Category: a year of living on a higher plane

Dimensionality, Horton and a Who

I often find it difficult to write about abstract ideas in a way that gives them a certain dimensionality so they become more real, more concrete, and also so people don’t look at me like I’m nuts. It’s why Jesus used parables to instruct us about God, his own ministry, and his purpose of reconciling God and humanity and connecting to a world, much of which at the time anyway, was beyond human comprehension. So, using the same kind of idea, I am appropriating, once again, a story that I think gives concrete dimensionality to what living on a higher plane looks and feels like from my perspective. “Horton Hears a Who” by Dr Suess is one of my favorite books from child hood and I have to thank my older brother for bringing it to mind one day when we were talking.

The gist of the story is this: Horton, a big elephant is relaxing in the water one day when a speck of dust floats by and Horton could swear he hears a noise coming from it. Because his ears are more sensitive than other animals, he thinks that maybe the noise was a cry for help. It turns out it was, a creature so small was calling from atop the speck of dust that he can barely hear him. Concerned that the speck of dust would float into the water and drown this small creature, Horton puts the speck of dust on a clover and delivers the most famous line of the book: “I’ll just have to save him. Because after all, a person’s a person, no matter how small.” Horton realizes that there is a whole other world living on that speck of dust, and the voice he was hearing belonged to the mayor of Whoville, an entire town of small creatures and right then and there commits to keeping them safe. Unfortunately, a kangaroo and her “joey” over hear and see Horton and mock him for conversing with a speck of dust and because of their small ears they can’t hear the little Who and decide that Horton can’t either. No amount of convincing by Horton in explaining how sensitive his ears are is enough to elicit trust from the kangaroos that he is, in fact, telling the truth. Soon the whole jungle hears about the speck of dust and there a many who try to take away the clover and one in particular, a nasty black bottom eagle, finally succeeds in grabbing the clover tosses it into a huge field of clovers. Horton spends night and day going through the whole field and finally, to the great happiness of the mayor of Whoville, gets reunited with Horton…only to be confiscated again by the largest Kangaroo and other jungle animals. They plan on boiling the speck of dust in oil, and in a last ditch panic, Horton implores the mayor of Whoville to have everyone yell at the same time, which they do. Surely everyone had to have heard the singular cry. But to no avail, they don’t. They overcome Horton and cage him. In a last desperate moment Horton implores the mayor to check and make sure everyone is doing their best. The mayor does one last search and sure enough, he finds his small son, JoJo, playing with a yoyo. He grabs him and brings him back to the top of the town, and with JoJo’s little “YOPP” as the final addition, the sound finally travels to all the other animals ears. Horton rejoices and says: “Their voices were heard! They rang out clear and clean. They’ve proved they ARE persons, no matter how small. And their whole world was saved by the smallest of ALL!”

I love this story. It gives credence and context to my journey, not because my story mirrors the Suess tale specifically, but in ways that challenge individual truths and perspectives to go beyond their direct experience and be open to embrace truths that are just beyond their present periphery. At times I have felt like all three major players in this story, Horton, for hearing a whispers that no one else can hear, the mayor for knowing we need help from a world beyond, and little JoJo who even in his smallness turns the tide to save their world. I have felt exhausted, in the past, knowing that many don’t believe or understand the whispers I hear, or in the cry to heaven that our world needs help and we can’t be saved on our own, and in finally in the belief that one small voice joining with all the others who demand to be heard can turn the tide. I don’t feel exhausted anymore, because my periphery has shifted, I know without a doubt that it is in loving unequivocally and the power and efficacious actions of love in all its expressions that strengthens the ties of God’s beautiful blueprints, and is the very source and breath of what living on a higher plane requires.

As I move forward, this little story gives me hope, and if you choose to read it, I hope it gives you hope too; a hope that we the many, both large and small, can join our voices together and with love as the source of our power cast out the the darkness that surrounds us, and shine a light toward a brighter future.

I’ll just have to save him. Because, after all,
A person’s a person, no matter how small.

To Infinity and Beyond

I found the picture from climbing Chichen Itza…and the view looking back down. It was exhilarating and scary at the same time, but the story didn’t end there. When we got to the top and just after I took this picture, Steve told me that I had to go down and get a helicopter to come up and pick him up, at first I laughed, but then realized he was dead serious. His face was completely white, and I suddenly knew he was not only afraid of heights, but also agoraphobic as well. I told him I wouldn’t leave without him, so either we died up there or we took our time getting back down together. It took me over an hour to talk him down backwards, which is quite a feat for someone who is 6 ft 4, and a size 14 shoe. I went down backwards first, right behind him, he knew if he fell or slipped I would go tumbling downward, and it kept him thinking with a level head, to move one small step at a time, until we reached solid ground.

The reason I brought up this story is not to disparage anyone because of their fears, I’ve talked about my own plenty, but more as a reminder that we all have them, regardless of how you look to the rest of the world, and most often they remain hidden. In the moment, though, when we act in a way that disregards, or is a denial that we have them, the end result is that the fear can and often does win. In my small and insignificant world, after the shooting by ICE in Minneapolis, where I spent much of my life, I too was paralyzed with the kind of fear that left me wondering if the darkness had finally won, that this journey of mine was nothing more than a fools errand, and that the little bit of light I brought to the game was nothing compared to the black whole of chaos that is beginning to swallow this country. The lies from those in power, come so frequently and blatantly that, from a leadership position, I began to wonder if it is just impossible to keep this ship afloat. And yet, I know, that throwing the lying, liars that lie overboard is not an option. Why? because according to everything I know about living on a higher plane, the foundational axiom is this: we are all connected. So every movement I make affects the whole, regardless of how small…even if it is just a whisper. Every choice made in fear, weakens and as in the case of Renee Macklin Good, destroys connections that are meant to move and evolve us forward.

It is that very concept, a reminder that we are all connected, that gave me the strength to continue on this journey, fools errand or not, and a very specific connection that talked me away from my fear, and that’s all I’ll say about that. All I know, in my lifetime, I have had plenty of opportunities to help people face their fears and move beyond them, and it is my prayer today that all those lights, blueprints or whatever you want to call them I feel connected to have someone, right now, who can do the same for them. We, those who choose love over fear, need each other right now. And while I love the amazing solidarity of people protesting the violence, I do caution that while doing so, we take the time necessary to face and acknowledge the fears we have right now, and enlist those we love to help overcome them. Fighting for justice and change is important, but reaching out and loving each other is just as important, because that love will define what the fight looks like.

And now the title I used for today’s post, yep, another appropriation…I think quoting Buzz Lightyear is perfect. He may have suffered an identity crisis after learning that he is just a toy, and not the hero that saves the universe, but when he finds his true purpose of being a loyal friend, and being loved and cherished for who and what he is, perhaps he really does…save the universe, I mean. And Buzz also reminds me that it only takes the faith of a mustard seed to move a mountain…

An Inconvenient Truth

Yes, I am aware that the title of this piece is from a famous documentary about climate change. I appropriated it, but not for the reasons you may think. It did not originate from my clever mind, hence why I’m telling you this upfront. Also, this post is not about climate change, I borrowed the title to make this point; every idea, thought, both academic and non came from direct learning and experience from me alone. Perhaps my age will give validity to this statement, but there is and never will be chatgpt, or any other mechanism available today for taking shortcuts to understand or describe how I know what I know and how I got where I am today (a portion of the old hard copies of books and curricula of what I’ve been studying are in the picture above and are what I’m talking about). And while I will never claim to own or control an idea, because they are not mine alone to begin with, I am the walking, talking “inconvenient truth” of this experience, i.e. the protagonist of this story; no one can make any claim to, here or anywhere else I am present in the world, but me, and I, and only I, am in control of that. I am not saying that whatever “this is” is so great, but I am saying that as I move forward this year, that I am the one responsible for where and how I move forward on this path. No amount of appropriation or manipulation will ever change the fact that there is no way in hell that ‘I’ can be duplicated or manipulated in any way, shape or form. As I’ve stated many times before, this journey of mine is one of a kind. My words may be, and perhaps already have been used to give credence to others who may lay claim to the wisdom of them without going through the work, but the fact remains that living on a higher plane demands that you walk the walk and not just talk the talk (another phrase I am appropriating). If you think you can get there as an academic exercise, it will just become a fools errand for you. In fact, if you are truly serious about living on a higher plane, say the prayer I did all those years ago in Russia when I asked God to never, ever let me become an arrogant asshole (I was unkindly speaking of other representatives of the cloth). God will hold you to it every time you think that you, as a vessel, are more important than the lesson…a literal shitstorm will follow if you do :).

So, let me share some of the inconvenient truths of what this year may feel like for me, and, like I never want to, a conversation with my spirit guide days preceding the beginning of this journey.

Sitting in my favorite place, my spirit guide came from behind and gave me a hug,

“Hello”, I said, I was excited to get started.

“Hello, to you too. Before we begin, let me remind you that the Kingdom of Heaven is within you”. he said as he sat down next to me (in this incarnation, he was the Savior).

“Why do I get the sudden feeling that I am not going to like what comes next…” I said with a bit of trepidation.

“Because you won’t”. He paused and just looked at me.

“I muttered, Oh shit”, under my breath, “what does that mean?”

“To put it simply, it means that this years theme is not an internal one, a discovery of self, it is a year of action putting into practice and bringing out the Kingdom of Heaven that you have been developing within”. He paused and let the words sink in.

My heart rate skyrocketed and I immediately felt a rising terror…”You mean I actually have to go out and DO stuff? I have actually no idea how to do that, plus, I am terrible at being in the center of anything, you know what I mean by that. Plus people never listen to me “out there,” hell, I’m not sure anyone listens to me here. I am not good at that, I was born to create environments to help others, to remain in the background, to be a quiet whisperer. I wouldn’t have the first clue what to do, and well, I DON’T WANT TO.” The tears were starting to come, of course I’m still not very good at the emotional stuff.

He was calm, comforting and yet I could see in his eyes unrelenting. “But you will, because what has this journey been for if not to be instrumental’, and when he saw me start to hyperventilate he said, “don’t worry, not in a demonstrably huge way, but instrumental, nonetheless, you felt the same way when you promised to go where I asked you to go and it worked out quite well actually. So, this is simply the moment, the time of opportunity and action, of encapsulating all that you have learned and professed to believe out there” he pointed to a road that suddenly lay ahead of me. “I would never put you in this position if I didn’t think you were up to it. And please note, my imagination is so far beyond yours, that never in a thousand years will you be able to know where this road is leading you, so let go of whatever horror story you’re creating in your head right now”. He actually smiled. And while my relationship with the Savior has always been open and honest, I didn’t dare get snarky at this point. I just quietly shook my head in the affirmative

The rest will remain private. But the Savior did give me the comfort of knowing that there are those who love me, and support me and that won’t change. They will give me strength along the way. And as for those inconvenient truths…let me just say that art, in multiple forms, will be the most instrumental mechanism of sharing the Kingdom within, the song of my soul, the melody which at present may still be elusive, it is becoming clearer by the day. And to conclude, when I reread this last paragraph and it almost made me cringe at the presumptions of it, I got a spiritual slap upside that head reminding me that it only takes the faith of a mustard seed, that anything asked for in goodness shall be given, and that love never fails. Let the craziness begin.

Higher Ground…and so We Begin

Van Cliburn – pianist 1960

I’ve spent the last few days in deep study and reflection in preparation for the idea of living and walking on higher ground. It afforded me an opportunity to look back in hindsight and in doing so I realized how I have spent my lifetime trying to incorporate this very theme into my life and work. It was then, that the directives of this year’s theme became even more exciting, because of how it opened up my mind and spirit in the past. I am cautioned, however, because when I look back objectively, the implementation of this idea throughout my life in specific moments wasn’t altogether very effective. The mechanisms, the events, curriculums, and programs that I created independently never achieved the goals I had anticipated and I was sometimes even punished for them, often leaving me feeling ineffectual. And yet, when I strung them all together over my lifetime…well what I saw wasn’t ineffectual but something else entirely. I had thought, given this direction, that I was to start the year by extracting what I learned from the failures of these accumulated experiences of my past. Failure, as much as accomplishment is often a great gage for me to improve, change or enhance my understanding of how I need to move forward. After last night, however, that is no longer the case. In addition to a powerful dream, another older dream was brought to my mind. To begin, here the dream I had years ago about Van Cliburn’s Hands. https://maryfrancesflood.com/2010/01/28/van-cliburns-hands/

Perhaps it was my attempt to describe my new bed using one of my favorite pianists, or my definite need for a massage, but I have had a recurring dream with Van Cliburn’s hands in it.  Usually it is just the hands, moving beautifully, bringing forth music.  Only the music doesn’t come from a piano, but from me.  My face turned red just writing that phrase, not because of some untoward sexual reference, but because of the intimacy of the action…of being played and the resulting progeny, a tune so beautiful and melodic that it brought a tear to my eye.  I couldn’t remember the melody when I woke up, except the tune was familiar and once I started to sing it, I flew upward into the clouds where a group of ancient looking kings and queens danced in a circle while holding hands.  I wanted them to hear the song, that I could sing it better than anyone else.  I woke before I heard an answer.  For the life of me I couldn’t remember anything else about the song, except those amazing hands and that I had heard the tune before.  Perhaps a connection to a past event or theme?  Who knows, but it was an amazing dream….

It seems personal sharing wasn’t limited to last year, however given this post was written 16 years ago, and it was brought to my attention in another dream I had last night, I think it is very pertinent. I dreamed I was a monkey in a crowd of dancing monkey’s (no, this is not a joke…it is a very serious metaphor connected to the concept of the “100th monkey”…look it up). I saw a director/person in charge leading us to a train of sorts, and I wanted to show him a new dance that had suddenly come to me. I bowed and caught his attention and started to dance to a tune in my mind. At first he really didn’t notice, until all the other monkey’s started dancing to it as well. In my mind, my Spirit guide whispered, “Van Cliburn’s hands” It was then that I woke up and realized that that melody I dreamed of so many years ago is still alive and well inside my soul and this year, hopefully, I can better share this melody and create a choreography, of sorts, that is the result of all the past “movements” I have worked toward, one that others can also dance to, in hopes of creating an expanded way to live out our beautiful blueprints, and love each other more easily and fully. Not to great of a goal, right? Of course I never shirk from throwing it all out there, and I am, after all this time, completely aware that the results of my prayers and year’s journey will be beyond anything I have or can possibly fathom. I also feel the time requires it. This planet, the Body of Humanity and the direction that the God of Love desires for us to shed our light into the darkness also requires all of us all to participate, or it will never come to fruition. For this is what the God of Love requires of us:

So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

2 Corinthians 5:17-20.


I urge you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect. For by the grace given to me I tell everyone among you not to think of themselves more highly than one ought to think, but to think soberly, each according to the measure of faith that God has apportioned. For as in one body we have many parts, and all the parts do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually parts of one another.

Romans 12:1-5.

So I begin, taking what I learned from the past, and walking forward, with the commitment to continue to work on the emotional stability that I learned last year is necessary for wielding love, and with full faith in the God of love and all the beautiful trajectories in my life to share the melody of my soul in all its beauty and uniqueness in the hope that will help us walk and live together on a higher plane. God is my orchestra and you are Van Cliburn’s hands.

A Higher Plane…a Primer

The above photos are me in my favorite place, one of my hardest, triumphant, and at the same time, most poorly planned climbs of my life. How I made it is still a mystery, because I left my camera with my friend down on the beach. Anyway, I included it because it is with the same attitude that I begin this next chapter, I want to go to a greater height, and I will get there by just leaping ahead with the faith that I, regardless of my frailties and limits, will get there because I believe whole heartedly that it where the God of love wants me to go. In my first meditation on this new theme, my stomach was in knots, and I wrestled with the whole rational/spiritual dimensions of my nature: how can I present living on a higher plane in such a way that it makes perfect sense and is not just the figment of the imagination of an inventive mind? So, like that climb above, I just jumped out into the abyss that is my spirit and mind and embraced whatever came to me. At this point, I was and am chastised and humbled by ever worrying in the first place…this is going to be an adventure.

To begin with, the first things that came to mind when I focused on living on a higher plane, was all the work I had done with scientist, paleontologist, philosopher and mystic Teilhard de Chardin. He spent his lifetime studying the evolution of the planet/humanity and his conclusions are one of the cornerstones of my development. His teaching about the “phenomenon of man” (in quotes here, because in further usage I will only use gender affirming pronouns), that there is a correlation between the physical and psychical evolution of our species, is the link I’ve found between the disciplines of science and religion, that together work to form a more holistic view of our evolution. It is also the context, by which, the teachings of Christ and most other religions I’ve studied make the most sense. I will, of course, go into more detail in posts to come.

Secondly, because our universe is more than just a physical one (the without), its genesis has to also be understood in terms of the development of consciousness (the within). The evolution of both the inner and outer world share these same qualities: Plurality, Unity, and Energy. Once applied, from the teachings of Teilhard, there is a great shift in how neither the “without” of evolution and the “within” of evolution could be understood independently from one another. Ultimately, Teilhard believed that there is a specific direction to our evolution, that it is not a random set of events left to a multitude of circumstances, and that God is the source of that direction. He painstaking laid exactly how, and his work was censured by the Church, and he was exiled from France and China where he spent most of his life developing his theories.

While Teilhard’s theories were instrumental in my understanding of evolution on multiple levels, it was the science of quantum physics that expanded my understanding of Teilhard’s world (he died in the 50’s). The role of the observer, the impact of “the body” of thought, and the direction complex and nonlinear beings like humans will have on the collective unconscious, or “higher plane” as I am calling it, demands as much attention if we, cumulatively want to participate in the direction God wants us to go. Here is where it gets tricky…while God may have had the greater hand in directing our evolution up to this point, because of our free will, and powerful role in moving whether it be forward or backward, humanity, more than ever has within its power to embrace and live on this higher plane…or not, and the latter is what I find most frightening.

And yet, I am entering this year with my faith strengthened, solidified and purified by all I learned in the last year, and with the knowledge that I am not alone, I am joined by many open and brilliant blueprints out there who are finding their own way to shine their light, which to me, is synonymous with living on a higher plane. Of course, like anything, it doesn’t mean moving forward will be easy…I’ve already felt the struggle already. Wielding love is hard work and admittedly work that is relatively new to me…but true to my core, I will weather through it. The picture below is evidence physically what I am going through spiritually. I had just survived a huge storm on Lake Superior, that was terrifying and I understood, afterwards, how a huge ship like the Edmond Fitzgerald was sunk during a storm on that very same lake. I had thrown up my blueberry pancakes over the edge of said ship all the while thinking I was a goner and have never felt so fragile and aware of the power of the wind and nature in my life. To this day, the wind still freaks me out…whether it is physical or spiritual. But like the face in that picture, I am resolved to keep moving forward to better weather and greater heights.

Light in the Darkness

While I love the long days of summer and all its light…my favorite time of year is right now, when cold and darkness envelopes my small world, making the breakthrough of beautiful light all the more crisp and piercing. With the cold (set to be -15F/-26C on Saturday) and darkness barely waning when I leave for work, and its blackness engulfing me when I come home, the drive home amidst all the twinkling Christmas lights makes the darkness almost magical. It is in the deep of night, however, that I seem to be struggling, per usual.

I hope you all have noticed by now, that I take each and every theme on this journey very seriously. As I move toward the new year, the idea of living on a higher plane, and what that means not only to me, but to all you out there, is a bit paralyzing. Instinctively, like I did the moment I started this journey for God so many years ago (see, “Dancing Naked before the Lord”) my first question is “Why me?” “What do I know?”. The answer is much the same I got from the voice of God the first time…”Because I asked you to, and you accepted.” I know for some, that borders on delusional…but here’s the thing, when I look back in hindsight, it all makes such sense, I see such a beautiful pattern and balanced rationality, from which I have gained so much insight and transformed me into the woman I am now, that I would be hard pressed to say that I made all this shit up.

The foundations of this journey are rooted in the hard work I’ve done cognitively and academically, with degrees in Theology, Education, Leadership and Law (I’m not trying to brag, but these were important mechanisms in how I learned to observe the world). Although pleasurable yet foundational, the hard work of holding multiple jobs so I could travel all over the world and the exposure it gave me to other people and cultures gave me a broader perspective than I ever could have had just standing in one place. The work of facing limitations, some self-imposed and some not, was probably where I have gained the most strength and insight, especially through facing the structural and physical challenges of living a life of pushing through limits and at times, disregarding and paying the consequences of the frailty of just being human. And lastly, (and I know now why this came last), learning to love unequivocally cracked open my soul and released the mute button, and since this experience, the freedom to dance my own dance, is still new and wildly unpracticed, it causes me the most consternation at present. While the above list may mean absolutely nothing to anybody else or give me any measure of credibility for what comes next, it did remind me and solidify my dedication and belief in this journey I’ve been charged with, because I am the one who lived and worked through every moment of it…and I am happy and proud of the results, most of the time.

The reason I say most of the time, is because I do feel like a pioneer of sorts when it comes to living on a higher plane. I know there are plenty of highly spiritual people who already live on a higher plane, and I’m certainly not trying to reinvent the wheel…but what I am attempting is somewhat of a course correction when it comes to what living and loving unequivocally looks like. It is also the reason I think God directed me on this journey. The words of Jesus have become so skewed and the road to manifest the Kingdom of God have become so full of unnecessary obstacles, that I have taken up the mantel to offer, humbly, a version that is more in tune with the tenets and axioms of what the Savior set down. Hopefully at the end of the next year, I will have offered some insight on how to live in such a way that they will know who we are by how we love one another, regardless of who we are, what job we hold or where we live in the world…that all God’s precious blueprints are bearing the fruit of those gifts in such a way that hope has returned and the darkness is obliterated.

And in truth, I have already had a moment, in the night, where the fear and loneliness were so palpable that no amount of comfort extended to me by my spirit guide seemed to get through, and I was tempted to turn and leap from the water back into the boat and I just prayed “HELP”. I missed my father desperately in those moments, especially his wise council and solid faith in God. The very next day, I received a gift that was, I believe, directly sent from above from my oldest brother John. He sent me my dad’s wedding ring, with the note: “Dad is always with us” along with a small part of one of my father’s sermons:

I have often wondered: why did God create us so imperfectly, that he needed such a majestic solution to our dilemma. Why didn’t God just create us and save us in one creative moment. The truth is, God could have done just that but didn’t. Instead of an instantaneous solution, we were given the gift of freedom. In this way we can choose the manner in which we will live our lives. It is also God’s wisdom that we participate in our own salvation; that we choose our God. For God to choose for us would discredit us and the gift of free choice.

In choosing God and seeking how to find him in the joy of life that we attain our salvation. It is giving our life over to God, of love, when the joys of life are hard to find, that we attain salvation. It is knowing that in the dance of life, both partners-we and God-can’t lead. We can learn to relax and let God lead us in the right direction.

This was such an affirmation of learning to stand in the still point and being open to receive, because God tells us that when we call in need, God will answer. I will wear my father’s ring as a talisman that I am not alone, that I am walking a sacred path and I need not be afraid of finding my footing out on the water, even if it feels like I am on a solitary journey at times. And yet, all the while, I am continuing to send out love to all my trajectories and pray for an open pathway, for those who choose love, to bear fruit on our journeys, it also gives me the hope and comfort to keep moving forward. You, like the Christmas lights that so beautifully pierce the darkness this time of year, are my spiritual light in the darkness. Blessings on the Season to all of you!