went to write down the title I heard, "Melody Beattie".  Of course, when I checked who the author was because I couldn't actually remember, it was Melody Beattie.   It's extraordinary, really.  I know I have said that repeatedly, but sometimes, I just have to pinch myself.  I mean, if you really break it down, what happened is I sent out an SOS signal to God, and he answered--quite explicitly.  The truth is that I am walking through perhaps the most miracu...