An unfamiliar eastern kind of world

I would be remiss if I didn’t start with my parents Walter and Frances McClelland and their deep desire to forge a new life away from the protected upper middle class American world they grew up in. In our world away from all family and that which was known to my parents, my twin sister, Mary Elizabeth, figures prominently in my story for many years, my brother Bruce , the closest to me, and my two eldest brothers, William and Jay, who even though they went to boarding school soon after our birth still remained the big boys we revered and loved, we were all we had. No grandparents still alive and not having met cousins until half way through my childhood. We were a little family seemingly untethered to others making our way in a unfamiliar eastern kind of world.

And then remembering our wildly adventurous life, all those who contributed to me as nannies, helpers, and care takers in the busy life in diplomatic cocktail circuit in which my parents were rarely home. Each have a piece in my story, some the kindest, some ineffectual, and some, sadly, the ones we were supposed to be protected from. The danger in my early years was both in and outside of my home. Unfortunately some of my biggest influences involved #metoo moments with those in whose care I had been entrusted but were not a reliable source of safety for me. The American Marines who guarded our embassies were a noted exception, undeniably kind, powerful protectors ~ even in the falling in love with them as we grew older, respectful and warm, caring and protective. A huge sense of safety perhaps the only time I felt safe was with them by our side.

Back in the US a few times my life was deeply influenced by the political climate and the War in Vietnam, the death of RFK and Martin Luther King, the riots in Washington and Marches against the war. All of my times in Washington were fraught with racial tension with the retreat of white families and the bussing of more and more kids from the most economically challenged neighborhoods into the empty schools.

A seminal moment

This is when, savvy beyond my years I read the writing on the wall of a bar bathroom I was frequenting when I was 16 ~ ‘fighting for peace is like f***ing for virginity’~ I was struck by the truth of that still to this day I remember the moment of my seeing. My quest for peace began in earnest. Leadership in my church lead to connection with adults who mentored and taught me some hard lessons of love and life and trust. Bob Foley, Eddie and Lexie May and Rev Richard Miller all provided me with different and difficult lessons of life. I could disappoint and hurt an adult who trusted me, and while it was painful, I did survive.

A seminal moment to be sure.

In another pivotal moment, My best friend at the time, Amy Singer and I planted an imaginary stake in the ground for peace in the middle east in our time, by 1981. She a Zionist and I just back from a life in the Middle East taking a stand for Palestine. Surely if we could be friends through this, so could others.

Eventually, I noticed, I was clearly not alone

I have been influenced through some hardships love and loss, war and peace by friends who deeply cared, kindnesses of teachers, professors, helpers, people I worked with, people on the street, and Angels, Real moments, Real Angels. Eventually, I noticed, I was clearly not alone.

Beyond all experience in college, my learning, professors, teaching a rat to press a bar … boyfriends, love loss and peace, the love of my life, and that devastating breakup, influenced my life heavily. And after college, a brilliant group of never encountered before vocational education teachers, influenced me with their care for their profession and the kids they were teaching. And in that job, my first loss as a ‘teacher/counselor’ of a child to suicide has influenced my connection to young people and parenting to this day.
My work in NYC after this in a radical departure from my path was a fantastically productive and exciting time filled with the most unlikely characters, from a new best friend to a wildly inappropriate boss, to back stabbing and in fighting and competition in the extreme, some kind men I was grateful for, some foolish, some just wanting what they could get, all colorful deserve to be mentioned in their own homage as a rather large influence in learning who I was not.

In my miserableness my sister gave me a gift that changed my life. She sent me to an Insight seminar and I was never the same. This was a second turn around of my life. I never looked back. Years of un-assessed trauma had resulted in a need for some very deep healing. It was to take me years and years, two marriages, 2 divorces, 2 step children and one birth child, the loss of my sister and my father to eventually find my way.

On the track of my self-healing

30 years after that first seminar, I am here today. It has been quite a life and the story I want you to know, is what has transpired in my spiritual, emotional and heart felt education. The big early influences were those who opened my heart and showed me how to give back during the Aids epidemic in NYC in the ‘80s. Insight Seminars and their powerful loving teachers put me on the track of my self healing.

Eventually after my first marriage ended I began studying the inward journey and the spiritual life with Drs Ron and Mary Hulnick at the University of Santa Monica who became life long mentors and teachers of mine leading me through emotional, psychological and spiritual healing, after having first stepped into their presence in 1989 almost 30 years ago. Having studied with them many times and been of service to the University theirs was truly a whole life healing journey for me. The Course in Miracles and Marianne Williamson opened me to a spirituality of love and an entry into the field of loving. Overlapping with that, Reverends Dr Michael Beckwith (at Agape, LA) with Revs Carol Knight and Diana Trent (Ojai) nurtured my leanings toward the ministry after the death of my twin sister, and assisted me in the process of learning and leading a church over a period of 10 years, eventually earning an honorary Doctor of Divinity for that work.

Again, with some overlap, and upon leaving the day to day ministry of the church, my work with Kathlyn Hendricks and the Hendricks Institute opened me to the possibility of the healing available in the embodiment of my whole self, authenticity and power of the truth that lives within me. In essence, it grounded me after a long period of living in a very spiritual realm.

New generations

My second marriage came to an end and I was a single parent with aging parents, my step children and my son have had a huge impact on me, both in the parts that I have done poorly, and what I have done well. Of course as has my second husband who has been a soul mate of the deepest healing kind. I could not have done all the work I have done, had the clarity I have had and learned and grown without the catalyst of experience that we created together. My family of origin, brothers, parents, cousins and children, and the new generations of nieces/nephews, their spouses and children; my great nieces and nephews have all reinvigorated connections and renewed our family in the way that new life does, these are some of the most special people to me.

Heaven on earth

Within the last 5 years I have experienced and integrated the work of Alison Armstrong culminating in a Mastery program that developed the strongest sense of my presence and my power integrated with my spiritual life, a true sense of living in heaven on earth ~ a goal we share. And in this moment currently, Byron Katie has stepped in as my newest teacher my certain challenge to allow all of the facts of my stories to release in reverence to a life of loving and invite myself into the deepest awareness of freedom for me in my consciousness.

Through it all I have committed to one friendship with Sarah Carr without whom I can’t imagine myself making it~ my dearest friend of 30 years, meeting in the earliest stages of our awakening have accompanied each other through all the ups and downs of this journey of life. I am enriched each day. We invest in our friendship as a partnership, we tend to it and it grows. I am blessed.

In addition my life has been blessed by many opportunities to be of service. These opportunities have breathed life back into me when I have felt almost out of options and reminded me of the value I have beyond something I get paid for, the priceless gift of my love and the gift of love that I receive in return. Too many to consider listing here, but recently on the board of White Horse Wellness, as an empowerment coach at GALS LA, an oncology body worker for a cancer center, and as a mentor in the lives of young women in my community, I am again enriched.

Building a dynasty within me

Through all this, with an awakened spiritual life, I have been building a dynasty within me of compassion, care and love for myself and others and for this planet, a reverence for life and for the magnificence of each life and the power of partnerships in the development of the possibility of peace within me and in this world. Here I stand a product of my intention for a rich and powerful life based in the power of Love and a testimony to what can happen through letting ‘it all’ go.

A deep bow of reverence to every rock, animal, tree, ocean, desert, forest or sky and who and what and that has brought me to this moment in peace to be a presence for transformation within the power of Love in this world today.

All my love to you all, peace passion connection and play everyday

~ Katherine

read less