Relax from Within, Feeling Whole and Complete in the Now

By George E. Lockett SSHA, IIHHT

Releasing tension is one of the best ways to re-establish balance and wholeness in your life. This is something you do for yourself consciously and with awareness through being present in the Now and centred within yourself.

Life has many pressures that can affect your balance and wholeness. When you look in people's faces you can sometimes see and feel their life experiences written on their face. Some say this gives people character, but my own feeling is that they are carrying around with them past experiences which may overshadow and colour their perception of life.

Releasing this tension through conscious awareness within your Self can help to re-centre your energies and make your consciousness more whole and complete, thereby giving you the awareness to be in tune with the Universal Life Force and gain the support of the environment in fulfilling your dreams and aspirations.

So how do we consciously release the tension? I find the best way is through conscious breathing, which you can do as you go to bed at night. As you lie there waiting for sleep to envelop you, you can take your awareness to your breath and breathe consciously with awareness into any areas of tension you may feel within your face and body.

As you get good at this, you start to notice the subtle nuances within your skin which let you know when your body's energy blueprint is in alignment and balance with your physiology.

Self-awareness is one of the best ways to expand consciousness and come into alignment with the Self. Over time you will realize that as you centre in the Self, you are centring the Universe and the life force within you, and this helps you evolve and connect with your life's purpose.

Practising this daily with the use of positive visualization can change your body's energy vibration. As your body's vibration rises in the Ascension process and your outlook becomes more life-supporting, you start to use the law of attraction to attract into your life your heart's dreams and aspirations.

The Universe comes around you, bringing you all the things you have lovingly crafted in your mind's eye through positive visualization. Life becomes an effortless process of Self-love and visualization. Things in your environment will naturally change to reflect you new outlook on life. Abundance will be the natural result of being more relaxed and creative, and enjoying the work you do.

More and more people are growing in this awareness, as they become more conscious of the subtle energies within, and become more spiritual in their nature.

As the spirit within the person is strengthened so his or her health will naturally improve and the body's energy blueprint will become stronger, holding every cell and molecule together in a natural, balanced way, giving clear instructions and just feeling good inside you.

As you grow in wholeness and Self-love these feelings will grow and you will find yourself naturally smiling at everyone you meet. You will make friends more easily and will have a positive outlook on life. Fear will dissolve as you connect more and more with the energies in your heart, which is the centre of Love - in whose presence Fear ceases to exist.

Forgiveness is a wonderful tool for reclaiming your power in life, for as long as you are blaming others entirely for your life's situation, you aren't seeing that situation clearly, and therefore you have little power to change it.

Forgive those who wrong you, and take personal responsibility for your part in any situation. With the knowledge that you can think any thought in any moment, think about what it is that you want to create. Remember, what you put your attention on grows; so focus on things which bring Joy and Happiness into your life, and then you will soon align your energies to your life's purpose.

Lesbian rights pioneer Del Martin dies at 87

This article was written by Rachel Gordon and published in the San Francisco Chronicle .

Lesbian rights pioneer Del Martin, whose trailblazing activism spanned more than five decades, most recently in the battle for same-sex marriage, died Wednesday, just two months after she made history again by wedding her longtime partner in San Francisco City Hall.

Ms. Martin, an author and organizer, died at UCSF Hospice after a long period of declining health. She was 87 and was admitted to the hospital nearly two weeks ago with a broken arm.

Ms. Martin's crusading began in 1955, during an era in America known more for social conformity than for rebellion, when she co-founded a lesbian social-turned-political organization, Daughters of Bilitis, named after a 19th century book of lesbian love poetry.

This year, on June 16, she and her partner of 55 years, Phyllis Lyon, were legally wed. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom officiated. Theirs was among the first same-sex nuptials in California.

"Her last act of activism was her most personal - marrying the love of her life," said Kate Kendell, a longtime friend of the couple and executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

"Ever since I met Del 55 years ago, I could never imagine a day would come when she wouldn't be by my side," Lyon, 83, said in a statement. "I am so lucky to have known her, loved her and been her partner in all things.

"I also never imagined there would be a day that we would actually be able to get married," Lyon said. "I am devastated, but I take some solace in knowing we were able to enjoy the ultimate rite of love and commitment before she passed."

'We're not getting younger'
Ms. Martin had been in failing health for some time, weakened to the point where she was pushed in a wheelchair to her wedding ceremony. In an interview in her hillside Noe Valley home just days before she took her marriage vows in the mayor's office, Ms. Martin described as fortunate the timing of the California Supreme Court decision that gave gays and lesbians the right to marry.

"We're not getting younger," she said.

Ms. Martin and Lyon were plaintiffs in the lawsuit that got the state ban on same-sex marriage lifted. They were married at 5:07 p.m, just minutes after the ruling took effect.

Four years ago, when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom allowed marriage licenses to be issued to gay and lesbian couples in San Francisco in defiance of state law, Ms. Martin and Lyon were the first of about 4,000 same-sex couples to wed and made news internationally. Those marriages were later nullified by the state's high court but paved the way for the successful legal challenge.

"We would never have marriage equality in California if it weren't for Del and Phyllis," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat. "They fought and triumphed in many battles, beginning when they first bought a home together in San Francisco in 1955."

Pelosi called the death of Ms. Martin "a great loss for me personally and for our entire community."

Newsom, who said Ms. Martin "laid the groundwork for all those who want a life of dignity," ordered the flags at City Hall and the rainbow gay-pride flag at Market and Castro streets to be flown at half-staff until sunset today.

Ms. Martin's activist reach extended into the feminist movement when she became the first open lesbian to serve on the board of directors of the National Organization for Women, and she helped spearhead a successful campaign to get the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its roster of mental illnesses.

In 1995, Sen. Dianne Feinstein named her as a delegate to the White House Conference on Aging, where she and Lyon, a delegate appointed by Pelosi, focused attention on the needs of aging gays and lesbians.

Feinstein said Wednesday, "Del and Phyllis were a loving couple, cherished by an entire community. They inspired so many, young and old."

Ms. Martin, whose given name was Dorothy but who went by Del, was born in San Francisco in 1921. Her first marriage, at age 19, was brief but produced a daughter, Kendra Mon, who lives in Petaluma. She also is survived by two grandchildren.

Together for almost 60 years
She and Lyon met in Seattle in 1950 while both were working as journalists for a trade publication. Their friendship turned into a romance two years later. In 1953, on Valentine's Day, the couple moved into a Castro district flat in San Francisco.

After helping found the Daughters of Bilitis, they started a newsletter, called the Ladder, which grew into a magazine focused on lesbian politics and culture.

In the first issue, Ms. Martin set the tone for how she would lead the rest of her life when she wrote: "Nothing was ever accomplished by hiding in a dark corner. Why not discard the hermitage for the heritage that awaits any red-blooded American woman who dares to claim it?"
Cleve Jones took that message to heart when he met the couple in 1972. He was a student at Arizona State University, and the duo went to speak to a gay liberation organization.

"For a kid just out of high school, listening to them was a life-altering experience," said Jones, who later moved to San Francisco, where he worked as a student intern in the City Hall office of gay Supervisor Harvey Milk and founded the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. "They were so confident, so unapologetic, so radical."

And, added Kendell, from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, "so fearless. In every social movement, political movement, there's someone who transcends their time. For lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, Del Martin was one of those people."

Friends and family plan to hold a public tribute to Ms. Martin in the near future. Details have not been set.

Del Martin

• 1921 - Born on May 5 in San Francisco
  
• 1950 - Met the love of her life, Phyllis Lyon
  
• 1955 - Co-founded groundbreaking lesbian organization Daughters of Bilitis
  
• 1960 - Took over as editor of the Ladder, a monthly lesbian magazine
  
• 1964 - Helped found the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, formed to overturn laws that criminalized homosexual behavior
  
• 1972 - Co-wrote with Lyon the book "Lesbian/Woman"
  
• 1972 - Co-founded with Lyon the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club, the first gay political club in the United States
  
• 1976 - Published the book "Battered Wives," which focused on domestic violence
  
• 1976 - Appointed chairwoman of the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women
  
• 1995 - Served as a delegate to the White House Conference on Aging
  
• 2004 - Wed Lyon in the first of about 4,000 same-sex weddings sanctioned by San Francisco but later ruled invalid by the California Supreme Court
  
• 2008 - On June 16, married Lyon again, this time with the blessing of the state Supreme Court, which found the state ban on same-sex marriage illegal