685. Lucy Grace, 2nd Interview

Lucy was raised in a low socioeconomic household and neighborhood, by a young single mother in New Zealand in the early 1980s.

The lack of resources available in childhood resulted in a shrinking of her outer world to what she thought of –  years later – as a kind of welfare-child ashram. Within the home, and outside of it, there were few distractions or ability to go anywhere else, and significant trauma – all forcing her to go within to what she thought of as “the deep stillness and light inside” to rest, find nourishment, solace, and strength.

At 19 she experienced her first shift, seeing through the personality, and subtle perceptions revealing themselves.

She never thought much of it, there had already been so much light inside, and she was so thrilled to be in the world finally so she simply went on with living.

After a brief stint in television journalism, Lucy spent 15 years in Europe and New Zealand working for international humanitarian aid agencies.

On return to NZ at age 31, she suddenly became extremely ill.  For six months, she was mostly bedridden. Doctors, both natural and traditional, could not find the source of the illness.

Over the next few years, she had to work to earn an income but there was no strength for much else. The pain in her body was ever-present, and the fear of not knowing if this was her life forever now, was sometimes crippling.

She was forced to exist in a kind of in-between world again – of much aloneness and silence, aside from work.

After a few years of significant illness, she recovered strength enough to live a semi-normal life. But any time she tried to do too much, she was knocked back into illness.

By 35 she was in a leadership role at a non-profit, married, with a baby on the way, just surviving day-to-day with the pressure on her physical body.

On becoming a mother, she was plunged into a level of blackness that was completely shocking and previously unknown.

For more than two years she descended into complete separation and couldn’t hear the guidance that had always accompanied her in her life. For the first time ever she couldn’t feel God.

In 2018, after more than two years of immense struggle, an unexplainable and absolute surrender took place within, in a moment, as her two-year-old cried and reached for her.

Within two months she had left the career she loved to rest in what she thought of as silence. For around a year and a half, she couldn’t do much else.

Lucy had never been exposed to spirituality, nor did she know anything about its concepts or traditions. She thought meditation was for “those hippy people.”

Because there had been no conscious spiritual search, she had no context for what was happening. Often it was so beautiful and joyful – she didn’t need to know. There was an innate sense of trust and recognition that went beyond what needed to be seen or understood with the mind.

When the need to understand did arise – some online searches helped a little, but often it all felt overwhelming, and she preferred sitting in silence to hear from within. Guidance and teaching were always present and given through hearing and images. Despite this, when particularly strange things would occur the need for the mind to understand would return.

One night in 2019, before sleep, in heartfelt prayer she asked for help to cut through all the online noise and finally really grasp what was going on. There was a felt sense of need for community.

As she was awakening in the morning, she heard the words “Buddha at the Gas Pump”. Lucy says, “I was stumped. I had no idea what that meant, but Googled it and found BatGap. As a result, my life has changed. Over the years BatGap has supported me deeply in the process – nurturing trust and allowing everything to unfold as it wants to.”

From then until now, Lucy has been called over and over into deeper surrender. She has had further shifts and many clearings. Her career of 15 years, husband/partner of 16 years, many friends, and her home – all things she loved dearly – have fallen away.

She has never had a teacher and has read very little. She makes no claim to know anything.

It seems to her that there is nothing to know, or that can be known. There is no one way and no right way. There is only your way, to be honoured and cherished and fallen into more and more deeply in every breath.

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Summary and Transcript of this interview

Lucy’s first BatGap interview

Interview recorded July 1, 2023.

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction and Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump
  • 00:08:18 – Connecting with Others in Awakening
  • 00:17:09 – The Tenderness of Authentic Joy and the Rage it Provokes
  • 00:24:02 – Temptation and Projections
  • 00:30:04 – The Transformation of a Life
  • 00:34:26 – A Glowing Experience
  • 00:38:26 – Surrendering to the Path of Joy
  • 00:43:11 – Embracing Change in Life
  • 00:48:10 – Moving into a Group of Guides
  • 00:53:59 – The Humility of the Being
  • 00:57:54 – Prayer and Divine Guidance
  • 01:01:56 – Dissolving Barriers and Embodying Truth
  • 01:06:40 – Embracing the Path of Life
  • 01:11:22 – The Struggle of the Butterfly’s Emergence
  • 01:16:19 – The Power of Self-Acceptance
  • 01:21:28 – The Gifts of Illness
  • 01:26:39 – Trusting the Intelligence of Nature
  • 01:31:30 – Deepening into Presence
  • 01:35:33 – The Paradox of Self and No Self
  • 01:40:23 – The Reality of Vyavaharika and the Peril of Denial
  • 01:45:19 – The Deep Connection with Nature
  • 01:50:55 – Turning the Light Around
  • 01:55:40 – Witnessing the Being

619. Lucy Grace

Lucy GraceLucy was raised in a low socioeconomic household and neighborhood, by a young single mother in New Zealand in the early 1980s.

The lack of resources available in childhood resulted in a shrinking of her outer world to what she thought of –  years later – as a kind of welfare-child ashram. Within the home, and outside of it, there were few distractions or ability to go anywhere else, and significant trauma – all forcing her to go within to what she thought of as “the deep stillness and light inside” to rest, find nourishment, solace, and strength.

At 19 she experienced her first shift, seeing through the personality, and subtle perceptions revealing themselves.

She never thought much of it, there had already been so much light inside, and she was so thrilled to be in the world finally so she simply went on with living.

After a brief stint in television journalism, Lucy spent 15 years in Europe and New Zealand working for international humanitarian aid agencies.

On return to NZ at age 31, she suddenly became extremely ill.  For six months, she was mostly bedridden. Doctors, both natural and traditional, could not find the source of the illness.

Over the next few years, she had to work to earn an income but there was no strength for much else. The pain in her body was ever-present, and the fear of not knowing if this was her life forever now, was sometimes crippling.

She was forced to exist in a kind of in-between world again – of much aloneness and silence, aside from work.

After a few years of significant illness, she recovered strength enough to live a semi-normal life. But any time she tried to do too much, she was knocked back into illness.

By 35 she was in a leadership role at a non-profit, married, with a baby on the way, just surviving day-to-day with the pressure on her physical body.

On becoming a mother, she was plunged into a level of blackness that was completely shocking and previously unknown.

For more than two years she descended into complete separation and couldn’t hear the guidance that had always accompanied her in her life. For the first time ever she couldn’t feel God.

In 2018, after more than two years of immense struggle, an unexplainable and absolute surrender took place within, in a moment, as her two-year-old cried and reached for her.

Within two months she had left the career she loved to rest in what she thought of as silence. For around a year and a half, she couldn’t do much else.

Lucy had never been exposed to spirituality, nor did she know anything about its concepts or traditions. She thought meditation was for “those hippy people.”

Because there had been no conscious spiritual search, she had no context for what was happening. Often it was so beautiful and joyful – she didn’t need to know. There was an innate sense of trust and recognition that went beyond what needed to be seen or understood with the mind.

When the need to understand did arise – some online searches helped a little, but often it all felt overwhelming, and she preferred sitting in silence to hear from within. Guidance and teaching were always present and given through hearing and images. Despite this, when particularly strange things would occur the need for the mind to understand would return.

One night in 2019, before sleep, in heartfelt prayer she asked for help to cut through all the online noise and finally really grasp what was going on. There was a felt sense of need for community.

As she was awakening in the morning, she heard the words “Buddha at the Gas Pump”. Lucy says, “I was stumped. I had no idea what that meant, but Googled it and found BatGap. As a result, my life has changed. Over the years BatGap has supported me deeply in the process – nurturing trust and allowing everything to unfold as it wants to.”

From then until now, Lucy has been called over and over into deeper surrender. She has had further shifts and many clearings. Her career of 15 years, husband/partner of 16 years, many friends, and her home – all things she loved dearly – have fallen away.

She has never had a teacher and has read very little. She makes no claim to know anything.

It seems to her that there is nothing to know, or that can be known. There is no one way and no right way. There is only your way, to be honoured and cherished and fallen into more and more deeply in every breath.

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Transcript of this interview.

Interview recorded October 9, 2021.

Second interview with Lucy

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump
  • 00:05:28 – Childhood Darkness and Inner Light
  • 00:10:39 – Childhood Connection with God
  • 00:15:32 – Feeling a Presence and Being Guided in Life
  • 00:20:35 – The Big Awakening of 2018
  • 00:25:21 – A Shift in Perspective and Seeing Spirits
  • 00:31:00 – Conversations with Spiritual Beings and Divine Guidance
  • 00:35:49 – Making Tough Career Choices
  • 00:40:26 – Trauma and Healing
  • 00:45:13 – Hiding and Facing the Truth
  • 00:49:33 – Lost Vibrancy and Exclusion from Life
  • 00:54:12 – The Struggle of Illness and Support from Loved Ones
  • 00:59:12 – The Feeling That Hasn’t Landed
  • 01:04:02 – The Violent Labor and Postpartum Depression
  • 01:09:09 – The Birth Experience and Motherhood Challenges
  • 01:13:02 – The Struggles of Motherhood: A Personal Story
  • 01:17:42 – A Moment of Surrender to Motherhood
  • 01:22:26 – The Language of Life Speaking to Us
  • 01:27:11 – The Meaning of Lucy’s Name
  • 01:32:16 – Understanding Unbounded Awareness and the Personality
  • 01:37:02 – Unraveling and Healing Deep Wounds
  • 01:42:21 – Surrender and Breaking Open
  • 01:47:02 – Discovering the Language of Experience
  • 01:52:13 – A Profound Experience of Love and Compassion
  • 01:57:48 – Deep Healings and Shifts in Consciousness
  • 02:02:41 – The Stern Voice and Leaving a Relationship for Spiritual Growth
  • 02:07:21 – Moving Energy through the Body
  • 02:13:13 – Taking the Courage to Be True to Myself
  • 02:18:31 – Living a Blessed Life
  • 02:24:00 – Embracing Human Nature

561. Andrew Hewson

Andrew HewsonAndrew Hewson is a contemporary spiritual teacher whose focus is on the realization of the Presence of Divinity as one’s fundamental Source and Self. Emphasizing transcendence as a process that can not only be undergone in the midst of daily living but even facilitated by it, Andrew speaks from the experiential reality of having been carried by the Grace of total transformation in the context of daily life.

Growing up in the Southeastern United States, Andrew’s childhood was characterized by a state of lightness, freedom, and underlying connection.  This effortless Way of Being was taken as an unspoken given until an intense qualitative shift took place in his early teens. The condition which once prevailed progressively became replaced by an acute sense of separation, limitation, and lack, leaving little room for functional participation in the common activities of human life.  With this radical drop into apparent fragmentation, Andrew began to seek relief wherever possible. This seeking eventually led to the discovery of altered states of consciousness through the use of alcohol and drugs which quickly spiraled into the pits of despair.

After years of unsuccessfully attempting to live from such a constricted sense of identity, Andrew found himself in a medical isolation jail cell facing 30 years in prison. It was there, in the midst of absolute hopelessness and despair, that the Grace of Surrender shone forth, bringing about a profound shift in Consciousness. This transformation revealed a Still, Silent Presence, or Field, Divine in Its Nature, and ignited a fire for spiritual evolution.

With a natural and impersonal application, Andrew was given to prayer, meditation, and spontaneous investigation into the nature of identity. The process of Transcendence took place in the day-to-day ebb and flow of human life, culminating in the replacement of the sense of a personal, separate self with the Infinite Context of Divinity.  This Reality has since lived and loved while engaged in the common activities of the human experience, serving wherever possible while still finding space for silent reflection in Nature and tasting the Infinite expansion of further refinement.

The role of speaking and teaching is not something that was decided upon at a given point in time but is rather a spontaneous and uncontainable expression of the Love that prevails in the condition from which the words emerge. Andrew speaks effortlessly by the grace of Divinity and gives all Glory to the One that abides in the Hearts of All.

He also lectures on the evolution of conscious experiencing and the application of this understanding in areas of human suffering such as addiction, mental illness, and eating disorders.

Andrew currently resides in Western North Carolina with his wife and partner Elle Hewson where they are working together with devoted friends to be of greater service to those who have been called to Truth, Love, and the fulfillment of Our Highest potential.

Website: nondual-devotion.com

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Transcript of this interview.

Interview recorded July 25, 2020

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump
  • 00:04:07 – Addiction and Shift in Identity
  • 00:08:00 – Spiritual Bypassing and Accountability
  • 00:11:50 – Shifting from Dominance of Content and Form
  • 00:15:33 – Moments of Deep Connection and Fragmentation
  • 00:19:47 – Finding the Presence of God in Unexpected Places
  • 00:22:49 – Past Life Development and Spiritual Continuum
  • 00:26:30 – The Grace of Revelation
  • 00:30:38 – The Emergence of Conscious Awareness
  • 00:34:54 – The Full Spectrum of Development
  • 00:38:42 – The Masculine and Feminine Aspects of Consciousness
  • 00:43:23 – Devotion as an impetus to self-realization
  • 00:48:07 – Devotion to truth and the transmission of light
  • 00:52:40 – The Play of Divinity and the “Why” Question
  • 00:57:01 – The Need for Support in Exploring Dark and Challenging Aspects
  • 01:01:05 – The Blossoming Forth of Potential
  • 01:05:58 – Moving from Seeking to Devotion
  • 01:10:34 – The Sprouting of Possibilities
  • 01:14:46 – The Four Pillars of Observation and Understanding
  • 01:19:05 – The Dynamics of Silent Seeing and Pure Awareness
  • 01:23:54 – The Hidden Potential of the Self
  • 01:27:56 – Perception of Essential Nature
  • 01:32:34 – The Kybalion and the Mind-Blowing Universe
  • 01:36:36 – Transmutation and the Blossoming of Divinity
  • 01:40:12 – Resolving the Split in Spiritual Identity
  • 01:43:52 – Transmutation and Field of Attention
  • 01:47:13 – Divine Displacement and the Four Pillars
  • 01:50:13 – Quotes on Awareness and Impeccability
  • 01:53:42 – The Blessing of Failure
  • 01:57:34 – The Power of Divinity Revealed
  • 02:00:45 – Farewell and Gratitude