God talks to us all the time

"God talks to us all the time through nature."
—the Mayan shaman don Serrillo [Note: "don" is a term in Spanish signifying respect.]

Somehow I never got this message in church. When I was confirmed at 13 years old, I felt an exhilarating energy shoot through me. The Bishop touched my head and said something like, "From this day on, may you be filled with the Holy Spirit." But I never had felt God was talking to me and every one of us "all the time." Yet here I was amid ancient pyramids surrounded by the jungle, and I was experiencing God as an immensely loving presence, which led me to think of God as the Divine Beloved. Walking back from the Mayan pyramids and feeling the presence of God as a Beloved, I suddenly saw a beautiful red flower on the path in front of me. I felt as though a kind of divine courtship was underway.

This began what I came to call my daily dialogue with the Divine. The signs and messages from the Divine became a daily guide toward helping me live more consistently from my heart. I began to see synchronicity, the term coined by the famous Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, which refers to the "meaningful coincidences we encounter in daily life. Synchronicity became a matter of love: a little "I love you" from God.

Right after I landed in Guatemala, I was picked up by Gerardo and Carlos Barrios, two of the shamans with whom I would be studying. Minutes after leaving the airport, I saw a sticker on the back of a car. It read, "Dios es Amor." I knew this meant "God is Love." Seconds later, I saw another sticker on a different car that read, "Dios es nos." I thought I knew what it meant, but I asked Carlos just to be sure. It translated as, "God is us." When I was leaving the airport after arriving in Los Angeles, where I was living at the time, I saw a sticker on the rear window of the van in front of me. It read, "No hay Amor como el de Dios." I thought I knew what it said, but I asked the driver who just happened to speak Spanish, and he said, "There is no love like God's love." Moments before seeing the sticker, I was thinking of my new view of synchronicity as a little "I love you" or "I'm with you" from God as the Divine Beloved.

These and other "meaningful coincidences" led me to see synchronicity as revelations or confirmations from the loving presence of God as the Divine Beloved that we are on the right track. They are indicating that we are following the thread of our divine destiny and on our way to attaining true freedom, peace, and happiness: the goal of the great shift in human consciousness attempting to emerge as we approach 2012.

• Take note of the meaningful coincidences in your life and allow them to awaken your heart. And remember, it's time to move beyond divisive dogma and doctrine to experience your relationship to God as love and you, your true self, as love since you are made in the image of God.

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