I have a vision of writing a book, Soul Café, in a world full of drive-throughs, Soul Café is a place to sit and enjoy the Now.  It’s divided into chapters based on different books I have read on spiritual thinking. Taking what I learn from each book, I turn it into a life lesson from my own life and share that lesson with the reader.
Sounds easy enough? Well, it isn’t. Each time I tried to get my head around my message and start writing “the book,” I left frustrated.

But I didn’t stop reading and I didn’t stop learning. So I just read and read and read and learned. I bet I read 20 books or more before I started blogging on Mom’s Soul Café. And that is what I was guided to do, blog. My hope is that if I can write in small portions, eventually a whole palate will show itself.

I turned Soul Café into Mom’s Soul Café because I found many of my lessons coming from motherhood. My children have been my best teachers. In fact, I now believe my kids, my son for sure, was put in my life to make me a better person. I find more reasons to get “Zen” every day I am around him.

He’s strong willed and requires a lot of me. I don’t mean that to sound bad, it’s just the truth. He is my mirror. When I see him acting like me and I don’t like myself very much, I know it’s time to meditate, to take a deep breath, to be the person I desire to be. Nathan is the best mimic I have ever met. He can act me out perfectly, my pleasant side and, certainly, the side I want to improve.

The day before Nathan was born a hawk landed on my deck. It was the first and last time that ever happened. The hawk was very big, brown with a red tail, and over a foot tall. It landed and just sat there looking at me. The hawk stayed over a minute, just sitting there, staring.

I guess even then my path was being laid out. I didn’t know it, but I was being guided to do what I am now doing. You see, the hawk is a messenger. Hawks connect heaven and earth. Just what my son has done for me since he was born.

He’s my mirror, my messenger, and my connection to earth and to heaven. He grounds me one minute, in the often ordinary acts of mothering, and he helps me see my higher self the next, with a question or a challenge he presents me with. It’s hard, this kind of relationship.

I thought children would make me happy. Only happy. I had never been around kids much. It turns out, kids have not made me happy. Happy is an emotion and emotions are fleeting. I’m happy in one instance then I pick my kids up from school and they are kicking each other and crying and I think my head will pop off. I’m not happy, I’m peed off! Then my daughter sings a song called Herman the Worm or I see my son’s Thanksgiving play and I am so happy I think my heart will burst. I’m aggravated, I’m sad, I’m angry, I’m frustrated, I’m happy, I’m excited, I’m exhausted, tired, I’m silly, and much more.

And in order deal with all of the emotions of being a mother, I got spiritual. I don’t want those around me to associate me with my emotions, I want them to see past that, to my soul. To my intent, and in my heart my intent is always based in love, only love.

Searching my soul in a deeper way began when I saw an episode of Oprah, where she introduced a book called, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. As Oprah teased the episode she kept saying if you watched the show you were sure to “awaken to your life’s purpose.” This caught my attention. Who doesn’t want to know their life’s purpose?

I didn’t realize she was presenting a spiritual read. I assumed it was something more along the lines of a quiz, like the happiness quiz (see post in February: The Measure of Happiness), where I would answer a few questions and presto! I would have a purpose in life. Sounds funny? Well, if you are me, you believe Oprah can do anything, including give you a quiz and you find out how your life will turn out at the end of the hour-show.

So I sat on the edge of my seat when Oprah came on and I watched with every ounce of my energy as Oprah introduced this book, A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.

Honestly, I don’t remember much about the show now, three years later. But whatever she said, I bought it – the book and whatever she said was going to happen after I read it. Not only that, she had these web-casts that I downloaded every week and listen to them as I walked around my local park trail. I talked to anyone who would listen (or even half way listen) about the book.

A New Earth wasn’t a quiz and the answer to my life’s purpose wasn’t as simple as handing me over a “job” and saying this is what you need to do with your life. I didn’t get what I had hoped for when I first heard the tease of the show.

What I did get though, is a new lease on my life. I grew up in a world that told me God was a big man in the clouds sitting over me, judging my every move. He was Santa Clause on steroids – “You better watch out”! 

What A New Earth introduced to me is the concept that God is “out there,” but God is also in me. A part of me. God is in everyone and is everywhere and connects all of the universe. We are all a part of God.

I not only read A New Earth, I also read another of Tolle’s books, The Power of Now. Both books have the same information, but The Power of Now was more in depth about what A New Earth was also centered on, the present moment.

The present moment, the here and now, is the cornerstone of just about every spiritual philosophy there is. Many, non-spiritual, parenting books also have this message as a foundation of good parenting skills. Be there, now, for your children. Stop doing and stop thinking about doing and be present with your children, even if it is for 15 minutes a day, they all say.

After Tolle, I picked up another author, who is still one of my favorites, Alan Seale. He wrote a book called Intuitive Living that really spoke to me. In this book I learned about the body’s seven energy centers, or Chakras. He beautifully explained what each center means, and the peace that comes when the centers are in alignment. He also has a meditation CD, which I ordered and began to meditate to.

Well, I tried to meditate to, because I had a one year old baby and a three year old. And meditating at home was not so easy. Still isn’t.

One day I was driving by a metaphysical bookstore for the millionth time in the five years I had been living at my house. I probably passed that store 10 times a day for five years. Suddenly it hit me. That is where I need to be meditating! I started going on Saturdays. Later I went on Saturdays and on Thursdays. And I still go to this day. I love that store and those meditations as sure as any church-going person loves their church and their preacher. It’s my spiritual home.

And as I got more into meditation, I also read more books. In fact, when I am not reading a spiritual book of some kind, I just don’t feel like I’m living. I have probably 70 books dealing with different spiritual philosophies on my shelf and that’s not including my Kindle books. No, I haven’t read all of them, but a lot of them I have read.