• I Need a Sign

    • May 16, 2023 9:00 pm
    Dearest Readers,

    Last week, a client of mine said, “I need a sign!” They were feeling stuck in a pattern and looking for a way out.

    Being a person who looks for signs and spiritual messages when things are tough, I could relate. I’m also someone who’s received signs and spiritual messages without looking and I wrote about this in the last Healing Journey Letter.

    At the very beginning of my own healing journey, it was suggested that I “look for the coincidences” as evidence that a Higher Power was at work in my life. Nearly 25 years later, I’m still taking this suggestion.

    One of my most faithful sign-bringers is Woodpecker and I’ve written several times about how this comical bird’s coincidental materialization reassures me that I Am Known.

    On a retreat I was leading last month, I shared with the group that I’d had yet another woodpecker encounter  the week before and one of the women spoke up, pointing to the window excitedly and proclaiming, “There was a woodpecker right out there this morning!”

    Since then, I have literally been bombarded by woodpeckers. (Okay, not literally.)

    For many mornings in the last few weeks, I’ve been waking up to the bird’s percussive hammering. I leave the house and hear the rat-a-tat-tat echoing in the neighbourhood. I arrive home and the rhythmic patter is again sounding somewhere in the nearby trees. On several occasions, the bird has been close enough to see, making its way around a nearby trunk or flying from one tree to another in our yard.

    A few days ago, not one but two woodpeckers were pecking at the trees right outside the kitchen window. I felt like my “sign” had become a Times Square billboard.

    I watched in awe as the pair jabbed at rotten bark and darker crevices. I marveled at the precision of their work and the singular markings on their feathers.

    My heart felt happy and my day got better.

    *

    After I wrote the above sentence yesterday, I saved the Letter and went to work.

    On the way home from work, I stopped and got gas.

    Later, after an evening walk, I noticed the fuel door was still open and the gas cap was missing. Ooops! I had forgotten to close the fuel door and I’d driven away with the cap on top of the car.

    I got in the car and drove slowly back to the gas station, looking for the gas cap on the road.

    I spotted it, pulled over, got out, picked it up.

    A man, mowing his lawn, saw me and shrugged, puzzled by my action.

    “It’s my gas cap!” I shouted above the mower.

    He couldn’t hear, turned the mower off and walked over. I repeated what I’d said.

    “That’s funny. The same thing happened to my wife this afternoon.”

    “What?!”

    “Yeah. She left the fuel door open, gas cap dangling. Some guy flashed his lights to indicate for her to stop.”

    “That just happened to your wife today?” I asked.

    “Yup.”

    Okay, seriously. What are the chances that my gas cap falls off the car in front of the house of a guy who just happens to be outside when I come by and whose wife had the exact same thing happen to her on that day?

    In a world that sometimes seems to have gone completely mad, when the cauldron of human hatred and fear seems ever closer to boiling over, I look for the coincidences to land me back in the joyful notion that We Are Known.

    From the fires of love,

    Celia

    One For All

    • May 6, 2010 9:16 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Have you ever noticed that the word “community” ends in the word “unity”? You probably have because it’s rather obvious but I don’t think I actually became aware of it myself until last year. I was looking to name an Inspiring Workshop for an NGO and suddenly realized that one was embedded in the other.

    Pun intended. The word “unity”, in fact, comes from the Latin unus, meaning “one”. I have a friend who used to say, “We’re all One,” all the time. Whenever a coincidence happened or when something arrived full circle and we all went, “Wow,” she would pipe in with, “We’re all One.” Well, we are!

    Yesterday I was speaking with someone who said she’d been looking for a community in which to feel “a part of” for years. Last week I heard a woman say she never felt like she fit in anywhere. The experience of feeling “apart from” is more common than we think.

    My whole life I felt like an alien. I was sure I’d been dropped on the wrong planet. You guys got it somehow and I didn’t. Or, the opposite: I got it and none of you did. I felt isolated, different, separate.

    Even though the mind will tell us that the cure for this kind of profound loneliness is isolation, we must not buy in. The cure is Community. The cure is Oneness with our fellows.

    How to find the fellows with whom we can truly connect? First, we have to know who we are. How can I join a community of like-minded people if I don’t know my Self? Self-discovery is a vital part of making that community connection.

    For instance, I used to try to connect with the party crowd. It’s who I thought I was. Bar-hopping, shot slamming, wild and crazy guys and gals. But aside from some drug-induced conversations that felt really deep in the moment I mostly just felt more alone than ever.

    Time for a new crowd! I had to come to terms with the Truth: This is not who I am.

    So who am I really? I am a person who has a desire to live a clean life, a spiritual life, a life of service and connection and Love. I am a person who believes in Higher Guidance. Once I connected with my true Self I could begin to connect with others like me.

    Finding our fellows is not necessarily an easy task. It takes time and energy and a large dose of willingness. But those whom we seek are out there. Whenever I lead Cultivate Your Courage there is inevitably someone in the group who will say, “I can’t believe I’m in a room full of people who live with fear the way I do.”

    Believe it. We’re out here. Come and find us.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: The cure for my loneliness is Community. I will continue on the path of Self-discovery so that I may begin to seek out like-minded people and find my place among them.

    Why Don’t You Try Acting, Dear Boy?

    • May 5, 2010 1:43 pm

    Dearest Readers,

    Have you ever experienced the magic of theatre? Seen a sheet transformed into a baby or an ocean, watched an inanimate object come to life with an actor’s deft touch? There’s nothing like it. This magic can transport us to other worlds. It can also serve as a wonderful reminder to keep it simple.

    Next week, I’ll be performing in Nakai Theatre’s Homegrown Festival with a new show I’m developing called GITA: God in the Army. The piece is still very new and I’m going to present an excerpt, about 10 minutes.

    For the set, I was planning on hanging a couple of chains from the ceiling with hooks on each end. Upon the hooks I would lay a bar to create a kind of trapeze. The trapeze would have a number of functions the primary one being a bar for doing chin-ups (or for attempting to do chin-ups).

    This idea seemed simple enough. But it has been causing me some consternation. Gotta do this, gotta do that, gotta buy that, measure that, hang that, figure that out etc.

    In rehearsal last night I was using the bar as a prop and because I don’t have chains hanging from my own ceiling I held the bar above my head and acted as if I was pulling myself up in chin-up-style-fashion. It suddenly occurred to me that this maneuver was just as effective as having the bar actually secured by the chains.

    One of the greatest things I’ve learned from coaching is that we are allowed to make things easier for ourselves. I come from a “make-it-harder” kind of family and thinking I need to take the more difficult path is an Old BS (belief system) that I’ve been letting go of for many years.

    The new belief is about Being Gentle on myself. How can this be easier on me? What would take the pressure off? What can I do to simplify the situation so that I can relax?

    So, dear friends, the chains are gone (good metaphor) and I’m gonna act the chin-up instead. Olivier would be proud.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: When I am in a situation that feels overwhelming I will ask myself what I can do to keep it simple, make things easier and let go of pressure. I will allow the Gentle Road to be my Path.

    Do the Do

    • May 4, 2010 10:28 am

    Dearest Readers,

    As I negotiate the murky waters of grief made even more so by the distance between me and the dearly departed I find myself searching for things to help me connect to the loss. Is there a song on the iPod that will bring the tears? A poem? A movie?

    One of the most challenging things to do (at the best of times) is to stay present. I’ve got a couple of months of travel coming up at the beginning of June and it’s incredibly tempting to future-trip my way to departing, traveling and returning back home in fantastical avoidance of the Here and Now.

    “Life is a trip,” is what I’ve been saying lately in reference to all that can happen in a day or a week. I honestly don’t know how people do it, and by that I mean live, without a spiritual life. What sustains me, what keeps me going and fills me with hope and excitement and the willingness to keep moving forward is faith.

    Faith in the Power that makes the grass grow, the sun shine and the wind blow. Faith in the Abiding Presence of this Power in the minutiae of our daily lives. Faith in Love, that inexplicable Energy that springs forth majestically in even the darkest of situations.

    For me, this faith is not blind. It’s not hoping. It’s not wishing. It’s practical and it takes work. It’s practical because it makes me want to live fully and deeply, which is a heck of a lot better than wanting to die and I’ve been there done that. And it takes work because it requires prayer, meditation, demonstration and practice to bear fruit.

    This blog, as I’ve mentioned before, is part of this faithful work. When I woke up this morning I was heavy with the burden of facing another day. Not wishing to stay in that place and being aware, at least on some level, of the incredible abundance in my life (making gratitude practically mandatory), I set about doing the things I needed to do to shift my thinking.

    As I head toward completion of this post I have a lighter spirit, my energy is beginning to flow and I am feeling much more like do-ing the tasks at hand while be-ing in the present to do them.

    The shift began with willingness on my part. “Despite my fear I am willing to move forward.” From there I sought help from Higher Guidance. “Help me, take this day, show me. I’m small, I’m weak, I can’t do it alone.” Slowly but surely my energy has been restored, returning little by little as I do the next thing, take the next step, walk through the fear.

    The rain falls steadily but I can see the Sun behind the clouds.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Life’s a trip. An ever-unfolding adventure. When we forget this idea and it instead feels like a slog we can ask the Higher Power Back of All Things to support us and hold us up. It will carry us forward with steadfast Love.

    Working Out the Bugs

    • May 3, 2010 9:14 am

    Dearest Readers,

    When I was a child growing up in the Yukon the wilderness was my backyard. Even though our house was in a proper neighbourhood there was nothing behind it but bush and mountains. My sisters and I had a tree fort and when that got boring we’d venture further afield by climbing the clay cliffs, exploring the forests and running along the hidden backcountry trails.

    One of the telltale signs of spring in the Yukon is the crocus flower. With a hairy stem, purple petals and a yellow centre, this sturdy little soldier grows in clumps, pushing up from the ground in the most surprising places. “Haven’t seen any crocuses yet,” is an oft repeated remark by Yukoners around the end of April.

    I have a vivid memory from my childhood of sitting on the slope of the clay cliffs behind our house on a spring day surrounded by an explosion of purple blooms. I remember picking one and examining it closely, admiring its fragile beauty. Upon closer inspection, however, I discovered the flower was crawling with teeny, tiny black bugs. Shocked and repulsed I threw it away as though it had stung me.

    On a walk yesterday I saw the first crocuses of spring. A set of twins or triplets here, a clump of fifteen there, their lovely pale mauve and yellow faces shyly opening to the sun. I suddenly remembered the episode I just described and thought how apt a metaphor the story is for the duality of nature.

    In everything there is beauty and there is ugliness.

    Not that bugs are ugly for all you entomologists out there but humour me, will ya? The Duality of Nature: there is light and there is darkness, there is life and there is death.

    As some of you know I am grieving the loss of my friend Leanne Coppen and so, admittedly, I’ve got death on the brain. The Big Questions are swirling around in my head. The only answer that brings me any peace is this one: The Great Mystery.

    There are black bugs in the flowers. There is death in vibrant life. We must live fully every day knowing each side of the equation has its place in the Universe.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I will embrace the duality of Life to the best of my ability. I will accept that being fully human means allowing both darkness and Light to enrich my experience.

    Receiving and Giving Back

    • May 1, 2010 8:54 am

    Dearest Readers,

    This will be a short post today as I’ve committed to helping with a specific chore and time is running out with all I have to do this morning.

    The chore is, in fact, a service. My upstairs neighbours have been kind enough to let me use their second vehicle for errands that require four wheels. In order to give back I have committed to helping them clean it so they can now sell it.

    This service is really the least I can do. They wouldn’t take my money and I believe in paying back. Sometimes we are given gifts and we need to accept them as such. But other times we are obligated to return the gift through selfless service. This is how we maintain spiritual balance.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I will make good on any non-monetary debts I owe through service. I will give back by taking action in the appropriate way.

    Web of Life

    • April 30, 2010 9:17 am

    Dearest Readers,

    It means so much to me that this blog is being read and that it is inspiring people. The more I embrace the world of social media the more I feel that Great Connection between us all.

    It’s amazing what the Internet has done to change our relationship to one another. As disconnected, disparate and distanced human beings all alone on our little islands we are now sharing instantly our common bond via the Web.

    Each morning, before I post, I check out the blogs that are on my Reader’s List. Each morning I check Leanne Coppen’s blog Living with Breast Cancer. In yesterday’s Inspiring Works post I told you that Leanne died. But today I still went to check her blog. I couldn’t not. It’s a ritual I’m not ready to let go of just yet.

    What I found there amazes me. Comment after comment from Leanne’s readers expressing sympathy, condolences, grief, joy, rage, gratitude and love. How many of us were brought together in this virtual community of compassion? Has there ever been anything in history that has connected people so immediately and with such depth as the World Wide Web?

    Back in the late ’90s there was a great pop song and music video by Jamiroquai called Virtual Insanity. It’s a very catchy tune and really fun to dance to. The video was super innovative at the time. The lyrics are all about the total craziness that technology generates and how much of what we’ve invented is “not Nature’s Way.”

    But for all the insanity that new technology breeds it also creates this unbelievable unity among us. We are truly a global community today because of blogs, Facebook, Twitter and the like. We may be taking it too far sometimes (I just read a great piece in The New Yorker about a guy who walks down the aisle, kisses his bride and later goes down on her in the honeymoon suite Tweeting all the while) we are also benefiting from its broad reach.

    A couple of readers sent me messages yesterday thanking me for this blog, for sharing my life, letting me know my words “echo far and wide”. This means more to me than I can say. Not because I’m being read by lots of people, though that does make me happy, but because I am a part of this marvelous web of strangers coming together as friends.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Despite the grief we feel, the losses we must bear, the seeming unfairness of certain circumstances, there is a Great Connection of which we are all a part. I can feel that Connection both here, in this virtual world, and here, in the centre of my heart.

    Good-bye But Not Gone

    • April 29, 2010 9:41 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Yesterday I received a message announcing that my friend, Leanne Coppen, has died. She was living with cancer and fighting it with every cell in her body. Her blog, Living with Breast Cancer, often stood in for the Inspiring Message of the Day on this blog. She was full of hope and irreverent humour and inspired many, many people with her words.

    Leanne and I went to high school together. At 16, Leanne could best be described as a hippie love chick. She had long hair, wore baggy sweaters and long pendants and her wrists and fingers were covered in bracelets and rings. She liked to smoke dope and talk about peace and love and so did I. We were good friends.

    Leanne and I had many conversations about what we perceived as the f’d up state of the world and how Peace and Love were the only solutions possible. Once, we got into a deep discussion about currency. Why were there different currencies, we wondered? It’s One Planet, One People. There should be One Global Currency, we decided. “A dollar is a dollar,” we reasoned.

    This became a mantra for all that we believed: A dollar is a dollar!

    Leanne and I got our first tattoo together. She got a Sun on her lower abdomen and I just couldn’t decide what to get. We sat in the tattoo parlour poring over pictures. She asked me questions, trying to help me figure out what I was looking for. I saw one of her pendants, hanging on a long chain from her neck. It was a Peace Dove. “That’s it,” I said. “This?” she asked, holding it up. We then held each others’ hands through the pain of the tattoo needle.

    Today, that Peace Dove, faded now, 22 years old, feels like Leanne on my shoulder.

    One other memory stands out among many. I arrived at a party where Leanne was already waiting with a male friend of hers I had not met before. Upon my arrival, he looked at Leanne and said, “Yup.” Later, when he was out of the room she said, “Before you got here I was telling him about you. He asked if you were pretty or beautiful. I said, “Beautiful.” That’s what his ‘yup’ was in response to.”

    Leanne, who was stunningly gorgeous and whose beauty both made me jealous and inspired me, thought I was beautiful! This was a defining moment in the Celia McBride self-esteem books, lemme tellya.

    Once, my beloved friend Eden, who was and still is Leanne’s best friend, said, in the typical stoner language of the day (well, we were stoned a lot of the time!), “Where did Celia man go?” Forever after I was Celia Mango to Leanne and Eden.

    Last fall, Leanne and I re-connected. We had stayed in touch over the years and had seen each other probably every five years or so and it had been about that since the last time we’d got together. I emailed her to see if we could have a visit because I would be in Toronto. She emailed me back. “Celia Mango! How completely fantastic to hear from you!”

    How I cherish those words now.

    Leanne, you still feel really present. I’ve been talking with you since yesterday. Remembering, sharing, celebrating your life. Leanne, dearest, you introduced me to Goethe and you wrote as deeply as he did. Your words will be remembered, monuments will be erected in your name. Your legacy has only just begun. Believe it.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: O Death. You take the body but not the Life. Sadness, grief, loss. All real, all necessary. But beyond those feelings is the Everlasting Spirit, the Indweller of all Beings, the Great Reality: Peace and Love. Therein lies our comfort.

    Are You Okay?

    • April 28, 2010 9:06 am

    Dearest Readers,

    Be careful what you pray for. We’ve all heard this expression. Pray for wisdom you get your butt kicked. Uh-huh. Pray for compassion. Oh boy.

    Compassion is not something I’m completely lacking but in certain areas and with certain kinds of people I am less tolerant than I would like to be. The Judge Judy aspect of my personality isn’t something I’m proud of but she’s there. The good news is that I’m willing to work with her. I’m willing to change.

    Lately, I have been asking Higher Guidance to teach me how to respond with compassion and to remove my lack of tolerance. Just when you think no one is listening, nothing is happening, no traceable movement is taking place, the ground shifts and splits open, revealing the Path.

    I’ve been asking for my judgmental thinking to be removed. What happens? I get a pain in the neck. What does the pain in the neck do? It slows me down. It’s a pain in the neck! It forces me to listen. It sends me right to the Source.

    What do I “hear”? The pain in the neck is inflexibility. It’s judgment.

    So this morning, I go to the weekly morning meeting of Toastmasters. I’m scheduled to give a speech. I walk in. It’s crowded. There’s a seat next to a man I don’t know. When I ask him if I may squeeze in beside him I get a smart aleck remark. My back goes up.

    I sit down, turning away from him. I realize he’s new so I force myself to introduce myself. He says, looking into my eyes, “Are you okay?” My back goes up even higher. I say, “Yes, are you?” His eyes are bloodshot. I smell liquor on his breath. I turn away.

    My head starts working overtime, “Who is this clown? Drunk in the morning. Arsehole. Arrogant. Am I okay? I’m okay, what about him? Judge, judge, judge.” I hear him say, “You may have just BS’ed me but that’s okay.”

    My anger starts to boil. Then… wait a minute. What is going on here? I’m about to give a motivational speech. I’m about to inspire people, shine my Light. How can I do that when Judge Judy has taken over my body?

    Something shifts. Who am I to judge this man? I am a clown. I’ve been drunk in the morning. I’ve been an arsehole. I am arrogant. I’m NOT okay. I’ve got a friggin’ kink in my neck! This man, drunk or not, saw through me.

    I soften. This is the Path. This is Higher Guidance giving me an opportunity to practice compassion. I asked for it. I got it.

    So I started again. I welcomed this man to our meeting. I smiled at him. When I gave my speech I included him. I changed my feelings toward him.

    Near the end of the meeting he touched my shoulder. “May I leave for a few minutes?” “Of course,” I told him. Moments later, I saw him walking by the glass door that leads out into the hallway. He was using support canes. He’s handicapped.

    My God. Compassion? What about humility? This man was my greatest teacher, the embodiment of Higher Guidance, the answer to my prayer.

    After he returned and the meeting was over I shook his hand and encouraged him to come back. “I live 110 miles away,” he said. Of course he does. In which direction? Up, perhaps?

    I told him it was good to see him at our meeting. “Thank you,” he said, “And I hope you’re okay.”

    I am now.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: When we are willing to be changed the Benevolent Life Force Energy of Universe will respond in kind. We will be given what we need in the most gentle and loving Way. Higher Guidance is ever-present.

    Brain Waves

    • April 27, 2010 7:47 am

    Dearest Readers,

    After taking a listening day yesterday I am feeling very calm and quite grounded. Taking the time to connect with the Higher Self has paid off.

    One of the things I “heard” while I was sitting quietly seeking Guidance was “do your homework”. Last week I had been given a little assignment by the woman who is my beloved Spiritual Director and I had yet to complete the task.

    We had been talking about two conflicting sides of myself and she had suggested I put pen to paper and write the conversation between them using my right hand to represent one side and my left hand the other. Am I ambidextrous? No. I am right-handed. Writing with my left hand is like trying to walk with one leg. But I have done this exercise before and the results have been fascinating and life-altering each time.

    The right hand is governed by the left brain. The left brain is logical and the right side of body is “male”. The left hand is governed by the right brain. The right brain is intuitive and the left side of the body is “female”.

    At one point in my walk on the healing path I was doing some work around accepting my male energy, embracing my masculine self. I wrote the conversation between male and female, left brain and right brain, alternating between using my right hand and left hand.

    After some back and forth banter, my Masculine Self wrote, “But you hold me in contempt,” after my Feminine Self had written, “I love you more than anything. I worship you.”

    That was a revelation! Was it possible that I could revere the Male while still holding men in contempt? Certainly it was. This discovery was a turning point for me and I began to actively practice loving and accepting my own maleness. Not long after this I chopped off all my hair.

    So yesterday’s conversation between Logic and Intuition also turned up some eye-opening instructions. I won’t share them here as I’m still processing exactly what they mean and I’m not on the other side just yet. Needless to say, this is an exercise that I highly recommend to anyone who is seeking Guidance and feels stuck.

    The left-brain/right-brain experience is most beautifully described by Jill Bolte Taylor, who had a stroke and was forced to experience Right Brain Living when the left side of her body shut down. If you haven’t watched her TED talk, I leave it with you now. Set aside 20 minutes and watch this. It’s phenomenal and seriously inspiring.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight.