in a magical new year. That morning, I woke early, made a pot of coffee, and headed to my writing room. I said my prayers and settled in for a day of divine dialogue. But when I reached for my journal, I noticed a bright yellow book, You Are Here, by Thich Nhat Hanh, at my feet. I began to read and couldn't stop. Thich Nhat Hanh kept drawing me deeper and deeper into his book with his gentle, loving explanation of the Buddha's great teachings. In a chapter on how everything is connected, I turned the page and stumbled upon a sentence: “When conditions are sufficient there is a manifestation.”
I stopped and read it again. Then I read it out loud. Then I leapt out of my chair. My hands shot to my forehead. I raced in circles around my room gushing, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Everything we think we know about manifestation is 180 degrees off!” I ran to my white board and scribbled “When conditions are sufficient there is a manifestation” in green marker. I stared at the sentence, letting this deeper understanding of manifestation settle into my bones. Here I was, wanting to manifest a beautiful life, but I had my eyes on the wrong half of the equation. I was focused on what I wanted, but it's not about wanting. It's about creating the conditions that organically produce what I want. Conditions first; manifestation second. From the moment I read that sentence, my Soul Day changed forever. Heck, my whole life changed forever.
I spent the rest of the day alternating between reading You Are Here and talking over what I was learning with the Voice—what I call the speaker of the divine guidance that appears on the page when I'm soul writing. The Voice and I had rich conversations about the full implications of “when conditions are sufficient.”
Suddenly, I wondered if this is what Jesus meant when he said, “Seek first the kingdom and God's righteousness and all else shall be provided” (Matthew 6:33). Surely the two great masters, the Buddha and Jesus, would have to have taught the same thing.
I jumped out of my chair and searched my bookshelves for Blessings of the Cosmos by Neil Douglas-Klotz. I knew from spending time with his earlier book, Prayers of the Cosmos, that Jesus spoke Aramaic, a rich Middle Eastern language that carries literal, metaphorical, and mystical meanings simultaneously. When the gospels were written in Greek and then translated into Latin and finally English, much of the majesty and impact of Jesus's words were washed out along the way. In Blessings, Douglas-Klotz says that in English we read, “Seek first the kingdom,” but in Aramaic, Jesus's words are much more thrilling and clear. To give us a sense for what first-century Aramaic listeners heard, he translates “Seek first the kingdom” into a whole page of poetry. In the end, he captures Jesus's intent with this summary: “Here Jesus says that when we pursue a right relationship with the Universal One and allow this relationship to realign our lives, we produce a condition of receptivity in which anything we need to help us complete our purpose in life will be supplied by the universe.”
With the wisdom of the two great masters stirring in my heart, I made an Intention Mandala for 2010. (Later in the book, I'll explain exactly what a mandala is, why it's important, and how an Intention Mandala fits into the Lotus and the Lily process.) It had pictures of what I wanted, but those images were on the periphery of the circular mandala, not the center. At the heart of my mandala, I drew a lily and on each petal wrote one of my conditions—the six actions I take every day to live a life aligned with Spirit and become the fertile soil in which my beautiful life can grow. Then I gave my mandala a name: “My Breakthrough Year.”
I posted “My Breakthrough Year” on the wall and began a daily mandala prayer practice. Every morning, I stood in front of my mandala, handed my desires over to Spirit, and announced aloud that I would spend the day focusing on my part of the equation—living my conditions. I talked to my mandala every morning, and from its position overlooking my computer, it spoke to me all day.
Forty days later, I had my appointment with the bankruptcy attorney. He explained the process and asked if I had any questions. “One,” I said, “I made $12,000 in January. Is that a problem?”
“Well, yeah, it's a problem,” he said. “You're not bankrupt.”
After the appointment, I drove to my favorite holy place, St. Michael's Shrine in Tarpon Springs, Florida. There, I poured tears of gratitude onto my soul-journal page, thanking the angels and Spirit for leading me to the teachings of the Buddha and Jesus. “How can I thank you?” I wrote. The answer was simple and clear: teach it. I've taught the process I discovered, which I call “the Lotus and the Lily,” ever since.
And now, here you are.
How to Use This Book
This book, The Lotus and the Lily, will lead you on a dance with the wisdom of your wild soul—the part of you that is authentic, alive, and hungry for the full adventure of life. Your soul has never been wounded and never can be. It emerged from divine ground, and it will return to divine ground. In between, it is here to play in the fields of life.
Most of us have only a cursory relationship with our brilliant soul. We hear occasional tapping on the window—perhaps a nudge to explore an idea or ask a bigger question or consider a new possibility. But we rarely sit down and say, “I'm here. I'm listening. What do you want?” In Writing Down Your Soul, I share what can happen when you step out of conscious mind for a few moments and give the extraordinary Voice room to speak. Now, here in The Lotus and the Lily, you will use deep soul writing and many other delightful spiritual practices to give your wild soul all the room it needs to create a truly beautiful and abundant life.
There are thirty experiences, one each day. The first twenty-eight are divided into four week-long explorations:
Week 1: Prepare—step into your natural spiritual power, set your intention, and create your own ritual and prayer
Week 2: Look Back—uncover all the gifts in the life you've created to date
Week 3: Create Space—make room for the new by releasing and forgiving the old
Week 4: Look Forward—identify what you want in alignment with your soul's desires
After twenty-eight days of rich exploration, you will spend Day 29 setting up your Soul Day. And then, on Day 30, you will give yourself something precious—a day alone with your soul. On this day, you will clarify your all-important conditions. Then, with your conditions in hand, you will make a highly charged and deeply personal Intention Mandala. The mandala, as you are about to learn, not only holds everything you want, but it also spins out into the universe to draw it all to you.
The mandala sounds exciting, and it is, but don't jump ahead. There is a reason the days progress the way they do. They build gently one upon the other until you know you are ready for your Soul Day. Without the twenty-eight days of preparation, you could create a life, but it might not be the life you really want.
The Structure of Each Day
The Lotus and the Lily process is deep, but it is not work. The soul does not work. At the soul level, life is divine play. Approach the content of the day from the vantage point of soul play, and you'll discover that even the deepest exploration can be a source of delight. Each day begins with a page or two about the day's subject, then invites you to play in the following ways:
Reflect. Big questions crack you open and allow big information to flow in. Ponder these questions before you dive into your deep soul writing.
Write. Each day has a sample deep-soul-writing prompt to stimulate your imagination. Take any parts that speak to you, but allow your own conversation to come through your hands, onto the page.
Explore. Pick and choose any activities that call to you, or create your own.
Nourish. This short, powerful, soul-nourishing statement holds the essence of the day. Savor it aloud. Feel its wisdom enter your being. Write each statement on a card or in your journal, and watch what happens as these jewels accumulate.
Want More? If you want more, dive into any of the books and resources listed for additional information.