Tehya Sky - A Ceremony Called Life: When Your Morning Coffee Is as Sacred as Holy Water

This book is dedicated to life.

I have a lot of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so dont worry. Its all like a dream. Everything is ecstasy, inside. We just dont know it because of our thinking-minds. But in our true blissful essence of mind is known that everything is alright forever and forever and forever. Close your eyes let your hands and nerve-ends drop, stop breathing for 3 seconds, listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot, which was taught in immense milky ways of cloudy innumerable worlds long ago and not even at all. It is all one vast awakened thing. I call it the golden eternity. It is perfect.

JACK KEROUAC, in Kerouac: The Definitive Biography by Paul Maher Jr.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

We weave in and out of ceremony throughout our entire lives. Between our very own births and deaths, we celebrate rites of passage, we lose loved ones, and perhaps we get married, birth our children, engage in personal rituals, attend support circles, or sit in spiritual ceremonies.

No matter what sort of ceremony we find ourselves in, once we are there, we sense were in the midst of some sort of tangible meaningfulness and at the feet of a mysterious invitation, and for that, our presence heightens, our hearts begin to open, and were more likely to recognize our role in creating our lives. Indeed, we weave into these sacred moments when we allow ourselves to drop into this deep space of ceremony, once again engaging with the magic of life and soaking up the profundity we crave so much.

But then we weave out of these sacred moments when we mistakenly believe that all of life could ever be anything other than a procession of sacred moments, an inherently divine ceremony. We compartmentalize the spiritual nature of our lives, squashing it into one specific corner, rather than allowing it to course the waters of our whole lives, as it naturally does. We build spirit dams, and because of that, we become dry, tame, disjointed, and we do not feel whole. It is so easy to read self-help books, go to yoga class and workshops, and sing Om Shanti Om, but at the end of the day, until we realize all of life as the spiritual practice until we realize the water we drink is the wine of God we dont feel the completion we crave. When we begin to see the altar is all around us in the rocks, the magic of numbers, the miracle of other people, the sound of crunching leaves beneath our feet, our morning showers all of life is again meaningful, and each moment carries within it the invitation home.

I was first confronted by the seeming deficiency of the sacred nature of my own life when I was working as an artist manager in the music industry. Since I was a little girl it had been a fantasy of mine to work directly with musicians, and living it out was a dream come true, until it wasnt. At twenty-six, I realized the path I was going down was no longer right for me, and that the longer I remained on it, the more disconnected I felt from my soul and the generous, good nature of life.

I tried to talk myself out of leaving for as long as I could, fearing the end of the secure life I knew so well, but eventually, the call of life was screaming through my soul and was impossible to ignore. It is time to follow your heart. It is time to resolve the pain, meet your true Self, and learn and live your truth. So I followed the wild call of my being to a commune in Central America to see what would happen if I let go of who I thought I was in favor of finding out who I truly was. As crazy as it seemed to leave such a promising career and head to the jungle with no plans and very little money, it was undeniably time to let go and dive into the unknown.

Allowing myself to trust that mysterious guidance and the magical call of life, no matter how unreasonable or insane it sounded, proved to be the beginning of my return to the true nature we all share: that of a wise, intuitive, joyful, free being; part God, part human, home to the true master that lives within; destined to create many good things. Indeed, since walking off the cliff of that secure life and into the free fall of following my energy wherever it takes me, of allowing life to be a meditation, I have remembered to appreciate each step of the journey as just as sacred as the next. I have remembered that every tear and challenge is just as meaningful, benevolent, and welcome as every gust of bliss and surge of joy. I have remembered that our presence and our accountability are the weavers of our best destiny.

I have also remembered that when we keep our attention inward with the stillness, remembering the life we experience to be a reflection of what we hold inside, and work with what we see in that mirror for our freedom, we are empowered, we open more, we move away from fear and into love, and we are able to do our best. And, finally, Ive been reminded again and again that our willingness to show up for it all without judgment our willingness to keep our eyes and hearts open and our awareness sharp is the current that keeps us harmonized and going wherever we are best off going, continuously delivering us to the sweetest, most fulfilling visions of our lives.

This book is about all of that. Its dedicated to helping you remember how to experience all of life as the precious ceremony it is. Its an invitation to remember how to wake up each morning whether youre happy or sad, whether youre alone or in the arms of your lover knowing that you are in a unique ritual and gift of life, and how that, in and of itself, is profoundly and inherently miraculous. Its about the opportunity you have to stand there while your oil gets changed and be absolutely mystified and amazed or even simply curious about that simple miracle: that you can stand there, that theres a car, that you happen to be doing this, that you are breathing, that you also happen to be passing through an intense breakup or just had another beautiful day. This book is about the opportunity we have to wake up not only through the profound and dazzlingly spectacular moments, but also through the mundane, the challenging, the seemingly meaningless or please-cant-you-just-end-already moments that make up the expanse of our lives. Indeed, its about discovering the miraculous through the mundane, the Godself through the human self, and the beauty that abounds when we stop denying our humanity and instead integrate the two.

Today, through my work as a metaphysical guide, channel, and writer, I share this way of living and being with others. Whether in personal relationships, work with clients, or work with myself, I rest my focus upon the simplicity and perfection of this moment; the storyless experience and honoring of the feelings within it; what there is to learn, heal, or align, when needed; and the journey into that which limits us, disempowers us, and keeps us playing small all of which are insights we explore in this book.

What I share here is a reminder of what we all already know. We just need to be reminded of the essential teachings of life now and then. Why? Because we are on a profound journey of remembering our divinity in a world that still fights against it. Because we are still learning how to be human. Because we have absorbed at least a few layers of conditioning, and for that, it is inevitable that our perspective clouds and clouds again. So many of us are doing our best to remember and align with the power of love, presence, and grace, and its always helpful to have some outstretched hands to hold along the way. This book is offered to you in this way.