"Just love" stories in the coffee shop

Okay. Let me say that I am not usually partial to walking in cold wet air that has droplets of bone-chilling moisture suspended in mid-sentence, as if the rain suddenly paused itself.

My morning started off excellently considering that I felt like________. I'm still working on reducing my expletives. Last night at dinner I mentioned a sweet eight week old puppy I met on my walk yesterday and I couldn't help saying that, yes she was adorable and also she was a bitch. Yep. That's where I'm at. Gosh. Hopeless, isn't it? Still, I try. A little.

So here's how the day started out excellently: I woke up in a snuggle with my husband, who rubbed my back and squeezed those little muscles between my shoulder blades, before reading my mind and going out early to bring me coffee. They say husband's can't read minds, but give it fourteen years and a lot of patience and it starts occurring with funny little things. Maybe it's just knowing each other. Maybe it's Maybelline. Damn that commercial is memorable. I did, however, just buy two new Dr. Hauschka lipsticks. Can you believe there is actually a facial care and cosmetics company that has exactly the same mission as me in different words? They do. They use less nasty stuff than any other company and they are all about healing humanity and the planet. Gosh, I should work for them. I don't though. I'm not even an associate. I don't make any money at all for telling people they're fabulous. I just love to promote stuff I believe in. Like love. I believe in love. Not the hormone-driven lust to possess and thrust that drives people to murder one another out in fits of primal something or other. I'm talking about the kind of love that wants the best for each person. The kind of love that recognize the spark of pure wonderfulness in the center of every heart, whether or not its got some grime over it. Which probably could be cleansed and evened out with a lot of forgiveness and a Dr. Hauschka product or two.

My mother used Dr. Hauschka all through my growing up years, and I was resistant to using them myself all through my twenties and early thirties. But when I hit thirty three, I started my ministry. No wait, that was Jesus.

I started getting enough distance from my trauma with my mother to begin separating out good things I got from her, like her youthful spirit, her guts to stand for what she believes in and her common sense to use Dr. Hauschka. Only this week when I went to order a new lipstick did I realize Dr. Hauschka has the same mission as me in fewer words: "To support the healing of humanity and the earth."

As for why I was feeling under the weather, well, this post isn't about that. Just think of your own reasons so you can empathize and then move on. The story is not about feeling like_________

It's about taking a walk in a vertical sheet of cold humidity on the chilliest day of fall so far, while feeling under the weather. Like I've said before, my life is almost always a metaphor. My physical word nearly always mirrors the exact situation predominating inside of me.

I thought about asking my man for ride - after all he was leaving at approximately the same time. But I felt led not to, so I just let that one go by, wished him luck on the talk he's giving about chronic pain to a bunch of admin people, and stared at my shoe rack trying to decide whether to wear boots, hiking shoes or purple sandals. If it's sufficiently cold to warrant a fall hat,  purple sandals probably should not be on the list of footwear possibilities. After enough mulling to make some tasy apple cider, I chose the hiking shoes I got a few month ago from REI to join a group hike with some of the most delightful people walking this earth at the present moment. When a group of diverse, positive people get together to climb a muddy trail and connect meaningfully and with robust, good natured laughs, life is GOOD! I'll link a pic of that hike below so you can get in on the yummy nature vibes of people being the best of what humans can be.

Hiking shoes on, I grabbed my shiny periwinkle jacket and an almost matching hat my Sweetie got me a couple of lifetimes ago when he was interviewing for residencies and stopped in a local fair trade shop. The hat is 11 and a half years old and looks almost as good as new.

When I stepped outside it was almost as cold as a walk-in freezer. It wasn't raining. It had rained all night, but like I said, the rain seemed to have stopped to look around for a minute. Maybe it's like when you have a good cry, and sometimes you have to interrupt yourself to get a tissue or use the bathroom or change your babies diapers, make a phone call or be a functional person and go to work. Some people spend so much time adulting that its hard to take a break and have a much needed cry. Wouldn't it be nice if offices scheduled emotional processing time, (crying totally okay) along with having nice rooms for breastfeeding and a daily nap or meditation for employees? I rather think productivity would go up rather than down. I read a few years ago in an elite publication that meditation was considered a coveted executive skills - the most important one, in fact. Other people will find help in pausing from a lifetime of crying about their pain, pausing instead to appraise the situation from a more objective point of view. I have a view of personal evolutionary growth that entails walking up the steps of an upward spiral. With one step you heal the past, with the other step you create the future in alignment with your highest self. You keep doing these simple steps.

I took a few steps out into the wet cold air and decided to just embrace it. Along the way I suddenly decided to stop and make a video about emotions in perspective. You can see it here.

By the time I arrived at the coffee shop, I felt the cold wet in my bones, but my spirits were feeling much freer and cheerier. I arrived in the parking lot of the coffee shop and before I even made it inside, a huge smile spread across my face and probably past the Madison town lines. If you are reading this somewhere else in the world, it is a smile that has stretched across the world, and I love you for that!

 
This what triggered the smile around the world, that one that made at least ten lives better: I saw a white car.

What? That doesn't make you smile so wide you spread it like butter over all the toast you can get it on with your own personal spread factor? Okay, there's a little more to it.

On the rump of the white car my sight landed on a bumper sticker that sums up the goal of life in my world: "Just love everybody."

Grinning boldly, I went inside my nearest local coffee shop. My bones were wet and cold and my nose resembled an attempt to pull off impersonations of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer for that event we celebrate on October 31st wherein all manner of people dress up and put pumpkins on their door steps and collectively indulge in excessive sugar mania. I have my Wonder Woman costume almost all set. But then a part of me is thinking of NOT dressing up.
Accessories can help one get into character, but energy is what really pops a bang. I mean, just think about the Big Bang. Does anyone care what God was wearing when a tiny part of her decided to unfurl the universe in a huge unraveling of a ball of cosmic yarn that had been packed tighter way tighter than spandex on a biker's butt?

Though you could say the universe IS her outfit, the appearance that inspires perceptual realities of all kinds imaginable to the bravest imagination.

One thing I have realized is that when we learn to hold the energy of our archetypes, it doesn't matter our appearance. And as if in confirmation of my insight, my headband broke this morning. Like water breaking for a birth, except way less wet and non painful. Just a simple snap of the sowing. I often experiment with taking my horn on and off and have noticed that overall people react much more to the energy I carry than the horn at this point. I often go out in no makeup, more pimples than my adolescent and messy hair and still strangers smile at me, with me, responding to the joy available in the moment of blessing we share in our life-affirming energy meeting one another.

When it catches people off guard that I'm not wearing a horn spouting off  my skin-covered front cortex in the physical realm of experience, it does occur that certain people feel flustered initially. But they learn. First they ask for it, in more or less words. I tell them it's still there. I use humor, love and badassery to teach to see it, whether they actually *see* it which a few people can, or they have a knowing its there that is as good as seeing it, like kissing with your eyes closed and knowing the person you love is there.

So there I was, just me, no accoutrements, as I came to stand in line behind a lovely middle aged white woman. A moment later, she turned her sparkling eyes to face me, and said, smiled openly and making meaningful eye contact. "My, isn't the weather something?" Within 30 seconds we went from discussing the cold wet weather to discussing co-creating heaven on earth, along with elevators and bridges to invite other people to join us. We spoke of recognizing how badly things are going in the world and yet how we are here yet in "another place." The owner of the coffee shop came over and hugged us both. We all stood there pumping out the love vibe. The circle grew. On the periphery several people were joining in from a distance. The three of us chatted about wood stoves and seasons and kindness - and how some people are afraid to connect. We stood in line and embodied the value of love.

As I reached the counter and placed my order. The  barista looked up at me and said, "I can see it." He is one of the one's I've trained to understand that my unicorn horn is always there, not predicated on a physical version of itself to be real. The woman had just told me her name is Erika, and she thought he meant that he could see the heaven on earth we were living into, co-creating right there at the EVP Sequoia coffee shop. She was, of course 100% correct. In fewer than five minutes - less time than it takes for a short line up for coffee to get me from the back of it to the front of it, we'd gathered four people to say "Yes" and "Amen" to a love-based world of heaven on earth. I did go on to explain to my new friend that he was also referring to my unicorn horn - the one I always have. She glimmered, touched her middle of the space between her gentle eyebrows and laughed. "I thought I saw something coming out of there!"

Our tatooed barista said, "I can't believe you two don't know each other." And the woman looked me in the eye said, "We DO know each other. I agreed. We held that eye contact and smiled as spirit recognized itself. Its the one of the most fun aspects of earth life when our friends and colleagues from other planes of existence meet us in coffee shop on a cold wet day, and suddenly the cold and the wet don't matter.

Coffee warming my palm, I went outside. But something nudged me to stay a bit longer, linger in the wet just a few minutes more before walking home. And then the white car with the sticker in red lettering, "Just Love Everybody," started backing out. I jaunted over like a cross between a gazelle and a hyperactive kid. The owner of the coffee shop was driving that car, unsurprisingly. I had wondered if it was hers. And I told her how the bumper sticker had made my day, how I LOVED it. And she looked at me and said these Mother Theresa-worthy words:

"Why decide? Why even thinking about who is worthy and who is not? Just love everybody."

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Alicia Kwon offers world class speaking, training, coaching and healing to people of all ages and backgrounds. She is dedicated to unconditional love and known for being a badass when necessary.

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