Beloved Ones,

As a child, I was often so overloaded with loving energy that I felt I was being electrocuted. I tried to explain to my family that God was trying to weave my body and spirit together, and at nine, I wrote in my journal, "There are little workmen inside of me building new highways to carry the extra love." I spent the rest of my childhood and a good part of my adulthood looking for other humans who had "extra" love inside of them too. Now, I find them everywhere.
What a relief. What a blessing!

KUNDALINI ENERGY -- "MEGA-LOVE"

When I was thirty-three, I experienced liquid light and joy rising up my spine, dissolving all time, all duality, and all context as it streamed through every cell and every belief "I" was made of. I was transformed, and there were no explanations. I was in bliss and my doctor wondered if I had had a stroke. It would be another twelve years before a Quaker woman named Barbara wrote me a letter: "I listened to you speaking at a conference, and I want you to know that there is nothing wrong with you. You are experiencing something called Kundalini. It's just mega Love." Thank you, Barbara. You reframed my life.

Reframing is what I do for other people now, and they go out and do it for others, and those people... well, you know what happens. Just as when one throws a stone into the water, ripples flow out from the Source--ripples of hope, ripples of sanity, ripples of joy.

BODY/SPIRIT

Strange as it was for me as an American woman steeped in Christianity to suddenly perceive myself through a Hindu perspective, I was extremely grateful to have a context that explained everything that I had experienced both physically and spiritually. A dear friend, Sandra, gave me a journal written by someone called "The Mother," and there were the same words, only this time they were in French: "There are little workmen inside my body building new highways..." Validation! Perhaps there were others who were under construction also.

At first there weren't many of us, but word spreads and energy magnetizes, and these lovely souls suddenly came out of hiding when I began offering gatherings and workshops. There were so many questions: "What do we do with this much Love running through our veins? How do we explain this to our families and friends? Are we sick, deluded, inspired? How do we function when our bodies and minds are being broken down in order to be upgraded?"

FROM ECSTASY TO THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

To our great delight, we discovered that we had so much love for each other, for Source and, finally, tentatively, for ourselves. Our joyful, mutual journey of discovery became more important than answers to our questions. We became comfortable with not knowing-- which freed us to go deeper and higher. Love rippled out so far that reality began to shift. As for me, a deep, alchemical YES! formed in my core and began to spread through my body and my life. I was lit up. I was radiant. I was brighter and brighter. And then... I crashed.

My whole structure came falling down. Nothing was spared. My nervous system, my life as I knew it, my health, my identity, my reasons to live, my reasons to trust God, myself, or anyone... They all disappeared. My beliefs in the very basics of life were challenged beyond the breaking point. Even gravity was no longer a given. All the rules and assumptions of life simply dissolved. I had never been so alone. I couldn't even find myself. My life had been based on survival. Was there anyone beneath those stories? The mystics call this process of dissolving the Dark Night of the Soul, and it was a most brutal and intense "death."

THE TOMB

The alchemists believe that after a death, there is another stage; I call it the Tomb phase. After being shattered, there is a strong urge to regroup, to reform in the old familiar image. But the magnificent reason we must allow ourselves to be broken is because the old container was far too small to hold all the Love. Therefore. our instructions in the tomb are to trust and wait--and trust and wait again until Life rises up from underneath the rubble and works its way up through our most sacred bodies. Now Source is working through us. There is no more struggle, no more forcing. Just allowing. Just being. Just joy.

Since I couldn't find a tomb anywhere nearby, my solution was to go into thirteen months of near-total Silence. And just when I had made peace with the utter aloneness of traveling the "Pathless Path," my ohana (Hawaiian for family or tribe) arrived. The old cliche turns out to be true: it really does take one to know one, and so we recognized one another.

We could sense who had flown high and who had crashed and who had risen up from the ashes. It is a blessing beyond measure to sit in Stillness with others who are willing to be undone. It is such a joy to live and work side by side with others who are laying down the struggle and revealing their exquisite Selves underneath. We are so blessed.

THE NEW RULES

Now I understand. Everything that matched my Divine Unlimited Self got to stay. Every belief that limited me in any way or kept me playing a role...  that all had to go.  I was nothing. I was No Thing. No identity was left standing. No justifications, no blame, no guilt, no judgment, no heroics, no saving face, no identity. I was shattered by Love. I was undone, as the mystics say.

The bottom line was that in order to integrate body and spirit, there had to be no place in my mind, emotions or cells, where Love did not flow.  Just to be clear, I'm not talking about superficial love. This love is a force of nature. It is the Big Bang that we are made of. It is a passionate, fierce love that transforms us into our true Godliness and propels us into our deepest joy. The delicious surprise is that, rather than killing off the ego, our ego transmutes in service to Source and we become more of ourselves than ever. How amazing is that?

THE RADIANCE CENTER

And so, inevitably, the Radiance Center was born. It is a place, an attitude, and an environment where Love is expressed consciously and with clear intention. We are RADIANT because humans are naturally lit up when life-force is allowed to flow unobstructed.

We are Radiant because Healing is inevitable, although it doesn't always look like we expect. We are often led to believe that by doing it "right,`" suddenly our lives will be outwardly and inwardly perfect: perfect health, perfect attitude, perfect relationships. I do believe that we are moving toward re-membering and re-embodying the Original Perfection that has always existed. However, it has been my very human and very Divine experience that healing causes us to begin releasing everything that does not match our Original Blueprint. Often sickness or disability (physical, emotional or mental) is the path that guides us back to our Sacred Self-ness. The first healing takes place in our attitude.

We are The CENTER because this life centers us. We call it the Center because the work here clears the middle path through which Unconditional Love can be expressed. We call it the Center because it is the inclusive balance between opposites, right/left brain, work/play, male/female, inner/outer. This is where we can allow all of our parts to come together.

THE INVITATION

Therefore, it is with deep humility and awe that I invite you to join the family of the Radiance Center. Close by or far away, a radiant life is yours when you are willing to fall in love with yourself as you are now, when you are ready to fall in love with the seeming imperfection of others and of life, and when you are ready to let yourself be radiant even before you know all the answers. Tune into Radiance, and who knows what healing may occur? Together, we can give up our personal and collective habit of suffering. Together, we can allow ease, grace, and joy to be our greatest teachers.

With great aloha,

Donna

Prepare thyself to be part of an everyday miracle