CHAPTER 1

Coming Out of the (Spiritual) Closet

The legends of King Arthur refer to a wonderful, whimsical, yet powerful wizardnamed Merlin, who "lived backwards." Most people would take that to mean thatMerlin began as a very old man who became younger every year. But that wasn't itat all. Merlin found the doors to the infinite consciousness and then learnedhow to apply that vast knowledge to the comparatively narrow world of humancomprehension and existence. What seemed to be feats of magic were nothing morethan Merlin accessing realities beyond our familiar world.

I know, because I found those doors myself.

What I am about to tell you may sound very strange, but this story is quite realand the experiences are phenomenal. Moreover, every day, science is proving theresulting knowledge to be true, and that knowledge has had resounding effectacross the planet and beyond.

Over the years, hundreds, if not thousands, of people have asked me to tell mystory, and in most cases I have resisted, not wanting to seem like another "woo-woo"person with a great imagination. But during these years, the world hasgrown up, and I guess I have too. So here it goes.

Being intuitive has been natural for me my entire life. As a child in Catholicschool, I really understood the meaning of holy and the inner place from whichthe saints' devotion came—that place in our heart of hearts where we can go tobecome unified with all things, that place inside of us that is our sourceconnection, our link to the memories of all times and infinite possibilitiesfrom which we can create anything that we desire. That place that many peoplecall the God within us. It can be an overwhelming place.

I remember one day as a child, when I was in my friend's playhouse, the air allof a sudden sort of snapped, crackled, and turned blue. I heard a rustle and sawa light that sprouted wings, unfolding as a dove that flew toward me and over myhead as I ducked. "Hey!" I yelled at my friend, "Did you see the Holy Spiritjust now?" (I mean, really, what else would you call it?) My friend just kind ofshrugged and blew me off. She hadn't seen or heard a thing.

That experience was the beginning of many that no one else believed. Strange wasnormal for me. I knew things. From a very deep heart place, I understood whatpeople felt, what they really meant when they said things, how much painhumanity carried. I seemed to be empathic to the emotional injuries of othersand to have compassion for the pain that I saw and felt.

It became hard for me to tell the difference between their emotions and mine, soI shut off my intuitive understanding as best as I could. Deep down theawareness simmered, but I found a way to cover it up. When I was a teenager,alcohol and drugs provided a blissful escape, but ultimately I felt worse, astheir effects lingered in my sensitive system. Later, I developed defensivebehaviors and built walls a mile thick around my emotions. Yet all the while Istill felt everything.

Because no one else seemed to have an awareness like mine, I hid my experiences,keeping them to myself. I tried really hard to be like everyone else, but Ialways had the feeling that I didn't fit in anywhere. For a couple of decades, Ilived a cardboard life. I lived and loved from the perspective of those aroundme—my friends, my family, everyone. For example, when I asked my dad what itwould take for him to be proud of me, for me to be a success, he said, "Do wellin business." So I set out to prove to dad that I was made of that stuff, that Ihad the grit and determination of a successful business person.

There came a day in 1998 when my cardboard world—everything that I knew to be mylife, the foundation of my reality—began to crumble. I found myself alone on myfriend's sofa because I had nowhere else that felt safe. One morning, I woke upand was sobbing. At that moment, there wasn't a thought in my head, but I wasenshrouded in pain. My heart was broken. Nothing made sense. The grief was aliveand consuming me.

It was time to regroup. "Okay, self," I said, "We are not getting up off of thiscouch until we figure out what is going on here."

I began to look at my life with a fresh set of eyes. I looked at my role inevery situation. What I saw was a rude awakening. I had become dishonest andmanipulative with myself, and I had a sense of false bravado that I was somegreat success. I realized that all I was doing was blaming everyone else for myproblems. It was time take responsibility for my own actions and perceptions.

As I looked in my own inner mirror, I also realized that I was in no wayauthentic. I had learned to cover up every deep feeling, every perception, andevery little tiny bit of me there was. I had to get real. So I reached into myheart of hearts and said aloud to the otherwise empty room, "Whoever I am,whatever I am, I accept."

I can't emphasize enough the humility that went with that statement, what itmeant to truly let go. The words rolled through my body like a tidal wave. Ifelt much lighter than I had only a moment before. From that moment forward Idecided to live authentically, no matter what, to maintain the humility thatbrought me to getting real.

The first thing I learned was that I didn't know how to tell the truth. I don'tmean I lied to everyone all of the time. I didn't know how to tell myself thetruth, and because of that, I had become a pretty good B.S. artist with everyoneelse. But after that moment of humble acceptance, I began to practice truth. Icaught myself when I was covering up what I really felt, and I began to learnhow to feel safe revealing my more inner thoughts and feelings. Soon thatspilled over into practicing on other people. I would swallow hard and speak thetruth as I saw it. Funny thing was, as I did, people became more comfortablewith me, and I with them. Simultaneously, the people in my life that reallydidn't fit, people with whom I'd had destructive relationships, started to justkind of fade into the sunset. But as each negative person fell away, others cameinto my life—others who were authentic and, even more exciting, open to the ideathat what we see around us isn't the only reality there is in creation.

One day I ran into a tenant to whom I had leased a client's house in the middleof a gorgeous old farm. She invited me to come to her house for weekly groupmeetings she was having. She told me that the meetings were all about astrology,and that they did drumming and different things like that. The next week, Itimidly wandered into the meeting. It was already in progress...