Sunday is my birthday and I ordered myself two birthday cakes, red velvet and a coconut. I bought two because I couldn’t decide which one to buy. When they arrived yesterday my husband got angry and said it was too extravagant. Maybe that is true on some level. But, it occurred to me that my husband and actually most of the people I know live from the outside in.

My husband is concerned about costs and he is striving for security, and who isn’t? However, this “security” that my husband and most seek means that they have enough money to pay the bills. It does certainly include that, but there is a deeper security, one that comes only through a deep and abiding faith, a faith in life, a faith in ourselves, and a deep abiding faith in God. There is no security in life without faith. There is no gratification of feeling of safety without faith.

I don’t think there is anything in us that is separate from God, except our belief. We seem to have that freedom. And if that is true, how can we hope to have security unless that security is based on our own unity with God and our own Divinity?

But how can we hope to have a sense of security if we separate ourselves in belief from that which alone can give it?

Your mind is God’s mind in you, as you. Your spirit is the Spirit of God in you, as you.

Here and here alone is security; here and here alone is peace. It is the wind, the waves, the laughter of my son Sam, the beauty of West Texas sunset, and maybe, just maybe in the joy I will get out of eating two birthday cakes.

I met Steve Jobs in the mid 1980’s and to me; it was like meeting a rock star. I bought all the Apple stock I could afford years ago, thank goodness, and I bet it will be the first trillion-dollar company.

Here are some things you may not know about Steve Jobs. He’s dyslexic. So is my son Sam, so I have Steve Jobs photo in Sam’s room along with Walt Disney, Steven Spielberg, John F Kennedy, and many more successful dyslexic people. From Sam I understand that dyslexic people see ideas in complete pictures. Albert Einstein was said to have “seen” the theory of relativity in a download picture version while taking a shower. What this tells me is Steve Jobs had to overcome a great deal while growing up in our traditional thinking US school system.

Steve Jobs was adopted. His graduate student parents decided they weren’t ready for a child. The biological parents had one request; that Steve be adopted by college educated people. Steve’s adopted parents lied, his mother never graduated from high school, but they got Steve anyway.

His same biological parents had another child, Mona Simpson, who is a famous novelist. Wow. Those parents have some incredible genes!

One semester at Reed College is all the college Steve had, ONE semester!

He’s a Zen Buddhist, he even considered becoming a monk.

Steve Jobs used LSD, something I will not share with my freshmen at USC son August.

The tag line for Apple’s advertising campaign for years was “Think Different.” Steve Jobs certainly has, his whole life.

Thank you Steve Jobs for sharing your ideas and vision with the rest of the world. I will be keeping you close in my thoughts and prayers as you make your new transitions.

My son Sam was born blind. No reason why, so we never knew why he could suddenly see. At age nine, every school day is a struggle. He’s dyslexic, so is Steve Jobs, so was Walt Disney, I figure he’s in good company. But, kids his age are cruel. Sam is different, and so he is bullied daily.

So, when I heard about this eye doctor who takes a holistic approach to the seeing, I got interested quick. The doctor is in Santa Fe, five hours north of El Paso.

We drove up to Dr. Berne’s office which is past Tesuque Market, a little ways beyond the dog with the joker face, to the left of the yellow chicken and three turquoise mail boxes to the right. The office looks like a space ship, but when you get inside it feels like the bottom of a jar of chocolate, a place where you want to stay, and a place where you wish you could live. Dr. Berne himself is sort of a Robert Redford looking man, minus the wrinkles, same intense blue eyes. I have chanted with Tibetan monks who don’t have the peace that surrounds this man.

The first thing Dr. Berne did was take off Sam’s VERY thick glasses and asked him to read the eye chart. I don’t know why this place or chart was different, but Sam read every letter of every line. Dr. Berne announced he has 20/20 vision! His current glasses were about 10 times too strong, but this was the solution to Sam’s wandering eye using conventional western ways. The next thing Dr. Berne did was test where Sam is “energetically.” He hooked Sam up to a machine and was able to see where Sam is leaking his energy. Because Sam never crawled his right and left hemisphere of his brain never hooked up like it should. Sam has a strong right side, weak left side. We will be sent home with simple exercises that Sam will perform daily for six weeks. Some simple like walking like a bear, some a bit more complicated like putting together puzzles.

For the first time in nine years I am hopeful that Sam will be able to tie his own shoes, skip, jump rope, catch a ball and read a book because he enjoys it, not because a teacher is making him.

Sam’s life will forever be different, enhanced, better because of Dr. Berne. I am excited that medicine is headed in a holistic direction, treating us a whole unit instead of dividing up our parts and treating those as stand-alone separates.

As I type this, I am not using my bi focal glasses. Dr. Berne explained that each time I use my glasses I am telling my eyes they actually need the glasses. I can actually strengthen my eyes by not using them! Now, what to do with my 26 pairs of fashion statement glasses??

If you have illness that is chronic or you just can’t heal, search for a holistic approach, I bet you will find a solution, and if you do, let me know!

Yesterday on my blog talk radio show, my co-host Perla, and I were honored to have mystic intuitive Christopher Barbour as a guest. We asked Christopher, among other things, where intuition comes from, and he said he feels it comes from God. I agree. And here is what many of you don’t know; the Ghost Writer of the Greatest Story Ever Told is a Nag! Think of your intuition as getting a text straight from God, and those texts will keep coming until you get the message and text back.

Why is it important to listen to your intuition? When you listen to intuition you become connected to great knowledge. It’s the part of you that has your best interests at heart. Intuition can provide an oasis of peace in the midst of chaos, bring you to harmony, help you release judgments, and give you confidence to take action and prepare for change in your life. It can also be a valuable guide as you take steps to create your dreams.

Developing your ability to hear your inner guidance, your intuition is like learning to develop any skill. The more you use your intuition the better you get at it. Intuition will become second nature if you practice it. The “hunch” you get or the “gut feeling” you have becomes a sure thing and can be trusted, relied on when making decisions.

Be open to the many forms of intuition: images, symbolic pictures, vivid dreams, messages that jump out of books or magazines you are reading. You also might get an impression, a sense of knowing, or a gut feeling. You actually might hear the words telling you to take a new direction or a verbal answer to a question you have been pondering.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a big believer in mediation. It is through the spiritual practice of mediation that your intuition will become clearer. If you don’t have 20 minutes a day to devote to mediation (and all of you do!), then try this simple exercise to install your in-soul-navigation-system:

Close your eyes, take a deep breath in, and say the word “relax” as you slowly let your breath out. Do this several times until you feel your center. Simply call on God and say to you, “I am surrounded by the presence and spirit of God. I am at peace.” Visualize that a white light surrounds you. You will discover, when you calm yourself down, intuitive insights will pop into your mind.

Good luck and let me know how you are doing!

My Dear August,

 

If not for old photographs, I might have a hard time believing you were ever a pudgy baby, or pacifier chewing toddler, or husky boy. My baby is gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in the foot taller than me man you have grown into. We read the same books and you have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in your opinion of them, you can tell me a vulgar joke that makes me laugh until I pee a little. You need razor blades, shower gel and privacy, and yet it does seem like yesterday when you would waddle into my bedroom and sing, “Eyes and ears and knees and toes, knees and toes..” It had been my privilege and honor to share every day with you, every game, teachers visit, performance and award presentation.

 

Regrets? A few. I wish I would have gotten mad less but then I would never have heard you say, “Calm your crazy ass down!” Which, as you know, makes me howl with laughter.

 

Victories? A few. You know how to dance and to play gold fish. You know that our attempt to understand or define God is not only ridiculous, but ego-centered. You know there is a space, a place, beyond our five senses that Christians call heaven and hell; Buddhists and Hindus call it interval between lifetimes; and Aboriginal people call it the unseen world. Your faith in what lies beyond your five senses is being replaced by the experience of it.

 

You have your own agenda, you have for years. It’s not my agenda, not what I would choose, but you have more courage than I do. You don’t allow someone’s else’s fear based version of life interfere with yours. My respect for you escalates. You are going to be all right.

 

I hope you go where there is laughter and romance, and walk the streets of Bombay and lean out of Paris windows to touch falling January snow and swim in the seas off Bora Bora and make love in Veneto, Italy at the Gritti Palace Hotel.

 

I hope you play blackjack all night in the Barbary Coast and, money ahead, watch the sun come up in Vegas. I hope you ride big planes out of Africa and Jakarta and feel what it’s like to turn home just ahead of winter.

 

As your childhood comes to an end, it seems my work with you is complete, or you with me, since it was you raising me these past 18 years. Go well, James August, my son. Go knowing that Barry, Sam and I will be here, setting you a place at the table for one of our family dinners, and fat Bella will be laying in front of the kitchen door, waiting for you to return, as we all will be.

All my love,

Mother