The Blessing

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I am blessed.

So blessed.

Gifts every day – support from everywhere.

That feed my needs.

That feed my body, my heart and soul.

The Angels – all around me.

Blessings abound from each smile, each hand, each twinkle of an eye that is happy to see me.

And happy to give to me.

I decided, you see, long ago,

That the world is a friendly place.

That the world is a playground for my and your evolution, service, learning,

And that it responds to deliberate thoughts of LOVE towards it.

These thoughts stream back to me, through the miles and hours past, to bless me

Here and Now.

Always and Forever.

Never demanding of life – just grateful for what is.

As it is.

Come dance with me in a world that is blessed.

Come LOVE with me, those whom know not this Gift – and live in a world of self-created fear.

That LOVE may open their eyes to the joys and peace they have yet to Receive.

But that awaits patiently, abundantly, serenly to bless,

In this life.

Or the next.

May they too know,

The Choice, always that of the Soul, never of the Creator.

Africa – a love story

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We have all heard many kinds of stories about Africa. But to the wakening mind of humanity, with its struggles of perfection, production, and conquering, there is no understanding her magic until one engages in her rich innocence through personal experience, off the beaten path. And not by going to see how one can change Africa, but by being embraced by the sweetness of her people—those who expect nothing, embrace everything, and emanate a tolerance for others who are unlike them that is so foreign to our modern, western ways of being.

I am in love with Africa. Africa changed me. I’ve traveled to other developing nations, but it’s hard to describe how differently Africa burns within my heart. It’s more than the honoring of community and family over progress that all developing nations seem to have at their heartbeat. It’s more than the appreciation one receives when traveling anywhere to be of service to others, which I’ve been fortunate to have been doing now for several years. To me, Africa sends a call deep into my cellular memory—like a call home. She awakens a dormant gene, seeded millions of years ago, that reminds me that I am a piece, a connected part, of all humankind. And witnessing a race, a culture, a people, that resembles the color of the earth, who are so at home on the earth—as if their limbs are extensions of the trees and shrubs—reminds me of my own connection to nature and my true essence.

I am in love with Africa. She holds an innate innocence that has been so misunderstood and exploited, even by her own people. But that’s really not so surprising. Humankind—in every country and on every continent—is made up of those who will sell themselves in order to survive, as well as those who will trust in the devil in order to thrive. I saw a documentary recently about the plight of the Masai tribe in Kenya, who “sold” most of their land for a song to the British during colonization. A wealthy white landowner, whose family “legally” purchased land from the Masai three generations ago, claimed on camera, “If the people do not know any better how to make the land produce wealth, like I do, then they don’t deserve to have the land.” See, I know some of you reading this will agree with that statement. And, like me, some won’t. It is interesting to note that anthropologists and ecologists now agree that the nomadic life of the Masai and their grazing cattle was the key to the ecological balance of thousands of acres of vegetation and millions of animals that are now dying off in devastatingly high numbers. This, of course, ultimately affects the very businesses created from the land, like safari and tourism. But progress does not make time for understanding this side of life; instead, its mantra is, “We’ll fix it later if we need to.”

I am in love with Africa. What I see when I visit her is a wealth we westerners know little about—we who have grown complacent with our lives of convenience and restless in our pursuit of more. Africa is full of survivors. It is full of ingenuity and entrepreneurism. And contrary to most people’s ideas, she is full of the hardest working, most grateful people I’ve ever met. These are people who do not want to be given anything. They only wish to feed their families and develop themselves by their own inner call, not to the call of those who do not understand their ways. This is the Africa I’ve come to know. And because the roots of exploitation, abuse, guilt, and intolerance run deep, Africa still suffers.

But I hold a hope for Africa. My hope is that her people will, through an increasing uplifting in humanity’s consciousness, be blessed by more of those who respect her true innate wealth and beauty. And that new partnerships of respect will form that will, over time, transform her current plight of being a nation rich in natural resource and poor in human value to being a new world that teaches the rest of us westerners how to Be.

If you are interested in experiencing Africa through my eyes, join me on my next tour. Email me at spryteloriano@gmail.com for more information.

Dance, love, smile…Spryte

What are you for?

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I have a story to tell you.

Today I danced for freedom. I danced for the rights of women and children to live a life free of abuse. I danced, though the campaign that inspired me—along with millions of others in two hundred countries—was promoted as a protest against violence. The campaign is called OneBillionRising.org. And while I am proud to lend my voice and, in this case, my tapping feet and swaying hips to the rising of unity that occurred today, I must tell you that, initially, I was not going to get involved in this movement. I was inspired to do so only because my humanitarian work and my transformational work have always been focused on women and children, and this campaign was an obvious fit. But I wasn’t inspired about the idea of dancing as a way to make a difference, and I was not inspired to dance against an injustice.

Honestly, dancing  seemed trivial compared to the real issues and the real women and children who are suffering. My mind judged the campaign as a fluffy attempt at gaining publicity and getting peoples’ fire roaring for something that wouldn’t create lasting change. But, despite my misgivings, I went to the event.

So now I feel inspired to share my story with you because of a woman I met at One Billion Rising. Her name is Monica. She was the organizer of the Dallas-area event that I attended. At the end of the deal, Monica shared with the group that she had felt uninspired to participate until just two weeks before the event. Her spiritual teacher had kept gently nudging her to probe deeper into what she was feeling about not participating. As she explored her feelings, she discovered a wellspring of grief, personal and collective, that was attached to her judgment. When emotional healing occurred, her resistance, her no, became a yes. She knew she needed to let go of how the message was showing up and instead join in with the collective healing. She and a core team then scrambled to put together the local event in just two weeks.

Thank goodness!

I was so surprised to listen to her share her story and grateful to know I was not alone in how I had felt. It saddened me, at first, as I thought about how many more people may have gotten involved had the event been promoted in the energy of the New Day, how many chose not to go deeper into looking at their resistance to being part of this collective action for sisterhood that occurred today.

I believe that a new day and a new way are now here. And I do stand for us co-creating campaigns and movements that speak to this shift. Our voices will ring more powerfully in calling for what we want, what we are for, what we declare, what we envision and co-create, rather than what we are against. I hope that I remember this lesson as I bring my gifts of inspiration to the world, just as Eve Ensler did when she was inspired to see one billion women rising, striking, or dancing. Eve wrote The Vagina Monologues and founded One Billion Rising. I admire her so much. I have been a fan of the VMs since 1997, and I used them in my women’s sacred sexuality workshops back in the day. I’m grateful that this movement will shine a new light on the VMs and will hopefully help engage women and men in their wisdom more than ever.

I had a shift in my perspective, as Monica did. If I had chosen to remain stuck in a belief, I would have missed out on an opportunity for a deepening. And that is what occurred today—an awakening and a deepening.

It was glorious fun!!! I was in tears when we all pointed to the sky at song’s end, feeling the collective tears, fears, laughter, joy, and love of one billion souls. I don’t know how many people actually gathered today, but I am grateful for it, and hopeful that today’s action, in love, will continue.

Today I danced for freedom. What are you for?

Thanks for listening.

Love and joy, Sprtye

Love the Child

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To the child that is still in you and me

To the child who is living in poverty

To the children who are longing to be loved, and to be free

To the children who are still chained in slavery…

We are fighting for you because we know you cannot

We hear your silent screams and vows,

And we won’t give in, or give up

Until each one of you is safe at home.

There’s a darkness looming over your cities tonight,

Not caused by the sleeping sun;

And it won’t be gone by morning’s light.

It goes unnoticed by all,

Mistaken for a trip or fall.

Mistaken for a withdrawn girl or boy,

Robbing the innocent of their light and joy.

The darkness must be called out and named to be changed

Or it creeps through generations, gaining strength in its shame.

And it doesn’t stop with punishment, badgering or hate.

Love is the only cure to make the darkness dissipate.

How do you love the unloveable? The selfish? The cruel?

It’s not enought to love the child and disregard the fool.

Come one. Come all, to stand up tall.

To grab a little hand and with all our might demand,

A world where children get to shine,

Where they can come out from behind the blinds,

Where they no longer fear, the ones they love.

To the child that is still in you and me

To the child who is living in poverty

To the children who are longing to be loved, and to be free

To the children who are still chained in slavery…

We are fighting for you because we know you cannot

We hear your silent screams and vows,

And we won’t give in, or give up

Until each one of you is safe at home.

Copyright 2013 Spryte Loriano

A World of Hope

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I know a man who is in his sixties. He lost his wife, the love of his life. He didn’t know when or how it would happen and how it would affect his life. It devastated him. It took him out of the normal flow of connection, joy, abundance, and grace he has lived his life as for the decades they were together. He’s now trying to find his way through fitting his life into several boxes, letting go of the rest. Looking off towards the horizon at a world that he knows has treated him well and kindly. And holding a stiff chin determined to make a new life. Doing what he is unsure of. It’s a journey none of us would ask for at any age, let alone that age. And he is doing so with grace.

I know a woman who is in her fifties. A single mom of two, and victim of abuses that could have killed her, she made it through the many tough years. She did the right things; was an honest and hardworking, modest woman. She never took advantage. She didn’t aspire to much, but enough; enough to stay the course, keep learning about herself, see her kids grow to be fine citizens and to be safe – and that is that. Six months ago she was layed off, and still has not found a job. She’s studying for the GED she never got. Computers elude her. She wonders, “Where is there a place for me in today’s world? Are not my hands, a willingness to sweat, and an honest heart still valuable to someone?” And each day she prays, and she trusts, and knows in her heart that there is a new day for her, a new way.

I know a woman in her late forties, who has a brain tumor. She beautiful, fit, a surgeon, educated, and in service to others. She has financial means. She is able to access the greatest brain surgeons. And soon she will have surgery and take her chances. In the meantime, she is learning, soaking up everything she can, that perhaps she wasn’t as open to before the tumor came. She finds it fascinating that it took a tumor to gain her access to experiences and knowledge that has made her life so rich, and more interesting. All things that were always right there in front of her, in fact, even offered to her at times in the past, which she turned away – now she embraces, and each day is a miracle.

I share their stories because each of them inspires me. Someone asked me the other day to tell them, who inspires me. And it was these everyday people who came to mind, not the celebrities, not the business leaders, not the ones on the stages across the world.  The faces that came to me were the faces of these incredibly courageous souls, who perhaps got to a place in life where they thought the worst was probably behind them, only to be facing what looks like the greatest challenges of their lives. I think it takes great courage to choose to keep learning, to choose to not complain, to choose to stand up and not allow yourself to be the victim. It takes the greatest courage to witness life going in the opposite direction you ever imagined, and to hold your head up high, as it puts you to the test.

I’ve had incredible wins, successes, losses and failures in my life. My dark night came soon after my late twenties, when I had a penthouse office suite over-looking the ocean in Newport Beach, California. By age 30 I was living on a friends couch, broke. I’m grateful, it set my life on a direction I could not have and certainly never would have “chosen” on my own – Spirit and the part of Me that is always Spirit Conscious had other plans. My experiences taught me that I can survive, and that I can thrive, and that I can experience great abundance and that I can live so happily with so little.  Mostly they taught me that I’m never alone. That the world is full of hope. That Spirit has me ever safe, no matter how dire my life has looked.

What I’ve learned is that I truly don’t know what tomorrow will look like. But today and in this moment I have hope. Hope carries me moment to moment, and that is all I know for sure. The rest is all pumped up ego chatter. The ego likes to think it knows what tomorrow will bring, if “I just do this or that.” But any man or woman who has stood face to face with losing everything will tell you different. That is actually my greatest success – knowing this to be true – my complete happiness and fulfillment is in my fully conscious moment – and that is enough.

Spirit will always point you to a new day and a new opportunity for greatness. Just like a root being pulled by the sun above to grow, reach, stretch, so we too are called, each day. We just need to follow the path of the light and let it grow us up so that others may look upon us and see the way to go.

To my friends who are in transition – so many right now on the planet – keep faith. If you lose it, chose it again, and again. Know that the energy on the planet has indeed shifted. It has. It happened from last July and is still shifting through April. The Shift is the shedding of twenty million veils between the world of three dimension reality (what we see) and the real world beyond ( that which we don’t see). What it really means is that as long as we are in alignment with our soul plan, our life plan will flow. People, resources, wisdom that we need shows up readily without the drag of long time periods for us to see it. Rejoice in this – a world of hope is real.  Claim it. And allow it. And thank you for your inspiration.

love and joy, Spryte

My Family and The Sweet Smell of Karma Burning

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There’s a saying: Want to become a spiritual master? Go spend time with your family.

First the background. I always felt like the black sheep of my family. I was the baby and younger by five years to the next oldest sibling, and eleven years to my oldest. I spent more years alone, or apart from them than I did with them, and in many ways that qualifies me as not only the youngest, but as an only child. Double trouble or double blessings, however you want to look at it. I just remember from my earliest memories, not feeling a part of the crowd. Maybe that’s why it was easy for me to connect with the spiritual crowd instead – seeing and feeling what I called Angels since about the age of 4, and listening to and talking to the flowers seemed perfectly normal to me.

I came from a loving, big, close, Italian, dysfunctional and abusive family. I loved my family. And though I enjoyed being with them and the laugh-fests we would have, I easily recall a sense of not being able to wait to not be with them too. A strange feeling growing up. So as an adult I did what many people who felt like that do – I moved away. Far away – from Wisconsin to California. I realized early on that I thought about life differently. I am for one, inherently optimistic, and have a strong sense of faith, and trust that life will treat me okay. I guess that’s because I “survived” what hurt so much; and also because those were the words I heard my angels tell me – the voices in my head assured me of this. I also exude a joy that permeates my being, making me look and feel much younger to those who meet me, yet, as my sister would say, “with a very old wisdom.” This is not unusual for the “baby” or an “only” child. Statistics show that the worlds greatest entrepreneurs, risk-takers, adventurers, hold those two family positions, they are naturally more independent and don’t carry the weight of responsibility that the older child carries, nor the competitive struggle for identity that the middle child carries.

So I left home and found my spiritual family. Those who spoke my language. In my early twenties I still remember the feeling of pure bliss the first time I ever heard someone say, “You have a choice about how your life is going to be; you don’t have to live it like a leaf in the wind, commanded by your past, your family’s expectations, and the habits you’ve developed.” Wow! I knew inside myself the statement was true, but didn’t know where those people lived who also believed that, who could be my comrades on a path to a positive, ”designed” life where the world actually supports me instead of delivers bad news daily on my doorstep! I further retreated from being around anyone or anything that could inject unhealthy thoughts, negative possibility or bad energy into my life. I stopped watching television, completely at 30. Now nearly twenty years later I still don’t miss it. I get my taste of “The Office” on the many airplanes I’m on – I’ve seen other shows occasionally but couldn’t even tell you their names.

So, I actually resisted really “being with” or spending time my family for nearly a decade. Looking back, I know it caused pain to some, mostly my mother. But I was finding myself. My own way. And when I spoke to her, or listened to her view on life, I just felt depressed. And I didn’t know how to communicate with her so that she could hear me, without getting defensive or without wanting to change my viewpoint, and I just didn’t know how to deal with her reactions then. So I chose to stay away and be where I felt uplifted. Life has a way however, of not allowing you to run forever from the truth of who you are. My truth showed up in my early thirties, and over that last decade continues to deepen, as I continue to find deeper layers to my peace.

Back then, I dove into my personal development on all fronts, and really began tackling the emotional barriers to my freedom, and I began sensing the resistance lift. With my emotional energies clearing, I no longer reacted the same to my family who for the most part hadn’t changed; and most importantly, I no longer needed the acceptance or validation from them. I hadn’t realized I was still seeking it. But that was the reason, I couldn’t relate to them. Once I let go of needing them to understand me, and the need to have them “see” me the way I wanted them to; once I “got off” of wanting them to see my viewpoint, and more importantly, to take positive action to make changes in their life’s, so I didn’t have to see them suffer and feel helpless, powerless, to do anything about it,  I began smelling the sweet smell of Karma burning (and consequently a new increasingly empowered state of being emerge). Read that last sentence again; it’s a big one in more ways than one.

Let me explain that. We are connected to family whether we like it or not. We can choose to leave, but our ancestral dna and energy follows us wherever we go. We cannot break the ties of what came before us anymore than we can survive after ripping out our heart. And once we begin to accept who we are, to embrace and even love, the parts of our ancestral energy that we may have wished for years would just go away, we begin to start creating NEW patterns in our dna and energy field, or another way to say, we begin burning off negative karma and creating good karma, by the buckets full.

First, what is karma? It literally means “action.” As a universal law it would be translated as “cause and effect.” We take an action that is either wholesome or unwholesome, worthy or unworthy of our true nature as spiritual beings of love, and the trajectory of that action propels into the future, until it is stopped or changed by an equally powerful action. There are many ways and with many people we can change our karma. However, the work we do in honoring and transmuting the negative energies from our ancestry, or family, goes much farther, faster than any other shift. And we know it, instantly that this is so. How? Because we will immediately see new patterns, opportunities, positive possibilities show up in our life in great leaps. A friend of mine, who cleared some karma with her father, and who immediately had an opening with her husband who had disappeared for days and returned, said this: “You talked about change occurring with my husband in God Speed, once I cleared the karma with my father, but it wasn’t God Speed - it was God BadaBing!”

Our family holds our greatest ability and opportunity to change bad karma to good. And that is also why, karma with our blood family is the most challenging. ”Honor thy mother and father” should take a whole new meaning and understanding now. That is one of God’s commandments from the Bible. That may have seemed like a statement of control. However, I view it as a pure karmic clearing directive – one of the biggest clues to living a life of freedom we’ve been given throughout many of the ancient spiritual teachings from any religion.

Of course this brings up many questions, I know. Go ahead and ask them and I’ll share my thoughts. Otherwise I’ll just write more later on the topic of The Fam and your Spiritual Mastery.

with love and joy, Spryte

The Good, The Jealous, The Opportunity

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Have you ever met someone, had to work with someone, or regularly see someone who doesn’t seem to like you? Perhaps this person has even gone so far as to say untruths about you to others you know? I was speaking to a friend about this. She was describing a woman who for several years at her place of work, seemed to have it out for her. She would weekly go to the supervisor and make up stories of how my friend was doing a poor job or wasn’t following the rules.

I’ve also experienced this. I’m sure most of us have in some form or another. My friend asked me how I deal with that. And I replied, “I’ve learned that those situations are an opportunity for me to love myself more.” She queried in a surprised tone, “Love yourself, or them, more.” I repeated, “Love myself more.” My friend said, “That’s an interesting perspective, can you explain.”

Here’s an expanded version of my thoughts on the subject.

Someone else having an “issue” with me, gives me a great opportunity to check myself. Am I operating from a place of love and light? Am I being honest with myself about that or am I somehow making excuses for myself and justifying less than loving behavior. We all go “unconscious” at times. It’s just part of life. Like the receding and then the crest and crash of the wave. All different phases of the same drop of water.  It’s healthy to check in; kind of like when you are doing yoga, and you look and check yourself in positions, to see where you can align even more, or stretch deeper. In yoga there is no such thing as the perfect pose; most poses are endless. There’s always deeper places to go, even for those who practice daily for years. I know a woman who has practiced yoga daily for over fifteen years, who talks about how she went further into her shoulder stretch yesterday than she ever was able to before, but she knows it’s not the end, there’s more. I recall this surprised me at first. My ego/judging mind said, “Well that’s obsessive, or perhaps self-indulgent.” (I chuckle when I hear what my ego says sometimes.) When in truth, it’s the perfect analogy for the purpose of life being about the ongoing journey, every moment, and not ever, the destination.

So, as my friend checks in with herself, she may find that she’s judging this woman at work for judging her. Well, that’s a dead-end street, isn’t it?

I may also find that indeed I am showing up loving and being the light. And perhaps another sees my light and does not know how to access that love and light within. Maybe he or she feels surrounded in a lack of true self-worth, and perhaps that even clouds his or her view of my light so the Real Me isn’t being seen at all. All this person is seeing is a reflection of his or her own darkness. It’s an interesting thing what two people at the same place and time will see. It’s like five witnesses to the same car accident, and they each have a different report of who is as fault. This is why it is true that our perceptions of the outer world are always based on our inner view or experience of ourselves.

So, yes, someone may indeed be jealous of my light, and not knowing how to create that within, he or she judges it and trys to make me wrong for it. The optimum word here is “trys.” It’s actually impossible for to, if, and only if, I am truly loving myself, believing in myself, am confident in my light, and I am being authentic. And if that is so, there is no need for me to take offense. I know its untrue. I know the truth of me and who I’m being. So, I go back to the statement that “those situations are an opportunity for me to love myself more.” I don’t need to love someone anymore than I do. I can just appreciate him or her for showing up in my life script as is – a reminder to me, to check myself, to love myself more fully, to be authentic, to share my light more deeply – like the yoga stretch, what deeper place of love for myself have I yet to reach? And just like that magnificent feeling after each and every yoga class, where I am conscious of my practice, I am empowered.

Just as my friend was surprised by my answer, that it was love myself more, instead of love her more, I believe, I was taught from a Christian perspective and upbringing that we are to “love our neighbors as we love ourselves.” What I find interesting about that is, we often put less emphasis on the love ourselves part of that statement and find ourselves pouring love out to others, in hopes that they will “change.” That is the most disempowering place to be. You don’t have control over another person, no matter how much love you pour out into them! Your great love pouring into them doesn’t change them. Their own great self-love pouring into themselves changes them. And the way someone “gets that” best is to “see” it modeled for them in YOU. Think about it. Let me know your thoughts on the matter.

Love and Joy, Spryte