This past weekend the world witnessed a chapter reflecting a most extreme contrast.  We celebrated the Royal Wedding on Friday, and then heard on Sunday night that Osama Bin Laden had been located and killed.  It is hard to wrap our heads (let alone our hearts) around two such discrepant successive intense events of global significance.  This is what is meant by the term “contrast,” and this is the challenge of precisely this time in human history — the envelope called The Shift.

Our community is called “Enlightened Life Lovers” and our intention is to stay heart-centered.  My invitation is simple, but not easy.  I invite each of you, as well as myself, to embrace both extremes of this current contrast with love (instead of fear), with compassion (instead of judgement), and with both hope + faith.  Have faith that all that unfolds invites us to a higher order of ourselves as heart-centered human beings.  Hold hope for the day when lines will not need to be drawn, swords will rust in their sheaths, and we truly will understand that there is no “other” but that we are all One.

This is the time to choose wisely how and where we spend out time, talents and treasures.  This is the time to sharpen our awareness and invite Enlightenment in every aspect of our lives.  Shine your light so that we may all better find our way to the Divine truth of our Being.  

Live in as much love as possible, and let in joy at every turn.  Meet “contrast” in that field Rumi invites us to — “Out beyond all wrong doing and right doing there is a field.  I’ll meet you there.”  For surely this will make the load lighter, the light brighter, and the journey more joyful.  You are blessed with a wonderful community — our tribe of Enlightened Life Lovers.  Connect often with compassion and support.

The month of February connotes Valentine’s Day, which turns our thoughts to the topic of “love.”  But what is love?  Is it a feeling?  A force?  Is it God?  Is it all there is?  Trying to define “love” is like trying to define “infinity.”  How do words come remotely close to capturing either?

If we use the concept so freely, I suggerst that we get honest and real with it.  I find that we may know love best by knowing what it is not.  By contrast, that is.  We instinctively know when we are not feeling or behaving in a loving way.  And perhaps, even more so, we know when someone else is not being loving toward us.  At its best, this process of noticing helps us to tune ourselves up. 

In “love relationships” it gets even more murky.  What so often passes for love is actually obsession or addiction.  Do you really love that person, or do you need them?  Love is unconditional.  Anything else is an imposter.  To love is to embrace without clutching, to give versus to barter, and to allow instead of to control. 

This is how we get real with love.  Sound like a tall order?  While it is not easy, it is possible, at least in glimpses anyway.  And the key is self-reverence.  To value oneself is to value others.  To like oneself is to accept others as they are.  To trust oneself is to allow others to be as they are.  A strong and steady loving relationship with oneself opens the gateway for loving relationships with others and with all of life. 

So on Valentine’s Day and all other days, get real with love.  Practice awareness of love, and cultivate the relationship with Self that is the fertile soil within which love can grow.  You do not need to define love when you are able to live it.  You will just know.  From my heart to yours, Happy Valentine’s (every)Day!

It’s a New Year.  Turning the calendar to January, 2011 is an opening, a vista, an invitation.  What do you see?  Do you have some private dreams, wants, wishes waiting to show up in your life?  How will you birth them?

Birth is a very Yin concept, very much about Feminine energy.  For birth to occur, there must first be the sacred stirring of energies creating conception.  What sacred stirrings are going on inside of you right now?  Who are you and what are you here for?  Are you on track and on purpose in your life?

Please note that this is a private matter — all you.  No “shoulds” allowed.  To find your “True North” you must disregard the “peanut gallery” and the applause meter.  In fact, I would recommend that you close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears.  Seriously.

Ok, now that we’re alone, what do you hear and feel about your direction for 2011?  In career?  Health?  Relationships?  Prosperity?  What do you want more of?  Less of?  What do you need to harness to lead you to your own North Star?  You will need Peace (stillness), Awareness (be awake), and Authenticity (be honest). 

All the information coming at you from the outside-in pales in significance to the wealth of wisdom that is your from the inside out.  Remember this the next time you hear echoes from the peanut gallery or see the applause meter jump. 

Spend this month near your journal, dreaming and writing and feeling your way toward the year you really want this to be for you.  This time next year, you will be really glad you did.  Happy New Year!

Enjoy our Radio Shows at Chique Radio!  Our January show is “The Law of Attraction: Turning dreams into Chique reality!”  Go to: www.EnlightenedLifeCoaching.com & click on “Audio links”