“I believe that ancient tribal cultures have important lessons to teach the rest of the world about the interconnectedness of all living things and the simple fact that our very existence is dependent upon the natural world we are rapidly destroying.”

-Wilma Mankiller, The first woman elected Chief of the Cherokee Nation, 1945–2010

How often do we brush people off when they’re talking about something so far beyond our way of thinking? What if we shut someone’s ideas down not because they’re speaking rubbish, but because we’re uncomfortable with our own insecurity about the issue? What if we shut their ideas down because there’s the chance that our ideology/opinions/theories might be wrong? I’m guilty, and I’ve also become very aware of this because of my own incredible experiences that are often un-explainable.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately as I’ve experienced some incredibly beautiful things this year, and in the past 10 years since I’ve embarked on a more ‘spiritual’ journey, that when I speak about them I often wonder “what is coming out of my mouth?” This thought so graciously comes to mind because of my upbringing, and where I came from. Thankfully, I have many people in my life who’ve experienced some of the same beauty, the same channeling of wisdom that I’ve had. But for those who haven’t I sometimes never see them again.

I have Cherokee Ancestry and more recently I’ve had a very strong desire to explore this part of my family’s history. It’s almost like I’ve been called to seek a truth that’s been lost among many generations before me. So what if? What if this wisdom that I receive in my dreams, in my meditation, in my energy healing’s is worth searching for? What if? The spirit of nature is calling me and I feel I cannot ignore it any longer- no matter how strange it feels.  If I don’t respond to this “what if,” I feel that the room for me to grow and to evolve will be diminutive. Having the courage to continue on this path of discomfort for me is the only way, I feel, to reveal my utmost divine potential as a human being. How crazy is that?!   So crazily beautiful beyond words.

So what if…

Animals were truly angels put on this planet to guide us humans back to love?

We realized that our family can be our greatest teacher no matter how difficult they can be?

Patanjali, Jesus, Mohammad, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Oprah etc. are all angels who were sent here to teach the masses about something far greater than ourselves? And what if we realize their message comes from the same truth?

Life was more than bringing home a paycheck so we can buy bigger and better things? That each and every one of us has a divine purpose in being here?

We realize we’re inherently all the same? Having the same desires, wants, needs of feeling connected and wanting to belong to the whole. That we all have questions like “who am I?” no matter religion, creed, ideology or the color of our skin.

We are interconnected like Wilma Mankiller states above. And that the natural world is hurting, waiting patiently for us to make big changes in the way we live?

What if we allow others’ ideas and experiences to soften us, rather than run away from the opportunity only to become hardened by our own ideologies and doubts? When we open our minds we evolve. When we open our hearts we become liberated. When we allow others’ ideas and opinions and thoughts to be heard without any judgments or expressed hatred, can we truly be free.

Aho. Aho. Aho.

Blessings to all, and may we all open our hearts to all possibilities in the world, as they allow us to serve each other’s evolution and divine purpose.

And so it is. Blessings to you,
Liz Terry

“There are days that I know, without a shadow of a doubt,
that I am among the most fortunate humans
who have ever lived.
There are times when my heart
is so filled with love
I fear it might burst.
Being human is hard.
And it hurts.
And yet, when we share the pain, feel it with each other, acknowledge how difficult and seemingly unjust circumstances have been
Dare to see and be seen
Then love is revealed.
Vast as the sky.
Able to hold whatever passes through without being marred in any way.
The fullness of life is excrutiatingly beautiful
exquisitely painful
Almost unbearable.”
~Corina Lynn Benner

Here I go. I’m about to embark on a new adventure. A quest to redefine myself and start my life anew. I often ask myself “is this what life wants from me?” If I continue to live my life in order to serve, in order to fulfill my purpose on this earth, I often wonder if I’m listening intently enough to the wisdom that guides me through. As I prepare myself to leave a place without a job to go to, without a partner to join, with nothing planned except a lot more travel, I wonder; “am I doing the right thing?”

Sometimes all I need to remember is that there is something far greater than my own understanding can grasp, of which I believe with every inch of my being, that is guiding me through my journey of life. And I trust it. At least now more than ever I do. Although I know that I play a huge part in my own destiny by the choices that I make, sometimes it’s the scariest experience to feel as though I’m not always in control of where life takes me.  In the moments I haven’t trusted the process, life has given me far greater (and sometimes unpleasant) surprises in order to bring me back on track.

So here I go. Leaving a place I’ve thrived in. Leaving behind amazing friends, the best of teachers and another bubble of comfort, in order to leap into my next adventure in life. Here’s to change. An inevitable part of life that requires a leap of faith, a lot of courage and trust that everything will turn out exactly as the universe intends it to.

Blessings to YOU
Liz Terry

“Fate whispers to the warrior, ‘you cannot withstand the storm’ and the warrior whispers back ‘I am the storm.’”
-Unknown

When life sweeps me off my feet, how quickly I forget…I am the wind. I am the rain. I am the ocean. I am the sun. I am the earth. I am the moon. I am the stars. I am the storm.

I consider myself to be a sensitive warrior. Sensitive in the sense that I am overwhelmingly connected to nature and all beings within it. I consistently feel my connection to the physical universe. A warrior in the sense that I consider myself one who takes life by the horns to do what makes me feel most alive. I thrive on change and often feel stuck when I’m not amidst movement.

I recently traveled to Hawaii and took some surf lessons. When I’m connected to nature, either in a forest among trees or being in the ocean etc., wisdom flows through me. When I’m open and connected to nature I feel most alive, which is why I love to challenge myself through activity and experience. Whilst surfing, a metaphor came to mind. About riding the waves of life. The ocean is sometimes calm, sometimes wavy, even angry and dangerous during stormy times. Much like life. If we resist the changing of the waves, they have the potential to destroy us. But if we learn to ride the waves or weather the storms that pass through us, perhaps then are we able to experience life fully and deeply as its intended.

There’ve been moments in my life, many in-fact, where I would lose hope in the direction of my life. But when I come back to nature, to my nature, I’m reminded to trust the storm. When I feel the storm is greater than me I find a moment of pause to remember that no storm is greater than my will to surrender to it. The storm reconnects me to the warrior inside where ‘impossible’ means nothing.

The wave of life brought me back to the US 6 months ago. As much as I want to come back to Dubai and continue to teach trainings there, the wave of life just isn’t taking me back at this time.  I choose to ride the wave and see where I’m off to next

🙂

Enjoy riding the waves of your life and, who knows, we may end up on one together again.

Blessings to all of you,
Liz

“I do believe in an everyday sort of magic — the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we’re alone.”
~Charles de Lint

“It takes a belief in MAGIC to allow our hearts to break open.” This was my experience in journeying into the Amazon jungle of Peru. Magic. Who knew?

In Yoga I’ve been taught and I’ve experienced this un-layering, this shedding of layers of my being in order to truly understand the REAL me. As I’ve shed many layers of who I thought I was, I’ve become very ‘sensitive’ to the world around me. What I wasn’t prepared for, and what I’ve never understood until now, is that the more layers I shed the more open I’ve become to the MAGIC that IS around me. Every. Single. Day.

Peru is purely magical. As soon as I arrived into the Amazon I knew that I belonged there. I’d dreamt of this moment since I was in the 6th grade and it most definitely did not let me down.

My friend and I visited a beautiful jungle hideaway called the Temple of the Way of Light where we studied plant medicine with the Shipibo Tribe and learned about how they live and thrive in the jungle. What I expected to learn compared to what I actually learned was nothing short of MAGIC.

Plants, nature, animals, wind, the sun, earth, ourselves…everything is more powerful than I ever imagined.  The jungle opened my heart to a different perspective on life and SHOWED me how incredibly connected we all are. Nature showed me that when we truly understand our connection to the whole we are most powerful together. Nature mirrors us. Nature helps us to heal our wounds from the physical body all the way through to the spiritual self. I’ve seen it, and I’ve experienced it. Pure magic.

Believing in magic requires us to drop our rigid beliefs in order to embrace the [im]possible. It requires us to let go of being rational. Of being logical. Of thinking too much. It requires us to breathe into our hearts more in order to open us up to the MAGIC that is all around us.

My niece understands this magic and I can’t help but know that I once believed in magic as much as she does. Now I understand. Now I believe again. I will never go back.

Blessings to all of you,

Liz Terry