January 1, 2010 – Dreamscape I was visiting a historical place with a  wide expanse of gravel entryway in beautiful colors of terracotta.   The temple had two domes and in the center of the domes was an emblem, an ancient glyph.  There were a dozen people taking pictures of this emblem and monument.  I felt the need to be on the ground. I lay down on the gravel expanse in perfect alignment with the emblem.  Face up, feet towards the monument.  This was not unusual, the other visitors did not mind me, and they just gave me space. This was a place of perfect balance.  This was the place that brought me into complete balance and oneness.  I could feel the energy flowing from that sign directly to me. There was no separation from anything. Love and More Love Laura October 28, 2009 Meditating.  Entered the River of Life (Light).   This elegant and complex river of patterns and lights was an entirely different place that I had previously experienced in the grid. This was the place of Creation.   There was a vast feeling of connection to everything. I asked to see a dream come true.  As I was observing (while and being a part of the river) there were explosions of light.. These were the connections that formed the fruition of a dream as it becomes a reality. The patterns were so intricately woven, like complex embroidery of silver and white light in a soft gentle background, always moving and forming new and even more beautiful patterns.  There were areas of different colored light. These I perceived to be my gentle Guides and others that I know in this lifetime. There was no difference between ones that have passed over or not, we were all very present and completely a part of this river. This is an entirely new place for me to experience fully awake during meditation.  It was a place to dream and drift. To remember my connection to Everything and All That Is, forever and eternally, sharing my breath. Love and More Love Laura October 26, 2009 Loving touches.  During dreamwork I was gently smoothing mountain ranges.  There were several in various colors. Blue range, violet range and so on.  As I was smoothing the mountains I was sobbing. These were deep soul sobs, like a cleansing wash during the gentle and loving touches I was applying.   At the end, I was crystal.  All clear. Love and More Love Laura September 16, 2009 Last night the forest where I live was showing me so much love coming through ...love so very vast there are no words built yet for this experience.  This is one of those times that only tears could express what I was feeling. Love and More Love Laura September 8, 2009 The Dinner Party –I made a vessel from ground crystals spun into a beautiful cylinder to serve.  Seated at the table – six others. I poured out beautiful light structures from the serving vessel, different patterns for each being.  The patterns were of sacred geometries combining straight line light structures, spirals and geometrics all connected.  The servings were not quite touching the plane of the table top.  It was a very beautiful feast – food of life was served. Love and More Love Laura August 28, 2009 - Mt. Shasta The rocks and stones remember the heat at their center that gave them birth. They will support you. Love and More Love Laura August 26, 2009 Someone told me they were in grief today, they said not the kind I experienced, however,  grief none-the- less.  There is no way to measure or judge grief.  Once you had experienced grief this is the deepest knowing of it. You never stand it up against someone else's grief to see who has more.  You never judge if what someone is feeling is really grief or not.  This is the first lesson of grief.  Complete acceptance and love for anyone in grief. Taking that lesson out over a five year period I understand this is where I learned unconditional love.    The lessons and tests still arrive.  Unconditional love is the only answer. I cannot judge anyone because that is really judging myself.   I cannot get angry at anyone because I am only hurting myself.   There is a way to speak my truth through a loving and compassionate heart.  Today I spoke it in haste with much frustration.  All that did was bring me more of what I was feeling.  I should have sat and taken a few breaths and I forgot – just for a moment. In that moment I was not in my heart.   Tonight I know tomorrow will bring an apology and forgiveness. They go together.  So once more with all my heart I know love is the only way to answer anything. This is the only tool that works all the time and makes miracles. Love and More Love Laura August 15, 2009 I sat in the Avenue of the Giants today. The ancient redwoods in California.  They told me this: One little tree makes a forest. One helping hand heals the world. One heartfelt thought makes love. Laura August 12, 2009 Driving home tonight – I noticed the sky looked like Heaven. As I got to the top of the hill the message was…”Welcome to Heaven.  All you have to do is change the way you think about it.” Love and More Love Laura July 16, 2009 I  am a bridge. A rainbow bridge of Love and Light.  I was looking for the other shore to complete the bridge. Then I realized when I stopped looking I had already found it. I was already there.  I am complete. Love and More Love Laura July 3, 2009 Cambria overnight. This is where I write my dream, speak it out loud to the Universe and I Know. I thank the Universe for this trip – which did so much for my heart and soul – this Cambria place is so very clear – like a wishing well for me. Now I release my dream to the Universe and Know.   Love and More Love Laura June 21, 2009 - for Dad on Father's Day because he is one of the Golden Folk Dad: On this Father’s Day I thank you for showing me that giving is really living. I can see all the gifts you and Jeri give to your family and community. The giving of your time and beautiful foods – both hold so much care for everything around you. And I thank you for helping me find a way to learn about the earth and my community with the agriculture group.  The meetings and tours have helped me know so much more about the people that really are making a difference in the way we parent the earth and feed our community. It is all really about unconditional love and thank you for helping me understand that lesson.  It is the best of all.  It is not something you can write about or learn from a book, it is something you experience because someone, like you, has given it with soft words and actions.  When you experience unconditional love in an unawakened state it is a great feeling. When you experience unconditional love in an awakened state it is like all the bells and whistles of the Universe ping, all the lights turn on and you feel grace from the inside out. Thank you for teaching me to see with my heart. Love Laura June 18, 2009 See with your heart. Love everything.  Forgive anything that causes you discomfort. These simple acts create new magnificence. Love and More Love Laura April 15, 2009...Yed Prior - Left Hand of the Healer - oh what a great story! Love and More Love Laura February 12, 2009 Shaman and Steam Flute – Dream Journey I was with friends (a man and woman) in retreat place. A place of rest and relaxation.  The friends went first. The shaman boiled water in a kettle over a fire hearth.  Then one at a time as they rested on the floor – the shaman removed the kettle and blew notes through it like it was a steam flute. Beautiful steam images appeared above each of them light and airy, gentle and relaxing. Then it was my turn. The shaman removed the kettle, I was on the floor very relaxed. As the shaman blew into the kettle softly, an ancient one appeared, a grandmother guide very full and robust, and very wise and gentle. The shaman set the kettle aside, then he moved aside and made way for the grandmother ancient one to give me the knowledge.  To help me – and she filled me with this knowing.  The shaman said, he did not realize….then he faded away. The ancient one stayed with me and the wisps of this dream stay with me now, always. Love and More Love Laura February 6, 2009 Pearls.   In each lifetime there are relationships, like rings that connect.  With those relationships are the pearls of wisdom. In each lifetime we learn and extend our experience through those relationships -- loving, lessons and we grow. Now we understand it is very easy to stay present, aware and awake.  The signs are abundant and easily seen when we remain in that joy of knowing. The pearls are all around, the lessons are so much easier now.  Love is the answer, forever and always the greatest pearl of all. Love and More Love Laura December 21, 2008 Blessings on this beautiful Solstice. Love and More Love Laura November 19, 2008 Dream mapping…I am climbing a beautiful mountain with you – mapping the places of views and rest – mapping the trail for the next travelers.  What a beautiful experience. Love and More Love Laura October 16, 2008 I am walking on clouds. I am completely in a state of love and trust. Surrendering the dreams I have to the Universe because I Know that the dreams grow ever so much more lovely and perfect when I release the outcome to the perfection. That is really how it works. I grow a thought, like a seed.  Then I dream the thought into more awareness of where that thought gives me joy. Then I release the seed of Joy into the awareness of knowing that the Source of my Light knows the perfect plan for me to experience. When I try and sculpt that seed with my thinking mind instead of my knowing heart, it is always just misses.  When I allow it to grow and move into perfection, well I have one word WOW! This has happened many times since I became awake and aware, so I am dreaming with my heart, dreaming the thought into that seed of Joy. Knowing I am ready to love again, to have that perfect soul mate step into my life to share this Joy. Growing the seed with Love. I Am writing my evolution. Love and More Love Laura September 16, 2008 This story that was my story, the one that started the book “Cracking the Seed” this story is now over. It is time to write a new story, a beautiful tale about love and compassion. Those are the tools that we have been given.  So it begins, this new and wonderful life, a life of love and happiness. Joy and bliss, humor and tenderness, gentle caring and compassion, careful in thought and deed like never before because I now understand how these really do make themselves become my reality.  I Notice Now.  I create Love. I Am. Love Laura September 14, 2008 I will always have this to give, to receive and in endless supply - Love Peace on Earth Love Laura For my Mom who passed into the Light on August 22, 2008 with her family present Leaving Gently © Laura Hamill 2008 Thank you, Mom, for leaving gently.  Each time you stepped away from something we did together we set it aside and went to the next best thing to share. Soon I realized that we were no longer doing things together because you had stepped into another world, a place of peace where you could rest. Even when you could not remember my name, you still introduced me as your friend. Each time you stepped away you made the path to this moment soft and easy.  Thank you for helping me see the miracle of your journey. Love Laura June 27, 2008 I met myself, and I Am Love. Peace Laura June 24 2008 Some days I feel like a crayon. Coloring my way through this book.  Filling in spaces with color and light.   Softening the hard edges. All for Love Laura   May 13,, 2008 Gratitude's To the Universe - Thank you for the journey!  I thought it was a long road to get here.  Now I know it was all for love, it was not so very long at all. March 12, 2008 I held my breath while I waited for him to leave.  I nursed him with unconditional love until he left this place.  I held him until he let go, then I let go. I had to learn to breathe again. I am breathing deeply now.  Breathing my own life. Love Laura January 20, 2008 Every time I ask for a sign it is there. Every time I ask for help it is there. These are the kisses from Heaven. The touches that let me know We Are Loved. Peace on Earth Laura January 2, 2008 I have loved so hard and deep that the echo of it still rings through the Universe.  That is not a bad thing. It means I know love. To know love means I will have it again because I will recognize it.  It is time to love and live again. Love and Light Laura October 20, 2007 I Am a chalice of lace, so that all things that fill me will be shared. Love and Light Laura August 6, 2007 I know this…why I Am Here. For Love.  To soften the way for the next group. So they do not have to experience the tidal wave. The sweeping away of everything in their life so their soul seed can blossom. That was my journey. Mine and many others.  We have smoothed the rocks and sharp edges of the path. The way is made now with love and light, soft and gentle.   It is just for the asking and it is there.   Beautiful light and love.  Here and now. Love Laura Chapter One - Cracking the Seed © Laura Hamill 2007 Words on pages. I see this in front of me. I am going to let it flow  - this book of words from Spirit. This book that is so much me as each page grows with more words.. Writing evolution. We do that. We write our evolution each and every moment we put a thought to the Universe. The thought births words. The words birth a manifest reality – our world from that thought. Now we know how powerful these words and thoughts are – we see that great things are created with new thoughts and ideas – new ways to do things. So that is what this is about. That is what I am about. A new way to do this thing – grief. It can be done so much better. It can be done with so much less pain and torture. Let us think on those thoughts for a moment. What is the one thing about grief that hurts the most?  The aloneness of it. The fact that no one wants to be there for us except for brief moments during the process. The one person we want to be there for us has moved to a non-physical place.  They are still there, do not discount this.  Those that have walked with me here know this is truth. That their loved ones visit, hug and wrap us in warm loving light during the aloneness. So they are there and we are here. Untouched for many months during the process. No one wants to get close, there is fear in them when they get close, they see themselves maybe? Why wouldn’t they want to reach out and a hand and love themselves then?  Why has this experience gone unshared or shared by so few?  Fear,  What is the opposite of fear? Love. This is the only key that will unlock the grieving process.  You have to love people through it, even if it scares you, even if you have to touch them in this fragile state. If you cannot do this then step aside and let others through that can do this. Step way aside, if all you have is words. Words do not mean anything without love. Words only create more aloneness without love.  Be there, touch them and hold that space for the person to recover.  Do not judge them. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. There is a right and wrong way to help people in grief. I have experienced both sides of this.  The ones that I thought would be so close, left.  The ones that I didn’ t even know came to help.  That is the miracle of my evolution. That this experience of cracking my soul was in the deepest moment of extreme grief, when there was absolutely nothing left of myself. That is, nothing left that was recognizable to me or anyone else.  Then the everything that I Am was shown to me. That everything that was promised was given to me. That everything I ever needed or wanted was right in front of me. Love is the only key. Love is the only tool. Love is the only message. Love is the only fruit. Love is it, period.   Remember what came earlier? We write our evolution each and every moment we put a thought to the Universe. The thought births words. The words birth a manifest reality – our world in that thought.  When we lead with love it is returned.  There is the miracle. This is how the wondrous moments of the past three years were born.   I am love. When I think love I create love in my experience. When I create love in my experience it brings people around me that are loving, beautiful souls. Their light shines right through them and around them.   So I am creating now with Love in my soul.  Shining out brilliant and new.  Writing my evolution. May 25, 2007 My garden - a moonlight bridge in a white flower forest. Love Laura May 20, 2007   Healing Light There are many writings about this and it is called many things. It is all about balance. It is all about remembering the positive, perfect being that You Are.   There are energies that intersect with us during each day.  This is an exercise in shielding, clearing and then connecting to our Higher Self.   That “little” voice you hear is the Truth.  That soft,  perfect Truth that sometimes seems like synchronicity or destiny – it is your Higher Self answering a question or helping with directions.  We are blessed to have Angels and Guides that are here to help – just ask.  If you feel stuck – or a negative feeling or emotion bubbles up – that is a stepping stone. You feel it, so now you clear it away and pull in the Light.  This Light is your connection to Source, God the Divine and All That Is.   You are a Child of God, a Child of Creator Light and Perfect Love and Joy – this is about remembering. Shielding. Close your eyes and ask your Angels for a cone of White Divine Light of protection.  Imagine this Light swirling and spiraling from the top of your head around your body and under your feet. Beautiful spirals of white light wrapping around you.  When you have felt this complete, thank the Angels and tell them you love them. Clearing This can be a simple statement - Archangel Michael – please cut any cords and ties that have attached themselves to me that are less than the Light of God.  Please send these immediately  back up to God to be cleansed and purified.   Thank Michael and tell him you love him. You can expand if you wish Archangel Michael – please cut any cords that have attached themselves to me from negative thoughts, fears, ego, energy poachers and anything less than the Light of God. Please send these immediately back up to God to be cleansed and purified. Thank Michael and tell him you love him. Connecting Light We are always connected. This is a visual meditation to remember and balance your auric field and within (the subtle body is four elements - Spiritual, Mental,  Emotional and Physical).  Each element of your Self is as important as the next.   Breathe deeply in through your nose and release through your mouth.   Sit in a chair or on the floor or lie on a bed – your choice. Please connect me to Gaia. Pulling golden healing feminine energy Light from the Center of Mother Earth through my feet up into my heart chakra (heart space).  Imagine golden swirling light – golden warm light from the center core (heart of Mother Earth) to you -  brilliant and liquid Light filling you – spiraling in your heart space.  Thank you. I Love You. Connect with my Divine Self please.  Imagine a cord of platinum white Light coming from the top of your head  and flowing into your heart space.  These golden and white lights now blending in your heart space. Thank you. I Love You. Expand this Light.  Feel it flowing freely through you like a River of Light.  Feel it flow to those areas of Self where it is needed.  Imagine it filling those spaces.  Now imagine your Light expanding out in an egg – shape surrounding your entire Being. Continue to breathe.  Feel the light increasing and expanding -  filling you, healing you and clearing you.   Bringing balance and connection to All That Is  Peace May 8, 2007 I would like to dedicate today to Jake, my 10 year old basset hound who crossed over the Rainbow Bridge this morning.  This dog was a loyal and loving friend.   He taught me about unconditional love, always greeting me in the morning with a wagging tail and curling up with me at night.   He was a miracle to me.  A life raft in stormy seas, never an anchor.  I  celebrate his life – this gentle master of love and happiness.    Goodnight sweet Jake. I love you very much. Thank God for allowing me to share time with this beautiful soul. Laura March 27, 2007 I am hearing the same stories out there. It is a yearning for places of community for folks to share living together.  There was a time when we thought solitude and quiet space was the only way we could find ourselves.  We now know we can get that by meditation, going inside and finding the alloneness instead of aloneness. It is the day-to-day experience that is calling for more community relationships, more  life sharing.   It is time for us to build community based living experiences for people in different growth / changes during a lifetime. I see it for people in grief. There is a huge population of “baby boomers’ approaching that point in life where they could lose a long time partner. These are the folks that need to start the group home environment.  Where meals would not have to be stand-up, near the kitchen sink for five minutes.   Where actually talking about the deep, dark pit of grief is absolutely ok..there is nothing you cannot say to another widow/er that is forbidden, you see we know everything in the grief process is ok, there are no rules.  So sharing the experience (as I do now with some others) adds a certain softness to it because it is real and we survived. Same goes for our elders.  They are shoved into singular complex boxed homes or apartments alone and frightened because moving an elderly person in some confusion causes even more fear and confusion to them.  Why not put them together, like minded to share caregivers, chefs and drivers in a group home?  Again, a shared experience bonds them together.  The changes of their life similar to others keeps them stronger and more present in the moment because of the sharing. This is part of the reason for the art gym. To compare  tips and techniques in art and creating.  A space where art is created but it is also a soft, gentle place to speak stories and to share this life experience. Then take it and apply it to the single parents – oh would they be in joy to share resources that are probably so stretched?  The children would have the luxury of time with their parent, a parent relaxed and ready to fully participate in their life. These are not just words, these are thoughts about looking at new ways of living together.  This is the time to explore all the possibilities and make changes.  Thoughts become our reality, we just have to wish. Peace and Light Laura March 17, 2007 Blessings and Lessons – Gratitude for the blessing of the Art Gym. It is a reality. www.creativeartgym.com I love this new part of my life. This is something very special. Art heals. Holding a space open for people to come and work on their own creative projects together.  A place where we will all  benefit from sharing  the skills and knowledge.  I am in Joy. Lessons – finding the blessings in the lessons – the time with Jaz. This was so very special like a beautiful flower that waited for the sunshine to blossom and shine, then  the cycle was over.  A beautiful, sweet and loving gentleman that came into my heart and soul and loved me as I loved him.  That was the blessing. The lesson – I am still working through and understanding that we have our Truths – that is the part of this journey where we know what rocks our world and what does not. This clarity and learning to live in that Truth is the lesson.  If we cannot live our Truth, then we will continue to repeat lessons until we get it.   Things have happened to me in the past three years that are beyond word descriptions.  I do know that during the times I have felt the squeeze it was to move me to another place on the path and immediately upon releasing what was making the squeeze – something perfect was in front of me.  I felt the squeeze with Jaz. I do not know why the geography of our lives could not be corrected but I do not need to know why. I just know it felt like a squeeze.  It hurt to say goodbye and I can hold onto the hurt or not, I choose not.  I would rather hold onto the love I feel for him and recognize his journey is as perfectly written as mine – this is just not a journey we will take together. That is unconditional love, it feels very right and comfortable. Way back at the beginning of these notes the art gym was mentioned. This is a place that has been dreamed for awhile.  Having it in my life now is like wishing on a star and seeing  the wish appear right in front of you.  So this squeezing and releasing to me are the cycles of creation. The creation of the path that I chose to be on during this time, here and now. Gaining clarity now, I know that I am creating the path and accept responsibility for the smooth and the rough spots equally.  Recognizing more with each moment that Joy is the goal and I move closer to that with each loving step I take. Love and Light Laura March 1, 2007 I am listening to the Universe. I am learning to understand why this moment in my life feels like a squeeze play.  I am asking for the Light Guides to help me live for my highest and best and recognizing if it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit.  In fact their answer was to look at it from another way – turn it inside out, upside down and really try it on. I do know this   - when you love something you set it free, if it is meant to be with you it will be.  So I set my love for Jaz free and let the Universe move the puzzle pieces where they must be for the Divine Plan. I learned about how I love– it is a dream of phenomenal commitment, unconditional love and beauty. The love I have to give is vast, there are no boundaries or conditions. I know what it feels like, because I had it before and I will have it again because of that blessing. And so…when it fits, the Universe expands and lives slide together without seams or stretch marks – a natural way. Love and Light Laura February 14, 2007 On this Love Day I wish All That Is – Full and Happy Hearts of Light and Love. On this Day of Full Hearts I wish All That Is – Peace and Light from the inside out. On this Day and all days I wish the Golden Light from the center of this beautiful Mother Earth to fill each all nature beings she holds dear on her ancient shores, mountains and sands.   On this Day and all days I wish the White Light of Illumination to be brought forward into this time now and forever – to awaken souls to the Truth of Love and Light and the remembering of Who We Are, now and forevermore. To My Beloved Jaz – Love Weaver, Sweet Valentine,  you have woven the brilliant magenta and pink love lights into my heart and soul.  I am blessed and honored to have you as my mate Love Laura February 6, 2007 My soul knows.  This is where the Truth lives.  I am so much in Love.  My beloved Jaz – gentle man, huge soul, brilliant heart – we are together now.  This is one of those moments – you know where destiny meets dream and the angels sing.  The universe applauds.  We have listened with our hearts. We did not fail the dream. We were persistent and vigilant in our pursuit even when others questioned it.  We knew this – we both said goodbye to loved ones, nurtured and care for them until their end days here on this planet.  Then we grieved, we walked the sharp path alone and unhugged for many months. We healed with the help of Father Mother God – we healed the hearts we thought were broken and shredded until they shone bright and new again.   We believed.  We knew in our hearts we were meant to share this beautiful journey with another love. We believed even after walking the path of what we thought was loss – that it would happen again but yet different this time, because we are so very different. Our souls are cracked open – wide and full of an endless supply of Light and Love. We are together now. To share this beautiful time with each other. To help others by shining the Light of the Dream. Dreams always come true in their perfect time.  He is here now – in perfect time for us to dream more dreams together. I Am Love Laura February 1, 2007 A new life begins. I am full of love for Jaz, a gift from the Universe. The core of me is connected to this beautiful man.  My Soul Flame - we have danced across the stars before.  We have been in this faery tale many times. Here we are now, loving and living and making a new space for Us. In this special time of Love and Light – we are here to celebrate and share.    I Love! Laura January 27, 2007 Today is my new birthday. He is here now.  A magical, mystical man of love and sweetness. A soul that has known mine for many times.  Ancient knowing and learning new at the same time. My senses are alive and bursting with discoveries. We start a new journey of hearts and souls  -- writing and painting and loving our evolution in these new days ahead. I love you Jaz - Laura January 22, 2007 Loving from the inside out. I am asleep no more. I am awake and alive and feeling the most fresh and beautiful feelings inside. Tingles, heat, soul fire, love. So now begins a new story. A new way of Being. A new way of learning how things in this time work together – with love – pure, unconditional love. I have met a wondrous soul, gifted from the Universe. Loving him from the inside out – it is the only way it would work with me now – I understand that very clearly.  Inside is where the Truth lives. Inside is where the eternal being that I am glows and dances and smiles. I am breathing from the inside out, I am living from the inside out… I am loving from the inside out. Love Laura January 11, 2007 Anam Cara – (Gaelic for Soul Friend) – these beautiful words visited me today. These are the times of building new and special relations with  Anam Cara, with who we really are, with our entire soul families – monads. The karmic layers are lying about my feet. They no longer serve my highest and best. This is a time for the butterfly, the blossom and sunrise. To paint beautiful colors and write about Light. To tell the story and let others meet  themselves without knowing the experience of loss, it is not necessary any longer. There are so many Light Guides and Lightworkers laying bridges for All.  The path is no longer sharp and dark – it is wondrous and full of life and love. So take a step, trust that gentle voice you hear, it is the one that speaks Truth. The best of the journey is right here, now. Love Laura December 24, 2006 Wishing all of  you Blessed Holydays for this season.  Prayers for all to be awakened to the Light.  For everyone to find the path through their hearts to Love and Peace.   For all the nature beings on this great Goddess Gaia - to be healed and made whole with the Universe. Love and Light Laura December 14, 2006 God – Please bring me my heart’s desire and move me to a place where my soul will sing. Love Laura November 15, 2006 It slowly seeps in, like a beautiful wave rolling over you, like stepping into a warm and fragrant bath. The knowing that everything you need is already inside. The knowing that all you have to do is reach for it when it starts to subside and pull it back into your heart. The knowing that all the love you need to create the most beautiful universe of days you can imagine is as close as a breath away.  Take a deep breath. See the Light that is You. Love and Light Laura October 24, 2006 What a beautiful dream I have.  I am making a New Life, now.  Dreaming how it is to unfold.  This is not a dream of past dreams. That cannot be.  Past is just that, past.  So now, knowing what I know I dream sweet dreams of glorious gardens, lovely waterfalls and beautiful mountains.  Dreams of a new partner coming to meet me on this path.  Knowing, trusting and loving all the steps I have taken to get to this place. I have been led along this path by Angelguides.  Signs along the way always.  A grand and amazing quest – I just had to learn to stop rushing through it, to look and listen.   My book  title is  Cracking the Seed © 2006 Laura Hamill. It is the story of the opening of my soul flower. Listening to the voice inside of me that has throughout this lifetime whispered for awhile,  screamed for awhile and now gently nudges me more closely to the Light that is inside of me.  Understanding that each journey (experience) is perfect and right in timing and blessings I will still share this story. If I can help others open up to All That Is with a soft nudge instead of ripping and tearing even better. Remember this, the only thing that is real is LOVE.   Total, unconditional LOVE. There are a lot of us out there right now this very minute standing at the edge of what is the most totally amazing shared experience.  I would like to give gratitude and love  to all the other travelers that have shared moments with me during the past two plus years. That is why I trust that things are perfect. I am not the only one flowing along in this river.  I get a message, then an affirmation - that others get the same message at the same time. That is the One Consciousness.  The being in the flow and hearing the messages. We are all together on the quest and building a bridge of Love between us is the only way to ease the path for everyone.  Loving without judgment or fear. It gets easier, believe it but it takes practice and conscious effort to think every thought with love, every word with love and every action with love for yourself or the other guy – it does not matter – there is not One on the Bridge.  There is no separate identity. I did not know what Awe was until last year. Total uncontrolled Awe. That is what we are remembering. Where we come from and why we can’t replicate it in our daily lives through external experience is because it is inside, deep inside and only when you are still do you hear the message. Love and Light Laura October 4, 2006 Loving from the inside-out.  It is not like it used to be at all.  I loved from the outside in – John, my family, my pets, my garden and then myself.  That is the old way.  What I saw in front of me I  loved or not and those were the choices. Now – understanding how all that is in front of me got there makes loving from the inside-out the only way.   My own thoughts, words and actions are the creations of my reality. I own that responsibility.  I had to learn to love from the inside out. First myself, unconditionally, as God loves me.  Now I understand in order to recognize the magnificence of All That Is, I must learn to love myself unconditionally, then share that love with every single being that exists. Their perfection and divinity is just as wondrous as mine, a glorious lesson.  Guess what?  It really is easy now.  I love all those folks that come to show up in my reality – they are perfect, beautiful lessons and gifts depending on what I am open to in that moment. When I open to the possibilities that special voice that is really Who I Am rings true and clear and joyful and excited – really excited about these possibilities.  These are what were absent during the healing time.   Now I will love from the inside-out.  I will share the messages of love and sweet light with those that touch my time, here, Now. Love and Light Laura   September 27, 2006 People around me have been asking questions this week. Seeking, searching. Knowing there is more, but trying to get rid of old ways. Beautiful moments where a few soft words and guiding Light to them - then they glow. Like they are getting it, softly and sweetly.  Not at all like our ride, just as it should be for them. Peace and Light September 22, 2006 I Am hearing  the sounds of other souls stirring to the music.  Are you ready for my book?   Love and Light Laura September 18, 2006 Writing my evolution. Writing words, painting pictures, dreaming dreams, thinking thoughts and loving – All That Is.  It is what is inside of me that counts, the essence, the spirit, the light – All That I Am.   Creating each moment with care and love.  Be-ing in each moment and Noticing Now. Laura September 17, 2006 It has been sometime since my last entry. Moving, computer repairs and such. Much as happened and the attachments to the past-me are falling away like the leaves of a tree. There is a new dream, a new desire.   Yes I tried using old roads to get there, but I came back to the still self, the soft essence of me and the dream. So I continue on that journey now.  I will have all the love that I had before along with gratitude and the   realization of bliss of Source. Love and Light, Laura June 20, 2006 A great lesson received - manifest with trust and dream with intention for my highest and best with the knowledge that the Universe will absolutely provide the most beautiful outcome.  When I try and mix it up myself, it only dilutes the Truth. June 15, 2006 I am blessed with many gifts. My soul is showing me where home is now. Love Laura May 31, 2006 Back to Being Love. The  relationship of my creations to what my heart desires bends and flexes like a sapling in a high wind.  Leading now with Spirit as my Guide showing me  where my heart can breathe. Laura May 11, 2006 Joy.  Waking up happy.  Waking up next to someone you love (Universe is working on that one for me).   Sunrise. A fun day of work. Gardening. Walking the basset hound. Having my mother and father still here to hug. Joy. Love Laura May 6, 2006 Oneness As massive as all the galaxies in the universe As small as a pine needle Where even silence is still. April 26, 2006 This is a time for blossoms.  Notice Now - that is where the intersect connections are happening. Build Peace in your thoughts and words with Love, that is the food of our souls. Love and Peace Laura March 29, 2006 A time of learning that I Am, and much more. Learning how to be my most honest self. The Laura inside of me that has always known what makes me soar, sing and feel the strength of all the Angels that surround me.  It has been a long road remembering this during the past two years.  Most of the Truth comes from inside out. From the meditations and God’s direction –signs as big as billboards and love.   I still feel connected to John – naturally – 22 years together and this is where the remembering came in – who was I before John, before we met? What did I like to do by myself, for myself?  Seems ages ago those answers were so easy, but after so long with someone that shared nearly each and every moment and thought with me, I forgot who Laura was, I only remembered Laura and John. So I am remembering.  I love myself, just as I am.  I loved  being a part of a couple, and someday I will have that again.  I loved being a wife and friend and lover.  I love humor, dry and witty. I love intelligence – pointed and focused without arrogance.  I love God and I love the spiritual awakening that has been gifted to me during my grieving process.  I love the spiritual family that has grown and brightened my life over the past two years.   I hope to do a book about grief, about surviving the complex and catastrophic emotions that we carry during this transition.  I would never dare to tell someone in grief how to survive, that is the rule. But rather teach new ideas to  the periphery of people that surround this person.   They run and hide – they are the ghosts, not the departed ones.   What about a new way  to deal with people in grief – to love them. To be there, present and available each and every day during this event.  Don't drop them a line, drop in.  Create consolidated, strong and loving groups of family or surrogate family or friends and make room in their busy lives for the survivor.   Create a safe and nurturing haven of unconditional love, no judgment and  no boundaries.  Observers may have many ideas and thoughts and advice – but they fall very short to someone who is in the know about this event.  It is better to not even guess. Just give unconditional love – can that be such an expensive commodity? I know Laura is back.  I know where I am from and where to go for peace and joy – inside.  It was there all the time, I just had to remember. Love Laura March 12, 2006 I chose the fast track. I know why. It was the fastest way to get back to Source, thereby being close again with John. This is something I would have done, no question. Patience is the most difficult lesson of all for me. Not grief, not being alone, not having or not going or not anything else – they are all part of the illusion and fairly easy to surrender these days. But patience, waiting, and knowing that Divine Timing is always right  - I know these things, yet my heart knows it is ready for so much, so why not right now? I am here to be a Lightworker. If you do not know the meaning of this it does not matter, trust me – I know that I Am. I am here to Be Love – I know that I Am. I am here to learn lessons and thank the Universe for all the lessons I have been gifted to receive, understand and clear. It is done. Patience – gratitude for this lesson – oh yes. I know that great things are worth waiting for and that just as you turn the corners you always look back in gratitude and know that timing is always perfect.  That while you were turning that corner you thought you had spun out of control.  What is really is – is Divine Timing and letting God steer the sharp corners on this path. So I am still on the fast track.  I did not even know what a chakra was two years ago.  I did not know of vortexes and energy healers and Lightworkers and I did not even recognize all the Beloveds assisting me to that point.  They are there – and I have gratitude for the beauty and healing they have given to me.   I understand exactly what I am supposed to understand at this point in the journey, perfect timing again!   Grief, it was just a tool to crack my seed. It does not need to be a crowbar or a hammer, it can be a nutcracker or a tap of your finger. It is a matter of choice. Love Laura February 21, 2006 Two years ago on this night  I held John’s hand and felt his soul depart. Two years ago I heard him take his last breath on this earth.  Two years ago my lovely husband left, he is with God. Two years this journey of soul survival through the illusions of pain, grief and despair. Then the joy of cracking the Seed – opening up to what is real, what is within us to become All That Is.  Many gifts and signs from the Beloveds, the Guides to help me on this way.  They are there all the time, it is in the remembering that you find them and feel the Love embrace you like silk and velvet.   There are phrases I hear, songs that are played, signs in the clouds, nature and even on billboards.  But only when you NOTICE NOW. That is where these miracles await your glance.  These are the things that connect us to oh so much more than this dimension.   Do I still love John, definitely, he is one of my best guides still. But to love something unconditionally you must set it free – so I do this tonight with love. I start a new day NOW.  I will not use the anniversary of John’s passing as a marker anymore. I will use NOTICE NOW as my new anniversary and count the blessings I find in each moment of this quest. Loving through all conditions is the only way. That is my goal, to Be Love, period. Laura January 19, 2006 My soul has no noise. It is like a pine needle on a branch among many held aloft by a giant tree. Quiet, still, silent, being, period. Love Laura January 1, 2006 Gateways and doors are opening.  I will not roll along on a conveyor belt and experience it like a slide show. Focus on this moment and find the miracles that are strewn about.  Like an egg hunt, a quest.  I am gathering them together. All the fruit of my basket.  Gratitude and Love. I gather more, I give more. I am told to Be Love. Just that, so very easy and it took me just a moment to hear it – when I finally listened. Be Love, period.   December 24, 2005 Here you are, Now.  Mostly directed by Spirit for a reason. How easy is it to write your evolution?   VERY.  How much do you want to know?  Most of you have arrived here on your own. There are no links to this site from any other website.  Only a few people I have told and only a few through some net clans that weave Light.   So – sitting back and letting the events unfold is one way, but living your way through the events that unfold with a robust respect for All That Is another.  With every thought we create. With every thought – based in love – we create also a change in the conscious perception that we are living in with others.   So here goes – how did I get here from way, way down at the bottom of this page a couple of years ago.   God took me here from there.  The unfolding of my spiritual awakening took me to Now, this moment.   Here is where I begin to create something new and beautiful for all – which is turn creates something beautiful for me.  When I try building new events in my life the old way they do not work, the ego-building thought processes collapse upon themselves all over the place.   The Beloveds make the Universe send me a squeeze play of unbelievable proportions (never more than I am capable of handling – that is the God part).  So I am pushed, cajoled and catapulted into the next phase of this evolution – just where I am supposed to me. When the Thought is precipitated with something that will benefit the Light Work – the Purpose and Gaia’ s healing – it screams with success from beginning to completion.  Never end –because we are forever eternal.   Moving to Gilroy to help my mother take care of herself –score.  Asking the Universe for a job to help care for my mother and dog – score.  Asking the Universe for the Art Gym – a place where people can open their creative sides to making beautiful art - my dream from Spirit - way down on the bottom of this page nearly two years ago – starts January 7th at 1:00 PM in Morgan Hill – score.  See how it works? Staying in Palm Desert, living with my very dear friend (in her life, not mine) – did not work.  Staying in Palm Desert with my friend Robert (a courageous and wonderful healer/teacher) – did not work.  In these moments I felt like I was wearing a shoe that did not fit – someone else’s for sure. Even though I love them dearly and met several wonderful Light Workers in Coachella Valley (The Hand of God) during my year there, this was not the place for me, not now. So here I am in Gilroy – starting fresh and new – writing my evolution by listening very closely, reading the signs and billboards that lead me to the next miracle.  A miracle I receive with gratitude.   Happy Holidays! Laura December 17, 2005 Art Gym -starts January 7th 2 hour sessions-bringing creations to completion.  This is my path now. December 16, 2005 I understand to stay in the heart space you must approach all lessons with Love. This is how to stay in Joy.  Alone or in crowds our energy is woven into the Fabric of the Universe.  This energy is creating our dynamic existence and All That Is.  Learning how to focus specifically in the Now Moments reaps many rewards – smiles, hugs, hints, messages, answers – all for this wonderful Quest.    Learning not to put worry or fear but rather love and grace out towards an issue is a beautiful event. Try this – the next time you are approached by a situation that begins to pull you out of Joy, step aside, breathe and allow Love to form the answer.  It is truly amazing to see how quietly, quickly and lovely the events unfold to resolve the issue.   Many of us feel things are moving quickly now, turbulent but in a grand sense  because we are seeing the connections forming.  The same gifts during meditations, the same astral journeys, the same acknowledgements from our Guides.  It is truly amazing as an artist to receive an email with the writing of others saying nearly exactly something I just wrote, or a painting of Spirit with the same landscape.   This is the Oneness that we have been approaching.  This is the shared experience, the conscious Thought that we have all known.   So now we continue the construction  - the bridge of Light to All That Is.     We know it is there, a stairway, a bridge, a path – it is all the same road to God.  Whether you make it soft and smooth or full of boulders – it is Your Choice. Love Laura November 8, 2005 Art Gym.  Dream to reality. Memberships available soon. October 30, 2005 My spiral garden gets smaller. The faces look more like others I have known. The names and connections to recent past experiences come floating up to the surface again and again.  Songs have words that speak more clearly.  Even if I watch a tv show –which I try not to do very often -  there is a history show about some place I was just to remind me of the love that is being sent to me from the other side.  This is the Oneness for me now.  These repetitions remind me that there is an intersection coming up, a crossroads and to pay attention and take the right path.  I understand now is the time to be aware of the importance of conscious thought. Keeping the ego trimmed away and letting love through – that is when the light shines in and I can see more clearly.  Really, love is the answer to everything. October 8, 2005 I waded in the Lake of Eternity. It is real for me.  Now it is all about learning that I can go there for peace and to feel the wholeness of all I Am – love, light and part of the life that makes us all One.   Some of us took the shortcut – the path that has hurtled us through the awareness of our true selves in the shortest moments possible.  This now is the experience of that path and recognizing to trust that where it leads is of course the perfect place for us and allowing it to happen.  We cannot travel it by tripping over our egos or controlling the destination.  The way that has been set in front of us is of course perfect as are all of the travelers we meet on the journey, so now we learn about being love, inside out with and everything we are.   New Earth  - it is already there, the Garden – it already flourishes, the Light – it is inside of each one of us,  just allow it to shine. Love Laura September 24, 2005 Meditate, meditate, meditate.  It is the only way back through the door in your soul to the Garden.  The One.  The Real.  Then meditate some more.  Keep asking for help from the Beloveds to push away the old, tired, false baggage you thought you were carrying like a burlap sack of bricks – they do not exist!   The patient enjoyment of Now is where the beauty is, where the connection to your true self lives.   God is simply elegant, period. September 15, 2005 Moved back in with my mother,  for both of us really – back in Gilroy – one mile from my first home with John.   So for a year I have worn someone else’s life in the desert of California (or tried to). As Robert so lovingly teaches (and he is a great teacher)…trying is just that, trying, you either do or you don’t. For four months I have tried to make the garment of new love fit.  I am not ready for that yet – because I am still holding onto memories of John and these are my lessons to learn and heal. A few weeks before the move none of the pieces of my life in the desert fit.  They would not slide and join nicely together as easy and natural.  My Guides were very strong several weeks ago and I visited Gilroy, but I am quite a hard head sometimes.    The move was the right thing to do, and I had to make the situation in the desert so starkly apparent that I could not stay one more moment, that I had to leave and be where I am now. The lessons were invaluable.  Thought is a very powerful tool.  Learning to discern between the heart/mind and the ego/brain are my lessons each day.  I have been shown without a doubt though, that what you put out there as love and care comes back immediately with beautiful returns. What you put out there in fear, ponderings of the future, wonderings about peoples feelings and such also return to you-with compound interest.  That is what your ego manufacturers and it affects others. So stop, look, listen – to yourself  before you think, speak or do and put an extra touch of love in each thought,  everytime - because it is really like receiving a present when it is returned. My friend Linda– knows that she will always be my best friend and she helped me over some very rough times – she kept me loved, warm and fed, but in the end that I could not live her life. My friend Robert  - knows he is a Teacher of God even though we did have a different type of bond in the relationship.  I will always cherish his love and his family and sweet dog Bubba Gump.  He knows that our journeys are for the same goal, but we travel separate roads now. I know – that I still have love for John in my heart. It will always be there. It just is.  It is not there to block other loves, it is just not time for that now.   September 1, 2005 I Am Here.  No crossroads after all.  Just my path.  The Divine One already Knows everything I need.  It is now a matter of trust and knowing that all choices are for my highest and best, period.  The path is swept clean, the abundance is there.  I am so very blessed to have a new partner to love and share the Joy of this experience,  now. The miracle is forgiveness, forgiveness is unconditional love, period.  So that is the greatest gift as we are always told.  Love, it changes each of our world as we know it, and practice it until we get and right and it will change the Universe for All. August 21, 2005 Crossroads.  I am there.   I asked for guidance and billboards (large with very clear words, and big letters).  I read the billboards and know that I just need to Be, Here, Present and Now. That the next steps will be the right ones put before me by God for my path.   My billboard is to  Trust and Be Here Right Now, I really don’t need to know any more than that. August 16, 2005 Sorting and clearing, clearing, clearing.  Now the path is being rolled out in front of me, luscious and fertile for me to plant with the seeds of Love and Light.  As more of the beauty of the awakening appears before me, I am learning how to dust off the old bits of debris of un-knowing.  No room on the path for anything less than the Light.  No room for ego, emotions, brain games or illusion.  Now is the time for the Real  to Be-right in front of me every single Now Moment.   Learning how to pause, feel the Now Moment surround you and embrace the Love of God and the Light of the Universe-that is where the beautiful garden is located. That is where I Am. All the rest just isn’t there, period. August 1, 2005 We are all artists.  Our thoughts are sketches.  Our words are paint. Our actions are brushes. What we place on the canvas is the gallery of our life.  Each thought  that contains compassion and love makes a masterpiece. The Universe sends it back to us to view and enjoy. Like a gallery of lessons of love.   Unconditional love being the most important of the paintings we place on the canvas because it is the kind that we let flow naturally, without force or structure or needing anything in return. These are the masterpieces that fill the walls and surround us. Each day I am learning more about this kind of love. Each day I receive a lesson or a masterpiece depending upon what I created.  Because we are the artists that create this gallery of illusion. Love is All. June 13, 2005 Allowing these days of Joy to wash over me like a beautiful green mountain stream. That is how Being In Joy is, that easy. Being in Joy is being with God, remembering. That is the choice, the free will.  I chose Joy.  Realizing that being a woman in grief did not fit any longer, like a beautiful gown from long ago that sparked so many memories of great dances, but time to put away. Joy is my new dress.  Like a silky,  sun-dried  slip.  Smooth on my skin and light as a rose petal.   This sweet and easy remembering of where I am from and why I am here, now.   Made so much sweeter with Robert.  Robert Pace  is his name.  He is a Healer (www.paceofgod.com).  We are here to share moments in this journey together by sharing God’s Light. This is how my evolution goes these days. Today is a precious day because it is a moment I am in, here and experiencing inside and outside of me.  Today is also the  date my sweet Nonni was born and St. Anthony – a family friend for sure.  Blessed Be. May 13, 2005 He is here!  My senses are alive and well.   I am filled with love and life and God’s sweet Light.  It was as easy as waiting at an intersection for a bus (once my ego stepped out of the way).  Really, truly elegant- God’s Gifts are like that. Any sooner and the repairs on my leaky heart would not have been completed.  Any later, well, let’s just say I am not of great patience so I won’t even say.  Perfect timing just as it has been since the moment the seed cracked open and even before that but I was just not aware. For now, this is the time to savor the gift of Life and Be. May 6, 2005 Writing my evolution may not be an accurate term any longer.  Writing about my soul awakening is underway. It is not a “how to” but rather a sharing of an experience. One that is available to every person on this planet if they so choose.  In my heart I know that the next group will not have to suffer catastrophe or loss. They will not have to grieve until they feel like empty shells.  That is why I am here. It is why there are so very many others like me. We are paving the road we took with Light and Love.  So they won’t have to fear the next step or experience the bending and crushing death of an ego.  It has started.  There is frenzy in some that are filling their Now Moments with everything they can to avoid acknowledging there is a leak in their hearts that they cannot stop. They think a moving target cannot get tagged so they run about like they are on some mad scavenger hunt. They really only have to stop and look inside. Simple, elegant, God -- just like that. I reread the previous dated entry and deleted some then nearly wiped it all out.  But just to show you how things change I leave it as it stands.  I have been told that a basket has been woven filled with all the fruits I need for my journey.  I know what that means and nothing needs to be asked of my Creator. But knowing that my needs are met is not the place to stop.  Now we move into creating our stories and manifestation.  Like a great tale you can weave for yourself with each new day’s dawn.  Writing my evolution is now done with a Thought.  Nothing to write or tell. Others do not need to see or hear it.  It is time for me to weave some new patterns into the fabric of my life.  More later. May 1, 2005 The Dream is alive and well.  I am not broken after all.  I feel like a pebble that has found  a bit of a niche in the River of Life. I have begun to dream again.  It is time to build a new nest for myself and my blessed basset hound Jake.  It is Spring after all. Many months ago I visited a small town in coastal California.  I stepped out of the car and said out loud that this was where my soul belongs.  Another billboard that my Dream is alive and well.   What is the Dream?  To be All that I Can Be. To enjoy and live with verve and zest.  To love a man again because   I am a woman who loves to love and I am dreaming My Dream by writing my evolution. It seems like a long road from so long ago but it was really a blink.  I learned that fear blocks love. When you approach difficult situations with love, you succeed. Fear does not creep in or take over, it is gone entirely. My family is healing. We are aware of the love we have for each other and the compassion to move forward and not worry about the past.  Past is past and holds only memories of  loving moments.  But memories are not living.  Living is sucking in a breath and blowing it out.  Living is wiggling your toes in wet grass and knowing it feels like you are walking in club soda.  Living is standing next to a jasmine plant and getting a rush from the perfume.  Now is the time I begin to live again. I know that there is a place, a time and a person just right for me (and Jake). I have written my prayers and sent my thoughts to the Universe and trust that I am always where I need to me when I am there. So each day I wake up and witness sunrise. I weave a tale with God while my day unfolds.  I just love this time of my life. The possibilities are truly endless! March 3, 2005 - This evening I started writing a new story for me to live.  John and I have closed the tale of us together on earth.  He told me I cannot star in two tales at the same time. So he is a part of Heaven that waits for me when my time comes.  Now I must make the time here count.  I cannot curl into a ball and wait.  To do that would be to risk a take-over,  you know coming back to learn the lessons I neglected now.  Besides all that, it would be terribly wasteful and  selfish of me.  Not that I haven’t tried or wanted this. It was a load to carry up the big hill, my bundle of grief.  It got heavier not lighter over time.  Today I gave it up. I surrendered it.  No more grief for me.  It has been tossed down a beautiful volcanic flue for Pele to incinerate and scatter to the winds.  I have removed the  black burden of grief knotted in between the loving moments of me and John.  Now I have a string of memories like beautiful kites flowing in the wind with our laughter, funny puns, noble deeds and cherished thoughts that I can take and float in front of me like soft touches on my heart when I need to remember. So here goes. My dream machine has started. The engines are turning. The Universe is Aware.  This story  will have many pictures of our  travels. Some painted by me, some by my new companion.  He is there at the edge, waiting for the signal. The Angels are poised.  It is a vast treasure hunt with puzzles and rewards.  I will paint and write my way through this map to the treasures softly and tenderly.  I have the most awesome Guides and Angels.   I cannot be what I was, I will be much better than that. My heart and soul move me through this new story, not my other senses. This is a story being written by Feel. This is how I have changed.  My old life does not fit any longer, I need a Plus Size! More, soon. February 22, 2005 -  I am adding this update at the top of this page because today is a beginning.  Today is one year since John died.  Today I turn the page on the chapters below and open a new book for myself. A new fairy tale of sorts.  Or many tales, who knows?  I guess that depends upon me and what I want to create for myself each day. I have started building the foundation for a new tale, too young in my heart for words to form around it, but probably very old and pieced together before I even got to this place.  We will see together. Soon. In the meantime you can read about my fairy tale with John below and the magic we shared.  The sentence that rings the most true for that story is in the poem to Gate Goddess of Forest Nautica-to have great grief you had to have had lived a great joy. We did and I will always feel that joy whenever I think of the wonderful  moments we shared. How  far back in my memory shall I take you?  Do you want to know that my imaginary friend at age two was PB Sasay (BB Borkar  being a writer of Sanskrit literature.  Sasay meaning the God within)?  That our playground was inside of a hedge and up a fig tree.  Symbols and analogies, they are everywhere – nearly as big as billboards, but we are blind until we are ready to see. I won’t bore you or take you back too far, just about the 1995 when I became ill with a movement disorder called  Focal Dystonia of the left back and shoulder.  My husband and I loved gardening. We built many homes together and installed lovely gardens.  With this disease I could not sleep, and without sleep I was too tired to garden. What was left for me?  Drawing the plants of my garden in my journal.   What kind of logic is that? I have a movement disorder and I am taking up botanical illustration for a hobby.  Yes, that is the stuff I am made of--I was told to never take up typing in high school, so I became a secretary for over twenty five years.  Another sign for me- like don’t listen with your head, use your heart.  But I did not.  With this disorder the shaking was so intense some days I felt like I was giving myself whiplash.  What do I do?   I take up drawing to fill the frustrating hours of my life.  I am a contrary creature for sure.  John figured me out in 1980 when I went to work for him at Atari.  Whenever he wanted me to come around to his way of thinking, he would put forward the opposite opinion--I am an open book. I did not pick up a paintbrush until August 1999 at age 45. I did not write a word until last year after John died.  Art heals.  The dystonia left a long time ago.  What it did for me was open up the door to art.  I used to joke with John that I could now be an artist for the next half of my life and blame mood swings on that since I could not use PMS as an excuse in my later years for obvious reasons.  John made the space for me to continue with my botanical art studies for nearly five years.  The first time I submitted two works to an exhibition the dreaded SASE came back in the mail.  I opened it and thought-those fools, they only sent one of the two slides back!  John and I looked at each other in amazement-one was accepted!   There was no error.  My drawing of Ranunculus was off to an international exhibition scheduled for September 2002. What a joyous day that was for us.  The love of my life gave me so much-he gave me love and the  time to heal my dystonia with art.  The knowledge and training and time to learn a new skill. This would fill an even bigger hole in me after he was gone.  We had no idea.  But what we did for nearly our entire marriage was make each day count.  I used to joke that we were married twenty one years and the last twenty were the best.  We learned lessons early.  We learned to love each other simply with respect and honor, humor and grace and giving.  I miss him everyday.   He gave me so much.  I have to honestly say I still feel like part of me has been misplaced.  But now I know where to look.  He  is still around me, guiding me, throwing speed bumps in front of  me when my ego gets loose, signs to point me to the next teacher, book or direction. So all my previous artwork was strictly botanical illustration and art, close enough that a botanist should be able to identify it by sight.  Done with 5x diopters so no lines were out of place.  The last two watercolors of a peony and a begonia rex took me about two hundred hours each.  Done before John died. The Gate Goddess of Forest Nautica was completed in two days.  Done in Cambria, California with a travel set of watercolors.  No extra lighting, measurements or structure.  No live plant was the model for this painting.  Same for Aqua Duir.  A gift from Spirit.   I was going to choose brokenbranches.com for a website. I had started painting broken trees, lying hollow and shattered in the dirt.  This “billboard”  appeared while I was flying back from Phoenix where I visited John’s children and grandchildren after the birth of his new great-grandson-Caden.  I will state here that John’s four children are phenomenal adults.  I love them and their families for being a part of our lives from the day I met John.  The history that came with him included his four adult children and oodles of grandchildren.  They are what made him John. You cannot discount the past of someone when you grow a life together. It is an entire package.  Revel in it, enjoy it, make is a new part of you, what will then be your history.  All that are the Hamill’s changed me forever.  I love them and treasure the memories we had together.   So on the plane-clear as a bell through my headphones –  was this thought…”no brokenbranches.com.   The website must be writingevolution.com.”   I looked out of the window of the plane and in a field below I saw a capital “E” etched into a dry field below.  Then as the plane passed it of course it looked like a “W” and if you draw the back of the E with soft curves you will see what I mean.   I bought this domain name as soon as I returned to my computer.  It was not taken-can you imagine that?  Absolutely-everything in its own time just as I need it. Just as I know that if you find this site it is no accident.  It is here for the folks that need it, when they are ready for it.  In the meantime sit back and relax. I’ll tell you about the billboards that I missed. In 2002  after  nearly  ten years of off and on commuting by air from San Marcos to our jobs in San Jose, John and I had sold our home in San Marcos, California to move in with my mother in Campbell, California.  We wanted to help her a bit.  Find a home nearby to be close as she was getting older. We put all of the items from our 3,000 square foot home in storage thinking it would be a couple of months until we found a place in Northern California.  Just me and John and Jake the basset hound.  He received a job offer in Sunnyvale a nearby town.  We preferred the south, but John recognized the need to get closer to help mom.  His mom had died of cancer when he was nine.  In those days he could only wave to her from the parking lot of the hospital.  Gina was like a mom to him. He was like a son to her.  He kept me from going off on her (you know how mothers and daughters are) with just a drilling eyeball pointed at me when I got frustrated with her. I gentled my attitude because of John. He taught me well. The exhibit of with my drawing was scheduled on our 20th anniversary in New York.  John said there would only be one “first” exhibit--to please go with my dear friend Linda Simons and do the garden and art type tour at the same time.  Last week I found the card I gave him for that anniversary.  Right where it should not really be but when I needed to remember.  I had picked a portion of poem from the internet about loving him for what we are together, then this…”Definitely the Ranunculus and the week that I am going to have to celebrate it were because you loved me enough to let me dream this dream. Twenty seems like just a taste of the best that is yet to come.”   Every moment of the lives we share with our spouses is precious.  Each sentence and each thought do last forever.  These precious memories and cards fill me when I get emptied.  Remind me that I was held and nurtured for many years by a great man.  I have said that I am glad he died first, I would not have wished this year on anyone I loved, or anyone at all.  I know now that he is just where he is supposed to be, and I am here.  There is a purpose for this.  It unfolds every day. After the botanical exhibition came the start of a beautiful trilogy by Peter Jackson.  Inspirational music by Howard Shore.  I did think to myself people were actually paid money for sci-fi art and sci-fi worlds have botanical needs. I started to bend my botanicals in another direction.   I have no doubt now to who inspired Mr. Tolkien,  Mr. Jackson and  Mr. Shore.  We are all coming to the same place eventually.   When our time is perfect. I then started doodling around with Celtic knots and spirals.  The Fibonacci sequence was a part of my botanical art study.  Numbers in nature, look for them, they are everywhere and have been around for a very long, long time. The Golden Mean. The spirals of life.  Billboards galore.  Practically smacking me in the nose.  I have sketch books from 2001-2003 filled with  triskele (the ancient symbol of the flower of life or maiden, mother, crone) Celtic knots and spirals running through trees and plants and leaves of my imaginations.  A globe of birch bark in a Celtic knot pattern (birch is a significant tree in history, there are also nine different types of birch trees).   I left what would be my last secretarial job in July 2003 after over twenty five years of caring for nerds and scientists (as a Radar O’Reilly type of secretary-you know always knowing what they need before they ask for it?).  It was time, I was ready to be an artist full time (I thought). John was just wrapping up a consulting assignment and mom needed a new front garden.   John and I lived to garden. It is why we flew back to San Marcos every weekend for nearly ten years, to tend to our garden and work outside.   We always felt closer to God growing beautiful gardens.  Twelve homes in twenty years.  All sold with a beautiful garden left behind.  So I worked on the design. It took me about two months of plant research, material scouting and preparation.  A spiral fairy garden.  Plants in spirals, glass globs as a fairy river leading to the fairy ring at the end of a spiral.  I put mom to work gluing glass to the platform for the fairies home, pots and other light catching ornaments to adorn her garden. More and more signs of the Light. This is still a difficult memory for me but a very significant sign.  One night in August John rolled over to go to sleep. I pointed to a mole on his back and said “this will be a death of you.”  I immediately apologized and told him I was so very sorry for that. I would find him a dermatologist right away.  He said he would take care of it himself.  This was not the primary site. This was not the mole that killed him.  He was bullet ridden with melanoma when finally and properly diagnosed in mid January 2004. This is not something that happens in two or three months.  This fair skinned man worked outside unprotected for all of the years I was with him and many more before that.  But in August he was a vital sixty-seven year old man. Prostate cancer survivor.  Proactive about his health with regular checkups (including dermatology checks).  He played racquetball four times a week with men much younger than himself. He ate good food and kept his weight down.  He helped me move wheelbarrows of dirt and install a garden at my mothers.  He would be gone before I knew what hit me.  So listen to your intuitive self, the heart of you, that is where the knowledge rests for all things. It is not your thoughts or logic or a process.  It is from deep inside of your soul, because that is where the memory is stored. That is where your script has been etched.  It is where you and the Divine wrote the story of the life you are living before you came to be.  Listen, look , touch, smell, taste but slowly, with that moment being what is important.  That is where your billboards reside. So John and I finished the garden at the end of November. Just barely had he finished when he stretched out on the bed and said he had the flu. December 1-10, 2003 treating himself for the flu. December 11th we went to the doctor.  Bad doctor.  Said he had the flu go back to bed. No other tests.  No Laura should not worry that John had high blood pressure when it was never high, just a symptom of the “sleepy flu” going around.  We quarantined John for what was his final Christmas so he would not infect anyone with his flu.  After Christmas my cousin Dawn Beattie (a beautiful and caring nurse) and my dear friend Linda Simons (both earth angels to me) insisted John go back to the doctor.  On December 29th we did.  He still had high blood pressure.  He could not eat and keep food inside of him, he was very weak but still driving and pushing himself.  The doctor was ready to send us back home with that darned flu.  We insisted on a chest x-ray and blood work.  Bad news, bad doctor, bad place altogether.  Chest x-ray riddled with tumors.  Sorry, they didn’t even have a light panel in an exam room to show us. Rather than stand in a hallway, we held them up to the ceiling light.  The schedules were very full last January, we were told we had to wait until January 22 for a biopsy.  This was unacceptable. After much expediting I got it moved to January 15th. Wow, I am ashamed even now but we were exhausted, too tired to fight, too numb to kick and scream.    To make someone wait with tumors of undetermined origin in them for an appointment to determine where they began is like shoving a stick of dynamite in someone’s hand, lighting it and saying don’t worry you’ll be back in awhile to put it out. January 13th John still drove us to the biopsy. I had to bring a muffin for him to eat after the event since he was so weak he could hardly stand up on an empty stomach.  I drove us home,  he never drove again.  The results came in later. Melanoma, metastasized from unknown site of origin.   On January 15th a  short, succinct exam and meeting with a cold as steel oncologist telling John to build up his strength if he wanted to go to the John Wayne Clinic (this is called a palliative statement-no hope but no way does the patient want to hear no hope so they call it palliative care). She would see him back in two weeks after other tests were in like MRI, scans, blood work.  She would have her office call with the schedule and they would space out the tests because he was so weak it would be less debilitating.   That the tumors in his liver (what? no mention of those until now) and the sores on his back were due to blah, blah, blah.  There was very little actual truth spoken at that meeting I now know. It was the unspoken that screamed through my head that day.  They screwed up this case.  This guy was on his way out.  A few more days and their butts would be covered. The sweet cover of death saved another insurance premium from going sky high.  My dream that night was of a pagan goddess and animal sacrifices, blood spilled everywhere about me the goddess flying through the air.  A dream I had never experienced, not even any movie I had ever seen was that intense.  It was a deep dream of death I am sure. My last fax to the oncologist  was sent around midnight of January 18th started with the words “Help Please”  she called me back at 8:00 PM that evening with the parting words that she would have hospice contact us.  I had no tools or comforts or appliances to make John more comfortable.  On January 21st with the insistence of my brother Michael and his wife, Lisa and the help of another earth angel, Kathleen Calamia we drove John to Los Gatos Community Hospital.  We were gifted to have the most wonderful doctor in the world John Smith.  He gave us the gift of the goodbye time.  He told John he would make him feel a whole lot better for the rest of his life.   John had brain tumors, which is why he could not walk.   He had never been given a brain scan by the bad doctors.  The neurosurgeon said the 4cm tumor on his cerebellum would have blown into the other hemisphere by the end of the week because of swelling and he would have been dead (or worse a vegetable).  The wit and wisdom of my sweet John was like his life blood, in fact more important to him that his life blood.  We spent a week bringing the brain swelling down, radiation and as John Smith said, making him feel a whole lot better for the rest of his life.  He came home January 28th.  I prayed each night for a heart attack to kill him rather than brain dementia.  I got my wish. A week before he died his children visited and insisted he go to the doctor so they could make sure all was being done.  Again John Smith came out and showed us there was an 8cm tumor in his heart (these are usually only found after autopsy on melanoma patients).   He released us from his care because of his beliefs about hospice. I completely respect him for that and again thank God for allowing us to meet this man at a time when we had no trust or faith in any caregivers.  Dr. Smith  told us to go home and make him comfortable that John would be dead of congestive heart failure in a few days.  I got my wish, it was his heart after all.  We had a sweet and sad, long and short, soft and hard time of saying goodbye.  But he had his wit until the end.  Just before his soul left he woke up and told us of the beautiful people in white, the coconut trees in fields. He drew a map with exit routes all leading to an area at the top with an “up” arrow.  He saw a dust jacket cover on a new book and told us that is what his mother looked like before the cancer.  His soul left finally at 3:00 AM.  The electricity between our hands was stilled.  His heart stopped around noon on February 22, 2004  just as my mother walked down the driveway to get in my brothers car. So in comes in the wave of grief.  I would not go stupidly into this process as I had for the cancer.  I picked the most brutal grief book recommended to start.  Actually written by a widow (a pregnant widow).  They all say the same thing. To get to the other side of the chasm you must walk down into it. You cannot fly over it. You cannot build a bridge. You have to enter the depths of this nightmare to find the healing spirit within you to bring you back into the light.  Only you can do it.  Drugs will only delay the effect.  Busy work will only delay the effect.  This is not something you can schedule. You can delay it but beware. Other events in life continue as planned.  You may have an enormous amount of things to deal with at the same time you have to enter that chasm. The book said it best by saying after the bliss of numbness wears off (and it does) jump in, both feet, breathe it, feel it, work with it.  Just start it. To start means there will be a finish.  To delay the start means you still have to keep the appointment and it may not be at a time you choose.  Maybe others will be leaving your life at the same time.  The counselors warned us of compound grief.  I have two older parents and I was caring for one.  I had to dive in to this hell on earth.  But oh what I learned. That meditation and spirituality saved me.  That the signs provided to me each and every day of my grief still now continue as my gifts of love.  Real love, deep and true.  That I was not “nuts” seeing butterflies or words of wisdom needed for just that day, just that time. That when my anger was at its peak  the only person to hear my shouts was my eighty year old mother.  That was when the kitchen window screen came flying off its locks into the kitchen to get me to shut up, to calm down. To bring her a glass of water and remind her that this was a natural phase. That only God with a wonderful sense of humor would send widow/ers  to a bookstore where they have to get on their knees to peer sideways on the bottom shelf at titles of grief books hidden between the section on wicca and how to have a better orgasm.  All this while trying to discern a title that will hopefully  resonate within us  and was written by someone who actually lost a spouse.  Peering through swollen eye tissue and having to wear sunglasses because the bleak look of our eyes through those slits would scare the crap out of any mere mortal.   That the dreams that I had were my soul reminding me where I needed to go from here.  Laura was really born new in April.  I will not share the details of what kicked me back down into the pit of grief just as I clawed my way out. It is not important.  It was a lesson I needed to push myself further.  But I could not do it alone anymore. I could not continue in grief, trying to care for my mother and even begin to heal.  I did not care any longer to continue on this journey. I saw myself as a drain to my mother’s well-being, that John and I were always best together and loved those stories about spouses that died within short spans of each other-those were the love stories to us.  Who was I without him really?  I gave up.   Everything.  What I thought was everything.  Remember, I had no house (it was sold).  My “things” which John and I learned early on were really only things anyway were in a warehouse in Laguna Niguel.  No children together (by choice).  No job.  No life  insurance. No money. No one close by to hold my hand, take me to a movie or get me out of the room where my husband took his last breath. Just our dog Jake.   He is the reason I woke up each day at that point. I visited friends a lot helping them dress up their gardens because kneeling in sweet dirt is very soothing to me.  It was a place where John and I were most happy.  So I went to visit my cousin and her husband in San Clemente.  I could not write in my journal that night. I could not read my words because they were being smeared and washed away by my tears.  I whispered to God.  If you want me to stand up tomorrow it is for you to do. I cannot do it any longer. If you want me to speak tomorrow and eat tomorrow and not die tomorrow it is for you to do, I am not strong enough. There is nothing left of me but a hollow shell formerly Mrs. John Hamill, now the widow Laura.  I am nothing without John. We were a team from start to finish. We did everything together. His business, our homes our entire life was spent in each other’s pocket.  I told John and God that I wanted out. I wanted to be back with John like those love stories.  I have never meditated before. I think this was my first meditation. No music, candles or incense (I use those now).  Then it was just me and Him.  My first journal entry talks about the inside out faeries. The ones that come along when you think things are grand and turns your life inside out.  I was inside out, exposed.  That was when I cracked open.  A beautiful platinum light embraced me. I felt warm, light and loved.  I did not know what a chakra was. I saw my soul. God cracked me open like a bulb of garlic and there were the seven  beautiful colors of the rainbow with a liquid violet pouring out of the top covering me in sweet bliss. No faces, no words, no bells or flowing robes.  They were not necessary. I knew who and where I was supposed to be for the first time in this life. Summarizing New  Lessons If John had not died, I would not have received the gift of my  soul awakening.  I thought I was an empty shell.  What I really had was new space, opened up for conscious living, living each moment fully and aware of all the gifts from the Divine.  God is the thought of a breath, the air of a prayer. If John had lived to a late age we would have enjoyed our simple bliss probably never going too deep spiritually, but not really necessary. We were in love, we loved others and we had simple needs and a sweet life.  I may never have had my soul awakened. This was John’s gift to me.    So I accept the gift of grace and share the light. If I had been emotionally nurtured and cosseted by my siblings during the grief I would not have learned to love unconditionally and without judgment.  The most difficult lesson so far.    A harder lesson than losing my husband (yes, believe it) was how to love people unconditionally with no judgment. They are perfect as they are, yes really.  I send the ones that taught me this lesson much pink light. I used to send them healing light and love light until I finally let go. I finally realized they did not need healing if they were perfect as they are.  Just as I am.   If you keep pushing your old feelings about changing people to thinking about things from your point of view and accept the fact that they are living the life that has been mapped for them also, it opens up a whole new way of thinking.  Kind of like flipping the peace sign instead of your third finger.  No one ever started a fight over the peace sign.   Cuts in Line What if the people I found  the most difficult to love allowed me cuts in the front of the line?  To be awakened with the people at the head of the line while they stepped towards the back.  I will be able to cut my own path.  I am at the front of the line. There are no rules or conditions. I have no mental baggage dragging me down here.  They have to wait at the back of the line now and will begin to watch others awaken,  living nearly without effort, not trying so hard each day to scratch out some space for themselves.  So you thought they were not perfect?  Wouldn’t  you feel a bit guilty when you find they stepped back so you could be first?  Let them be. They will be what they are and the more love light you spread around the more objects you brighten the more the vibration levels are raised. Eventually we will all see what life is really all about. My Beautiful Awakening I am now in a place where I am supposed to be for this time.  A vague and strange comment.  Each step I have taken since I have seen my soul awaken was right where I should have stepped.  Everything I have needed has been given to me.  Every single thing.   I did not need to ask.  Everything I thought I wanted I no longer found necessary.  It was tough, strange, new, and beautiful.  Every time my ego or thinking mind stepped out in front of me I would trip over them. Like speed bumps.  When I walk in Light I don’t even have to look down.   There are symptoms associated with this awakening.  There are many books and websites and groups that you will find naturally as a part of your process.  Just as I did. Just as many with me are now finding.   There is no sense in listing it here.  You will not read it if you aren’t ready and the people that are ready have already found things to help them.  This is a part of the awakening. I know  that for me to pontificate about symptoms and pass along “knowledge”  to you about your awakening is a waste of time and energy and not why I am here.  You will receive all the tools to help you from far better folk than me. Your thinking mind at some point in your past would have said – whoowhee- this gal is out there. Not so.   My imagination is only good enough to take me to a certain level.  When you get beyond where your imagination takes you will find that many people have the same stories, the same  visions the same stages of a Kundalini experience.  The only difference is you don’t know that until after each stage, then you will find a validation.  Each step I have taken has a validation a minute, day or week after the fact.   Being after the fact proves it was a shared experience, not imagination.  You can only get to this by really letting go of your thinking mind. Lose your mind and find your soul. Some bumper sticker that would be!   But oh so true. Families and Friends One of the most interesting facts about an awakening is the change in dynamics of  your circle of family and friends. It is a rushing  river, these relationships.  When I am around people or in places of a lower vibration I feel limited, crushed and nothing rings true. I have to shield myself and move ahead.  I am here for a specific purpose now.  The people that allow me to be clear and true are my earth angels, a constant source of joy and love. Gratitudes To the Universe - Thank you for the journey!  I thought it was a long road to get here.  Now I know it was all for love, it was not so very long at all. I give Love and Gratitude to God for sharing the Light with me, to Jesus for his wisdom and blessings   during my awakening, to Mary for letting me curl up in her lap and  dry my tears in her beautiful blue robe,  to Archangel Michael for keeping me safe and going in the right direction.  To Archangel Josepha for her beautiful painted visions of Art from Spirit,  to all of the Angels of Light for their beautiful protections, to my Guardian Angel for keeping me safe and on schedule,   to my Spirit Guides and all Beings of Light in our beautiful Universe for sharing their wisdom and allowing me safe passage.  To my relatives beyond for their warm guidance and to  John, my twin flame and forever love, for all you gave and still give to me.   To my earth angels for saving me and still keeping me  from the sharp edges in my forest-- Linda Simons, Dawn and Bruce Beattie,  my mother, my father and his beautiful wife Jeri.  To Jake the basset hound for reminding me how to love without conditions. And for now I barely touched on the awakening process for many reasons.  If you need more information, ask.  If you want a copy of the Gate Goddess for personal use  I'll send it.   Other work needs doing. For now I have this advice until my next chapter...put up your light shields.  Protect your energy and psyche. You are cracked open. In the early stages you are vulnerable to energy poachers and your own fears and negative thoughts.  You are a very big magnet attracting all kinds of scraps.  Just remember you can nourish and replenish this Light.  There is nothing to fear when you are conscious of  each moment.   The medallions of meditation are the flowers of the Universe.  I'm planting a new forest with mine.   Isn’t it Grand!  J

Writing  My  Evolution