At age 28 on the north shore of Kaua’i, adorned by a bikini top and sarong, I decided I wanted to become a mother one day. Walking barefoot on the farm of two dear friends in Kilauea, holding their toddler on my hip, I thought, Life cannot get any better. At 38, I was pregnant. My whole being was ripened with the glow of new Life, a daughter growing inside of me, her father was elated. What!? Surreal. It was easy to eat well and hydrate abundantly after decades of that not being true, and my libido was more vivacious than ever. Everything felt alive. Again, I thought, Life cannot get any better. Ha! Ta-da… Now 48, celebrating my 49th birthday in three weeks, two seemingly contradictory truths are simultaneously true. Life is as good as it gets, and Life will keep showing me: even better. Gratitude streams from morning’s early birdsong and pinkened, uplit sky. My daughter is healthy. My dog is healthy. I am healthy (after a 2-week bout with a pesky cough and pinkeye). Having faced death three years ago, I will never count wellness as anything less than huge. When I dropped my daughter off at school this morning, after leaving thank-you notes in the office for the incredible dedication of my daughter’s 5th grade teacher and the school Director, this sign greeted me on the playground: Come on! Go ahead, try and be grumpy after being greeted by that. Gratitude feels so much better. I could go on, listing 1,000 things I’m grateful for today. And, I won’t. Bleep… OK OK, this morning I bought tickets to see Alison Krauss and Robert Plant in August. Whaaaaaaaat?! (Shirley, I hear you shrieking all the way down the coast in San Diego.) What I will share is this: Huge joy is available to you right now. All it takes is your choice to see it. It is that simple. That is how generous Life is. Since everything is contagious — as everything is energy — I’ll drop here some dollops of whipped-up Love-cream to brighten-invite you into seeing your own joy. Today I went grocery shopping at my favorite market, Oliver’s. My employer gave me a surprising day off, so suddenly — with my daughter at school and our dog on a pack hike — I was free to stroll down its aisles unhurried, gazing at brussel sprouts, flax muffins and glass jarred lavender fir chamomile candles on its shelves. I was just being, and it was all so beautiful. If you are a mama, you so understand this joy. Driving home, I listened to Colin Hay’s dreamy voice wailing in my car while I fantasized about the hike I would take once the rains calmed. And when I walked to my porch with four double-bagged sacks of groceries, I came upon a bouquet of flowers leaning against the door. One of my besties had left the flowers for me, and in her card she wrote her classic loving prose to honor the passing of my (middle) namesake, Maxine, who left her body three days ago. All I was doing was being — getting home after an errand. And I thought, How loved could I be?, as I unlocked the door to carry bags and flowers into the kitchen. As I folded up the bags, I thought, Yay! I can use these to carry recyclables down to the big bin in the parking lot. I was just being, noticing a stack of bags beneath my wool slippers on a rainy day. I admired their folded-up black and brown beauty, marked with the memory of the store I adore and only visit every six weeks. Thirty minutes later, the flowers adorned my piano — the one Maxine played for me on her last visit, when she was 90 — and gorgeous food filled my kitchen cupboards. How fortunate am I?, I thought, to have plenty of food to feed my child, myself and friends we invite to share food with us? To have friends who love my dog and are so grateful for the food we eat together? No. Small. Things. Every one, a gesture of Life’s Love. You might be a living Champion of Being, Aging and Bliss. You, too, might choose to bask in the elation of gratitude most — or even all! — the days of your precious Life. Know this: If you are having a tough day, one that you might rate a 60% or even 15% on the joy-scale with bliss at 100…
A better day is coming. When you choose to see it. Joy is everywhere. Why? Because you are so completely loved. I wonder what joy will look like when I’m 58. But not for long. This moment of now is so delicious, I’ll bask in it for awhile… Even when the body reaches 75 or 90, and pain feels all too familiar… the Light of joy is there, awaiting your eyes’ adoration, wanting your consciousness to choose to see it shining. The radiant arms of ecstasy welcome your embrace, just like a toddler who just made his first huuuuuge 1-foot leap off the edge of the slide, awaits your grinning applause.
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Sometimes Life needs to really throw us down to get us to listen. Three years ago right now, I was getting my skull sliced open so a massive (benign) brain tumor could be removed. She, like all pain, was an opportunity — a gift in disguise — and in this case, for me, she was a screaming invitation for me to be my body’s best friend after decades of ‘addiction’ to food and sugar. Today, I am three years old. What? On the operating table during brain surgery, I had a near death experience (NDE) that catapulted my capacity to see the Light of Love, the Light of God. This is why I capitalize all those words in the sentence you just read. They’re divine, all reflecting one another. I was shown up-close. This is now my second Life, so today I am three. In celebration, I will take you through a little visual journey that I’ve not yet shared with this level of detail. Part of my reason for sharing today is that my namesake is heading home for hospice. She is 92, physically frail, and on her way to the other side. Next week my writing will be in devotion to her, and for now I give thanks for my own precious Life, as she makes her transition. This first photo was taken on January 30, 2021 while hiking with my daughter. It was early in the Coronavirus pandemic and I had been depressed for five months, lonely, isolated and overeating. I was 60 lbs. overweight, which is considered obese; I felt heavy in every way. And I had noticed a strange crookedness on my face, one side of my mouth leaning down. I didn’t know it yet but I had entered early paralysis. I went to Kaiser for a scan (MRI) of my skull. On February 1, 2021, I had a call with a neurosurgeon who told me I had a massive brain tumor, the size of a mandarin. My facial expression here says it all. After a nine hour surgery with eight people working on me in the operating room, I was rolled into a patient room where I had taped a drawing from my daughter on the wall. Two unicorns, Helena and Mama. Her Love helped keep me alive. The first six weeks of recovery were painful. I turned to the stars inside of me, the divine Light that greeted me close-up during my NDE, to help me take deep breaths to move through the pain. Fifty-two titanium stapes kept my skull shut as the wound healed. My hair on the unshaven side had been tied up since surgery, and had become matted. Eyes closed, deep breaths, I kept seeing stars — golden yellow, glimmering, eternally serene stars that felt like the breath and song of God. My mailbox overflowed with cards. Penned adoration from friends, family, so many cards expressing Love for me. Taking another dose of painkillers and anti-inflammatory medications, I would hear a knock on the door and… there was another stunning bouquet of flowers. Where was all this Love coming from? I wondered. It was like I was standing under a waterfall after a storm, being cascaded by the ever-generous glow of God. People kept telling me, “Jess, it’s because of all the Love you give — it’s all coming back to you now.” Sometimes it felt like too much. Where do I put yet another card, and another bouquet? Once the staples were removed (yes, the bouquet is much lovelier to look at than this next photo), and I could walk without pain, the whole roof flew off. My Life felt like a constant spray of shimmering stars. When I walked down the sidewalk, it was as if I was skipping on stars. The pool of golden Light that filled my pelvis during near death, now swallowed me whole — permeating my every pore and inhale. Everybody glowed. Everybody was utterly lovable. Everybody was a reflection of God. As a prolific writer since I was five years old, I giggled at myself when I tried to write to my lead neurosurgeon. What words could dare attempt to express my gratitude for him? Somehow, words landed — right beside tears on my paper — and he was so grateful. Three post-op MRIs later, my skull remains tumor-free and there isn’t an ounce of regret about any of this in my being.
I have seen the face of addiction — the human choice to outsource the Love that is God, the agonizing despair we feel in the presence of this outsourcing, and when I surrendered to let myself be led by something much greater than me — I was shown the divine Light swimming inside of us. I wish this kind of pain on no one. Yet I humbly accept that we humans seem to need pain to wake up, and… And so it is. Whether stapled up or drugged up, or skipping on stars, Love is who we are — we are entirely loved and lovable — glimmering with Light. And so it is. I’ve been thrown down this week with a persistent cough and now pinkeye decided to join the party, so today’s post is on the simple side of things. It is a slice of curiosity from my heart to yours, an invitation for you to shape the content of the book I’m writing: Making Love to Fear. What do you struggle to love? What is it that comes to your attention, wanting you to be at peace with it? It appears, you do some introspective work with it, you think you’re done and then… it appears again, showing you that you’ve still got Love to live? When we are emotionally triggered by something or someone, it is a call to heal our fear. A signal that something within ourselves is not at peace, and that forgiveness wants to happen. This is fertile ground for growing up — maturing into a deeper and truer version of ourselves, free from self-judgment which is ultimately the only kind of judgment there is.
Here’s an example. In college, I became furious and heartbroken about the way humans treat our life support system, Mother Earth. I served in student government for two years, did environmental work in California and Washington D.C. for six years, then became a green wedding planner for another four. I wanted to do anything I could to love this planet. Then one day I realized I could be at peace with the state of the world ecologically, and that the problems caused by humanity’s negligence were not all mine to carry; I could do my part, and that is all. Ahh… Surrender… the biggie. Stress kills. I needed to forgive the polluters, overconsumers and the like — and even see myself in them — and let go. This transition brought peace of mind. It was humbling, softening the hackles of my fear so they could instead rest gently on the smooth, surrendered skin of my neck. Still, sometimes when I walk into a Big Box store and see the amount of plastic we consume, I notice I’m not done with this. Again, I am invited to choose Love instead of fear. My work isn’t done. Last week, in the grip of achiness, lethargy and a low fever, I started the chapter in my book on Loving the Unknown. Phew! Talk about biggies; that one’s universal. What — or who — do you struggle to love? What keeps visiting your mind’s doorstep, leaving you upset? It is a friend in disguise, indicating a place where you can find joy and freedom, if you simply choose to move through the fear it represents. Let me know in the comments or by email. Love, Jess How cool is it that sometimes, at the end of a tough day, all it takes is some kind words and our mood is lifted? My 10-year-old daughter delivers this kind of sweetness on a regular basis. Today’s share is short ‘n sweet. May it motivate you to share kind words more often. Flashback to last week. I’m driving my daughter to a friend’s house for a playdate after school, so I can go to yoga class. When we reach the front door of her friend’s house, she turns to me and says, “Mama? There’s a movie called Ferdinand, and in it there’s a bull named Ferdinand.” I’m thinking, Where is this coming from? She goes on, “And you know how bulls like to fight and be bossy? Well, Ferdinand doesn’t fight. He’s gentle and soft and he likes flowers. When I saw that movie, I thought of you. You’re like that, Mama.”
I stop thinking. Now I’m just feeling… loved. Doesn’t get better than this, right? “And Mama, when we were just listening to that Michael Jackson song about ‘the girl is mine’ and he said I’m a lover not a fighter? That’s how you are. That’s how I see you.” Day done. My daughter expressing kind words with some MJ & Paul McCartney music on top, with yoga up ahead. I could die happy. |
AuthorJessica Rios, Founder of Leaning into Light, was born with a divine pen in her pelvis. Her heart writes for her; Love is her 'religion'. A lifelong letter writer and a thought leader in Love, her blog is devoted to her greatest passion: illuminating the beauty of the human spirit so we all move closer to remembering that Love is Who We Are. Categories
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