The Power Of Words. The Power of Now.

“Words have alchemical power. When we speak, we are conducting an alchemical ceremony.” ~Carolyn Myss

I have always had a comfortable relationship with my written words. I could always clearly express my heart when my strongly ingrained shyness would prevent me from speaking what would so easily flow from the heart and mind onto the page.

Those in my past have had a lot of ‘hit-and-run’ heavy information from me. A carefully left note. A specifically timed email. All, heavy with emotion, left to sit in the lap of the recipient like a 200 pound lapdog. All feelings and love, crushing weight, often stinky and having a certain cowardice.

Cowardice?

Yeah. Because I did not have the gumption to stick around and witness or help explain these power missives. I was a yellow-bellied chicken. (Please note, no disrespect is intended toward my yellow bellied chicken friends. Last thing I need is the Yellow Bellied Chicken Anti-Defamation League clucking up my tree…)

So I have made a pact with myself here forward to dig my heals in and stick around to see how the information hits. To say it in person. With spoken words. One of the keen benefits of being unique (eccentric, a weirdo, perhaps?) is that you develop a comfort in your choices—less fearful of anticipated reaction.

And you know what? It’s great to be there as an active participant in the experience of shared clarity. I have had several astonishing outpourings of heart to wonderful effect. Who’d a thunk?

As many of you have noted, I have gone through a serious, intense 10-year period of introspection since I first found out I was positive. India was like a decade of talk therapy, but with just myself, my Self, and my cyberjournal. Throw yourself into a culture you don’t understand, one that has 500 dialects, and it makes the chaos of what’s eddying around in your own squash seem kind of quaint by comparison.

As I turned an unblinking eye toward the patterns of dysfunction and blockages in my personal and spiritual growth, I gained a better sense of humor, humanity, compassion and understanding of the human condition and my part within that divine play.

And as I started to routinely make double footed leaps of faith into the void, I grew more fearless, less attached to outcome, more trusting, more grateful.

Before each of these leaps, I experienced a period of intense stomach churning, nauseating energy rolling around in my gut, similar to the “butterflies” I would get before performing.

I’ve come to understand that this is my inner knowing or earthy gut feeling, which connects to the cerebral Gemini conceptual/imaginative vortex. It’s like my second chakra pushes up the gut knowing or energy into my heart where I trust the intuition and the clarity and comfort of expressed feeling.

The place where I’ve always had a logjam of sorts was between the heart and the throat. Instead of trying to blast it open with New Age dynamite, I stepped back, observed what was going on, and got ever closer to my Homer Simpson “D’Ohhh!” epiphany where suddenly you just all make sense to yourself.

I remember the agony and fear I went through around anticipated reaction to people finding out I was gay. Funny thing, they all knew before I did, and nobody really cared—just wanted me to be happy. The doom and gloom of ‘what if?” proved an twenty year waste of time thanks to my beautiful friends & family.

I remember almost throwing up at my first audition, petrified that I wouldn’t be liked (imagine the horror for a people pleaser!), and instead, I leapt and was greatly appreciated and got the lead role.

My first AIDS ride. Unthinkable. Wasn’t athletic, wasn’t in shape. Again, almost signed the registration form with gastric juice. Leapt and soared. These rides transformed my life.

Quitting my job at Virgin and jeopardizing my insurance at a time when I was on 12,000 dollars a year worth of meds, to throw myself into a yearlong traipse through the Subcontinent petrie dish of disease, devotion, overpopulation and solitude—surviving malaria and pneumonia. Emerged healthier, mind/body/spirit.

Moving to San Francisco without a job or many resources. Upping my fundraising ante to doing three vaccine rides in a year. A marathon and a Kilimanjaro climb the next.

Facing shadow exploration, depression and drug abuse—to emerge more hopeful, more thankful, more centered.

So how would I challenge myself now? The Alchemist speaks. By uttering it, it is made real. And I am not afraid, just excited.

I say this feeling the familiar gut rolling up through the chakras to the heart past the throat into the mind and out the top of the noggin—and I say, unafraid, assured of the action, detached from the outcome.

In August I will be leaving California to return to the East Coast, to be near family, to grow a life in New York, to continue to be challenged personally, professionally, spiritually.

Why leave San Francisco? Well, for six years, I have been laid off from three jobs I’ve loved, been unemployed or when working, dreadfully underemployed. It wasn’t the right market for my skillset, my passion or my person, but was exactly the right place for the difficult period of introspection and growth that I needed to get past my blockages.

I had to finally ask myself, “Why are you trying to make a river flow uphill? Ain’t natural.”

So I go with a new flow, knowing that I can make no wrong choice, knowing that one cannot stray from his path. The lessons emerge where they will.

So I begin a new chapter, a new adventure, ready to gratefully receive abundance, love, balance, health and peace. Growing stronger not by donning armor but by removing it, becoming more open, more tender. Less fearful, ready for the experience, the knowledge.

So, that’s Hermes’ new chapter, emerging from a voyage through the underworld, ready to embrace the light.

And these are my words of actualization, the power of now.

Alchemy begins anew, so do I.

Grateful.

Amen.