Do you experience some unexplainable phenomena from time to time? Like a gentle touch when no one is there? Or noises coming from a supposedly empty room? We experience that sort of thing pretty often around our house. Something happened this morning that started a whole train of thought that I wanted to share with you.
A Gentle Tap on My Hand to Wake Me Up
This morning, I was awakened by a gentle tap on the back of my hand. Jim was sound asleep and his hand was nowhere near mine. It was just after 5 a.m. on a Saturday, but instead of rolling over, I decided to get up and work out for 30 minutes.
As the morning continued, I found myself feeling alive with joy. Not because of an upcoming vacation or some special event. Just joy, for its own sake. A trembling excitement within me. A gratitude for seeing, for typing this without looking… while nature parades past my window. The hills, the open sky, the craggy pinon and juniper trees facing me with wide open arms.
Extraordinary Contradiction
We are living in a time of extraordinary contradiction. The world seems to be on fire everywhere. Wars rage, leaders rise and fall, volcanoes erupt, storms surge… and the fragile fabric of democracy strains under the weight of fear and uncertainty.
In the midst of it all, I find myself seated beside the Love of my Life, driving down Highway 55 past the Gran Quivira Monument, the sky opening itself in gentle splendor. How strange, and how sacred, to behold both things at once.
Claire Cognizance and Remote Viewing
The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East haunt me. The suffering of innocents weighs heavily and the US teeters under the influence of a man I long ago instantly knew would change everything.
When Trump descended that golden escalator in 2016, I had never seen Celebrity Apprentice, and I really was only barely conscious of who he was. Yet something in me just knew he would win. That knowing came without logic, but with certainty. It was accompanied by a terrible sense of foreboding that filled my whole body. Nothing would ever be the same, and I knew it.
This whole body recognition is not a political opinion or choice. It is not liberal or conservative. It knows no parties. It is a psychic reaction to Claire cognizance. When it happens to you, you know it is not something that your conscious mind is reacting to. It is an unshakeable truth that springs up like an iron root in the heart of your being.
If you too experience this knowing, you stop questioning them when they come. They feel like they’re stitched into the very fabric of this timeline, and sewn into the essence of your soul.
Choosing Gratitude
Still, in the quiet of today, I choose not to spiral into despair. I cannot save the world this morning. But I can love. I can cook a beautiful meal – coleslaw from scratch, a hearty green chile stew – and share laughter in the kitchen with someone I cherish. I can prepare a surprise for Father’s Day. I can marvel that my body still moves with freedom and grace, and that Jim is healthy. These are not small things. These are everything.
Pain as a Teacher
We come here knowing there will be pain and death. That the moments of agony are inevitable. But we still choose to come and live in these bodies to experience life with all of its ups and downs. Life is about transformation. We learn what it means to be alive, to be human. Hopefully, we learn what Love truly is. What sacrifice means. What personal growth is all about. We grow from tiny babies, into children, into young adults, into old cronies, and then we return from whence we came.
The other day, my dermatologist found two pre-cancerous lesions on my back. She had to shave them off. I was given lidocaine injections. I knew they would be painful. But because I knew they would hurt, I was able to meet the pain with calm. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. Life is like that.
Lidocaine and Childbirth
When I think of the souls throughout history who suffered, who endured atrocities, who died in agony, I imagine them passing through that nightmare, awakening on the other side into such love, such acceptance, that the pain they endured here feels like no more than a shot of lidocaine. Brief. Temporary. And then over. Like childbirth: Agonizing, but quickly forgotten when holding a precious new life in your arms.
Channeling Love and Light
We are not just these bodies. We are not just this moment in time. Life is eternal. Soul growth is forever. And Love – deep, cosmic, unconditional Love – is the thread that weaves through everything.
So even as the sky darkens, we can keep emitting light. When it feels as though the world is on fire, as long as we are able, we can send out what amounts to buckets of cooling waters to others … through emails, blogs, classes and acts of kindness. Wherever we are, we can do what we can.
Much love to you as you travel on this path of exploration and experience called Life. May your intuition continue to grow and develop, giving you a heads up, a burst of insight, and allow you to make the best choices in the days ahead. Keep viewing!
Much love,
Lori
I worked for the UNHCR in the 80s in Switzerland headquarters office, and at the time refugees were in small numbers compared to today.
We have now 110 millions of displaced people and UNHCR is experiencing funding cuts as well!
UNHCR is still helping the same countries from the time I worked there in the 80s and so many more ( helping with food and tents).
USAID money: we have many documents and charts on the US money distributed.
U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., appearing Feb. 2 on CBS’ ” Face the Nation,” said when it comes to USAID funding, “10 to 30 cents on the dollar is what actually goes to aid. So there’s not the right amount of command and control that’s going on with the way that it’s set up currently.”
Seems some money is not going to the right hands and I believe this is accurate.
I also worked at the UN in New York for the world social development, and my department was handling people with disabilities around the world. We were 4 active people for the entire planet and two retired and not replaced. We had one annual meeting and that was all for the year and that was to ensure countries comply and help their own citizens. That was 1998. I wonder what was the UN budget (countries contributions) for so little help.
In the US: we have 37.9 millions citizens living in poverty and hungry and I understand there are food pantries.
I believe that we can meditate and raise frequencies of love to all so we can make a difference and a change will occur soon.
I am sending gratitude for your comments and compassion and much love.
Regards.
So beautifully written, Lori—and it hits very close to home.
Just this week, I revisited some Baldwin. Your words reminded me of something he said in a 1964 New York Times Magazine interview:
“The world is held together, really it is, held together by the love and the passion of a very few people.”
He demanded that we love—even in the face of betrayal. His courage wasn’t loud, but it was seismic.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the many vulnerable souls lost after the sudden termination of USAID. A program that cost America nothing, yet saved lives. It reminded me how deeply we are connected—at the root.
Thank you again for your beautiful reflection.