Week 1

Hello!

Originally, I thought to deliver the weekly installments of The Calm Way as a paid subscription. I’ve decided to keep it free for all subscribers and do away with the paid subscription. Why? The Way showed me what is true for me.

I’ve been traveling and doing a deeper exploration of the ways the Way, the Universe, and Life meets us in every moment based on beliefs, intention, intuition, invocation and beyond.

To become a conscious creator with life, one gets to recall the seemingly hidden dynamics and mechanics. This si the focus of my life. And so The Calm Way is the book that really started to shape how I consciously work with the Infinite Way.

There have been many starts and pauses, for it comes through intimacy and awareness. Living, breathing, observing, moving beyond the observer, resting, experimenting, testing, wrestling, materializing in the subtle and grand.

As one who writes and scribes, I enjoy all the ways I get to share. It’s not to me to say what form will open or clarify something for you. Maybe it is poetry, maybe a tutorial, maybe a contemplation. I assume if you’re here, there must be a reason.

I’m opening up again for personal sessions starting June 1st. If you ready to go deeper as a conscious creator, reply to this email or send me a message within Substack.

Welcome to the serialized version of The Calm Way: 365-Day Journey Out of the Weeds & Into the Wilds of True Inner Freedom.

You’ll find 7 daily passages in each weekly section.

You are welcome to leave comments and questions.

Day 1

What starts as an experiment can turn into a fresh new way of living, looking, and perceiving. It can become part of your devotion to unlocking and celebrating the mysteries within your inner temple.

The experiment can feel pretty bumpy. Like an old northern highway riddled with frost heave. As I wrote this book, I sometimes felt angry just by hearing or saying the word calm. And that frustrated me. There was immense discomfort at points. As calm expressed its frequency within me, it kept running into these pockets of resistance. Oh, how I wanted to hang on to these last shreds. And, oh, how I wanted to let them go.

It took a year to write this book. I often grew weary. I wondered why it was necessary, after decades of devotion to this path, for me to go even deeper. The Calm Way was so deep-rooted in me. People would find their way to me because they felt it in me. They told me all the time. So, why was what I knew in my bones, blood, and spirit going through a deconstruction?

The last bits of resistance to my gentleness, a quality I couldn’t even name yet, had to be set free.

Before I write any book, I go through a portal and meet the deepest layers of its message. Know it. Live it. Embody it. Share it. But this called me further than I’ve ever gone. It took me out of calm. And then, it moved me beyond into a state of such grace and gentleness.

I feel this shift more every day. Gentleness, grace, comfort, sheer wildness and rapture. And to get here to the very edge of it, to the place where gentleness began to unlock within me, I had to stay open. I let it move through me. Had I known that wild and gentle were waiting for me, I might have been less resistant.

And now I’m sharing this with you so you know your only actual experiment is to stay open.

What have you experienced of gentleness? Would you like to know it better? Invite it in.

Day 2

As you begin traveling the Calm Way, is there a secret wish you carry into this journey?

I did not know this gentleness would happen. Only now am I feeling the caress of this wild tenderness. Its balm fills in the fractures and splintered places, leaving me whole and light.

It reminds me of the softness of a baby’s feet, so fresh and pure. Or holding my grandmother’s hand, with that beyond-soft, well-worn skin that has experienced so much. The tenderness that swells when my dog looks deep into my eyes and we smile at each other.

And this gentleness goes far beyond. I’ve waited for it all this life without realizing it. It is why I sat in earnest quiet meditation for so many years. At times, I thought peace might be procured. If I could bring peace from within me, perhaps it would flow outward. And the world might be peaceful.

What balm do you seek? Write it and invite it.

Day 3

When we call on a certain quality like calm, we get plenty of opportunities to experience all that it is not.

Is the “not-ness” a program of duality? Yes.

Is it a game we play with ourselves? Yes.

Why do we believe there has to be a lesson? It can be a lesson if that’s the way you like to see it. I choose to see it all as an experiment. Sure, it can feel like a school-of-life lesson (blech). Or it can feel like you stepping into the River of Knowing which you already are. It can be homecoming.

How do you frame your life experiences? Lesson? Experiment? Play? Something else?

Day 4

Coming into the stillness of me, returning

to the depths of wide-open space

which holds all the elements and seasons and frequencies...

I am eternity unfolding…

We are eternity unfolding.

Of this, I have never been more aware.

Day 5

While writing this book, going into the subtle energies of the Calm Way, I received another gift. It was a hot summer day as I sat on my meditation cushion doing a solo retreat. I was rusty and restless, happy and agitated. And somewhere during that day, the gift arrived. Right there, on the cushion, I discovered a field of innocence. It settled into this physical body. So pure and light, beyond my ability to describe it. I’d never felt this quality in its pure state. Not even as a child.

I remember laughing hard because it reminded me of an episode from the Mork and Mindy Show. Their child arrived in an enormous egg with a fully-grown body. And, he aged backwards. I so enjoyed the humor, the irony of that.

What does it mean to you to embrace the innocence of a child?

Day 6

The paradox of innocence is that we believe it is only for the children. And the paradox of wisdom is we believe it is only for the long-lived. Ever met a four-year old? They are pretty much the wisest of the wise. Except for the three-year olds.

The innocence of a child and the wisdom of an elder. I’ve seen it in very few and had never experienced it myself. The direct, visceral experience of that innocence has faded, yet its signature is available to me anytime I whisper for it. Innocence is no longer a mystery to me. It is a friend I met on this path. We have tea as often as I invite it.

If you had tea with Innocence, what question would you ask of it?

Day 7

Compassion Practice
*~*

Remember this —

Everything is make-believe.

Make: create, build, construct, craft, compose, fashion, hobble together.

Believe: confidence in a formula, lens, pattern, or program, whether consciously, subconsciously, or unconsciously.

Remember this —

Your reality is made from your beliefs.

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