“Don’t hold to anger, hurt or pain.  They steal your energy and keep you from love.”

– Leo Buscaglia

Have you ever notices how the heavy emotions that come in and out of your life can weigh you down?  Anger, hurt, pain, jealousy, resentment, worry, fear — all honest experiences and part of the human condition — arise all the time.  When it seems that we are bombarded with more than our share, it is easy to forget that we can choose to let go of the heaviness that weighs down our hearts.

Close your eyes for a minute.  Allow your mind to go to all the heavy places in your heart.  Look at each piece of hurt, of fear, of pain that weighs heavily on you and touch the way it makes your heart ache.  Now let’s do a little heart surgery.  Stop holding it all inside, and let these things that weigh on your heart fall right out of your chest.  Catch them in your arms and hold them where you can see each one.  How do you feel about holding them?  Are they heavy?  Do they make your arms ache and feel tired?  How far do you think you could walk while carrying these stones in your arms?  Take a deep breath.  Continue to hold the stones, but notice your heart.  Now that it has been freed of its heavy burdens, it is beginning to glow.  A beautiful light is shining right out of your chest and now it begins to encircle the heaviness you hold in your arms.  The light is love; and it has been there all the time, but the heavy stones you have carried in your heart have covered its beauty.  Just as the sun still shines on a cloudy day, even when it can’t be seen, the love has been there all along.  Take another deep breath; and as you exhale, breathe the love from your heart and let it surround the stones that weigh heavily in your arms.  Watch as the light energy of love begins to swirl around each heavy burden and lift it from your grasp.  The heaviness hovers now; and the luminous stones dance in the air.  They are beautiful now; not because they have changed, but because you have decided to bathe them in love and allow them to be transformed.  No longer do they lie hidden in your heart and weigh it down and block the love.  Instead, they begin to grow wings and prepare to take flight.  You reach out your arms and discover that they now surround beautiful, green butterflies.  They have found their way out of their stone cocoons and prepare to take flight.  Feel the delight as you cup your hands around each one and send it off with love.  Feel the lightness that now lifts you as you release the heavy burdens that have weighed you down.  Take a deep breath and let the love from your heart surround your whole being.  Know that you carry the love with you all the time.  Know that you have the power to use the love to transform dense, heavy energy and make it light.

I know I told you that I was going drumming last night; and I’m sure you expected a report on my experience.  You probably are wondering why I am talking to you about stones and butterflies instead; but I am here to tell you that the visualization above is one way that my own being expresses the experience of drumming and chanting and transformation I experienced last night when Jim Donovan came to town.

There is nothing magical about Jim — at least nothing more magical than each of the people who attended his event — but there is something special and wise about the way he helps a roomful of people discover their ability to transform energy and change the way they live their lives.  We all have the ability to do this.  We are born — we are created — as beings of light and love encased by a physical body that allows us to bring that light and love to the world.  As time passes, we take on the heavy burdens of living.  It is easy to forget that they are only what we experience and not who we are.  It is easy to forget that we can choose not to carry them.  It is magical to be reminded that our love can transform the heavy energy and make us light once again.

There was a wonderful love energy in the room where we gathered to drum last night in Emmaus, PA.  There was a wonderful energy of community among the drummers, who had brought their anticipation of good things and parked their expectations at the door.  Amazing things happen when a roomful of people accept the invitation to be transformed.  With our drums as a vehicle, each of us found our own path to discovery; and each of us, I would guess, learned something about ourselves and our ability to choose light.

As I drummed my own journey of transformation, I felt my physical body dissipate and become a sort of mist that lingered all around me.  Rather than cover the light and love that truly express who I am, the mist danced in the light and celebrated its existence.  Soon I could feel light swirling above my head, dancing in a beautiful spiral that filled me with love and delight.  It swirled in the rhythm of  a roomful of drums, each adding to the energy that spiraled and swirled and carried the love from one to another as each of us became light once again.  My eyes were closed, so I can’t tell you for certain, but I suspect that there might have been butterflies encircling our heads as they made their way toward the ceiling and then onward in their journey back to the light.

If we had to carry the heaviness of our hearts as stones in our arms, we would soon decide that something had to change.  We would soon begin to see that the only solution is to lay down the things that cause us pain so that we can go on unburdened.  Even better, we might be fortunate enough to learn our ability to transform our troubles and love them back into the light.