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A lady was driving down main street, rushing because she was having a very busy day. She was coming upon a traffic light which was turning yellow and when the guy in front of her slammed on his brakes, she was furious. She blew her horn a few times, did some obscene sign language out the window, and acted extremely rageful. By this time a police officer saw what was going on, pulled up behind her, and ultimately pulled her over and took her to jail. In a couple of hours, he came to her jail cell and told her she was free to leave. She said, “I appreciate it, sir, however I still don’t know what I did wrong.” He said “Well, you have to see the experience from my point of view. On the back of your car, you have all these bumper stickers like ‘Let there be peace of earth’, ‘Global oneness’, ‘Love the world’, ‘Mom’s club against anger’ and I assumed whoever was driving could not be the cars’ owner but a thief who was driving a stolen car.”

Even though presence is becoming an experience and reality for so many people, there are still many points of resistance or rejection.

Another entry point into the truth is that the absolute nature of reality, meaning the total truth about life, is that you are an infinite presence. You are infinite energy.  Even though this is the truth, the never ending truth or foundation of who you are, many of you are resisting it. 

Here is the main point of resistance you may be experiencing:

The body sometimes assists the soul’s journey with quite dramatic insistence. After I completed a third chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer, my body let my doctors know very clearly that it had reached its limit. I had allergic reactions in the form of an inflamed rash/bumps all over my body, edema (fluid retention), and breakthrough bleeding beneath the skin (to name just a few). Treatment 4 was cancelled. This particular segment of my spiritual “firewalk” was complete.  My body is now being given time to reestablish equilibrium and prepare for radiation in a few weeks.

Community is one of the most valuable aspects of a full, spiritual life. The people we surround ourselves with can support us in our growth and transformation and can help us live as our highest selves. 

As the year comes to a close, it’s a great time to reflect on your relationship to community. Do you have a community you can lean into during this time, or is it a time for you to prioritize making and nurturing new connections?

Every time you inhale and exhale, you are breathing the spirit of life, which is God. That’s the secret: The breath is God. In many languages, the word for spirit is the same as for breath. We hold this wisdom within the depths of our souls because it is what we are made of. Yes, we are human, but our humanity is composed of divine spirit. Your physical form is a sacred temple within which God experiences life on Earth. When you breathe, God is breathing. When you look through your eyes, God is seeing. When you look in another’s eyes, you are both gazing into pools of divinity. The only problem is that we have forgotten. We think that breathing is merely a physical phenomenon that arrives and departs with birth and death.

Either we are at peace wherever we are -- because this peace goes with us -- or what we call our peace is a product of some pleasurable condition over which we have tem­porary command. In situations like the latter, though largely uncon­scious to us, we sense that our peace is conditional. We know that we must work to keep certain prevailing conditions in place in order to remain at peace. And this, of course, means that we will resist any movement that threatens our desired estate. Clearly such a ten­tative peace is not true peace at all, because it dwells side by side, in league with an unseen conflict that is a basic requirement of its very existence!

In 2007, I attended a weekend retreat at Omega Institute with six Nobel Peace Laureates.

During this retreat, the 800+ people in attendance were updated about various situations that were currently occurring in the world. I listened to Nobel Laureates’ stories and felt their experiences and pain, as some described how they had risked their lives for the greater good of humanity.

At first, I questioned if I, Temple Hayes, was even making any difference at all for humanity. As I listened and processed what was shared, I became angry about our cultural values that condone greed and need. However, when I reflected and allowed myself to look at these talks from an Enlightened Rebel perspective, I began to see a common thread. I realized the “missing” within our society today is we have become desensitized to Life Rights. We are forgetting to teach our children the value of life in all living things. We need to engage ourselves in teaching our children the value of nature and life. We have policies that dominate over principles. We are bombarded with similar and repeated events in the news media that can leave even the most Enlightened Rebel feeling powerless, overwhelmed, and apathetic.

Everything can truly be on earth as it is in heaven, when the time of separation is over and the time of unification is at hand. Unification with God, unification with all others, and with every living thing. This is what God has come to tell us once more through the messengers of today. You will know them as God’s messengers because they will all be bringing the same message: We Are All One. This is the only message that matters. The fact that you have so far failed to receive it (you have heard it often, but you have failed to receive it) is what has caused every misery, every sorrow, every conflict, every heartache in your experience. It has caused every murder, every war, every rape and robbery, every assault and attack, mental, verbal, and physical. It has caused every illness and dis-ease, and every encounter with what you call death. The idea that we are not One is an illusion.

The human race has been living with illusions for a long time. This is not because the human race is stupid, but because the human race is very smart. Humans have understood intuitively that illusions have a purpose, and a very important one. Most humans have simply forgotten that they know this. And they have forgotten that their forgetting is itself part of what they have forgotten – and therefore part of the illusion. Now it is time for humans to remember.

The Solstice is an especially opportune time for us to begin to recognize that we are the light. We are that which is revealing.

Life is not about seeking, it's about revealing. What is here for us to reveal is pocketed away in the darkness, which is the space where we come into contact with the rest of who we are.

We're here to bridge the languages of the light and the dark so that we bridge the worlds of the known and the unknown.

As we step into the wholeness of our being we no longer hold those worlds of light and dark as separate from each other. When we steward our creativity, an aspect of us beyond the logical, thinking mind, we allow the miraculous to occur with every breath, and step, that we take.

You recognize that you can't do it wrong, you can only take longer to consciously reveal the Essential Self. As you learn to trust the Self, you begin to step into your creative essence and live as you are intended to live – as Creator.

This is our time to shine. It is your moment to come forth as the light that you are and weave it into the canvas that is your life.

I wasn’t sure whether I needed to set my clock forward an hour or back an hour. After he so confidently gave me his answer, I questioned him, “Are you sure?” Being the subtle character that he was, my dad said to me, “Why did you call me if you did not plan to believe the answer I gave to you?” This experience has stayed with me most of my adult life, for I reflect about it
in a deeper way now. He was right, of course. Why would I call upon him if I did not have faith and trust in his answer? From various experiences with him in my youth, my father had rarely witnessed my total trust in him. I had seen him respond to so many events in such a reactive and insane way that I could never completely relax, let go, or be myself around him.

What if you were to allow your emotions to become devotion, instead of being suppressed?

When the thinking mind is overworking, we have a tendency to generate a life of rigidity and fixed emotions. Our actions in the world become mentally driven, and we lose touch with the essence of what matters most in life.

We are in the midst of the Holy Days, a time of year when light is more easily accessible and, no matter our specific circumstances, we are each gifted with this light. We get to choose to receive this delight, joy, love, and presence that is so available to us now. 

Joy is present as we embrace all emotions – even the ones we don’t typically like to feel – because they are an attempt to ground the Self. All emotions are expressions of love trying to organize into a system of flow. Each is equal and necessary for your wholeness to land here, in a body.

Through the power of free-will choice, forgiveness, and our creative capacity, we each have the ability to take any energy – maybe you're experiencing life circumstances that feel black and white, rigid, or dull – and open into a full-color life experience. 

Of what use is our endless struggle to adapt and even achieve some of the more common culturally-valued prizes, knowing (as all of us do) that nothing we can ever possess has the power to stave off our own inevitable passing? 

The following quotation that I just love is from Vernon Howard, a great twentieth century mystic, that  not only helps to put this idea that we’re looking at right now into proper perspective for us, but as we’ll see, it also hints at a far more appealing possibility at the same time. He said, “It is wise to seek immortality, for time defeats all other ambitions.”

I remember the first time I heard that. I just knew that he was alluding to something that required my full attention, because obviously, everything that we do… or I should say conversely, nothing we do, that we win from this world… we can take with us. But apparently there is another order of life, another order of our self, that we can enter into that allows us to have the best of both worlds but never fear losing what we have won in time on this planet.

Your spiritual journey and your life journey are actually one and the same. There is no such thing as a journey without Spirit (even if you don’t believe in it – you have a soul, and that alone is an important thing to note!). We are all spiritual beings here to have a human experience. If you’re a spiritual seeker, it simply means you’ve chosen to walk through your life with a conscious awareness of yourself and your relationship to your Higher Power and all that entails. 

On the path of personal growth and spiritual awakening, it’s natural to have questions! There are so many different ways to invest in your self-discovery and growth. Each new tool, concept, or practice can help you live a fulfilling, Spirit-led life. 

Recently, I reached out to our community to find out the burning questions you have about spirituality, personal growth, and all things woo-woo. Today I want to share my answers and insights with you to some of the most common questions I received. 

Why do you fear connecting to others? Have you noticed that your life is more enjoyable when you stay in your comfort zone and never put yourself out there? I know you might be wondering how to overcome your fear of connecting to others. 

I'm here to help! First, let's start by defining this fear and what it means for your life.

Fear is a natural human emotion that can protect us from danger or hurt. It helps us avoid situations where we feel vulnerable and unsafe, but sometimes it tends to go hand in hand with anxiety.

Fear can be defined as a "powerful emotion that makes you afraid or anxious about something harmful, unpleasant, or threatening." When we feel fear, our heart rate increases and adrenaline flows through our bodies. This feeling in the body is a natural response to danger. 

The problem with fear is when it becomes an overused reaction to situations. Because of this, many people have developed post-traumatic stress disorder. They are being exposed to too many trauma-related stimuli without time to process their feelings about them. 

A couple had two little boys, ages eight  and ten, who were excessively mischievous.

The two were always getting into trouble and their parents could be confident that if any mischief occurred in their town, their two young sons were involved in some capacity. The parents were at their wit’s end as to what to do about their sons’ behavior. The parents had heard that a clergyman in town had been successful in disciplining children in the past, so they contacted him and he agreed to give it his best shot. He asked to see the boys individually, so the eight-year-old was sent to meet with him first.

The clergyman sat the boy down and asked him sternly, “Where is God?” The boy made no response, so the clergyman repeated the question in an even sterner tone, “Where is God?”

Empowerment is a term used to describe the process of becoming stronger and more confident in one's abilities, often through gaining knowledge or experience. Some people believe that we are all born with an innate power inside of us and it is up to us as individuals to tap into this power and use it for good rather than evil. 

Whether you call this ability God-given or something else entirely, there is no denying the fact that some people have an easier time "tapping" into their powers while others struggle greatly. The following steps will help you discover your own inner strength and learn how best to use your power for good! 

​​There is a quote by Albert Einstein that says "If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there; you must go beyond them." This is very true when it comes to tapping into the power within yourself and using it in all aspects of life.

You are born with an amazing power that is not given to anyone else in this world. You have the ability to create your own reality, your destiny and career. Sometimes we get so consumed by what others say or do that it takes away from our true potential and power. The only one who can limit you is yourself! Let's tap into your power and unleash the greatness within you. 

Who knew anger could be so good for you? The Enlightened Rebel, of course.

This path is infused with fire and whenever you walk it, you travel to the beat of a different drum. You are a rebel with a cause paving the way for others. And when you get to where this part of the journey leads you, understand intuitively the door will open for you. (No need to break it down).

The Enlightened Rebel travels South in the direction of summer. Along this path we learn how to live from a full, clear, strong, and open heart that is filled with compassion and fused with fire.