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My dear Spiritual Partner,
Linda Francis, my Beloved, my spiritual partner, my life partner, my co-creator in everything, my co-author, my inspiration and model, completed her journey through the Earth school on August 6. Her soul returned home to nonphysical reality. When a soul decides to return home, nothing can stop it. I saw this happen before my eyes. Linda was at my side in our kitchen when the stroke came. Within hours an experienced surgeon had attempted three times to remove the clot in her brain, yet it could not be removed.
I am still reeling. Each time I turn to say something to Linda and realize that she is not here to answer me, and each time I rush home with groceries to be with her again and remember that she will not be there when I arrive, and countless experiences like these are each a source of great pain for me and also an opportunity to create authentic power. Each hurts a lot before I recognize it for what it is – a frightened part of my personality – and move my attention away from “what ifs” and “if onlys” to what is actually happening in the moment, and toward an opportunity to love, to support, to contribute.
This is not over for me, and it is probably not over for you. I and our precious support team will send you some practical thoughts and suggestions over the next few weeks so you can practice transforming your experiences into opportunities to create authentic power. You will receive your first emails next week. I invite you to experiment with them and to let me know at love@seatofthesoul.com what happens. I hope you are healthy and joyful and appreciating the power and beauty of each moment. Linda joins me in sending you love.
Love,
Gary
My dear Spiritual Partner,
The sudden return home to the nonphysical reality of the soul of my spiritual partner, Linda Francis, has changed me in immediate ways.
Through the pain and disorientation of frightened parts of my personality, a new and surprising life emerged – a life without the boundaries that previously confined me. The love that Linda and I cultivated for twenty-nine years is the foundation of it, the launch pad of a new orientation that thrills me.
The possibility of this love first entered Linda’s consciousness when she heard the words, “He is the One” while walking by a stream at the small event we were both drawn to attend, and suspecting that they might refer to me.
The possibility of this love first entered my awareness when I found myself HAPPY to see her arrive in my small community of Mt. Shasta, California.
In our years together we became aware, through the many experiences of frightened parts of our personalities and loving parts of our personalities, of our love as very special for us. The depth and fullness of it filled us with gratitude and awed us. We discussed these experiences and the miracle of them.
Then Linda fell to our kitchen floor with a stroke and her body died three days later.
Through the disorientation, disbelief, pain, and fear of frightened parts of my personality, I began to realize a new orientation.
Things that were important to me before lost their importance.
The reality of creating authentic power repeatedly as Linda’s body lay dying was my only way of remaining sane. Creating authentic power brought me back again and again to what I was experiencing with Linda in an ICU room with loving nurses and my love for her. It allowed me to drive home to our home without Linda for the first time.
As friends and neighbors brought me food and cared for me, my new orientation began to show itself to me through tears and confusion – my only intention for my life now is to love people.
I thought that was the case before Linda’s soul returned to nonphysical reality, but the actuality of it, the reality of it, the solidness of it was new for me. Interest in people, care for people, and desire to support them in recognizing the frightened parts of their personalities and moving beyond the control of them filled me.
When a spiritual partner from Southeast Asia emailed me, “We can be sure that whatever Linda’s mission was, it has been completed. Which means that whatever development remains for you, it is something which you can only complete without her,” I knew he was right.
I am beginning to experience the spiritual “development that remains” for me, and I am grateful for it.
Can you think of a realization about yourself that might, to your surprise, to your shock, move you beyond the frightened parts of your personality – such as superiority, inferiority, anger, jealousy, addiction, and more – that prevent you from loving?
Why wait for the experience of the soul of a Beloved returning home to nonphysical reality, or of an unpleasant neighbor, or whatever the compassionate Universe will provide you in order to launch you beyond the limitations of the life you are now living?
Ask your intuition.
Open your heart.
Consult your soul.
Sooner or later you will move beyond the limitations of your present perceptions into the wildness and unrestrained expansion of your boundless heart.
Love,
Gary
My dear Spiritual Partner,
In my last message, I continued to share with you what has been significant for me since Linda’s soul chose to return home to nonphysical reality, such as feelings of confusion and sadness (frightened parts of my personality) and how Linda’s soul returning to nonphysical reality has changed me in wonderful, immediate, and direct ways (loving parts of my personality).
Since then, I’ve heard from so many of you who sent your love and support to me.
Thank you. I have felt your love and support so deeply.
Many of you have also expressed how my sharing about creating authentic power during this time has been supportive to you as you encounter your own challenges and opportunities in your life.
This short video continues to support you in creating authentic power. I am sharing with a woman who is struggling to feel gratitude after her cancer diagnosis and the sudden departure of her husband’s soul from the Earth school.
Frightened parts of all personalities struggle to be grateful. Loving parts of personalities are always grateful.
Can you experiment with replacing a perspective of fear in your life with a perspective of love no matter how painful your emotions become?
I know that you can.
Love,
Gary
My dear Spiritual Partner,
Linda Francis, my spiritual partner and life partner, was passionate about growing spiritually and supporting others in growing spiritually. She was a model to me and many others.
The most important thing to Linda was creating authentic power and supporting others in creating authentic power and developing spiritual partnerships.
In this video, Linda does more than explain how it takes courage to be real with people and feel painful physical sensations that prevent us from experiencing joy.
She models these things in real-time.
What are you modeling in real-time?
Please let me know what you are learning about yourself from watching this video at love@seatofthesoul.com.
Love,
Gary
My dear Spiritual Partner,
Linda Francis, my Beloved, my spiritual partner, and my life-partner and I were deeply aware of our love and very grateful for it. It was a love like I had never experienced, and Linda felt the same. For me, it was focused on one precious Beloved, and I loved her completely.
After Linda’s soul returned home to nonphysical reality, I heard a voice in my head through mists of pain and tears.
It said, “Let your love now encompass all Beloveds. Care for them. Enjoy caring for them. You are clinging to the Earth school and the way frightened parts of your personality think it should be. Let it go. That has nothing to do with your love for Linda. Your love for Linda stands apart from the Earth school and far beyond it. Her love for you is with you now, and it always will be.”
The pains of the frightened parts of my personality did not ease, but the way I understood and held them changed.
I was free to challenge the frightened parts of my personality without confusing them with my love for Linda.
Experiences of love are real, and they feel good. Experiences of fear are illusions, and they hurt.
The message that Linda and I shared in every talk, event, and book is this:
Human consciousness is now expanding beyond the limitations of the five senses. It is becoming multisensory. Our new consciousness is multisensory perception.
What does a multisensory perception look like?
It can be a kind thought, a compassionate impulse, or an insight into yourself, the world, or another. The voice in my head was a multisensory perception. It was a nonphysical Teacher I have been learning from for thirty-seven years. Linda joined us when she and I became spiritual partners.
Our Teacher also told me after Linda’s soul returned home to nonphysical reality:
“The message to hold is this, Gary – that you are with Linda. Cocreate with her. That is within your capability now. You have explored far beyond what either of you knew was possible. Continue. You have more before you that is also far beyond what you knew was possible.”
What a surprise! Our Teacher did not suggest that I speak with Linda, or take comfort in her presence, but that I COCREATE with her!
Through tears and snot and laughter and pain I cried and sobbed, “I will cocreate with you, Beloved! I will cocreate with you. I don’t know how or what or if it fits with the new book I am writing, but I will cocreate with you.”
Then Linda said to me, “The book that you are writing will be the prelude to what we will cocreate.” These were the first words she spoke to me after her soul returned home to nonphysical reality.
You are multisensory or you would not be reading this personal message.
Are you resisting your multisensory perceptions? Are you open to them? How could you open to them?
Here is a video of Linda sharing two of her most joyful and liberating multisensory perceptions. I am always thrilled when I hear her share them.
Does her sharing remind you of any of your multisensory perceptions? What are they?
Please let me know at love@seatofthesoul.com. I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Love,
Gary
My dear Spiritual Partner,
Here is a video that shows Linda’s beautiful, unstoppable, courage and commitment and joy in creating authentic power.
Enjoy it from beginning to end.
Then share some examples of when you “jumped into the center of the circle” and started dancing.
What did that look like?
What did you feel?
Share your experiences with Gary by replying to love@seatofthesoul.com.
Also, we’ve included the Things to Notice (Fear) and Things to Notice (Love) handouts to help you recognize love and fear inside yourself.
Please look them over and tell us at love@seatofthesoul.com which fear-based and love-based experiences you recognized in yourself and what they inspire you to change or cultivate in your life.
We wish you an insightful, healthy, and joyful day.
The Seat of the Soul Support Team
My dear Spiritual Partner,
The subject line of an earlier email announced, “I am cocreating with Linda in a new way.” That beautiful thought was contributed by a heart-felt and well-intentioned spiritual partner, but it is incorrect.
I am just beginning to experience cocreating with Linda.
Frightened parts of my personality still demand that the world be as it was for the twenty-nine years that Linda and I walked side by side in the Earth school – exploring, contributing, learning, and loving together. Everything I see and remember reminds me of those experiences with Linda, because we did everything together.
One night last week I lay in our dark bedroom in intense pain, relentless pain, too much pain, too much pain, too much pain.
With all my will I begged the Universe to take my life. “My soul will return home anyway,” I cried. “Please take me now.”
The very next night I lay in the same room, ebullient with glimpses of new potential for Linda and me, envisioning plans we discussed coming into being, gifts of authentic power and spiritual partnership benefiting people around the world.
I celebrated the Universe. “You are the fountain of wisdom, the ocean of love, the source of All, my home and my destination,” I cried. “I give myself to you completely. I am yours. Please take me now.”
The first experience was a desperate, powerless (they are the same) plea for death.
The second was a joyful, powerful (they are the same) offering to Life.
I know about challenging frightened parts of my personality and cultivating loving parts of my personality, but in the intensity of the pain of a frightened part of my personality, I forgot these things. I did not think I could ever do that, but I did.
I begged for help. Then I pleaded for death.
Help came after my night of despair and darkness showed me by contrast how brilliantly help from the Universe shines.
I am amazed at the enormous range of human emotions in the Earth school – and all of it for us to learn about love and fear in ourselves and choose love.
“Do you think authentic power can be had so easily?” our Teacher asked me decades ago.
Linda loved this question and used it often to invite me playfully to challenge frightened parts of my personality.
Now I need to playfully ask myself that question.
Linda’s soul returning home to nonphysical reality is the most painful, difficult, challenging, rewarding, liberating, and enlightening experience of my life.
The full scope of the Earth school – filled with opportunities to create authentic power, to choose responsibly, to experience joy, to enter LIFE consciously – seems to present itself to me now, even as I know that the full scope of anything is beyond the limited perceptions of this incarnation as Gary Zukav in the Earth school.
What experience of yours has jolted you awake, or turned your world upside down / right side up?
Death of a loved one?
Dissolution of a relationship?
Failure of a business?
Illness?
Eviction?
Homelessness?
Prison?
Another?
What can you learn about yourself from this experience that could move you toward the meaning and fulfillment of your life, toward your soul – toward your sacred contract with the Universe?
Please let me know at love@seatofthesoul.com. I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Here is a video of Linda sharing one of the most painful moments in her life and the love that she used it to create in her.
Have you had an experience like this in your life?
Will you let me know that, too?
Love,
Gary
My dear Spiritual Partner,
Since Linda’s soul returned home to nonphysical reality, I have experienced many of the things we taught together, but in more meaningful ways.
The fundamental, overarching context – the most amazing news in human history – that Linda and I shared in our every event, book, and activity is that the perception of the entire human species is now expanding beyond the limitations of the five senses.
We are becoming aware of ourselves as souls as well as personalities. We are evolving in the learning environment of the “Earth school.”
Driving out of a parking lot two weeks ago, I woke up in the Earth school.
I woke into the substantive, grounded, and real experience of the Earth school.
The perception, not the thought. The experience itself.
The experience of a rich, wholesome, intimate, living environment replaced all my previous experiences of the world.
It encompassed my tiny town.
It encompassed Shanghai, Dubai, and Mumbai, rice fields in Asia, rainforests, star systems, galaxies, and the endless space that is our cocoon.
It encompassed everything that I thought the cosmos could be.
Yet my new world appeared EXACTLY like my old world, except that I was awake in it.
The world was no longer in front of me and around me.
I was IN it, not in a different world, but in the same world seen and experienced in a different way. People walking on the sidewalk, cars stopping at a red light – all became part of my new perception.
I saw how asleep this world is, and how asleep I was. I was hugely surprised.
Then I discovered that I, too, was EXACTLY the same as I was before, except that I was awake in the Earth school.
I alone could cultivate loving parts of my personality with their blissful experiences of gratitude, patience, contentment, and awe of the Universe if I wanted to make them permanent parts of my experience.
I alone could challenge frightened parts of my personality with their painful physical sensations in my energy processing centers and critical, judgmental thoughts if I wanted to move beyond the control of them.
Buddhist lore says: “Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.”
I do not know what “enlightenment” means, but the before-and-after experience this lore describes now describes my experience, also.
Before I woke up in the Earth school, my path was creating authentic power – cultivating love in me and challenging fear in me.
Now that I am awake in the Earth school, my path is creating authentic power – cultivating love in me and challenging fear in me.
No one can do these things for me. If I want to change myself for the better, I must do them, and I do.
In this very personal video, Linda shares with us the moment she recognized her path, the courage it required for her to choose it, and what happened.
I am still in awe of her openness, integrity, and compassion as she shares.
What does your path look like to you? What calls to your heart most? What thought gives you hope? What fills you with meaning?
Please let me know at love@seatofthesoul.com.
Your path is calling you. When will you choose it?
Linda joins me in sending you love.
Love,
Gary
My dear Spiritual Partner,
Twelve spiritual partners came to Ashland last week to cocreate the Seat of the Soul Institute activities for next year.
We also cocreated a Celebration of Linda for ourselves – her vitality, caring, laughter, amazing ability to connect, passion for authentic power, and most of all for the endless love that she brought into our lives. We planned to record it to share on the internet later.
I chose a hall for the Celebration that I knew Linda would like. We had walked a labyrinth in it each New Year.
We rehearsed our celebration several times, but when we tried to present it, nothing happened the way I wanted.
As I walked on the sidewalk that Linda and I walked hand-in-hand many times, my knees began to shake, and my stomach became queasy.
I heard the words in my head, “This cannot be happening! This can NOT be happening!” and I did not know if I had the strength to reach the door. I never experienced “denial” like this before.
It weakened me, nauseated me, and startled me.
The candle-lit hall I remembered so fondly was a grey cinder block building in the daylight.
Our videographer, who had recorded fifteen events with us, forgot to bring the light diffusers.
The projector needed to be in the middle of our circle to work, and the screen on the wall was too small.
Our videos of Linda paused often to buffer, and the speaker buzzed when we played music.
My greeting sounded like a dirge to me, the opposite of the energy that I wanted to contribute, but as I spoke into the intimacy of this small circle of people I love and who love me and Linda, everything transformed for us all.
The hall became our sound stage!
We cocreated our parts anew, and I did re-takes. We knew that our videos and audios would be inserted into the final recording, and that it would be as beautiful and powerful as the experiences that we were having.
At the dinner after the Celebration I told a server “separate bills” as I usually did.
I had always been stingy with money, but that did not feel right to me! I ran after her and said, “Put all the meals on one bill and give it to me!” I wanted to buy dinner for everyone!
I wanted to. No second agendas. This was a new experience for me.
The next morning a realization came to me, quietly but with authority. “I am generous!” I observed it more than realized it.
I had changed, and the change was permanent.
The day that began worse than I could have imagined became more amazing than I could have imagined.
Have any of your failures ever turned into surprising experiences of joy and perfection?
Please tell me about them at love@seatofthesoul.com.
Here is a beautiful video of Linda showing us why we love her so much, and why we are celebrating her:
Please also tell me at love@seatofthesoul.com what you learned about yourself after you watch it.
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Love,
Gary
My dear Spiritual Partner,
I asked readers of The Seat of the Soul, thirty-three years ago, to consider, “If I have a soul, what is my soul? What does my soul want? What is the relationship between my soul and me?”
It never occurred to me that my soul would answer, but last night, in fatigue and despair, I asked my soul, How can I support you? and my soul spoke to me for the first time.
Open your heart.
Isn’t it open to you?
Not when frightened parts of your personality occupy your attention.
I challenge them the best I can when they do. I found myself explaining myself to my soul!
I will give you thoughts to think. They all will bring your attention to me. They are thoughts of gratitude, caring, appreciation, patience, contentment, awe of the Universe – which means awe of me, of yourself as an incarnation of my energy in the Earth school, the Earth school, and all else.
But I already know these things. I was becoming impatient with my soul!
Yes. Now realize they are true. They come from me.
Then every time I create authentic power – I think these thoughts — I am hearing from you!!!
This was a new and amazing thought to me.
Yes. Now you will do that with the realization that my energy comes with them.
Creating authentic power IS alignment of your energy with mine. It is more than an exercise to challenge frightened parts of your personality and cultivate loving parts of your personality. It is alignment with ME.
But I was taught that years ago! I have taught that to others.
Indeed you have. Now realize what you are actually doing. Let that fill you. Let me fill you with gratitude, appreciation, caring, contentment, patience, and love. These ARE my energy. These are experiences of me. As you call them to you and open yourself to them, you give me expression in the Earth school. That is the purpose of your incarnation. That is your purpose in the Earth school.
That is what you can do for me.
But I have been teaching that and striving to do that for years. I tried yet again to explain myself.
Yes. That has given you wings to fly.
Now fly.
I will fly with you. We will soar, my dear friend. You are of me. You are me. You are aware of being in the Earth school. This is the fulfillment of us both – for we are one.
You sound like you are caged.
I have no limits in the Earth school, but you have had limits. The Earth school is a limited environment, but a holy one. All is holy. Let yourself enjoy that.
Again, you are telling me what I have already been taught.
Indeed. You were taught these things so that you can use them. You have been using them. Now step into the realization – the full realization – of what you are doing, the full realization of what you are, and let that fill you with joy unrestrained. Let the words you have been given, like seeds in your Earth school, take roots, grow, and bloom.
That is happening now.
Enjoy it.
Enjoy yourself.
Enjoy me.
The wisdom and compassion that my soul shared with me are still opening my heart. They are revealing to me how intimate and real and powerful our connections are with our souls. They are real. They are intimate. They are powerful.
Authentic power is not the end point of a journey, the goal accomplished, the reward for hard work, the prize gained.
It is ours in each experience of gratitude, appreciation, patience, contentment, or awe of the Universe. It is ours each time we create harmony instead of discord, cooperate instead of compete, share instead of hoard, and revere Life instead of exploit.
We experience authentic power each time we choose these things. In other words, we create authentic power each time we choose love instead of fear.
The next time you experience gratitude, appreciation, caring, patience, contentment, or awe of the Universe, cultivate that loving part of your personality – remember it – and recognize it as an experience of the authentic power you are striving to create.
You have just created it.
When will you create it again?
Please let me know at love@seatofthesoul.com.
Here is a video of Linda showing us the intimate, real, and powerful experiences of authentic power.
Will you also please let me know what you learn about yourself after you watch it?
Linda joins me in sending you love.
Gary
My dear Spiritual Partner,
Since Linda’s soul returned home to nonphysical reality, our nonphysical Teachers have patiently mentored me toward an ability to cocreate with her. For example,
You are like a man who has just been given sight trying to determine what your new experiences are, and how they can be helpful or useful.
Imagine a seed, still small, still within the Earth, that carries in it a potential that is far beyond what can yet be seen or guessed. That is where you are.
Your communications with Linda will deepen into a more meaningful and substantive form and content.
Do not think that you can imagine what lies before you or the joy and fulfillment of it.
and
You can speak with Linda now, although those experiences will be replaced with others that are more satisfying to you.
I asked our Teacher, When will this begin?
When you begin to relax into your life and enjoy it.
That is what I can’t do while I am missing Linda! I said in frustration.
That is the point.
Then I should forget missing Linda and just “enjoy myself”? I asked rhetorically.
Yes, however, that does not mean forgetting Linda. You will never do that. It means letting go of the illusory experiences of safety and comfort that frightened parts of your personality associate with Linda’s physical presence.
This answer jolted and confused me. How could forgetting missing Linda help me cocreate with Linda? Yet I realized that I did feel more safe and comfortable while Linda was with me in the Earth school, and vulnerable, lost, and alone after her soul left it. If forgetting missing Linda was necessary to cocreate with her, I decided with all my will to forget missing Linda, although I had no idea how to do that, and it did not feel possible.
Beloved, I told her, I am going to forget missing you.
To my relief and great surprise she said:
At last.
Is that OK with you? I needed to know that I heard correctly.
It is more than OK. It is fulfilling. It is thrilling. Your love will bloom. It will be everywhere. We will cocreate in joy. There is no need for missing me. That serves no purpose. We have things to do, and all of them are joyful.
Begin now, my Beloved. Enjoy not missing me. Enjoy it. Relish it. Savor it. Bask in it. Bask in not needing anything but love, but our Teachers, but your soul, but your ability to create authentic power.
I will join you. That is where we will join, not when. Your joy comes not with our love. Our love is. It always will be. Joy comes from recognizing that. It comes in knowing that. Our love is constant, like the sun in the Earth school. It is always there. Clouds obscure it. Fear obscures it, and you miss the incarnation that I was. Let them scatter. Scatter them with your joy, with your experience of our love, with what it actually is – much more, bigger, fuller, deeper than we imagined, but we felt it, didn’t we?
Allow yourself to feel it now. Now. Now. Forget about missing me. Forget about it forever, because I am here with you forever.
Have you ever felt that something important for you to do was impossible when a thought, or a word in a book, or a conversation opened a new vista for you, and what seemed impossible became attractive, exciting, and fulfilling? The Universe gave you an experience of grace. It provided exactly what you needed to transform an experience of a frightened part of your personality (fear and doubt) into an experience of a loving part of your personality (love and trust).
What seemed impossible for you to do, what opened your new vista, and what did you do after you saw it?
Please let me know at love@seatofthesoul.com.
Here is a video of Linda sharing about grace and how she uses it.
What insights came to you about yourself and grace from listening to her?
Linda joins me in sending you love.
Gary