Changing Lives, One Reading At A Time

Over the last two days I have performed two readings that totally inspired me.

In the first one, right in the middle of the reading, my client made a decision that completely changed her future!

At the beginning of the reading, she was a few blocks away from the future she really wanted for herself.  The energy felt like a puddle slowly dripping down a sidewalk.

A new message came through for her, and she decided to listen to it, and the second she made the decision, before she told me, the energy suddenly transformed into a ray of light.  She leapt those few blocks in a single bound!  She’s now just a step away from realizing her dreams, and she’s already decided to take that step.  I was crying in Starbucks because I was so happy and excited for her!

I FREAKING LOVE IT!

I absolutely adore when a reading helps a client make a life-changing decision.  I love it so much, it’s inspired me to start Love-Your-Life Coaching!  I’m working on my website, and will definitely launch it in the next week, but y’all heard about it here first!

<3 <3 <3

Last night, I shared a meal with a Vietnam Vet who’s been homeless for 35 years, and I gave him a reading.

He wanted to know how he could settle down with his family, how he could overcome his fear of being rejected by his daughters and grandkids.

During the reading, he blossomed.  I watched him waver from excited about trying to fearful several times, but when he left he was determined to try the first step – to develop his faith.

He has to have faith in himself.

So simple, yet so difficult…but I know he can do it.

<3 <3 <3

What about you?  What inspires you?  What change would you like to make in your life?  Feel free to email me if you need some encouragement!

Love and Blessings,
Ashley Rae

How Baptist Plus Buddhist Yields Pagan

My book has a cover and is available for pre-order, and in my excitement I’ve been bringing my laptop every where I go showing it off.

Tonight I tutored a ninth-grader, and I couldn’t resist showing my book off to his entire family.  For reference, and because I can’t resist, here is my book, and its blurb. If you click on the image, you’ll be taken to the publisher’s page, where you can pre-order it! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! </writergasm>

By the age of twelve, Ashley Rae had survived incest, child abuse, and the deaths of both her biological parents. Born to Baptists but raised by Buddhists, Rae found peace and healing on a Pagan spiritual path while obtaining her college degree and starting the career of her dreams.
Rae thought the hardships in her life were over...until she lost her job, started a new relationship, and found out she was pregnant with another man's child all in the same week. Terrified of cesarean surgery, Rae vowed to give birth to her child at home – but first, she had to find one.
Alternately haunting, humorous, and heart-warming, Not My Mother: A Memoir follows Rae over a nine-month quest to break her family's generational pattern of abuse and victimhood in order to become for her unborn child the mother she had always wanted for herself.

My student’s brother was excited to discover that I was raised Buddhist, and wanted to know all about it, and also what “Pagan” meant.  (He also asked what “incest” meant, but I told him he’d have to ask his mom on that one…)  He identifies as Buddhist, though his family is Christian, and he’d never heard of “Pagan.”

Mindful that I was supposed to be tutoring, I tried to come up with a one sentence summary of Paganism.  I told him it was Earth-based spirituality.  He didn’t get it, and asked how it related to Christianity and Buddhism, pointing out that Buddhism was about eliminating desire.  So I told him that for many Pagans, everything is sacred because everything and everyone of us are part of the body of God, and that the point of life is to learn and grow so that God can learn and grow and evolve.

He smiled, and nodded, and said, “So it’s like a combination of both.”

And I thought about it a moment, and said, “You’re right!  I’d never thought about it that way.”

Not that Paganism is the love child of Christianity and Buddhism…that the Christianity that permeated my environment growing up and the Buddhism of my family both contributed to the Paganism that I practice and love as an adult.

You may need to read my memoir to figure out what I mean.

Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is

The past week has been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster.  It began with plans of my boyfriend and I getting a place together.  Three days later, my (ex-)boyfriend decided we were better off just friends.  I had about one and a half days to cope with that, while dealing with an infected tooth, before spending four days home alone with my three year old, unable to find child care, and thus unable to work.

Even covered in chocolate, he's just so durn cuddly!

Apparently, I needed some time off.  I wasn’t going to give it to myself, so the Universe provided it for me whether I wanted it or not.

I realized that ever since Susan died, I haven’t been putting my money where my mouth is.  I’m always saying that there are 1440 minutes in every day and at least 30 for ourselves, that we can choose happiness instead of making excuses.  But when Susan died, I reverted to an old version of myself, the martyr version who puts the needs of everyone else before her own and forgets she even has needs until she finds herself in excruciating pain and has no one around to help.

D’oh.

So this week, I’m getting back on track to the new, improved, not-a-martyr version of myself.

I found a cute purple dry erase board on clearance at Michael’s for $2.49, and I’m using it to make a check list of my needs and a reminder of my important projects, right there at eye level for me to see every morning and every night.  It looks like this:

I'll make it prettier later...

I’m setting my alarm for about 2 hours earlier than my son usually gets up so I can have a couple hours to myself in the morning to meditate, watch videos for my e-courses, or work on my projects.  I’m taking at least a day a week to focus exclusively on my projects, as opposed to most week days, when I go from home to my son’s daycare to one work to a meal to another work or  to my son’s daycare and two other day cares to pick up my sister’s kids to home or to another work before home…(have your eyes crossed yet?)

I’m also making sure that the things I spend my money on don’t contradict my values.  I’m buying my veggies from local farmers and planning a portable garden.  I’m figuring out how to re-purpose things that I already have to avoid adding more and more to the landfill, and I’m dedicating myself to recycling anything I can.  I’m also keeping a plastic bag on me for picking up trash and recyclables that others leave lying on the ground.  The Earth is sacred to me, so it’s important that I help Her in any way I can.

Baby steps.  Can’t just reboot myself to the most up to date version.  Gotta find my way back one step at a time.  <3

Taking Back Our Personal Power

What makes humans the dominant species on this planet is our ability to take what we have and turn it in to what we need.

When we are kids, we pick up a stick and use it as a bat, a magic wand, a horse, a phone, a flag, whatever we need in the moment.

This stick is about to become a boat. :)

At school, we are taught the “proper” way to use sticks.  We learn that we have to do things the way others have done them, think the way others think, understand the world the way others understand it.  Our thoughts, words, and actions are labelled “right” or “wrong.”  We are rewarded for conforming and punished for choosing differently.

This makes most of us miserable. We self-medicate with tv, movies, video games, sugar, comfort-junk.  Our poor creative muscles wither.  We forget how to adapt, how to find resources, how to tap in to that creative power that makes us God-like.

Most of us don’t even know that we’ve accepted powerlessness as normal, as “real life.”

“Welcome to the Real World,” we say.  ”Life is hard.  Life is suffering.”

Bullshit, I say.

Life is love.

Life is learning.

Life is an adventure!

The Real World is the world we create for ourselves with our beliefs.  We can believe what we are taught by others, or we can teach ourselves something different.  It’s our choice.

Even when we feel powerless, we have choices.

We have so many choices, they overwhelm us, numb us, and we end up falling on old habits or doing what we think everyone else does, what we’re supposed to do.

Sometimes power is scary.

If every action we perform, every thought we think, every penny we spend, every word we speak changes us and the world around us…that’s just too much responsibility to comprehend on a day to day basis.

But that’s reality.

Reality is constantly changing based on the energy we give it.

If we are in a bad mood, throwing out angry words, violent gestures, mean thoughts, and spending our money on comfort-junk, life sucks for the day.

If we are in a good mood, practicing random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty, being grateful, affectionate, loving, consciously spending money in ways that nourish ourselves and our communities, life is awesome.

Each of us has the power to create paradise wherever we are, one moment at a time.

Each of us has the power to step out of the bully/victim paradigm and choose a new paradigm in this moment.  You can choose a paradigm of unconditional love, or of deep gratitude.  You can choose to live in a world of compassion, affection, and loving acceptance.

"Whoopty doo. But what does it all MEAN, Basil?"

How does someone stuck in a powerLESS-loop take his or her power back?

If you are used to feeling like you have no control, how do you take control of your life?

One step at a time.

Step one for you could be deciding to do one kind thing for a stranger.  You could choose to have an organic apple instead of a candy bar.  Your might choose to laugh.  You could take a day for yourself instead of giving it to others.

You could keep making excuses…or you could make plans, come up with ideas, set goals.

Every step you take towards paradise is one step out of your personal hell.

Every loving choice you make heals you.

You choose.

Creative Writer’s Weekend Retreat!

I am so excited about the retreat I’m hosting this weekend I’m literally bouncing in my seat.  It’s Wednesday, I leave for it Friday…and it’s like it only just hit me.  I guess I’ve been so overwhelmed with playing catch up after nearly three decades of procrastination and perfectionism, I forgot to celebrate all my dreams coming true one by one!

click this image to see the registration page

Ever since I first read about writer’s retreats, probably ten years ago, I’ve wanted to go on one.  After creating my tarot weekend last year, I thought, why not create my own?  So I did!  And it’s exactly what I always dreamed it would be!

I’m setting up a gaming station with Scrabble, Wildcraft, and any other games anyone thinks to bring; an Inspirational Library area with my favorite SARK books and books on writing and publishing plus what anyone else thinks to bring; Inspirational Movie Nights with What The Bleep Do We Know Anyway and more.  We’re going to have a sweatlodge Saturday night, and tons of workshops:

• making sugar scrubs
• giving neck and foot rubs
• using writing as a healing tool
• meditation with the Crystal Singing Bowls
• connecting with our muses
• Sense-immersion
• Re-Vision Strategies
• Creative Ways to Break the Block

and that’s just the workshops I’m putting on!

We’re having a meet and greet Friday night, a morning social Sunday, and loads of time to relax and write or just brainstorm and open the creative floodgates.

I’m already planning the next one – hopefully for this Fall.

I love my life!

Mercury Retrograde & the No Good Very Bad OMGWTF Day

Saturday morning, I had an epiphany in the shower.

Epiphanies are awesome.

For months, I’d been planning to start a weekly newsletter, but I’d been resisting the idea because I was afraid to add another commitment to my overfull plate.  But while I was in the shower, I remembered a story my mother told me before she died about how she’d chosen my name.

She chose Ashley because she thought it was beautiful.  The first time she held me in her arms, early that May morning, a ray of sunshine fell across the bed, illuminating the both of us.  Thus, she named me Ashley Rae.

In the shower I heard the perfect name, and focus, for my newsletter in my head — Your Weekly Rae of Sunshine

I was so excited about my epiphany, I decided to create the newsletter that very night and send the very first one off Sunday morning.

I got up at 8:30 Sunday morning to finish up the newsletter and send it off, despite having been up most of the night working on it.  I was hoping to get it done before my toddler awoke.

15 minutes later, the power supply for my laptop made crackling and popping noises, scaring the bejeesus out of me and inspiring me to rip the plug from the wall and throw it across the room, lest it explode.

It sounded like faeries were frying mushrooms inside the little black box. RUN AWAY!

Then my laptop ran out of power, the battery completely drained.

*headdesk

“Well, poop…” I said.  And my toddler, who had also been up most of the night, who should have slept for at least two more hours, woke up, and thus had to come with me on my quest for a new laptop power supply.

***grr Mercury Retrograde grr***

FOUR frustrating to the point of tears HOURS later, I returned home triumphant…only to discover my new “universal” power adapter did not include a tip that fit my laptop.

***insert much cussing, moaning, complaining, etc here***

It was at least half an hour more before I noticed the bracelet on my wrist and remember that life is too precious to waste on BS.   “Time for a mood-reboot,” the bracelet, or perhaps Sunny, said to me.

I packed my reluctant toddler back into the car, gave the keys to my boyfriend, and wrote this blog post while he drove us to one of my favorite places in the world, All World Acres, to attend the last few hours of the Sustainable Living Conference.

The windows were down, letting the air blow the storm clouds from my brow.  The sun was shining, the sky looking like Andy’s wallpaper from the Toy Story movies.  It was a gorgeous day, and I knew it was going to be an awesome night.

And it was. <3

Remembering Susans

A friend of mine died nearly three weeks ago.

She was young, beautiful, vibrant, a mother, a wife, and the kind of person who felt like a best friend even if you just met, or rarely saw each other.  Her name was Susan, and her nickname was Sunny.

Susan and her 2 year old, Andrew

Hundreds of people were devastated by her unexpected death.  We’ve already come together and raised thousands for her son and widow.  I helped by donating a few half hour readings by phone or skype to the silent auctions.  I’m also helping by donating 10% of the proceeds from my forthcoming memoir to her son’s college fund.  I wish I could do more.

My mother’s name was Susan, and she was also 32 when she died.  Both Susans were from Virginia.  Susan had her son a year and a day after I had mine, and there are several other crazy little synchronicities I don’t feel up to sharing.  It gives me a link to her even though I didn’t get to know her as well in life as I wanted too.  Most of our interactions happened on Facebook and through our yahoo group for “crunchy-ish” mamas.

In the prologue of my book, which I wrote a year ago, I ask “What if I died young and my children grew up never knowing how much I loved them?”  I wrote my book for my son, in case that happened.  But dear Andrew, sweet Andrew…he’s going to grow up hearing how much his mother loved him instead of remembering it.  He’s going to ache for his loss, having to piece his mother together from the memories of others, even more so than I did.  I feel a kinship with his future self, and a deep maternal love for this baby I’ve only met twice.

At the memorial, most of us were given bracelets in sunset colors with “Mamma Bear” and little bears on it.  I haven’t taken mine off.  I don’t plan to any time soon.  It serves a powerful reminder to me every time I notice it.

It reminds me to be present in every moment, especially moments shared with my son.

It reminds me that life is a gift, to be celebrated, too brief to waste on bullshit.  (Bullshit is herein defined as anything that makes me unhappy, irritated, scared, or distracts me from the people and activities that I love most.)

It reminds me to inspire people with illumination, love, and laughter at every opportunity.

It inspires me to be genuine in my affection, and to have integrity in every thing I do.  I hug with a full heart now.  People at Om Gaia, where I give readings during the week, rave about my hugs and come back for thirds.

It inspires me to live my dreams now.