Shine United

There are times in my life when a theme comes up all over the place and sticks around until I pay attention. I consider these to be messages, seeds maybe — perhaps planted by my spirit guide. Or, maybe I’ve sent them to myself — perhaps according to the plan I helped design and agreed to execute before coming into this life. Whatever they are, when I actually have the wherewithal to recognize them, I think of them as gifts.

This go round the message is: “You are light. Shine! Shine united.”

Yesterday, I went for a beautiful run on a snowy, mostly packed trail in the mountains near my home. As I do when I run alone, I was listening to music. This is less to preoccupy my mind than to focus it. It helps me find the meditative state that I love so much when I run. Some of my greatest revelations and spirit conversations have taken place while I’ve been powering along a mountain trail. (This was the subject of my essay, Ghost Run, in the book: Tales From Another Mother Runner. You can also listen to the podcast of my conversation with the Mother Runners.) I was listening to Spotify, to the weekly mixtape of personalized music they serve up each Monday called Discover Weekly. That means that this was not a playlist that I made, but one that the master DJs of the app algorhythmicked up for me based on the music I like and listen to. The songs played out like my own stream of consciousness and got me right where I wanted to be: physically moving and spiritually open. Then, on a particularly deep section of trail that caused me to slow down and post-hole my way through, the song “Scare Away the Dark” by Passenger came on. It stopped me cold for a second. I just breathed hard and listened.

Sing, sing at the top of your voice
Love, without fear in your heart
Feel, feel like you still have a choice
If we all light up we can scare away the dark

When I picked up the pace again, “Spring to Come” by the John Butler Trio rang through.

Out of the darkness, only light can come
After a lonely long night comes the sun.

Then, as I reached the summit, a deeply moving instrumental filled me up. It was like my own personal soundtrack, exactly matched to who I am and what I was doing. It resonated through me like my it was coming from my own heart and bouncing off the walls of the inside of my skin. It wasn’t until I got back to the car at the trailhead that I looked to see what that song was. It was “On the Nature of Daylight” by Max Richter.

I heard them all. I paid attention. Hmm, “Ok,” I thought. “I’m listening.”

Today, again while running, I was tuned in to Richard Martini reading his book “The Flipside.” (I like the book and recommend it, though if I could do it over, I’d opt to read it, not listen. He narrates the audiobook himself and the variable quality is distracting.) In today’s chapter, Martini shares a Life Between Lives session between a therapist named Scott Detamble and a client named “Thomas.” Thomas says:

We’re poised to make a huge jump in consciousness and it’s happening already among us. I’m just one of the workers working on that…It’s a shift in our DNA, awakening parts of our apparatus that have been closed down. When we come into these bodies, we shut down much of our awareness and our abilities to be encapsulated. And yet there’s much in these bodies we can draw upon and be open to. As a species, we’re evolving, and it takes little interventions and many people working on many levels to make that happen. There are many light beings here, even if they’re not aware that they’re aware, they’re aware.

Being a light being and animal, we’ve had so much strife in our animalness, struggling back and forth, yet we’re driven by it and we can’t help it. Only when we tune into our higher self can we let the animal be and it’s no longer driven with out of control passions… We bring great joy to all that is. It’s a lot of work, but it’s also a lot of fun.

During the session, Thomas’ spirit guide Redeem speaks directly:

This generation now, the beings that are incarnated now, the beings that will live now, the beings that will pass in the next 80 years or so, are going to instrumental in the shifting of this planet…

Thomas needs to have this awakening on the conscious level and go forth from here… [He] needs to align with those communities that are around him, that are also about the same thing… Light workers, such as himself, who are here to see the shift in the human species. It has been foretold for at least a generation. You’ve seen it in your pop cultures, your SONGS, seen it in your prophecies. All humans on this planet can feel it. It is a vibratory state. It is a yearning. This planet has gone through several shifts. We’re on the brink of another. That is the community of which we speak.

I take from all of this, in sum, that it’s time for light beings to unite. To shine and unite.

Funny that the message I kept hearing yesterday was “Shine on, little shiner.” Ok, ok. Maybe not so funny.

Before heading up to my office today to reflect and write, I made myself some peppermint tea. I opened the cupboard and looked in at my awesome selection of favorite-mugs-that-mean-something, wondering which one I should pick to suit my mood. There, right in front of me, was the one. A biz dev person from an ad agency sent it to me years ago trying to get my attention. I wasn’t in the market for an agency then, but the cup was cool so I kept it. Today, it took on a whole new meaning.

“Shine United,” it reads.

I’ve always loved it. Now I love it even more.

Well, ok. I got the message loud and clear. And I’ll do it. I will make the conscious effort to shine. To be the brightest me. To learn and heal and love and then to share, to unite.

But it’s not just about me, it’s about all of us. To shine, we have to first accept that we’re light. That’s sometimes hard. Sometimes it takes some polishing of the equipment. Sometimes it takes a little self-reflection before the full on self-projection. That’s OK. But as we get stronger and when we’re ready, it’s our time to turn on.

To unite, then, is to share. Maybe it’s to teach. Maybe it’s to heal. Maybe it’s to listen. Maybe it’s to set free. It will mean different things for each of us at different times. And that’s good. It won’t be boring. We have too much work to do for this being-of-brightness to be boring.

So let’s Shine United, shall we? Let’s shine on, speak up, and reach out. As “Thomas” said and I quoted above, “it’s a lot of work, but it’s also a lot of fun.”