I’m wondering, how do you manage to do that…or do you? I’d love to have some readers comment about the techniques you use so others could benefit from what you’ve learned.

For me, I talk to God a lot. I pour my heart out in prayer and then I meditate; I listen and wait to hear the Still Small Voice–the one that sounds a lot like me–speaking to me. I do this while sitting, walking, riding my bicycle, driving my car.

I also make myself trust that God’s hand exists in all that is happening. I tell myself over and over again that, even if I can’t see it, find it, understand it, a reason exists for the way life unfolds around me. I remind myself that one day I will know why things happened as they did.

And I remember that I am a co-creator with God here on Earth. My thoughts are creative, as are my actions. I can manifest things by by being, thinking, feeling, doing, giving, and receiving. This is kabbalistic conscious creation, or the law of attraction at it best. Using all of these steps, I can tune in to God and tap into the Divine flow. That helps me understand and have faith in all that happens in my life and in the world–both good and bad.

How about you? How do you regain lost faith or simply continue to have faith each day?

Two days later I went to a class about mediumship. The woman teaching the class, a doctor in metaphysics, looked at me and suddenly stopped teaching. She said, “Do you realize how many guides you have around you? There’s a crowd!” It seemed, in particular there was a well-dressed man related in some way to my father standing nearby and taking quite good care of me.

Do you believe in guides? Do you believe, like the American Indian and the African religions and spiritual traditions, that our ancestors remain nearby after they pass on to assist us–especially if we call upon them to do so? Do you believe we have angelic and animal guides?

In Judaism, we can look in the Torah. There unnamed “people” are said to be angels; Jacob wrestles with an angel.

I know we have more than five senses. I know the prophets of old experienced six senses and the ability to receive messages from beyond their conscious mind–possibly from guides (or God).

The medium who taught that class told me my guides won’t let me move backwards anymore…only forward. I can feel their gentle prodding; I feel so driven and inspired to move forward with my life.

In Judaism we talk about hearing the Still Small Voice. We call this God’s voice. That’ s the voice we truly want to hear, but when we ask a question–via Tarot cards or to our guides or to our ancestors or to God–and we hear an answer (a whisper, a shout, a voice that sounds like our own but that possibly calls us by name…), do we know who’s talking to us? Could it be our guides? Could it be God? Maybe we need to hear our guides before we can hear God.

I know we must first want to hear…believe we can hear. (We have to believe there is someone to hear…)  Then if we listen, someone will, indeed, talk to us.

Does the One to whom you soul always is connected have to yell loudly enough so you hear the calling? Does the end of life have to beckon for you to rush off headlong to realize your God-given potential and ensure that you don’t die with your song still within you?

Or will you heed the words of the Still Small Voice whispering in your ear? Will you hurry off to pursue the strange stirring that makes you want to do something new or take on a project you’ve always dreamt of completing? Will you take notice of the synchronistic events that make a path for you to follow to your destiny? Will you be conscious of the emotions that provide clues to what makes your heart and soul sing? Will you see God’s hand reaching out to you to show you what direction to take in order to fulfill your soul’s purpose–and will you reach out and take hold of that hand?

Or, does something cataclysmic have to happen before you decide to fulfill your soul’s purpose? Do you have to get into a terrible car accident, come down with a fatal or debilitating illness, suffer a loss, or in some other way have your life turned upside down or inside out?

You can decide to fulfill your soul’s purpose by simply deciding to do so right now–right in this moment–and then taking action to do so.  Will you make that choice?

Today, get really quiet. Listen hard. See if you can’t hear the Still Small Voice talking to you. Look around, see if your prayers haven’t actually been answered–just in ways you didn’t imagine.

Every once in a while I’m reminded of the fact that, indeed, God does answer our prayers. Indeed, miracles happen. I read a news story today about “rain men” in Israel who prayed for rain and the rains came. In fact, the sky opened and it poured. It rained so hard that flash floods even killed two people.

Who were these amazing rain men? Orthodox Jews and members of Hamas. Jews and militant Islamic fundamentalists who oppose peace with Israel. Both groups just happened to decide to pray for rain on the same day, and guess what? It seems God heard their prayers.  (If you want to read more about this, click here.)

Could it be that it took the miracle of these two opposing groups praying on the same day for the same thing for their prayers to be heard? Possibly. However, I believe our prayers are heard more often than we know or believe or perceive.

There are ways, however, to make our prayers heard. If we know how, we can, like these rain men, pray for rain and have the rains come.

I think I heard the methodology for affective prayer explained best by Greg Braden, author of Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer. He tells a story about accompanying a Native American friend to “pray rain.” They walked quite a distance to a sacred place where the “earth’s skin was thin,” a place used by many generations for prayer and ritual. The friend took off his shoes and stepped into the circle. He acknowledged the four directions and his ancestors and then stood for a few moments in silence. Then he stepped out of the circle, turned to Greg and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

Greg, who was waiting for something more elaborate to happen, replied, “I thought we were going to pray for rain.”

“No,” replied his friend, “We were going to pray rain, and I did that.”

“What’s the difference?” asked Greg.

“If you pray for rain, you affirm the lack of what you want and you, therefore, create more lack of what you want – in this case, rain. When you pray rain, you affirm the existence of rain right now, right here, in this moment. You offer gratitude for what you already have or expect to have,” he explained.

“And how did you pray rain?” asked Greg.

The man replied, “I imagined what it feels like to have the mud that forms in the streets of my village after a big rain squishing up through my bare toes. I remembered the smell of the adobe houses when the rain is falling on them. And I recalled the feeling of running through a field of waist high corn stalks growing tall and lush from the abundant spring rains. That’s how I prayed rain.”

So, instead of complaining that your prayers fall on deaf ears, change how you pray. Stop asking for what you want and need from God, and start praying to God with gratitude for prayers answered. Also, feel grateful for the fact that God knows what you need and will answer you prayers in ways beyond your wildest dreams. So, don’t expect the answers to your prayers, or the fulfillment of your prayers to look exactly as you expect.

Many people, myself included, believe their bodies give them messages. In other words, the aches, pains, injuries, and illnesses they get offer information on what is going on with their thoughts or provide messages from their souls. Some call it the mind/body connection. It also can be seen as the body/soul connection.

If this is true, what is my body or my soul telling me? Why have I again torn my ACL on my left knee?

Knees, and joints in general, supposedly represent our ability to move forward with ease. The left side of our body is considered the feminine side. Ligaments are connectors.

Thus, I must ask myself if I have an issue moving forward with some aspect of my life…possibly something related to my more feminine nature. And I must ask myself in what way I am not connected or if my connection is “broken.” Well…

I see my writing as tapping into my feminine nature. I connect with my spirit, my soul, when I write, and I create — I bring something new into the world. All of these things are feminine in nature. Also, the subjects about which I write tend to be spiritual and intended to help and support others, which makes them feminine in nature. However, I haven’t been writing my books. I write just about anything but my books.

I’ve been reticent to move forward with my writing career, although I have said that’s what I want to do. I have fears…I have insecurities…So, I hold back. I don’t do what I need to do. I don’t follow through.

Interestingly, just before I twisted my ankle I sent out six letters to literary agents and about 12 to publishers. I was pursuing my dream of becoming a published author despite my fears. In fact, I was hoping to meet with a few of the agents and publishers while I was in New York City. The idea of doing so also made me nervous, I must admit.

I also write a lot about spirituality, but I have had little time in the last year or so to connect with Spirit, with God. I don’t have time to meditate, to pray, to be in spiritual community, or to listen to my intuition or to my soul’s or God’s “Still small Voice.” I’m not connected…or only a bit.

The day I twisted my ankle, I was filled with anger. Anger is far from a feminine emotion. Plus, it keeps us stuck, rather than allowing us to move forward. It also prevents us from connecting with spirit, from hearing Spirit speaking to us. I ran out of the New York apartment angry, slipped on the wet apartment building steps and twisted my knee (and ankle). I then had to wear a brace for six weeks to support my knee — to support myself in moving forward.

Do you have aches and pains? Have you recently hurt yourself? You might want to ask yourself what your body is trying to tell you. If you need help, try simply closing your eyes and asking your inner guidance, your soul, for a message–for information.Or get really quiet and ask God to speak to you. Listen for the Still Small Voice whispering in your mind.  Or pick up a copy of Louis Hay’s book, Heal Your Body; much of the information you need can be found within its pages.

And then heed the messages. I will be, too. I’ve already started. I contacted one of the literary agents who voiced an interested in representing me and agreed to sign a contract. I’m putting together a package for a publisher in New York that I met with while there who wanted to see several of my book projects. I’m taking time a few times a week to pray — to talk to God — and to listen to what God has to say to me. I’m also trying to let go of my anger (when I feel it) quickly.

None of this will heal my torn ACL. I’ll likely need surgery, but maybe I can prevent myself from having another knee injury in the future.

When everyone in the house has gone to bed, a peace fall over the house. Even though I’m home alone during the day, the birds and squirrels keep me company with their constant chatter. At night, they, too are silent, except for an occasional horned owl. Since I’m on the West Coast, my email box also stops filling with new mail in the early morning, because the rest of the people around the United States have long ago gone to bed as well. The only people still awake seem to be on FaceBook and Twitter. 

Sometimes, if I want some company…or I just want to procrastinate…I go to Twitter, where I find a few cyber friends with whom to interact. In the darkness of my office, with just the light over my desk, I send out little messages across time and space. It’s an odd connection, but it makes me smile more often than not.

And then I go back to my writing…maybe a blog post or a piece for my San Jose Jewish Examiner.com column. Sometimes it’s an article for a dance magazine or a trade journal. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, it’s a piece on something close to my heart. Or possibly I’m just knocking out a project that I need to complete.

In the quiet of the early morning, I can finally focus. The house is quiet. The world is quiet. My mind is quiet. Well, the last may not be quiet true. My mind is filled with words, but I can finally hear them.

If I take a few minutes just to sit quietly, I can hear other things: my breath, the cat climbing onto the clean clothes in the living room (where she isn’t allowed to sleep), the fountain trickling behind me, the hum of the printer, the Still Small Voice. Ah…I remember that voice. 

That voice tells me to put aside the other projects and write from my heart. It tells me to finish my unfinished projects. It tells me to persevere. It tells me I’m on the right track. It tells me to slow down and listen.

And then it tells me to go to sleep. The rest can wait until morning…well, until I wake up.  The problem comes when I do slide into bed beside my sleeping (and snoring) husband, and I cannot sleep. My thoughts, my words, have become too loud. In the quiet of the morning, they have become amplified, and it takes a long time for me to find a way to turn down the volume and sleep. If only I could find a program that would type all those words into my computer for me as I lay there in bed and as I slept. Oh, the writing I could accomplish.

But would it record the Still Small Voice as well? Or can we only hear that when we are awake, when we are conscious? I think, somehow, the sound of that voice might not be picked up by even the best microphone.

Now, again, it whispers to me…

After three days of socializing with fellow writers and learning from experts in the world of publishing, I left the conference, which was held at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill in San Francisco. A friend of mine had told me to stop at Grace Cathedral, which sits at the center of Nob Hill, and walk its labyrinth. Since I had never done so, I thought it a fitting ritualistic ending to my conference experience. Plus, the weather was beautiful and it was a perfect day for this activity. (On rainy days, you can walk the labyrinth inside the cathedral instead of the one outside.)

As I entered the labyrinth, I tried to quiet my mind, which was still filled with the excitement of meeting with agents, learning how to promote myself as a writer and stories of successful writers. I walked slowly, focusing on my footsteps. I must have looked a bit strange, since I was carrying a large vase of flowers, which I had “purchased” from the dining room with a donation towards the conference student scholarship fund. I imagined myself as a priestess carrying her offering towards the center of the labyrinth. As I progressed little by little, moving steadily toward the center, then doubling back and moving away, then meandering along the outskirts of the maze, then back again towards the center in a snake-like fashion, it dawned on me that the labyrinth provided a perfect metaphor for the publishing business. To many writers — myslef included, it seems that success is hidden somewhere (at the center) but the path to the goal of a published book sometimes take strange twists and turns and seems to lead us away from our goal. Sometimes we seem so close; in fact, we can see the center (a published book) as we walk just along the goal’s edge, but then wefind ourselves led far away again to the edges of the labyrinth. And sometimes we are too far away to get a good look at the center. Plus, it seems to take perseverance and patience and determination – traits necessary to succeed in publishing — to make your way ’round and ’round the labyrinth to the center point.

I did make it to the center of the Grace Cathedral labyrinth. There, I paused. I waited. (In the center, you are supposed to get a message or the answer to a question posed at the start of your walk.) I hadn’t posed a question; I’d asked too many during the last three days. In my head, the Still Small Voice said, “There’s nothing to do once you go in but to go back out.”

“Ah…just like writing,” I thought. You have to go inward to discover what you will write, to formulate your thoughts and assumptions, to find the inspiration for your ideas and the insights for your unique angle. And then, you must look and move outward. You have to begin writing and do whatever it takes to put that writing into the world for others to read.

I began walking again, this time away from the center of the labyrinth and back towards the entrance – now the exit. I retraced my steps, something I’ve done more than once during many a writing process. I made myself look up, not at my feet. I had to see where I was going, as any writer must. I had to look ahead. I walked now with anticipation and eagerness, like a writer in the flow, knowing what I want to say, how to say it and how to get from the beginning of the article, chapter or book to the end.

Yet, sometimes the writing process takes us in a different direction than we plan…just like the labyrinth. We think we are almost done, and then we turn a corner and head in another direction. We think we are close to the end, but we find ourselves as far away from the exit (the last words of the writing project) as we can possibly get. So we keep on writing, editing, revising, rewriting, until we weave our way out of our writing and into the world of published books. It seems the labyrinth represents a perfect metaphor for writing as well.

I left a carnation in the middle of the labyrinth…my offering to the publishing god or goddess or maybe to my higher self (the Still Small Voice), who always leads me in the right direction or to my inner priestess, who can not only invoke the Divine into a sacred space – like the center of the labyrinth – but also help me manifest my heart’s desire – a published book (or books).

When you are finding it difficult to write, or need an answer to a problem, take a trip to your nearest labyrinth. Pose your question or request before you begin. When you reach the center, see if an answer comes to you or an inspiration for your project. If not, keep walking and the answer will meet you on your way out. For more information on labyrinths, check out my article on the subject: http://www.consciouschoice.com/2002/cc1501/localgardens1501.html.

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