The Curious Mermaid

The Fear of Making Mistakes "They're actually good things, not bad"

2011-03-03T19:33:00.000-08:00

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. - George Bernard Shaw

by Catherine Pratt
www.Life-With-Confidence.com

The fear of making mistakes can prevent you from trying anything new or moving out of your comfort zone. This is such a terrible waste of your skills and your talents and robs you from truly enjoying your life.

Just the word, “mistake” will strike fear in a lot of people's minds when it really shouldn’t. They’re actually good things not bad.

Walter Anderson talks about the fear of making mistakes in his book, The Confidence Course: Seven Steps to Self-Fulfillment. He says, "In order to live a fulfilled life, to feel exhilarated by your accomplishments, to worry well, you must expect mistakes to occur - and you must practice what I call RIP, which stands for responsibility, insight and perspective. It also means, as you know, Rest In Peace, which in itself may not be a bad way to look at your mistakes."

So, mistakes are a good thing. You can't grow if you don't allow yourself to make mistakes. The trick is to focus on what you learned from the mistake and how to improve from it.

It's not worth wasting your time agonizing over things in the past because you can't change what happened. You just need to recognize that you simply made a mistake. That doesn't mean you're a failure because you made a mistake. You and the mistake are not the same thing at all. You learned something valuable from it and can now move forwards. It means you can focus on a solution and be far further ahead than if you'd never allowed yourself to make the mistake.

Lots of times, they’re not even mistakes.

You just learned a different strategy was needed. Your actions weren't getting what you wanted so you needed to think of a different way. That's not a mistake. That's simply exploration and discovery. As Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

Lisa Nichols, the motivational speaker, also has a great quote which says, “they’re not failures, they’re feedback”. It’s much more comforting to think of them that way. You also keep a positive mindset rather than sinking into the thoughts that you “failed” when you didn’t really. You just gained some additional knowledge.

The best part about it is that you faced your fear of making mistakes and even though you may not have got the exact result you wanted, at least you tried. And, you won’t have to live with that constant nagging thought of “what if”.
What if I’d tried, what if I’d said something, what if…

Fear Of Making Mistakes In Front Of Other People

People don't notice our mistakes nor judge us anywhere near as much as we think they do. And, if you gain something from it, why let the fear of what someone else "might" think stop you? You can never know what someone else is really thinking anyway. They might really be impressed at your willingness to take a chance and to try things. You just don't know. You can only know what you're thinking. That you have complete control over.
Mistakes are usually some of our greatest learning experiences and that's the key thing to remember. It's really not so important what others think of us. It’s far more important to understand what you now know about yourself.

Sometimes, "blowing it" can make you realize what your priorities and values are and that's valuable insight you probably couldn’t have got any other way. This knowledge not only makes you more comfortable with yourself, it also helps you move forwards in a more confident way.

Once you relax and accept that you really are a good person just trying to do your best and that you make mistakes sometimes, then that mindset is going to be reflected outwards and come back to you in good ways. You'll discover that people trust and respect you all the more for being comfortable with allowing yourself to make mistakes.

Be who you are. Trust in yourself.

It will come back to you in amazing ways. Don't be so focused on achieving one particular outcome that you miss all kinds of wonderful opportunities because you fear making mistakes. Mistakes are good things. Forgive yourself when you make a mistake. Or even better, celebrate. You’ve probably just learned a better way to do something. Or as Danish Nobel Prize winner, Niels Bohr, says, “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field”. You could now consider yourself an expert in your field.

It truly is all in how you think about it.

What You Need To Do BEFORE You Can Develop Self Confidence

2011-03-03T19:23:00.000-08:00

by Catherine Pratt
www.Life-With-Confidence.com

To develop self confidence, there is something you absolutely need to be willing to do.

It’s something that sounds simple but may not be as easy as you’d like. You need to be willing to “let go”.

What I mean by this is that you need to open yourself up to new ideas and a new way of thinking about yourself and others. The easiest way to do this, is to let go of the old thoughts and beliefs you have that are keeping you trapped in your current situation.

Specifically, there are 6 main things you need to be able to let go of before you can truly develop self confidence:

1. Anger

This includes your anger at your family, your friends, your co-workers, and just basically the whole world. You have to be willing to let go of this anger. It’s a very draining emotion and it also prevents you from moving forwards in your life. You can’t see solutions if you’re focused on being angry at people. You’re also hurting yourself which you don’t need to do anymore.

2. Blame

You may be pretty good at blaming others for where you are in life and for why you’re so unhappy. You may not even realize how much you blame everyone else for your situation. Or maybe you blame it on circumstances (my parents were too poor to send me to college, I had to take care of my younger brothers and sisters, etc). It’s time to let go of the blame. It doesn’t serve you. Let it go.

3. Your Story

Are you clinging to a story you tell yourself as to why you are the way you are? So many people cling to their stories (I was abused, I was sick) and make them part of their identity and refuse to move forwards from that. They just don't know who they would be without that story. So, start to notice whether you talk about your problems and your excuses to everyone who will listen. Are you willing to actually start doing something about your problems or do you just want to keep re-telling the experience? Are you willing to let go of that story and develop some new ones?
Keep the positive learnings from your past experiences but completely let go of the painful emotions. You can develop your self confidence this way by using your past experiences as stepping stones to new situations. Think of it as now having a better idea on how to deal with a situation or you've learned something incredibly valuable about yourself. Perhaps, how strong you are or even a new skill. You don't need to remember all the details of the experience, just the knowledge you gained from having gone through it.

4. Your Thoughts

You need to be willing to look at your thoughts and really pay attention to what they’re saying. You need to be willing to choose which thoughts you want to keep and which ones it’s time to let go of.
This also include old, out of date past core beliefs you may have. Beliefs like, "I'm unlovable", "I'm useless", "I'm worthless". The beliefs you have about yourself and about others will affect your entire life. Choose beliefs that help you not hinder you.

5. Your Belief That You're Right

Do you say things like, “I’ve tried everything and nothing ever works for me” or “I’ll never be able to do that” or how about “I’m too slow”, or “I’m too old” and “I’m not lucky”. These are beliefs you have about yourself and your brain will sabotage yourself to ensure that you’re right about your beliefs.
The other aspect of this is that you will only see those things that reinforce that you’re right. So, if something goes wrong, you’ll automatically see it as, “see I’m cursed” and give up. You need to take responsibility for your actions and realize you need to let go of being right. Being right all the time just isn’t worth it.

So, let yourself be open to trying out some new ideas even if they feel uncomfortable at first. Be open to seeing the world in a different light.

6. Your Fear of Making A Mistake

The one other thing to let go of is your fear of making mistakes. As long as you cling to this fear, you won’t try anything new. You’ll always be too scared that you might do something wrong. When you do try something, at the first sign of trouble, you abandon ship and claim, “see this stuff never works for me”. You have to be willing to try new things and if they don’t work exactly as you’d like, you just need to modify them slightly and keep moving forwards in the direction you want to go. Learn to love mistakes. It shows that you’re moving forwards and becoming a wiser, stronger person.
Summary

Until you’re willing to let go of these 6 things, the ability to develop self confidence will always be a struggle for you. It’s that simple. So, you need to consider how attached are you to your old way of thinking and how much do you really want to change?
Are you willing to let go so that you can become the true spirit you were destined to be?

Once you let go of these things, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you start to develop self confidence and your life will just instantly start to blossom.

Embracing Lilith: Key to the Dark Madonna and our Core Feminine Wound

2011-03-01T15:47:00.000-08:00

By Linda Broome

“In her original state, she is a symbol of true feminine power- complete unto herself and embodying her own brand of feminine self containment, assertion and wholeness.” Kate O’Donnell

In the midst of the twenty-first century renaissance, renewed interest in the goddess has brought many faces of the divine feminine into fresh awareness… Lilith is one of the most alluring and ancient. After 5000 years of rumors, this female of ill repute remains a mystery. An expression of the deepest regions of the human psyche, she illuminates our desire nature, the greatest force in the human condition, and our core wound.

Lilith means, “night;” and she is associated with the color black and the dark side of the feminine. Her path leads us into our individual patriarchal distortions in order to illuminate our shadows. If we trace her back in time to seek the source of the fear and negativity she typically evokes, we often discover not only a major shift in the collective human image of the feminine, but also something essential that needs to be redeemed in our personal lives.

She is the original rebellious woman. Her association with red leads us to the demonic interpretation of her and her association with the most famous scarlet woman in the New Testament, Mary Magdalene, with her wild crimson hair! Thankfully, an evolving understanding of Mary of Magdala places her in a new light, as Virgin (whole-unto-herself), the Lost Bride of Jesus, and after his death, as Widow. A central shadow theme in her story is that of living on the edge of existential loneliness.

Lilith, also known as the Black Moon, is an aspect of the Dark Madonna.

The Mythology of Lilith

The following tale is considered the foundation of the Hebrew myth of Lilith as the first wife of Adam. Yahweh creates Adam and Lilith from earth, but with one significant difference: he uses impure sediments to create Lilith, whereas Adam has been fashioned from pure dust. Because of this, Adam expects Lilith to be submissive to him, but claiming equality, she will not be put below him and spirits away to lifelong exile near the Red Sea, where she (according to the myth) couples with evil spirits and bears demonic children. Meanwhile, Yahweh creates another spouse for Adam, this time taking one of his ribs and turning it into Eve - a creation from Adam and not one in her own right, like Lilith. Legend has it that the jealousy and rage generated by Adam's rejection motivated Lilith to come in the night for her revenge, strangling babies and giving men wet dreams to sap their strength, distorting her power and desire through a fearful patriarchal lens. Lilith predates Eve’s defiance in the Garden. She embodies the archetype of the free and flowing nature of the Divine Feminine, casting herself out of the Garden…the First Goddess of divine defiance.

From an astrological point of view, Lilith is associated with the more hidden, mysterious aspects of the Mother; the long tradition in Western culture of suppressing the feminine has made Lilith seem threatening. However, this is only true if she is banished into the unconscious. Actually, the integration and development of the energy symbolized by Lilith - in both men and women - is part of a process leading to a more inclusive and integrative life. The unfathomable suffering associated with Lilith themes is recognized by Hannelore Traugott, a recognized German Lilith expert, who writes: "Lilith represents something that has become unconscious and is striving to become conscious again. Let's call it archaic energy, spiritual femininity, something akin to the wisdom of the goddess. As long as we don't have access to this energy we experience it psychologically as loss, suppression, isolation, emptiness, addiction and above all power struggles."

Another scholar, Kocku von Stuckard notes: "For me, Lilith embodies the presence of an archaic form of feminine strength that ignores any patriarchal discourse of power and dominance and allies itself with those forces that affirm life itself. Lilith invites our independence, rebelliousness, and strength to be lived. Lilith carves away what is not authentic, our false self image. This is how the creative energy of the Dark Feminine flows naturally through each of us.” This process takes great courage and naked emotional honesty.

Beyond any traditional concept of the sacred feminine, my desire is to de-mythologize Lilith as evil while honoring her voracious spirit.

The Threefold Facets of Lilith

The three Lilith symbols in the birth chart tell an interesting and complex story: a chronicle of the feminine principle and how this specifically relates to the negation of our desire nature. It embraces past, present and the direction of the future from this particular point of view as well as the evolution of the feminine principle in consciousness, regardless of gender.

This threefold symbolism clearly demonstrates what and how it happened relative to our own soul history (as observable in our birth charts) and always sheds light on what happened to the original feminine principle and how this principle can return either within us as individuals or as a collective soul. Without the healing of the feminine, no healthy life is possible for women or men; the imbalance of life rooted in the patriarchy must be re-balanced and healed within us all. Lilith in the birth chart, points to our individual journey originating in the core feminine wound and the specific distortion landscapes we each traversed.

The Asteroid Lilith indicates where our specific CORE FEMININE WOUND originated and how it was experienced within the more equality-based matriarchal settings. We all have this essential feminine aspect within our soul and of course this principle has been wounded and distorted in all of us via the occupation of the patriarchy -whether we know it consciously or not. How we encountered and then responded to this new patriarchal order in the first place will be signified by asteroid Lilith in your birthchart. This symbol sheds light on our individual history in this respect, via sign house and aspects and reveals how and where we experience the themes of personal power, rage and shame, patriarchal distortions, our inner split… how we demonize or idealize ourselves, exposing our core feminine wound.

She also represents how we make choices between personal autonomy and consensus negotiation, our capacity to release repressed anger, resentment, and the Negative Mother archetype. She gives clues to our idealized self image. She also indicates the ways in which we need to assert our own truths. In a man’s chart, this Lilith will reflect his ideal image of a woman and any Negative Mother dynamics.

From here onward, a progressive distortion occurred to our feminine nature in one way or another. This progressive has a peak; causing a natural insanity as a result of the unnatural order within which we were all forced to live. The symbol for this peak distortion is symbolized by Dark Moon Lilith.

Dark Moon Lilith represents this Shadow… where and how these patriarchal conditionings get played out in our psyches. It’s important to note that these distortions are subconscious, outside of our conscious field. They reside in a deep, primal and archetypal place within (we’re talking 5,000 years of human experience) that perceives self and life as “this is the way it is”; ingrained patriarchal patterns that are maintained as the status quo. In the chart, DML signifies how and where we experience the distorted aspects of Lilith in our lives--her anguish, bitterness, betrayal, alienation, and sexual doubts.

She reveals our fear fields, where we place mind over heart and control above vulnerability. The key to redemption is acknowledgement and release…endarkenment! When we do this the emancipation serves as a bridge or channel to the clarity and expression of our original feminine design template. As an archetype of the Dark Madonna and Pallas Athene, she is warrior and an executor of boundaries.

Black Moon Lilith is the third aspect of Lilith’s trinity. Black Moon Lilith is the symbol in our charts via which we can heal, resolve and re-embrace our consciously inner feminine. It points out how the nullified, wounded part of us can be retrieved to re-emerge intact again in our consciousness. Representing re-birth, our distorted sense of self may be transformed into natural, whole (healthy) expression, that which is pure, raw, feminine beauty. This manifests as liberation of our minds and hearts…for fully expressing our personal freedom and sexual passion. Black Moon Lilith is the primal feminine fire spirit. It illuminates our pretensions, false roles, and delusions to actualize who we essentially are.

Lilith and Eve: The Forgotten Woman

2011-03-01T11:47:00.000-08:00

Here is the domain of the age-old inner power struggle between The Good Girl v The Bad Girl, personified at the beginning of human history by the feminine archetypes of Lilith and Eve. The original story of creation begins with a powerful goddess, known as Lilith (Adam’s first wife) who was strong, independent and highly sexual, free and un-tameable. She loved fiercely – but would not succumb to any form of domination, her feminine power had to be honoured and when it wasn’t she left Adam in the Garden of Creation and went off on her own. The story even ‘warns’ us that she went against God’s wishes, which clearly reveals to us the sheer power of her virtue and unwavering sense of Self-Love.

After Lilith, we are introduced to Eve. In the biblical story we are told that Eve was created from “Adam’s Rib”. So immediately there is a sense of “ownership”, a play between the ‘creator’ and the ‘created’. Eve was the complete opposite of Lilith, soft, gentle, subservient and passive. Her role was to ‘serve’ Adam and create the children of the future. Despite Adam’s near perfect design, still within the sweet and innocent heart of Eve, there was a flicker of Lilith’s spirit that remained, as we are told it was Eve that bit into the apple of the Forbidden Fruit. From there on, Eve gets carries the burden, of the shame and guilt of being “the one” that had them both cast out of the Garden of Eden.

But it wasn’t the shame of biting into the apple that she was carrying. It was the shame and pain of being severed from Lilith.

This polarity still gets played out within the hearts of mortal women here on Earth. One moment we are Lilith – powerful, sexual, forbidden, untameable, creative, wild and free, and in the next moment we become Eve, sweet, caring, gentle, loving, innocent, pure and nice.
Men imagine that they do not have to deal so much with this archetypal power play that can at times play itself out on a daily basis with women. But they do. They experience this polarity when in relationship with women as a form of projection.

How may times have you been on the receiving end of a man adoring your Lilith nature when you first meet or in the early stages of dating, and then once you become ‘his’, he begins to scorn and hate that part of you? Manipulating and cajoling you into becoming Eve all of the time. Which women usually buy into, silently agreeing to his demands for a multitude of reasons ranging from “he will love me more”, or “I won’t loose him if I become what he wants me to be” and the classic “It is ‘right’ to be a good woman, I must abandon that part of me which is ‘bad”.

Polarized Eve
You would of thought that becoming Eve 24/7 would fix the problem, right? Seems feasible to believe that if you become Eve, you will live happily ever after? Not true, what really happens is that you become shut down and repressed, resulting in the inevitable inner or outer ‘betrayal” by your partner to seek out Lilith again, usually in the arms of another woman, or his mind. Doesn’t really matter which – as it will be felt deeply by the woman as a third person/presence.

The real betrayal is between both parties. The woman betraying her full self, and the man betraying his innocence as he sides with the dualistic nature of his mind. I feel that a woman can accept her Lilith and Eve aspects relatively easily once we are told about them and embark on some sexual healing to bring them back into balance. I feel at this current time on the planet it’s the masculine that is rigidly holding on what is seen as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and finds it very difficult to see ‘his’ woman bearing both fruits.

The usual ending to this tale is that the man goes out to hunt for Lilith, seeking an illicit affair that seems to bring him back to life, as at first he is enticed and seduced, thrilled by the masterful knowingness of Lilith’s charms. Yet it is a presence that he can not handle for very long, as she too is polarized and knows only one identity. Eventually, just as he feels he is about to become ‘lost’ in her presence, he reverts and runs from her in terror. He is afraid of her power and seduction, fearful that she is claiming his soul that he runs back to Eve begging for her forgiveness. Eve being a good and nice person accepts him back yet secretly writhes in pain; she has become broken inside, distrust of the masculine sets root as she cries infinite tears in the realization that she has shamefully disconnected from her Lilith. Not only that, but the once true bond between her and Adam has been broken and now only exists as a form of fusion, a connection based on a lie. And that my dear fellow humans, is where we find ourselves now.

That is where men get hooked into this particular form of duality.

This drama can be easily healed by both people by at first, simply understanding and owning this type of duality. Ask to see and feel the deeply unconscious energies of attraction and repulsion towards Lilith, which sleep dormant within you until triggered.

Once you have the energies to hand, both people will need to begin a course in sexual healing. A woman has to be shown, guided and encouraged how to re-awaken Lilith (its usually Lilith that has been suppressed – although it can be a role-reversal). We will cover that in Part: 2 of this article.

While a man has to root out his belief systems that he has embedded into his mind, that he wants Eve as a partner/wife and Lilith as a lover at arms’ length. Once he was done that, he will then have to be re-introduced to a woman who healthily houses both qualities. It will have to become his ‘experience’ that two are actually one. Lilith and Eve can comfortably live within a true woman.

And that my dear female friends are where we all have to go. To soulfully reunite with our Lilith and Eve within us. Feeling comfortable with both aspects, releasing all shame and grief from within the archetypes, until there really only is One Woman. As your male partner is only mirroring what is being felt by your inner masculine.

You know this is true.

But like most things on the spiritual path – the woman has to go first and take those first courageous steps, only because the masculine has become so ‘set’, it is only the fluidity of the feminine that can bring about balance. It has been my intention to create the Awakening of the Seven Gates and the Forgotten Woman workshops to address this split and to bring about a rapturous reunion.

The Faces of Healing

2011-02-28T11:57:00.000-08:00

The 6 Faces of Healing by Ann Albers

The First Face of Healing:
Insight

Dis-ease can occur on many levels, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. How do we react to our illnesses, our turmoils, and our confusion? Do we become helpless victims, or do we take a proactive stance, willing to be partners with our doctors, healers, and therapists?

When we suddenly understand that we must play an active role in our own healing, insight comes, like a flash of lightning. We realize we are no longer helpless! We may not immediately be able to control our dis-ease but we can learn from it, grow, and possibly even participate in our own healing. Miracles, dramatic shifts in the quality of our lives, become possible -- even when physical healing is not. We see how our lives can change.

This mask depicts the nature of insight. Insight occurs suddenly, usually when we are least expecting to receive understanding. Insight connects us with our soul. The feathers on top of the head represent the crown chakra, the energy center in the Hindu belief system, that connects us with Divine will. Insight is really only a remembering of your own wisdom. The peacock feather over the 'third eye' is symbolic of intuitive vision. We really do have our own answers, if only we learn to trust.

Do you want to know what an illness, or upsetting situation has to teach you? What childhood wounds or emotional scars need healing? What truth do you need to own and speak and act? How could you treat your body better, or give your soul some rest? Ask, and wait for the answers to bubble up from within.

Insight allows us to look through a window into a different reality. Perhaps we aren't meant to suffer, but rather to learn, grow, and move into a more blissful reality. Insight is an eye-opener. We learn to listen to the whispers of spirit that tickle us like soft feathers near the ear. Insight is the key to a doorway. When we walk through that doorway, when we accept the fact that we aren't helpless, we initiate and begin to participate in our own healing.

The Second Face of Healing:
Transmuting Anger

After insight, anger may come, erupting unbidden from the depths of our psyche. We've been taught to fear anger. We've been taught that anger is a negative emotion. In truth, there are no "negative emotions." Every emotion seeks to bring us closer to the truth of our soul. In fact, anger is an alarm system, a boundary violation warning. Every time you neglect to speak your truth you stuff a bit of anger into your depths. Done over enough time, the anger may create physical symptoms such as tight jaws, TMJ, tense shoulders, shortness of breath, or worse.

In a healing crisis, the anger may erupt like a volcano that has been waiting for years to release the pressure buried beneath the surface. Let your anger flow, in a nondestructive manner and don't judge yourself. Journal. Pound a lump of clay or some pillows. Take a wash rag and beat the walls. Scream. Cry. Let the words that never were expressed come flying out of your mouth. Write a letter expressing your anger, and then burn it. There is never a need for vengeance -- Spirit handles justice in the long run. We need only to face and own our truth.

This mask is used to trigger and transmute anger. The red mixed with darker colors shows that anger is really just personal passion that has been buried rather than expressed. The snake is a symbol with many meanings... shed the old skin, let go of the old emotions, and you regain the passion, enthusiasm and fire energy that snake represents. The spines near the ears tell us that anger reminds us to listen and take in only those words that express our truth.

Will we listen to others tell us who we are, or who we should be, or will we own our anger, and establish healthy boundaries without making others wrong? Only allow gems of wisdom and support to come into the sacred storage space of your soul. The flower erupts in the spring, breaking through hard ground to bring beauty. Yes, it is difficult at times to open our mouth and speak truth, but part of transmuting anger is to learn authentic expression.

The red gem on the third eye area reminds us that anger can lead you to find your vision without judging others. The barely perceptible spiral on the forehead is a symbol of growth. The feathers on top remind us that anger calls us to be warriors, zealously guarding the truth of our own spirit. The flames on top remind us that when we release anger, we find passion for living once again.

What you resist persists. Try not to be angry, and anger stalks you, making you edgy, tense, and irritable, or worse yet deadened and resigned. Face the anger in a constructive manner and you will transmute the emotion, discovering truth. What truth inside of you seeks expression? Ask the question, release the anger, and find that underneath the emotion is buried a treasure of passion and a surge of personal power.

The Third Face of Healing:
Cleansing

After anger is released the tears can flow freely. Why do we cry? What is the pain we feel? The pain comes from a realization that we may or may not have been living in accordance with our soul's truth. We cry for the past, mourning those times when we weren't true to ourselves, or when others insisted we give up our truth. We cry for the present, grieving for all those attitudes, beliefs, even dis-eases, relationships, and life situations that we are giving up. We mourn the death of an old identity, and in its place, a new life springs forth. We cry because we are tired from hanging on to emotions, beliefs, and dis-ease that would leave us trapped in a life we don't love.

We cry because we long for those who would love us as we are, not as they would wish us to be. We cry in terror, worrying if we can truly find this love and make our lives work if we walk through our fears, remove the masks, and show the world the true face of our soul. The tears release us from our bondage to the past and create the emptiness inside that is required for soul to find rest in our human hearts.

This mask is used to help us remember that there is beauty even in the pain of our grieving and sadness. Frog is a Native American symbol for cleansing. When you are at a pivotal point in life, clean your closets, check into your beliefs and sort through them, evaluate your relationships and your careers. What is your truth? Cleanse your life of all that is not you. Absolve yourself from guilt. Feel the pains of your sadness and your fears, and then let them go. Let the tears flow, and then let them go.

As the mask shows, the teardrops wash us from the inside out and then provide a fertile ground for new ideas to grow. The "water" falling from the ears tells us that we need to sort through all we have heard and been told about who we are and cleanse our minds of all that is not so. Who told you that you weren't lovable? Who told you that you weren't good enough? Who told you that life had to be difficult? Cleanse yourself of the lies that you've heard, and create a new truth.

From the tangled undergrowth of our confused thoughts, beauty arises. You feel empty inside, cleansed of all that is not you, and ready to grow into all that is truly you. You begin to bloom. Give yourself time to grieve when you are healing or in transition. This is a natural process of living. Tears are beautiful -- melted diamonds that represent the essence of our soul.

The Fourth Face of Healing:
Walking through Fear

After facing anger, and cleansing tears, we are usually faced with our own truth. We know what we must do to heal, whether it be changing our physical lifestyle, healing old emotions, letting go of old attitudes or beliefs, or simply getting ourselves out of unhealthy relationships or careers. This is when we face our fears.

Fear is a braking system, meant to keep us from changing too fast. Fear is meant to keep us safe, not happy. Fear is meant to keep us comfortable and for most of us, comfort means minimal change. When we face fears, the mythical "crack between worlds" opens and allows us the opportunity to pass through. Will we stay in the world we've always known, safe and content, but either in dis-ease or not satisfied? Or will we choose to face our fears, change our lives, walk through the doorway and find the life of our dreams on the other side. Fear is the doorway to heaven. Walk through your fears and find freedom.

As the mask represents, breaking through fear is like walking through a thick sheet of plastic. You can see everything you've ever wanted on the other side. However, right before you're ready to break through fear, you feel the fear, like the plastic pressing up against you, making you confused, tired, or unable to move onward. Fear is suffocating and the closer you come to leaving your fears behind, the more real they will seem. One more step. One more step. One more step, and you are free.

Butterfly broke through the walls and found freedom. As a caterpillar she crawled, taking life slowly and laboriously. Then she spun the chrysalis and entered a phase of life that felt like slow death. Nothing would ever be the same again. Freedom would be frightening. When we face our fears, we are the caterpillar in the chrysalis, about to give up life as we know it in order to spread our wings, show our true colors and find freedom.

What are you afraid to say? Afraid to do? Afraid to try? Afraid to release? Afraid to own? Face your fears. Walk through them. Heaven lies on the other side.

The Fifth Face of Healing:
Finding Balance

Balance is an intricate dance between opposites. When we have transmuted our angers, cried our tears, and faced our fears, we find peace in the stillness. We realize that situations in life are, for the most part, neither good nor bad, black or white. We are at rest. We may or may not have 'healed' physical illness, but most importantly we have healed our spirit. We've learned. We've grown, and now we are wise. We live one day at a time. Instead of regretting the past, or worrying about the future, we face each moment with the innocence, purity of a child. We have learned to pray for, intend, and expect miracles to occur.

This mask represents the peace that is to be found when we achieve balance. The Chinese Yin/Yang symbol represents the balance between masculine and feminine energies. The feminine energies cause us to go into our own stillness, tap into our wisdom, and receive direction and insight. The masculine energies give us our drive to go out into the world and act, and produce results. When we are balanced, we go within to find our own answers, and then we act on those. We understand what we need to do to heal ourselves. We understand what we need to do in order to maintain our well-being. We honor our knowing and our feeling and we take action.

The mouth on the mask is closed. Because we are wise, we honor other's pathways. We have no need to give advice unless it is asked of us. We know our truth so we have no need to make others wrong. The blue gem on the chin represents the blue often associated with the throat chakra, or energy center. We express ourselves authentically. The rose-colored gem on the lips indicates that we speak from our hearts, sharing our wisdom with gentleness and compassion. The white feathers on the crown indicate that we have purified our spirit, and the owl-like feathers represent the wisdom we have gained from our experience.

Balance can be achieved when we are willing to suspend our judgments and honor the needs of our body, mind, emotions, and spirit.

The Sixth Face of Healing:
Creating Your Life

Healing, on any level, is really a process of re-membering, calling back the lost pieces of our spirit to become holy, or whole. The word "Spirit" comes from the Latin word "Spiritus "which means breath. As we breath the air fills our lungs, fuels our blood and courses through our being. As we call back the lost pieces of our Spirit we are infused with life and with a lightness of heart.

Once we become healed and whole, we realize our function is creative and expressive. What will you create with your life? What works of art, works of heart will you call your own at the end of this journey through this time and this space? Will your art be relationship, career, decor, landscape, poetry, writing, or other human lives touched by the brightness of your own soul. Dear ones, do not forget who you are. Return to the mythical garden of Eden.

The garden is inside your heart, waiting to be tended, waiting to be cultivated into a myriad expression of life and light and color. Dig inside, find the hard soil in rocky hearts and feed it. Spirit plants the seeds; what soil will they fall on? Fertilize them with your self-love, nurture them with the company of those who support you, shade them with rest, water them with tears, and in the soil washed clean, you will grow into the beautiful being that you are. You are the garden, of the garden, in the garden. Once you re-member, once you discover your wholeness and perfection, you will flower and bloom into your unique expression.

This mask calls us to remember that your life is unique -- you are unique. Out of the ashes, the phoenix bird arises, given new life. You are healed! You are free! Where will you fly? Will you choose careers and relationships that are right for everyone else but you, or will you create the ones you love? The sun shines brightly on your life. Every day is a new opportunity to create life as you would like it to be. Why color inside the lines? Life is messy!

Being human means being imperfect, or more accurately realizing that we are perfect in spite of what we label imperfection. Open your mouth! Speak your truth! Walk your talk! Wear your colors! Stand tall and be proud of who you are. Healed and whole, your function is creative. Live your life as a work of art. Express beauty in all that you say and do. What a wonderful tapestry we will weave together, each of us different facets of the same gem called humanity. Sparkle with your own light and live the life that is authentically yours!

Consciousness Cleanse Day 1: The Gift of Desire

2011-01-18T13:50:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Day 1 of the 21-Day Consciousness Cleanse. I'm thrilled that you've chosen to join me in this journey. I promise you that this is a day that can radically alter your life and bring about significant, important and inspiring changes. On Day 1, it's imperative that you bring forth your soul's greatest desire, that you pick one goal to achieve in the outer world and one goal to achieve in your inner world in the next 21 days.

You might ask, "Why is this important?" It is because desire is the spark that ignites the flame of your soul and illuminates your innate creativity, imagination and vision. On this day, you will summon one of the most powerful agents of change in the universe—desire. In its purest form, your soul's desire is a magnet pulling you toward the life you want to live. Your desires will source you with the inspiration to release your outdated beliefs and let go of whatever behavior is keeping you stuck in the past. Your soul's desires compel you to grow, evolve and move closer to your highest potential. Beneath the surface of your ego's insatiable cravings, your authentic desires are waiting patiently for you to acknowledge, claim and express them.

So today is the day for you to evoke two desires for 2010 that will lead you to joy, fulfillment and the next greatest evolution of yourself. These desires will act as your guide and your focus point through this life-altering process.

Take these next few minutes to go inside to that place where you have all the wisdom you need to live a life you love.

Listen to your meditation on desire (8 minutes)

Cleansing Ritual

Write down the area of your life that most needs your attention right now and then write out all the details you saw of your soul's vision for this part of your life. What will that part of your life look like? How will achieving your goal change your life? How will it change the life of those around you? When you reach your goal, when you fulfill that desire, what will it make room for? Write that all down.

Then write down your inner goal. What is the one feeling you desire to feel most this year? How will you act differently if you were feeling that feeling all the time? How would people around you benefit? What would be different in your world?Write it out in great detail.

Soulful Action

Your Outer Goal: What is one action you can take today that will move you one step closer to your soul's vision? Make a commitment to take that action.

Your Inner Goal: What is one action you can take or one thought you can think that will support you in having more of the feeling you most desire?Take that action or think that thought today.

Soul Food: I am worthy of living my heart's desires.

Debbie Ford is the national best - selling author of The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, The Secret of the Shadow, Spiritual Divorce, The Right Questions, The Best Year of Your Life and Why Good People Do Bad Things. Her new book is The 21-Day Consciousness Cleanse (Harper Collins). She conducts workshops across the country. She lives in California with her family.

More from Debbie Ford

Are you ready for the 21-day cleanse? Take this quiz!
Read an excerpt from the book
Learn more about the consciousness cleanse

Get Debbie Ford's exercises and audio meditations delivered straight to your in-box. Sign up now for our daily Thought for Today newsletter.

How to Find Your Inner Creativity

2010-12-26T15:08:00.000-08:00

Adapted from: "How to find your Creator State" by Sandra Walter

How do I honor my creativity?

Step One: Do your homework
Step Two: Give your ego a vacation
Step Three: Remove doubt
Step Four: Start in a supportive environment
Hold on: You may be wondering ...
Step Five: Breathe
Step Six: Create with abandon
Step Seven: Surrender to the art

Step one: Do your homework

Artists, just as athletes practice to perform their best. No artist can produce their best work without practice. Practice is to art what exercise is to the body. When your body is stronger,
more flexible, and has endurance, your day-to-day tasks become effortless. When you practice your craft, either in quick workouts or in marathons, your mind and body become accustomed to your art.

When your mind and body are at ease with the task at hand, your spirit is free. You are not preoccupied with the process of your art. You don’t ponder where to land the brush, or search for your lines, or remember the next step. The mechanics of your art become second nature.

Regular art practice makes the technical portion of your craft a no-brainer. You no longer think about the activity itself. This leaves your art open to inspiration, where something less physical can take place. It is similar to regular meditation; when the body is at peace, the soul opens to possibilities.

Regular practice of your art paves a faster route to creative clarity.

Step Two: Give your ego a vacation

We spend so much time with our own egos. We need to take separate vacations to allow something new to happen in our art. Pack your ego’s getaway bag with everything it needs to survive; fear, self-doubt,
judgment, and your personal hang-ups, and send it somewhere warm and sunny for a while.

It can be challenging to dismiss what people think of your performance (or of you personally). Artists have egos, some larger than others. Your ego can be a great tool when the art is finished. It can help you market yourself, brag about your last great review, audition for that intimidating company, or talk about your work to strangers in the gallery. All of those are excellent outlets for your ego’s special skills.

But our pushy, worrisome ego has no place in our creative time. Ego can hinder us with judgment and fear, which can shape our work into false forms. The need to shock, please, flatter, laugh, delight – all of these ego-based needs can influence our work if we allow it.

If we are worrying about how we look on stage, or if our art will shake the audience enough to make us memorable, or if our dance shows off our best moves, how can we create? Be present with your creative energy alone. Give it your complete attention.

Step three: Remove doubt

Doubt is the block to end all blocks. This is the most difficult hurdle standing between you and the rich experience of your Creator State. The egoless activity you are about to engage in may attract nagging, relentless doubts. They may look like this:

I should be more (insert any judgmental adjective here: crazy, free, quiet, bold, loud, mysterious, wild, talented, attractive, smart, abstract).
I can’t feel anything, I’m a hack.
I am not going to change the world, why bother.
It’s just a small performance, I can skate through this one.
My art is never going to sell.
I can’t create anything new, everything has been done to death.

You get the idea.

Doubt comes in many forms, and loves to grab us at that last second before we cross over to our Creator State. Doubt is a product of your ego and your personal experience. Dismiss your doubts as soon as possible. What will start rising is the curiosity and inner feeling to find something magical in your work.

Step Four: Select a supportive environment

After the homework is done, after the ego and doubt removal are complete, you are ready to give this new sensation a go. Your first venture can be alone or with others, as long as you are in a supportive, safe environment. Try to make your first attempt a rehearsal, not opening night or when you have a deadline. Not for your first time. You need as little stress as possible.

You may want to try it alone to ease your self-consciousness. It depends on your medium and what the wise Julia Cameron calls your “vein of gold”. Use whatever your strong suit is for creating, in the medium where your most passionate work has been crafted.

It will be much easier to find your Creator State in your most productive medium. Most of us have a few areas where we shine. Pick the one you love the most.

If you’re in a rehearsal situation with others, you might want to mention to your director or conductor that you’ll be experimenting. Or mention it to a colleague. While you won’t be straying from the structure of the piece, you’ll want to be able to take action on impulses you receive while in your Creator State.

Trust the creative process and free yourself up for some fun.

Hold on: You may be wondering…

What about the script? The score? The choreography? My series of architectural photos? Rest easy, the goal of your piece stays intact. The state of consciousness we are talking about is a level above the base
mechanics of plot, scene, or subject. Most artists have a goal in mind when working. You are typically trying to create “something”. Even if it’s an improv or a painting and you don’t know where it will lead,
you still want to create something in a given amount of time. It’s what you do with that act of creation which is unique.

Once you understand the basic technical aspects of your craft, then you can take steps toward the Creator State. The roadmap of plot, score, or choreography is the journey. Your interpretation of that journey is where the Creator State comes into play.

So, in summary:

Trust your personal creative urges.
Take a risk, take a plunge.
Release your new work into the world.
Be more authentic to your true creative self, your deepest desires and yearnings.
Refine your creative choices. Be true to your authentic creativity and contribute to the process of life itself.
Contribute to your creative field and contribute in an authentic way.

I wish you much love, light and courage on your creative journey!

Finding Innocence Once Again...

2010-12-24T20:04:00.000-08:00

Twice in the past month, I’ve drawn the Two of Cups. It’s one of the most beautiful cards in my Tarot deck. A man and woman stand together with two cups, locked in a deep trance. They are in love, and—I think—so am I.

I step into this thought, just bare toes on the water, and wait to drop into the sea and feel nothing again. I am fluttering, hopeful, terrified, and elated, all at once. But I am alive, and I feel…something. Something that isn’t hurt and grief and anger and betrayal and devastation. Something I haven’t felt in a long time.

I see Robyn to tell her what I’ve discovered, but she already knows. My eyes have a sparkle in them. She tells me I sound like a teenager, and she just loves it. She’d been afraid I would become bitter toward all men, given my marriage, and she gets a kick out of hearing me describe what I like about this man and the way my voice softens and lilts when I say his name.

Thinking this news will make my mother and another good friend feel more secure about my new and independent life, I tell her I think I’m in love, but she doesn’t want to hear it. Why would I be interested in another man and so soon after my divorce? Would this stop my ex and me from getting back together? Maybe it would be better to let my ex remarry before I fall in love with someone new, she says.

Disappointed, I tell her nothing else.

I should quit while I’m ahead, but I don’t. This new feeling is exciting and I want to talk about it. I tell two other friends over lunch because they want to know why I keep smiling to myself. They want to hear all the dirt, so I describe this man and his sense of integrity and the way he makes me feel all shiny and new. They note the lightness in my voice, even a giggle, and then tease me until I have tears in my eyes. They take a happy moment and shred it. I don’t finish my dessert, but I feel stupid and childish, and I cross their company off my list. They tell me I’m being too sensitive and shouldn’t be upset with them.

None of it changes the way I feel. I’m totally and completely besotted with this man and didn’t know it. I can’t tell him this, not yet. I have to know if there’s a spark there first or if I’m the only one who’s smoldering. I don’t want to make the mistake of confessing to someone who isn’t ready to hear that I am madly and deeply in love because he opened a gateway, a portal of love.

So I tamp down the feelings. I swallow them. I choke on them. Along with so many other feelings I’ve had that I wasn’t “allowed” to have during the course of my adolescence and later my marriage. I’m not allowed to feel anger because, I’m told, it’s morally wrong. I should be forgiving instead. I’m not allowed to feel joy because too many people see that as bragging or selfishness. I should feel selflessness instead. I’m not allowed to feel grief or despair because then I’m accused of needing anti-depressants or even, as one friend hinted, a suicide watch. I should feel calm and rational. And I’m not allowed to be in love because it’s too soon, too childish, too…whatever.

I choke on my feelings, and they settle into my fifth chakra, right at my throat. I swallow them but they stick in my throat and won’t go down and won’t come up. I can’t breathe. And yet...what I want to express...is I have deep feelings for this man.

She laughs at me. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Yeah, well, everyone else seems to think so. And I don’t know what to do about them, so they must not be good. I’m expected to have separation anger and grief and everyone wants to know if I’m having those and well, good, now swallow them and get on with your life. But these feelings are different.” I describe my affections and the reasons for them, and she stops me.

“Aw, honey, it’s okay to have feelings. Feelings are good. And these are good feelings. Just enjoy them. You don’t have to express them to this man or to anyone else. Just enjoy them for what they are.”

These feelings do feel good. I could get lost in enjoying them. I could want to drag them out and make them last a long, long time.

“It’s been so long since I’ve felt this way,” I tell my healer.

She laughs again. “I can hear it in your voice. It’s like you’ve become a virginal maiden all over again.

You get all giggly and feel like a teenager around him instead of the calm, cool, and collected businesswoman that nothing fazes. It’s very sweet and wonderful. Just enjoy that feeling.”

Before I can say anything else, she adds, “Honey, don’t you see? You might very well have written off all men after your marriage, but instead, here is a man who has touched you deeply and rekindled an innocence in you that you thought you’d lost forever. You don’t have to say anything to him or to anyone else. Just breathe through your feelings and explore them.”

And now I have tears in my eyes again because my healer has revealed to me that:

I’ve reclaimed an innocence I thought was dead.

I’ve found a part of myself that I locked away a long time ago.

And I’ve fallen in love when I least expected it.

How to Let Go & Trust In Your Spiritual Self: Part 1

2010-12-24T11:23:00.000-08:00

Many people working on the personal development and self-discovery hear the words "just let go," or "just let it all go and trust." Unfortunately, many teachers do not break this down and explain exactly how to do that.

1
Living at the spiritual level

Perhaps you know people who seem to always have the best of luck in everything they do. These people always seem to be in the right place at the right time and have fantastic luck. They don't get sick, they are never the victims of crime, they seem to have great relationships, and they always appear to have plenty of money. This good fortune is not a product of their education, their family background, their jobs, or their exercise programs. It's a product of how they 'think!'

These people have released the need to 'control' everything in their lives. They understand there is a 'physical way' to live, as well as a 'spiritual way' to live. We have our physical bodies, but we also have a spirit/soul. Most people choose to live on the 'physical' level only, and neglect the 'spiritual' level.

While we have to live in our bodies in the physical realm, we can also cultivate our spiritual realm and allow it to shape and guide how we live our physical life. We are always aware of our physical world, but we should be living in this world with a spiritual mindset...on a spiritual level. We have to live IN this world, but not OF it.

To 'let go' you must "unlearn many of the things you have spent your entire life learning." We are 'conditioned' from a young age to worry about our family, our relationships, our jobs, our security, and everything else in our lives that we want to improve. We are taught to compete and outdo everyone else.

This is backward thinking because the more we worry about these things the more need and want and lack we attract into our lives. By choosing to release all the worry and trusting that God's Source and our true nature will lead us to abundance, prosperity, joy, peace, happiness, and health, we invoke the cooperative power of nature and our true Source emerges in our spiritual self.

2
Allow life's natural rhythms to flow into and through you

When you stop the worry, stress, and fear, you allow life's natural rhythms to flow into and through you. You tap into incredible 'freedom' of tension, anxiety, and worry. You are in harmony and alignment with God's true natural Source. You simply have to choose to think differently and attempt to go through your daily life from your spiritual realm and stop living solely on your physical level. It's a matter of how you choose to think.

Instead of telling yourself "I must do this and I must do that to control what happens to me," tell yourself "I do not need to control everything. I am spiritually open to allowing all good things to flow into my life. I trust my instincts and God's nature to guide me." This change in thinking will guide you to live in the flow of your spiritual realm and open your mind up to new possibilities.

When your spiritual realm governs your life rather than your limited physical realm, your entire outlook on life changes.

Try to stop holding onto control of your life so tightly and allow your life to flow naturally and easily. This is tough for many people to grasp because they feel if they don't exert extreme control of everything in their lives it will all get away from them. The truth is, the more you attempt to control things in your life, the harder it becomes to hang onto them.

When you worry you attract even more worry to your life. When you're stressed out, you attract more stress. When you're anxious, you attract more anxiety. Try to relax in everything you do during your day and loosen the death grip of control you think you need in your life. Stop trying to make everything happen according to what you think must happen, and begin to let things happen according to the natural flow of your life.

When you decide to relax your grip of control on your life, you will begin to experience much more peace, joy, and happiness. You will curb the automatic emotional impulses you think are necessary to control all outcomes in your life. Become clear and focus on what you want your life to be like and all the things you want to have, then 'let go all worry, stress, and anxiety about having them' and look for these desires and dreams to flow into your life at the right time naturally. You cannot force it with control.

3
When you control, you miss out on wonderful adventures

When you attempt to control everything in your life you miss out of the wonderful adventures of living. Life is a journey of wonderful experiences if you let them unfold in their own natural way. If you cling too tight with the death grip of control you suffocate many of life's beautiful experiences and adventures.

Next time you are worrying, uptight, stressed, and anxious, think of a mental picture of your hands around your own throat. Stop suffocating your life with too much control. Relax, let go, and trust God's natural plan for you.

By not trying so hard and attempting to control every little thing in your life you will 'free' yourself and allow more of what you want to happen in life flow to you. Attempting to control everything blocks the flow of your desires and dreams to enter your life. By loosening up the grip of control you eliminate the blocks that are keeping your desires from entering your life.

No matter what seems to be missing from your life-maybe a special person to love, a special place you desire, a special thing you deeply want, a certain lifestyle, or a feeling of well being-release and let go of the need to control these outcomes and let God's Source fill these voids in your life.

Your spiritual power is always available and present in your life if you choose to use it. Your spiritual side will fill you fully with a new understanding, light, hope, and life. It will fill every void and emptiness you think is present in your life if you allow it. Relax, let go and trust your divine nature to disolve all worry, fear, and doubt in your life.

Whenever you experience any worry, fear, doubt, or need to control things during your day tomorrow remember to immediately relax, shift to your spiritual realm, let go of all these feelings, and trust in your spiritual nature God gave you to guide you to the life you deserve.

A Course in Following Your Bliss

2010-12-17T16:21:00.000-08:00

Magical transformation
through love
by being given
(or giving one’s self)
permission
to do what you really want to do
and be who you really are.

Honoring a promise brings fortune!

The Fool

Follow your bliss! Follow your bliss! Know what your bliss is!!! Follow your bliss!

t’s therefore the card that offers you permission to go off on your own great and profound personal quest, just like Percivale did. (And he became one of the three greatest knights of all, y’all!)

The important aspect (and for some of us, the hard work) is: to actually KNOW what our bliss is (or would be/could be).

Because you see, when we get kinda down or times are tough, THAT is often the first knowing or believing that goes RIGHT out the window.

So, as I have written before, this is the somewhat rambling response I’ve given to a few clients when they’ve asked,

Follow my bliss?

What the hell does that mean?

You start by knowing what your heart’s true desire is [provided it's moral, of course. And pretty close to legal.] If necessary, take some time to hone your understanding of what that means to you, for today, anyway. Do it over an extra cuppa if that’s all the time you have. But do it.

Do!! It!!!!

Then, no matter how impossible or illogical it may seem, like −

I’m gonna write a children’s story about an orphan boy who goes to a school for wizards, and it’s going to be so beautifully done it’s going to earn me enough to support myself and my family for the rest of my life. In fact, it’s going to make me the first person to ever earn a billion dollars from writing fiction! [Like THAT could ever happen!]

− take your first single SMALL step on the path that follows your bliss.

And see what that leads to.

Then take the next step.

And see what that leads to. And so on.

The difference between The Fool and some other Tarot cards that offer permission to follow your own unique path is that The Fool in particular says,

“Stay connected to your heart, moment by moment.

Know that your heart may change, and so your direction may change, moment by moment. But DO NOT allow yourself to think less of yourself, your efforts or your path because of that. Go where your heart tells you and you will achieve more than most will ever even hope for.”

This is the card of the Sacred Fool, the Holy Fool; the one who is open to divine inspiration and honors it by following his or her bliss, harm to none and love for all, always.

Let me remind you [troooooo-leeee for the umpteenth time] of how The Fool’s gift once applied to me.

We humans, with our nearly angelic powers and potentials, side by side with the reality of how we ignore them, or maybe even worse, use them in ways that are just plain selfish, demeaning, destructive and stupid, moment by moment.

And I got the very clear message that a big chunk of the problem is that we are following old habits, old programming. NOT following our bliss. Not honoring that which is angelic in us. Not reaching for that which is for our Highest and Best.

But we can.

And then I came into the office and drew The Fool card and found great blessing in the message that that there is ALWAYS the possibility of doing it all differently

IF we know our hearts truly truly;

IF we honor that which truly resonates for the Highest and Best, which is always one with OUR Highest and Best;

IF we follow our bliss.

Wishing you a day of magic, and the sacred, and your true path.

Brightest Blissings!

Quote for the Day: All I’m gonna do is just go on and do what I feel. ~ Jimi Hendrix

PAGE OF SWORDS

Identify, own and begin a positive, deep and bright personal transformation. TODAY! This card has the symbolism of a snake.

Snake symbolizes:

1. transformation and rebirth (the snake sheds its skin, and in that process experiences rebirth; it has become a new creature and a creature renewed)

2. healing (the Rod of Asklepios, Greek God of Healing and Medicine, was entwined by a snake, and snakes were sacred totem animals, guardians and helpers at the temples of dream healing dedicated to him)

3. subconscious wisdom (knowledge of the Shamanic Lower World, which is almost universally understood to be a place of deep and beautiful healing as well as a place of ancient and traditional wisdom)

4. masculine energy (any questions on this one? Go back to our friend Freud)

5. clandestine affairs (the sneaky sneaky sneaky snakey)

So when the Page of Swords shows up for a client, I’m likely to ask him or her

~ what kind of deep personal transformation have you been longing for?

~ how can you be open to a rebirth − for personal and/or planetary healing?

~ how can you connect with deeper and perhaps archaic or ancestral wisdom, (Shamanic journeying, deep meditation, magic, prayerwork ) and to what purposes?

~ how can you go after these things in a direct, vigorous, perhaps even forceful way?

~ how will you test for integrity – in yourself, no less than in those around you?

Also, this card indicates that it may be a good idea to be more than normally open to help or guidance from someone of substantial masculine energy: a positive, powerful man or a strong and wise woman-warrior type, for example.

So, given all that:

What is the deep, positive and bright personal transformation you can own and begin TODAY? DO IT!

Bright blessings and beautiful, healing transformation!

THE UNIVERSE

The Universe is your oyster. It will give you your fondest wishes, if you will be clear within yourself about those wishes, be true to those wishes, hold them close moment by moment, and honor them.

As I said before, this is absolutely one of the most glorious, hope-filled positive cards in the deck, so PLEASE know that such energy is available to and for you today. Don’t waste the vibe by talking yourself out of what may be!

The card in the Legend deck pictures a Goddess/dancer moving ecstatic and free under the stars within Stonehenge (the Giants’ Dance, as it was once known). Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the deck, finds this card to be a harbinger of liberation, the attainment of a long-sought goal, and the culmination of events, efforts and experiences from the past. [So listen for advice and take to heart the good wishes of others who would offer or encourage you toward such positive culminations.]

Some readers find assured success, emigration and a change of place in this card. Others see a promise that the querent – the person having the reading done − will become all that she or he can and more IF he or she is only confident enough.

[Need me to repeat that for ya?]

You will become all you can and more if you are confident enough!

As I sometimes say to clients in my readings, “Remember: you’re really never too old to become a Mouseketeer, if you want to.”

When this card comes up, I ask clients:

What would dancing free under the stars be for you?

What would give you that sense of

freedom, and

security, and

elation, and

ecstasy, and

connection to beautiful and eternal and renewing Source and its most healing , empowering rhythms?

Now:

what can you do

and

what will you do

to begin to give that to yourself? NOW!

The Universe is your oyster. It will give you back your fondest wishes, if you will be clear within yourself about those wishes, be true to those wishes, hold them close moment by moment, and honor them.

In our daily lives, we very often become wrapped up in the seeming necessities — or easy ways out — of the moment. We lose track of our more profound, more eternal and inspiring hopes, wishes, beliefs − and powers.

So, starting today, reconnect with that higher, more hopeful vision of yourself and your life.

KNOW that you have all that is necessary to bring it into being.

This is a card of successful completion, harmony and lasting happiness.

Believe!

Bright blessings!

[And please share this card with someone who needs a little boost today.]

Quote for the Day: Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. ~ Albert Einstein

ACE OF SWORDS

Undertake a quest for a new beginning in a way that is firm yet considerate of the law: WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND!

This card last turned for us way back in May. And just a month before that. And less than two weeks before that. So, aside from me, IS THERE ANYBODY NOT PAYING SUFFICIENT ATTENTION TO THIS CARD? I mean it. Really! Own up. Right. Attention. Right? Right.

All right, boys and girls, ALL TOGETHER NOW:
Aces in any Tarot deck are cards of a new beginning.

Therefore:
~ How can you (how do you need to) begin your life anew, today, right now?
~ What changes can you begin, even in ways that may seem small?
~ What potentials can you believe in, hope for, reach for and remember?

When the Ace of Swords comes up in a reading, as it did in a big way for a client earlier this week, I say something like:

Your new beginning has to do with going on an adventure, of giving yourself permission to go after something that really sets your heart and soul on fire.
Please understand, if you undertake this quest, it very well may involve the release of some element of your life that no longer serves you.

Should you find that to be the case, strive to let the release be as quick and clean as possible, a very skillful surgery.

I’ll stand by that.

But as I’ve worked with clients who have had this card come up, I’ve also come to perceive that the adventure, the new beginning and the release tend to have an aspect of destiny to them: we often find that the person has reached a point where they must make some choices to move forward in order to evolve as their life offers them the potential to do.

And what I often see is, in doing so, they do very well to remember that even big changes can be initiated and made without creating negative karma. And I’m going to keep telling myself that until I believe it.

By the way, I have also found that this card betokens a positive outcome for skillfully undertaken literal surgery.

(And for some people, the adventure they decide to go on, and the “surgery” of the release they decide to make, can lead to a profound healing of the romantic side of life as well.)

What is your new beginning? What adventure does your destiny call you to − beginning today? What may you be called to release?

Undertake your quest in a way that is firm yet considerate of the law:
WHAT GOES AROUND
COMES AROUND

Bright blessings and joyous adventures!

PAGE OF CUPS

Know what wisdom you seek. Begin or ramp up your search or endeavor now. Give your creativity more free play in your life. Now!

Saw this fellow last in early September. It’s a card with counsel that’s good for a regular reminding. So can we all try to pay a little contention this time? Huh?

In Celtic legend, Salmon is considered the wisest of all creatures. He dwells in a great well overhung by the Hazel, the tree of knowledge. As the fruit (hazel nuts) of the tree drop into the well, Salmon eats of them, growing greater and deeper and truer in wisdom.

When this card shows up for a client, I share about the legend and then say something like,

First of all, this card is a call to find meaningful opportunities to seek wisdom and increase your knowledge – scholarly pursuits may be perfect just now. So get started on that immediately if you feel some call to do so.

Beyond that, Page of Cups is a card of creativity. So be prepared to explore how you may begin or expand creative projects starting today. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Today.

And in many traditions, The Fish represents spirituality. Salmon is one of the only creatures on the Earth who returns to its place of birth to procreate. So this card speaks of a primal, powerful drive toward reconnection with Source − with The Divine, with Ultimate Reality, whatever name you choose to give to it. Or perhaps a drive to return to a place you consider sacred — perfect at any time of the year, no?

Some readers find the Page of Cups represents

a fair young person,

meditation,

an imaginative, reflective, inspiring friend

So if any of these pop up in meaningful ways today [including via an email Tarot card, already], eagerly accept the gifts they bring.

What this card recommends and requests, all in all, is

Know what wisdom you seek.

Begin or ramp up your search or endeavor now.

Give your creativity more free play in your life.

Open to very solid and inspiring reconnection with Source in beautiful, meaningful, transcendent ways.

DO IT TODAY.

DO IT TODAY.

DO IT TODAY.

Bright blessings, grace and peace!

Quote for the Day: The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. ~ Albert Einstein

THE MOON

Work with your dreams. Seek the change that is desirable now. Honor and empower the feminine aspects in you. Own your magic and use it. Today.

We last saw this card back toward the end of July.

The Moon is another one of those cards that has different meanings depending on who you studied with, where ya come from, and − if you’re a good reader and not just a good memorizer − the kinds of things you find your clients have gone through when The Moon turns up to guide them.

Some readers say The Moon warns of darkness, hidden dangers and instability. Others stress the “Moony” aspects of fluctuating emotion, high levels of unconscious activity and intense dreams. I find I can accept that more easily.

For me, The Moon is first of all a card that betokens change.

Perhaps the change should be rhythmical and constantly evolving, like the changing of the moon itself.

In some cases I’ve intuitively perceived it to be a warning that a client should change course, NOW!

At times I’ve found it indicative of the need to accept that change will come, so get to work on determining what would be the best, happiest, most fruitful and healing way to have it – so a substantial change doesn’t just get handed to you half-baked on a paper plate.

In this deck, because of the card’s embodiment as Morgan Le Fay, I find The Moon to have other important qualities and messages. First, it is a card of feminine empowerment. So − assuming you are of the feminine gender − own your power not just as a person, but as a woman. And let yourself contemplate what that distinction might most fully mean to and for you.

Of course, if you’re masculine, this card directs that you more fully own your connection to the divine feminine, or to the artistic, intuitive, perhaps even Dionysian elements in your life.

And whether you are male or female, masculine or feminine, The Moon is a card that commands you to own your magic – whatever you understand that to be – and use it fully and well for the highest and best of all.

Work with your dreams. Seek the change that is desirable now. Honor and empower the feminine aspects in you. Own your magic and use it. Today.

Bright blessings and… YOUR magic!

Quote for the Day: The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water; but to walk on the earth. ~ Chinese Proverb

QUEEN OF SWORDS

Be very strategic. Be clear about what you want, why you want it, the impact it will have on you and your world, and what it will take to attain your goal. Then follow the plan that comes naturally from this knowing.

This card certainly betokens being strategic in our lives and in our world – as I’ll talk about in a bit. That could, if you let it, lead to the question, “What is the difference between strategy and tactics?”

[God knows, I confuse the two about every chance I get. Which helps explain why I drive an old Toyota instead of a new BMW, I guess.]

Strategy is the big picture look at a problem, situation or goal.

It focuses on the sea-change-sized thing that needs to be achieved. Defeating an enemy, preserving the ecology, earning a living as a Tarot reader − those are strategies. Concepts like objective, maneuver and security are among the principles of strategy. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War teaches strategy.

Tactics vary with circumstances, time and technology.

As I’ve written before when this card has appeared, if I were to guide you in marketing yourself as a Tarot reader for the eighteenth century, I’d suggest you get a beautiful snug little cart, paint it in wild and wonderful colors, and travel the roads from town to town to town in order to find new clients. And stay ahead of the sheriff.

If I were advising you to be a Tarot reader this year, I’d talk about blogs, web sites, apps, podcasting opportunities, corporations having you on retainer and maybe even securing sponsorships to help find new clients. And stay ahead of the sheriff.

[As you can probably suspect from this blog in general, I still think that snug little cart thing sounds pretty good.]

So, tactics present a small picture perspective where individual trees are in focus, and dealing with them one by one is the action. Strategy focuses on the big picture of the entire forest, and whether to preserve it, napalm it, or something in between.

Got it?

Goodie!

Me, I’m as lost as ever.

Where was I?

Oh. Yeah. Believe it or not, this all has to do with what the Queen of Swords would tell us about our day, and possibly our future.

As I always say to my clients,

I love the Queen of Swords. If anyone ever crosses her, disappoints her or gets in her way, she doesn’t get mad. She just has them beheaded. ‘Nothing personal,’ she’ll say.

(That is a tactic to eliminate an obstacle. The strategy behind the tactic is to ensure that her reputation will precede her and scare absolute hell out of those who might think to oppose her, or mess her about in any way.)

The Queen is a master of BOTH strategy and tactics. And your ability to work –consciously — with strategy and tactics is what you are being asked to explore within yourself and your situation today. The Queen is intelligent, and may in fact be a scholar or have a strong scholarly bent, especially when circumstances dictate she must. She will do what is necessary to learn what may be essential for her to succeed.

So, if you need to learn something new beginning today, don’t resist. Get started! It will be worth your while.

Most importantly [at least as I have experienced this card in working with clients], if the Queen wants to get from point A to point B, she will take the time to clearly and accurately understand WHY she should do that (strategy), and determine every baby step necessary to move her from where she is to her goal (tactics). Just as important, she will exert the will to hold herself to every single step. She’ll take unexpected breaks if they come her way, but she’ll muster the grit to grind it out every inch of the way if she must.

So be clear about

~ what you want,

~ why you want it,

~ the impact it will have on you and your world,

~ and what it will take to attain your goal.

~ Learn what may be necessary to help you succeed.

~ Then put yourself on the path to your goal.

~ And if anyone gets in your way, don’t take it personal.

[Ummm… I mean, just find a way to cut him out of the situation. And keep on moving on.]

Bright blessings!

Quote for the Day: Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ~ Mark Twain

EIGHT OF WANDS

How can you liberate yourself, your creativity, your spirit today? What do you need or what can you do so that you can JUST GO FOR IT!!!?

It’s a good card to have come up in an emotionally charged season.

Liberation can ALSO involve freedom from from prejudice and hate, but also, from preconception and emotional baggage. So please bear those elements in mind as you review what the card has to offer.

As I have said before [and I now realize I say with conspicuous regularity], “Ahhhhhh, yes. Yepper, yepper, yep, yessirino! Another card where my interpretation veers semi-wildly off in a direction of its own.”

My offering about this card is based on a Shamanic Journey I once did asking about its meaning. (To find out more about Journeying, see the category of Shamanism on my web page, at http://shamanspath.org/index_ShamanicJourneyIntro.htm.)

Other readers give this card meanings like speed, action, movement toward opportunity, a test of skill, and an adventure. It’s considered a good omen.

So if any of those are what you need today, by all means grab ’em and run! Run!!!

I see the Eight of Spears as the card of utter, total complete liberation. It’s an indicator that it is time for you to explore for yourself:

how it is that you may give yourself

more freedom to

go where you want to go

when you want to go there

by the means and

at the speed of your own choosing.

Given that, you KNOW my questions if you were my client would start with something like,

SO! How are you keeping yourself confined?

How are you confining yourself in ways that are no longer appropriate for who you have become and what you may give to the world?

How can you open yourself to a liberation − in your thinking, your behavior, your belief in what is possible and your understanding of how you may go about achieving that possibility?

Please remember that one way in which you may need to… um, try something different is to just freakin’ go for it. It may be a little uncomfortable, but at least it’s owning who you are and freeing yourself up so you can move along YOUR path. [Harm to none and love for all, of course.]

So:

How can you liberate yourself, your creativity, your spirit today? What do you need or what can you do so that you can JUST GO FOR IT!!!?

Bright, free, inspiring blessings!

ACE OF CUPS

What is your Holy Grail? What is the highest, most perfect ideal you can strive for? What is the purest, most positive thing you can aspire to do? Who or what is the best, most brilliant, most caring version of yourself you can seek to become? Starting today, this minute, how can you honor THAT knowing, THAT aspect, THAT vision of yourself and your life?

We last saw this card almost precisely two months ago. And it’s a wonderful, beautifully spiritual card, so it’s perfect that it has come back around in this season, as all the fairy magics fire up for the long Winter dreaming!

Some spiritual traditions consider this season among the times when veils between the realm of ordinary reality and the realms of spirit are notably thin. So PLEASE take advantage of the energies and openings today in a sacred, loving and healing way.

Aces in any Tarot deck are cards of a new beginning. So, that being the case, how can you (how would you like to or how do you need to) begin your life anew, today, right now? What changes can you begin, even in small ways? What potentials can you believe in, hope for, reach for and remember? (And you can expect The Universe will keep asking that question until you most assuredly remember to ask it alla tyme bya youseff!)

In any Tarot deck, the Ace of Cups is interpreted as a card of abundance, joy and even divine inspiration. [Ahem!] Some readers speak of this as a card of tremendously uplifting energy. [Ahem! Ahem!]

There have been many visions of what the Grail may really be.

~ Some have seen it as the vessel from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. Or a vessel from which he drank while on the cross.

~ Some perceive it as one of the Great Magical Cauldrons of Celtic spirituality.

~ Others have thought it a huge jewel broken from the crown of Lucifer when he was cast out of heaven. [Me, I've always thought Lucifer got a bad rap. What if he really WAS a light-bringer, and religious bigotry and opposition simply worked to dog him down? Eh? That could never happen. Eh?]

~ It has even been written that the Grail is a great crystal at the juncture between the Shamanic upper, lower and middle worlds, and that our ordinary reality world balances upon its tip.

I see this card as being about regeneration − which makes sense, as so many of the objects mentioned here are mystical, magical, regenerative tools.

The Ace of Cups asks that we be open to rebirth, perhaps a spiritual rebirth, and that we begin to seek it today.

Most importantly for me, our culture has come to see the Grail as a symbol of purity and perfection. So when I work with clients and this card comes up, I say,

What is your Holy Grail? What is the highest, most perfect ideal you can strive for? What is the purest, most positive thing you can aspire to do? Who or what is the best, most brilliant, most caring version of yourself you can seek to become?

Now, starting today, this minute, how can you honor THAT knowing, THAT aspect, THAT vision of yourself and your life?

It may take a little work, sure, but you’re certainly worth it! And so is the world you made your promises to.

Bright blessings, and a beautiful day full of magical early autumn!

Quote for the Day: I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now? ~ John Lennon

Love Yourself!

2010-12-13T08:40:00.000-08:00

Love every aspect of yourself, from your ugliest judgments to your highest moments of self-expression. We love your hate, disgust, confusion, lies & mistreatment of yourself and your environment. It’s not that we encourage or support this behavior, rather, it’s that we see it dissolving and revealing its true essence, the forgotten expression of a shared divinity. We in the higher-realms see that as we love you in your totality, as you are and are becoming, that in-turn you move closer to the light, you move closer to acting from your ultimate truth, which is a constant expression of heart-centered awareness. It may serve you to act as we do, expressing love to the pains & challenges you face, in your self and others, casting light into the shadows, no matter how dark.

Breathe softly in this moment and surrender your shame to God. Every single one of those who have forgotten have caused pain, acted selfishly & spread the sickness of fear, and every forgotten One forgot the same thing, that they all contain within the spark of the Universal Creator. Large spans of time out of synch with your Creator has accumulated a lack of self-love plague in the walls of your chakra channel and the time is now to clean house and reclaim your sacred dome-ain. This great cleansing comes through acting from Love to soften the field around you, widening the sacred branch that runs through your conduit.

Beloved Ones, your DNA repairs itself & enhances its potential from the love you extend and receive. Therefore, as each One of you outwardly expresses love, your capacity to receive love increases through the Law of Attraction. The beautiful message we bring to you is that when the Law of Attraction is souly programmed with love, you in-turn become more attractive. We mean “be-coming attractive” in the sense of all planes of existence, even physical. As your DNA repairs itself through the expansion of Love expression, a vast healing occurs within, dissolving old karmic soul wounds that have led to your appearance in the field, energetically, locally & physically.

We ask you to have Faith at this time that the Wisdom of Love has the power to heal all and bring about your greatest inner-desires. We see your yearning for freedom, play, fun and safety and we say to you that it is only through Love that these desires can become manifest. For those of you seeking abundance, we also encourage Love as your primary delivery method. Abundance comes to those who have opened themselves up to be attractive through love of self, inner, outer & ultimate. Find your self-love and there in you’ll find whatever you need exactly when you need it.

Remember, Beloved Ones, that loving the shadows is the greatest challenge, but as the Law of Attraction governs, those willing to take-on the channel of the challenge will receive the greatest gifts. You are awakening and the time is Now to love and to create in the space that Love illuminates. Love will attract creative, sexual manifestation energy your way, so Love today and get out and play. Watch children as they play from genuine love, learn from their ego-less joy. Appreciation, Beloved Ones, bridges all pain, sadness and sickness, so Be & Be Great-full for the Love around you and within you, and you just might begin to notice how much more love is actually present in so much you overlooked.

Awakening in essence is removing the blinders to the Love already present. Awakening altars time and space, as Love is the ever-lasting etching in the fabric of the cosmic curtains. The veils widen as you Love all that is. Love Yourself, Love the shit & Love the bliss, for unification comes from the appreciation of polarities.

Be In Love With Your Life!!!

2010-12-12T14:46:00.000-08:00

As humans we are blinded by your own light. We wait for the writing on the walls to explain the next step of the journey. But the next step of the journey is described and decreed by our own motions and emotions. When we deny our emotions, there is no motion in life. Our car stands still. our body stands still. Our paychecks stand still. Our very dreams stand still. Open up to explore the New World of you. You have come to the edge of your world. You have come to the edge of your expectations. Will you fall off?

Immerse yourself in this next leg of your journey. You are off the maps. You are off the screens and the satellites cannot find you. You are expanding faster than the speed of light, if you choose. The more that you hold tight to a state of motionlessness, the more your life will scream at you. Your life screams for its life. The entire universe has bet on you. Everything awaits your choices.

Earth is not meant to be hard. Humanness is a divine point of origin. Life is a gift. Flesh is a gift. Air is a gift. You are a gift. Love what you have created and let it love you. Honor what you have created. Honor whoever is in your heart, whoever is in your household, and whoever is in your life.

Love this point of creation that you are that you will be, and that you are becoming. The future is up to you. Each step you take into your fearlessness, each thing that you do in love -- no matter how small, ripples out and touches the universe. A great applause is heard throughout the heavens. You took one-step forward into fear, into love, into the future. You stepped away fearlessly. You stepped off the mountaintop knowing you could fly without fear.

Your life beckons you. Be in love. Not just with a person, or a body, or a new car – but with your every experience. Open up your heart to this next level of your experience. The entire Universe needs you. Whatever you yearn for – become it. Whatever you wish for – let it be your experience. Stop wishing for it – live it. Allow life to come into you and you to come into life, without regrets, without angers.

You are a fool on the cliff of the edge of your life...so LIVE LIVE LIVE it!!!!

"The world will be saved by the western woman"

2010-12-07T09:38:00.000-08:00

Recently, His Holiness the Dalai Lama made a proclamation that stunned the crowd at the recent Peace Summit in Vancouver: "The world will be saved by the western woman." Wow.

Most people I meet have a new fear--the fear of not being relevant, the fear of not making a difference, the fear of working on things that don't really matter in the important times of transition we live in. We're hungry to be part of making things better. We want to create, we want to do what we love again and find our voice. We sense intuitively that we have a critical role to play in shaping the future of our world. And yet, so many of us give in to excuses of not being good enough, young enough, smart enough, wealthy enough, creative enough. We still play small, still give in to the "victim" archetype. We still buy into what society's beliefs are and put them right above our own.

But we don't really have time for these fears. If I could create a vaccine, instead of the flu one, I'd create one against fear. It's what holds us back, every one of us, in every area of our life. And, while we're holding back, time just moves on faster than ever. We are at a critical time in the evolution of our planet, a time where each one of us is waking up. We feel it. Our intuition is growing more acute. Our inner microphone, as I like to call it, is getting harder and harder to turn off, so that we can't just go along with our normal day. There's a rise in consciousness where we feel more connected to others, a part of something bigger going on, where we each have a role to play. The most important thing isn't to get the promotion, or stay in the marriage, or lose those 10 pounds. The most important thing is for us to remember who we are--why we are here--to do the inner work and find what are our "spiritual" reasons for being on the planet. Yes we do have something great to accomplish. Now. At any age. Wherever we are.

I am passionate about having us all take back our power, whether it be from our spouses, our jobs, our kids, our parents, our weight, whatever or whomever we lent it to. Ask yourself: To whom have I given my power?

The energies for December: Faith

2010-12-01T10:22:00.000-08:00

Inspirational Message

Faith is the unshakable knowing of the heart when nothing makes sense to the mind.

Faith is the breath of God that animates our soul. the invisible force that holds hawks in the air and allows swimmers to float naked on their backs. We cannot see it, we can only feel it when we pay attention. When we doubt ourselves, our faith slips away and we become vulnerable to uncertainty. And this lessens our source of spiritual power, which is always available to us in times of misfortune, pain, and illness. It is normal to experience spiritual doubt. In fact, times of doubt can lead to our greatest transformative moments and is the 'can' opener to faith.

To travel with hope into the future is an act of great faith. It is the frontier of the fool, the great unknown and such a journey can bring with it a feeling of uncertainty. It is faith that teaches us to contemplate the invisible which is beyond our grasp; not through the power of knowledge.

Our faith connects the past to the future and gives us a kind of spiritual gravity. It reassures us that the Divine is in the future just as in the present and past. All that is unknowable is held within the Divine and that includes us, our families, friends, and all our collective well being; yesterday, today, and tomorrow in all ways.

It's okay to worry but also know that it is a potential doorway you can open and allow faith to enter. Fall out of your mindsets and have confidence your heart will catch you.

May you cultivate great faith and bright blessings this month. Wishing you and your loved ones a refreshed outlook and renewed perspective as we celebrate the light!

Be optimistic, be light, be an expression of faith in action!

The energies for November: Trust

2010-11-17T10:05:00.000-08:00

Inspirational Message

Move from a place of knowing within you rather than as a result of adaptation to outer experience. Let go of your assumptions and need to control life's creative process.

It does not matter what spiritual path you’re on, an ultimate sense of peace comes down to one question: Can you let go of the need to control your life, and trust there is a benevolent force guiding all that ever has, is, and will happen?

Trust is the soul's way of attuning to a fundamental law of reality. There is a deep rhythm that moves through all life that cannot be controlled by our will. When trust informs our experience, it allows our psyche to relax and our soul to be at peace with our situation. We can rest in unquestioned confidence that the universe provides, that we have and will receive what we really need. In fact, often beyond what we alone are even capable of imagining.

When we have a lot of basic trust, we are courageous and take risks. We don't suppress our competencies. We engage in life wholeheartedly, doing what feels appropriate with the confidence that it will work out. Life becomes a story of creation not an obstacle course.

Without basic trust, we tend react to what arises in accordance with our conditioning wanting our process to go one way or another. We cling to predetermined assumptions and outcomes. We become tense and contracted and do all we can to manipulate the circumstances to fit with our desires.

Here is a suggestion for changing the automatic internal response to external signals. When a traffic light turns yellow and there is a safe distance to stop before it turns red, what do you tend to do? Do you accelerate to 'make it through'? If so, this is a metaphor for what happens inside when our yellow worry light goes off — we accelerate; try harder, move faster, do more, all stress responses to our conditioning. Trust is the ability to stop and wait for the green light to signal the time to move forward again.

So, for the month of November, be gentle with yourself. Practice putting on the brakes when the light is yellow. Take a moment to pause and breathe in trust and the deeper rhythm of life while waiting for the green light to again signal you to go.

May Trust increase your capacity for loving thoughts and kind actions.

Love Affirmations: Loving Abundance

2010-09-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

Love Affirmations are statements that promote health and abundance in one’s life. I know how valuable it is because I’ve experienced the benefits of giving my self daily doses of love affirmations especially in moments when I become aware of my emotions moving toward an unpleasant path. I will therefore, focus my Love Affirmations for those episodes of self- doubt and bouts of unworthiness.

I love myself for who I am
I am beautiful inside and out
I am special in many unique ways
I love every part of me from, the tip of toes to the tips of my hair
I am endowed with an amazing body that functions perfectly
I am able to do wonderful things because of this body
I love and accept myself and honor every aspect of my physical self that makes me who I am
I am loving abundance expressed
I love all the knowledge I have and all the wisdom that comes to me each moment
I am blessed with a mind that comprehends things easily
I am a creative being capable of making life joyful and exciting
I love the lessons learned from daily experience
I am full of ideas to empower others and support them in their journey
I am able to communicate knowledge and wisdom to anyone effectively
I love and accept myself and honor all the thoughts of who I am
I am loving abundance articulated

I love the passion I have for life and unconditional love
I am eager to give boundless love to myself in order to lavish boundless love on others
I am keen on bestowing all things pleasurable to those I encounter each day
I love the talent and skills I possess
I am a creator of many amazing ways of expressing love to anyone I meet
I am an active participant of making the world a better place for all
I love and accept myself and honor all emotions that make me who I am
I am loving abundance illustrated
I love the abundant spirit that moves in all of me
I am surrounded by a magnificent light that attracts all the best of life
I am pure love energy vibrating in the highest and grandest expression of itself
I love the divinity that abounds in me and all others surrounding me
I am one with every spirit in this universe desiring peace, unity, harmony and joy
I am part of the bigger entity of which all love and light dwells
I love and accept myself and honor the holiness inside me that make up who I am
I am loving abundance manifested

May these love affirmations remind you that loving abundance can be yours; that the love you experience for yourself will radiate; and ultimately, you will come to realize and experience the abundance of life.

7 Stages to Clearing Your Emotions

2010-06-30T11:34:00.000-07:00

painting by Norman Rockwell

Most of us do not know how to clear the negative emotions in our bodies. It's a process most of us have never been taught to do. Society doesn't really support us in this work. As a result, when we do try to clear, because we do not know the stages that humans go through in order to release painful emotions, we get stuck. For many of us, this leads to feelings of frustration and so we just give up. But when we give up, we do so at a price. When conflicts remain unresolved, their associated emotions remain, creating energetic imbalances in the body on the physical level that lead to illness. On the mental level, they can create bi-polar disordersand, in some cases, depression. On the emotional level, they lead us to either act out in destructive ways such as raging, or in covert ways, using passive/aggressive behavior. All of these things are destructive to our personal relationship with our Inner Children, not to mention our relationships with others.

The 7 Stages of Emotional Clearing are given as a roadmap to help you navigate the stages of clearing that each person experiences in order to fullyand completely clear negative pain associated with a conflict or other negative event from the body.

The 7 Stages

1. Trigger
2. Identify Trigger through anger
3. Projectionand blaming
4. Expressand release angerand pain
5. Look forand find the mirror
6. Own the mirror
7. Clear the mirror

1. Trigger

A trigger occurs when someone violates a personal boundary or agreement.

2. Identifying the trigger through anger

Once triggered, you react with anger or, if not anger, at least a sense that something is not right.

Note: Many people get stuck here because they have learned to immediately stuff their anger when it occurs. An example would be saying to yourself, “Oh, it’s just not worth getting upset over.”

3. Projectionand Blaming

If you are angry, the next thing you do is blame someone for it. We call this “projecting” because you are putting the blame for your pain on someone else.

Note: Many people project and blame but they don’t go past this pointand express it to the person with whom they are upset.

4. Expressand release anger and pain

This is the step in which you vent your anger toward the accused. Expressing can take various forms depending on the intensity of the violationand trigger. Mild violations may require just speaking up about it. Stronger violations may require speaking upand a few choice cuss words to clear the painand so on.

Note: Most people will stop short of this step because they believe they don’t feel comfortableand/or they don’t have the right to express their anger. In that case, passive/aggressive behavior will ensue because anger must have a release.

5. Look forand find the mirror
Once the anger has been expressed, logic can return. Nowand only now can you begin to look for how you have co-created the situation. Beginning with Steps 1—3 of the Formula of Compassion,you look for the lesson, contractand role that the other person is playing.

Tip: If you are not able to talk with your guides to get the information you need to find the mirror, try starting with Step 4 of the Formula. Ask yourself, “What fear is the other person expressing through their behavior?” Once you figure out what the fear is, you then ask, “What belief is triggering that fear?” By doing this, you are tracing your way back to the belief that is at the root of the behavior. Keep this rule in mind: Beliefs create fears which we then act out through our behavior.

6. Own the mirror

Step 4 of the Formula of Compassionis where you recognize the aspect of you that the other person is reflecting or mirroring back to you. It is always a behavior motivated by fear. At that same moment of recognition, you will also be able to acknowledge that you have done the same thing that you have been judging that person for doing. If you truly see this, the angerand pain will quickly turn to empathyand sadness because you understand, first-hand, the fear that drives you both to that behavior.

Note: You may have already completed this step if you used the tip provided in Stage 5.

7. Clear the mirror

Steps 5-9 of the Formula of Compassion are completed in this stage.

Now that you have found the fear that motivated the behavior, the next step is to ask yourself, “What belief triggered that behavior?” This is usually a core belief such as, “I must be perfect in order to have the right to exist.” Once you find the belief, you now have the gift; the recognition of that beliefand the opportunity to change it.

At this point there is a sudden shift in your body. The empathy and sadness shift to overwhelming appreciationand gratitude for the other person as all anger, pain,and blame are transmuted. In this moment you release the other person totallyand completely. You then apologizeand validate the other person’s pain.

Step 9 of the Formula of Compassion: Your only thought now is how to thank the other person for the gift. You do this by thanking them with a heart full of appreciationand gratitude. They will feel this. Once completed, you have cleared the mirror. The conflict is overand peace, loveand harmony is reestablished. But there is an even greater reward; each party feels a greater degree of trust in the relationship because they know that when conflicts arise, each party will stay to work through the conflictand not run.

15 steps to navigate your personal transformation

2010-06-28T16:58:00.001-07:00

1. Spend time in nature -- connect with the peace and perfection of plants, trees, flowers and the night sky.

2. Take daily sun baths for 10 to 15 minutes. Visualize the sun's light filling the cells of your body.

3. Spend time each day nurturing yourself. Begin a new health regimen, prepare healthy meals for yourself, receive spa treatments, massages, etc. Homeopathy, essential oils and flower essences can prove beneficial during this time.

4. Clear up energy in your environment and arrange spaces in inspiring and uplifting ways.

5. Make time for creative play, focusing on the process rather than the product.

6. Allow your imagination to lead you on journeys in consciousness. Your imagination is your doorway to higher consciousness.

7. Practice yoga, tai chi and other forms of movement that align mind, body and spirit.

8. Make a gratitude list, expressing appreciation for everything in your life. This includes any challenges or "tests" that may come before you at this time.

9. Donate to charities that help animals, the environment and the underprivileged. Regularly giving to those in need keeps you aligned with your heart. We are all earth angels capable of answering the call to administer divine assistance.

10. Each time you encounter stress or negativity, align your thoughts and feelings with unconditional love. This allows you to stay positive, focused and grounded.

11. Now more than ever it’s important to eat clean and healthy. On the priority list are root vegetables and dark, leafy vegetables.

12. Pay attention to the guidance and messages you receive within each moment. Messages will arrive in dreams and meditation. Journal thoughts, impressions and observations as well as any intuitive downloads you receive.

13. Notice any emotional triggers and open to their messages. People and situations will show up on many fronts to trigger any residual emotions you are holding.

14. Love and forgive yourself and others for any perceived imperfections. We hold soul contracts with numerous beings who have agreed to help us in our journey of self-awareness and vice versa.

15. Accept and embrace that you are a wise and powerful being capable to bestowing blessings on all you encounter.

The Healing Miracles of Archangel Raphael

2010-06-14T18:45:00.001-07:00

By Samantha Winstanley

Doreen Virtue's new book, "The Healing Miracles of Archangel Raphael," is here. Please read an excerpt and feel peace.

Blessings to all

Lilith

2010-04-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

There were two trees in the Garden of Eden. Eve, created to replace Lilith, took the fruit from the other one, the Tree of Knowledge. She has been blamed by the Church, along with all women, for the sins of the world. Decoding the symbolic significance of the serpent, ancient and pervasive symbol of feminine wisdom, is central to understanding the deepest levels of humanity’s story. In Qabalah, the mystical tradition of Judaism, the serpent climbs the Tree of Life to return to the source.

Lilith’s fragmented and confusing nature in myth and astrology may reflect the ways our choices have fractured the human psyche, and she may hold a key which could unlock healing insights. Piercing the veil of Lilith’s enigmatic persona may offer modern men and women empowering energy that is much needed in today’s world. Some symbolists have suggested that the Age of Aquarius will be symbolized by gardens and the greening of the Earth. As human consciousness expands I believe we would all benefit from redeeming our separated natures. Integrating all the parts of femininity, including sexuality and the mysteries of old age and death, could make us stronger and wiser as we face current environmental challenges.

The word myth comes from the root word for “mouth,” as story telling was originally an oral tradition. Myths are sacred stories, and have been the way people transmitted their holiest truths, their understanding of our relationship to the divine, for thousands of years. Myths, legends and fairy tales, which contain principles and morals, are structured in the symbolic language of archetypes. Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung observed that archetypes, the intrinsic patterns of human consciousness such as Maiden, Mother, Crone, Queen and Princess, do not cease to exist if we ignore or devalue them. Rather, they become submerged in what Jung termed the Collective Unconscious, hiding underground and becoming strong forces which emerge in dreams, complexes or even psychoses.

Western culture has devalued, even demonized, aspects of the feminine for nearly 4,000 years, effectively pushing these archetypes beneath our conscious awareness. Serious scholars of myth have noticed that the tenor of the stories began to change nearly four thousand years ago. Symptoms of this shift in Greek myths included an increasing glorification of war, accompanied by a deteriorating value of agriculture and cyclical time.

Psychologically, in all her aspects, Lilith seems to represent facets of the feminine which have been suppressed. Her nature acts like a Multiple Personality Disorder where aspects of the feminine have been splintered, and some of the parts are now labeled good and others evil. How this shows up, individually or collectively, depends on the context. Lilith can be a righteous, avenging angel or a wrathful demon. Sometimes she is angry and vengeful, and sometimes she is empowered to regain her rightful status as an equal partner. Astrologers who use Lilith, in any of her forms, believe she reveals wounds related to feminine power in both men and women. Recognizing what has been disenfranchised is a first step toward restoring balance. One wonders what the fate of humanity might have been if Adam and Lilith had worked things out.

Lilith left the garden and subsequently her nature and uncontrolled power became feared and was declared evil. Lilith’s story embodies what occurred in myths over time as earlier goddess worshiping cultures were eclipsed by the emerging patriarchy. Once the Tree of Life, Lilith is an example of how many powerful feminine deities became demonized. In modern times, as the pendulum swings back, Lilith has become an icon of feminine strength.

Holding space

2010-03-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

As we flow from Spring Equinox into a deeper, richer Spring, what seeds are we planting? And as we become vessels for the Sacred Feminine to flow through us, how are we holding space?

I thought this was a beautiful article on Holding Space by Melita Marshall.

Enjoy!

"But beyond all of these attributes, holding space is a spiritual exercise in which a higher consciousness, a high vibrational field, is invoked and maintained. It is invisible and hard to describe, but people feel it and need it. To do this, we consciously honor our connection with Source and with all life, we celebrate our work as service and demonstrate the value of community".

Waking the Warrior Goddess Within

2010-03-07T12:49:00.000-08:00

The Warrior Goddess has been calling me lately to step out of my past, bless my lessons, to rise from the fire, from the ashes and transform into my true self, my Phoenix essence, my Firebird.

Goddess Oya

Beautiful Oya, your stength honors and humbles me.
I ask you to fill me with your courage,
so I may clear away what blocks my path.
Help me to know my mind and speak it without fear.
Protect me in my battle to know my true self.

I found a book that honors the Warrior Goddess, called Awakening Female Power: The Way of the Goddess Warrior by Karin LaPuma.

One reader reviewed it and had to say this about the book, "It is a confidence/self-esteem builder; helps you figure out how to deal with the "monsters" in your personality; serves as a reminder of important values you may have forgotten & reminds you to respect yourself & find strength in your weaknesses."

I personally am looking forward to reading it!

The energies of March

2010-03-04T11:25:00.000-08:00

By Lena Stevens

The main theme for March is "Movement Forward". Or we could just call it "Movement" as the energy is likely to move in all kinds of directions, up down, sideways, forward and seemingly back but always ending up forward as evolution only goes in one direction. So put your seat belts on as the pace of things could increase to the point of insanity.

In fact those who have an obsessive need to keep mental track may find themselves feeling a bit insane. So let go of the need to control mentally and instruct yourself to integrate and assimilate events and experiences and even choices during sleep because you won't be able to do it while you are consciously awake. Trust that your subconscious is tracking and assimilating everything you will need to know. You are literally being rewired this month to allow your kinesthetic and emotional selves to take more charge. The reason we have created such a time of movement is partly because we are now really sick of our limitations, old belief systems, irritated by our patterns and addictions and feel impatient with the progress of personal evolution. We are fired up and rearing to GO! Forget careful planning and don't get attached to rigid schedules. Be spontaneous and do what comes to you. It will probably be the right thing.

Clarity of intention, staying focused, resisting distraction, doing one thing at a time, and patience, will all be key elements to consider for navigating this month successfully. The renewal aspect that always accompanies the spring equinox will also be a factor in how the time unfolds. And remember that when you have renewal or rebirth you always need to have something die off or be pruned. Much of the personal work of the past few weeks has been on a level deeper than perhaps you have ever gone, some of it subconscious. The result of that work now has the opportunity to surface, showing you a new paradigm for responding, creating, acting, connecting and reflecting. The discipline will be to trust that the new way of being is for real and not some momentary aberration or blip in your known routine. The key is noticing what feels different, what happens without effort, and where your attention goes now.

And what are the distractions? Anything that keeps you from the positive and neutral focus of what you know deep inside to be "Movement", so crucial this month for your personal growth and development. Major distractions are engaging in other people's drama, trying to fix, resisting and being stubborn, attachment to your story, filling your time with unimportant things, impatience and not allowing right timing, and any energy leak or attitude that does not serve you.

You can and should be proactive this month with anchoring new routines, new habits, new opportunities, new friends, new skills, new interests, new personal disciplines and new attitudes. Resilience and flexibility is needed, as you will be refining how the "new" fits into your life. Pay attention to where you are still attached to your expectations of outcomes and of how you think life ought to be. Especially beware of your judgments regarding others and how they may be reacting to change, opportunity and challenge. There will be a tendency towards irritation and impatience that can lead to stubborn reactions in others and martyrdom in yourself. Remember you can only remodel and improve your own house and by doing this, you will inspire the whole neighborhood. Resist the telling to others what you think they ought to be doing. If they want advice, they will ask. Look to your own self, work on your own self.

March is a fiery month. The energy of fire is deeply and permanently transformational. We are all being called to move forward out of the past with the discipline of not looking back and dwelling on anything that has had our attention and involvement that is not in the present. There is no time for regrets, blame, wallowing in disappointment, or holding on to old dreams, as this behavior is an energy leak. Allow everything from the past; the successes and failures, the lessons and the challenges, and all that you would consider to be the good times and the bad times, to dissolve into a beautiful pool of crystal clear water beneath your feet. Now it is pure energy, neutral and useful once more, to be used for new creativity in the present. (If you are having trouble this month you can use this visualization especially before you sleep) Don't think about the new patterns that are forming, just allow them to form from a deeper more subconscious place that knows infinitely more than your conscious mind.

Some of you will feel that things are moving too fast; that there is no time to really integrate, plan, decide, choose or think things through. This is not an intellectually centered year, therefore the intellectual thought process is relegated to last place. Accept that you are being re-trained to trust your instincts and your emotional and kinesthetic reactions. Because the moving center is about movement, pay attention to and observe what is either moving into or out of your life. What happens to be in front of you is what you have called in. Things you wish for may show up faster than you are used to and you may need to get used to that. The good news is that if you don't like the way you have created something you will be able to change it faster as well.

We have been moving towards this acceleration in time and this month time itself takes on a quality of being multidimensional. You may have many different experiences of time this month and they may occur simultaneously. For example, in a day you may experience some aspect of time slowed down, another aspect of time speeded up and yet a third aspect of no time existing at all. This is something difficult to wrap your intellectual center around so the best thing is to simply accept it and go with the movement of energy in your life however it is showing up. Remember that movement this month will be up, down and sideways as well as forwards and seemingly back. There will also be movement of awareness in and out of the astral plane, allowing you to access in your conscious day that which may have only been available to you in your sleep state in the past. This is a very powerful thing as the astral plane holds all the unstructured creative force before it takes form. So pay attention to your dreams both in sleep and those that filter in during your waking hours.

With fire often comes anger. Watch for flare-ups, arguments, fighting, biting remarks, polarity, and the tendency to strike out or strike back. See anger as an energy, rage as its fuel. This is a power that can be used productively to make great changes and move huge amounts of energy. When channeled into right action, anger can be transformed into a neutral force that is an agent of appropriate destruction and change. If you feel angry the worst thing to do is to judge it as bad. That locks it into a pattern that is not at all useful. And if you are at the receiving end of anger that is inappropriately channeled, also beware of judging it. Instead, just be aware of it and do not take it personally. Ask how you could perhaps use this force to move something in yourself that needs to be moved.

With the theme of Movement comes an opportunity to really study how you move through life. Observe yourself every day. Observe how you happen to go from one place to another, how you make your decisions, how you go about your day, how you move your body, how you use your physical environment, how you handle time, how you structure your schedule, how you bring things into your life, how you begin events and projects, how you finish or complete things, and how you eliminate what you don't need. Movement is about navigation, and observing how you navigate through your day will give you many insights. You should observe all the times when you resist and block movement, all the times when your movements are a result of reactions and all the times when they are the result of a proactive choice. The idea is to take every opportunity for movement and see it as a chance for making a proactive choice for that movement. Notice, notice, and notice how your life can be different especially in terms of actually choosing movement instead of feeling at the effect of it and powerless in the face of it.

This is truly the month to take the bull by the horns and decide clearly how NOT to live putting up with your old patterns that no longer serve. Your strong and clear intention to use the Movement of the month to banish these patterns out of your life and to magnetize everything you desire into your life is enough to start the process. It will be entirely up to you!

How MOVEMENT shows up this month:

YOU PERSONALLY
Stay active and proactive. If the movement feels too frenetic, chaotic and without focus, DECIDE where it should be focused. You are the driver of the train and need to learn to take charge of it. You can handle anything spirit puts in front of you because you ultimately chose to create it that way. The sooner you embrace this concept the sooner you can own your power around it and the sooner you own your power, the sooner you can see the results you want in your intentions. The personal growth aspect of this month is all about taking this kind of charge of your life and everything in it including your health and any physical conditions you may be expressing through your body. Surrender to the movement but stand in your creative position as the driver of the train with certainty and commitment. Address all experiences with " I am choosing this right now". When you are not in resistance and can embrace an experience fully, then, and only then do you have the power to change it to something else if you wish. So lots of lessons are possible regarding how you navigate your personal power around how your life flows and moves. You may even get lessons around how you have allowed others to dictate how your life has unfolded for you. Hopefully you will end the month with a new sense of power, better health, great energy, and more direction, inspiration and drive.

REALTIONSHIPS
Beware of the irritation, anger, impatience, stubbornness and martyrdom possible in personal connections and relationships. It maybe tricky to navigate through the mine field of reactions this month as any relationship that is on shaky ground will experience the result of the fire element, the desire for transformation and the need for movement. Any relationship that is worth putting energy into can benefit from Movement this month. It will take focus and work to move worthwhile relationships to a new place with harmony and balance, as there are many pitfalls when you have this kind of accelerated movement. On the other hand, any relationship that is not worth putting energy into will tend to move out of your life quickly. Thus it will be important to follow intuitive feelings rather than to listen to what is spoken, as words exchanged may not embody the whole truth. It is best to trust your kinesthetic and intuitive reactions and where they wish to take you. At the same time, look for new relationships and connections to come together quickly and with a kind of fire that gives them an instant spark. Don't take rejection personally and don't compromise yourself to any situation that is not working for you.

THE PHYSICAL PLANET
The physical plane is always a projection that fulfills a need for supporting the lessons being learned by the collective and this month is no exception. In a time of movement you can expect accelerated movement in the natural forces of the planet. Increased earth movement, air movement, water movement and fire movement may all express themselves in new and creative ways. Being an artisan year, look for the physical planet to be highly creative in its support of our growth and evolution. It won't be so much the enormity of the events that will feel overwhelming but more the frequency and accelerated movement of them that will go beyond what the collective mind has defined as being able to handle. We almost have to experience this sense of something beyond our control in order to surrender to a greater wisdom of what is necessary for our collective evolution. Trust, trust, and more trust is essential for us to know that what we are creating is exactly what we need.

BUSINESS, PROJECTS, PARTNERSHIPS, WORK, FINANCES
Movement is the operative word. There is not much more to say except to trust where the energy wants to go. If there is no movement, then there is something to prune or to change or to complete and be done with. If there is movement that feels accelerated beyond what you can comprehend, trust it and trust that if you need to understand or know the process intellectually, you will. The flow this month can increase in finances, partnerships and projects especially if there is alignment with a clear intention. Remember that distractions of needing to be right, arguing over small details, irritation, impatience and resistance can derail any prosperous movement and leave you with less than a satisfying experience. So stay focused on what is important to you and resist the distractions. It is generally a good time to begin a new project or partnership and any new thing that begins this month will have sufficient fuel behind it if it is the right thing.

GLOBAL ISSUES, POLITICS
Anything that has been stuck or felt stagnant will move this month, perhaps not in the expected direction but it will move. It was mentioned that movement may appear to be up, down, sideways and seemingly backwards. This will certainly be true in the areas of global issues and politics. The best policy is to stay focused on your own issues and the politics in your own life and environment. What you accomplish and take charge of in your own life will have a ripple effect on those around you and your greater community. Remember that like attracts like and if you want the world to change, change yourself first. This is a good month for it. Don't get caught up and take sides in the blame game you may see forming as a huge distraction and energy leak in global politics. It is a waste of time and good energy. Many good things can be accomplished in terms of decisions and policy, cooperative collaborations and accelerated movement around important choices this month but it will take humility and getting the ego and its attachment to being right out of the way.

Be more helpful to those who need it when the time comes. Be selfish in a good way, take care of your body, do your practices, keep anchoring your still point and have fun!
March 29: Full Moon at 8:25 PM Mountain Daylight Time. Do something very honoring to where you are exactly at this time. (There will be more information regarding this moon that will be sent to you via email closer to the date)

Have a great month!
Lena Stevens

20 Universal Laws

2010-02-19T19:46:00.000-08:00

The Universe is perfectly balanced by natural and moral laws with regulatory vibrations to maintain order, when you work within the laws you can be assured of an eventual positive outcome. When the laws are transgressed you can be assured of suffering; the only purpose of this is to teach you a better way.

	1.	The Law of Harmony. This law supersedes even the fundamental law of Karma, for harmony is the supreme potential of balance. The purpose of Karma is to attain harmony. If you through a rock into a pond you disturb the harmony of the pond, you are the cause, the effect is the splash and the ripples that flows out and back until harmony is restored. Similarly, your disharmonious actions flow out into the Universe and back upon you, lifetime after life time, until eventually your own harmony is restored.
	2.	The Law of Reincarnation and Karma. Until you have resolved your Karma and fulfilled your Dharma, which are the deeds you must do, you will continue to reincarnate into sequential lifetime upon the earth. Neither God nor the Lords of Karma bestow suffering upon you during these lives, you and you alone decide what you most need to learn and in your earthly sojourns, and for each life experience you seek out other souls, often with shared histories, and always with Karmic configurations matching your needs. Whenever you act with intention you create Karma. Actions are considered to be thoughts, emotions, words and deeds, and the motive, desire and intent behind each. Disharmonious acts must be balanced in the future in this life or in a future lifetime, to have Soul growth.
	3.	The Law of Wisdom, wisdom erases Karma. If you have the wisdom to learn your lessons through love and wisdom you can mitigate your suffering. Sadly, we seem to learn the fastest through pain, through directly experiencing the consequences of our actions. As an example, you greedily take from others, and instead of learning through wisdom and love that this is wrong, you have to experience from others someone greedily taking from you, whether later in this life or in a future lifetime.
		Example 1: In your last life you were married to a Soul who is your mate today, and whom you cruelly left far another in that previous lifetime. Before you were born into your current life, you agreed to be left by your mate, under similar circumstances—this will allow you to balance your Karma—and directly experience the pain of abandonment. If through the wisdom of Master-Life-Awareness it is easier to detach consciously from the relationship with love, you will ease the pain of parting while also passing your own test, and thus absolving Karma and evolving from within.
		Example 2. Assume that you have Astrologically destined a severe relationship test for May of your 35th year. If you have learned through past life awareness, as well as present life learning, to be positive, non-judgmental and without expectations in your relationship you may only experience an argument with your mate on that fateful day in May, but if you haven't learned your past lessons, and have intensified your disharmony during your relationship you might experience a divorce in may of your 35th year.
	4.	The Law of Grace. Karma can be experienced to the letter of the law or in mercy and grace. In other words if you give love, mercy and grace to others, you will receive the same in return.
	5.	The Law of Soul Evolution. Everyone on Earth shares the goal of Soul evolution whether they realize it or not. We have reincarnated because we desire to evolve spiritually. By rising above all of our fear based emotions and in so doing learning how to express unconditional love we raise our vibrational rate, and move closer to a state of harmony. Even where it appears that we are not evolving we are in reality making progress. We learn through the pain of our disharmonious acts, which can be viewed as our mistakes or failures. This is the law of Soul evolution.
	6.	The Law of Bodhisattva. Bodhisattva is a Sanskrit term commonly accepted by most Metaphysical adepts today. It means one who has transcended the need of Earthly incarnations but who has chosen to return to the earth to support others in achieving enlightenment. A Bodhisattva knows he will never really be free until all souls are free. Most serious students of metaphysics have entered the Bodhisattva Development Stage of their evolution.
	7.	The Law of Vibrational Attainment. The entire Universe operates on the same principle of vibrational energy. When Einstein discovered that "matter is energy." he opened the door to merging science and metaphysics. The scientists have proved that energy cannot die, it can only transform (reincarnate), and, by its very nature, energy must go forward or backwards, it cannot stand still, for to do so is stagnation, resulting in transformation. You are energy. Your skin, which appears solid, is actually trillions of swiftly moving molecules orbiting each other at a specific vibrational rate; a physical life rate you have earned in the past as a result of how harmoniously—or disharmoniously you have lived your past lives and your current life up until this moment in time. When you are harmonious for a lifetime, you will have attained the highest vibrational rate—the God level.
	8.	The Law of Free Will. The law of free will operates in three ways.

	1.	Although many of the major events in your life are Astrologically predestined, you always have free will to mitigate the impact of the event, or to transcend it entirely. This will result from how you live your life up to the situation you have destined for yourself to experience. If you give grace and mercy to others, are positive, loving, compassionate, and demonstrate by your action that you have learned past lessons, you can minimize disharmonious experiences!
	2.	As you obtain Master of life awareness and develop conscious detachment, you will be far less affected by worldly events than in the past. A Master of Life enjoys all the warmth and joy that life has to offer, but detaches from the negativity by allowing it to flow through him without affecting him.
	3.	You always have free will in how you respond to any situation. If you respond with positive emotions, compassion and integrity, you have probably learned your karmic lessons and will not have to experience a similar situation in the future.

	9.	The Law of One. Every Soul, living and discarnate, is connected at the level of the collective unconscious, deep within the Higher-Self. We are all part of a great energy gestalt called God, and because we are part of God, we are God. It is the goal of the gestalt to move the energy forward, creating more energy. So, in living harmoniously, we each increase our vibrational rate and intensify the vibration of the entire gestalt. When we are disharmonious, we decrease the vibration of the entire gestalt, because we are one, everything you think, say and do, affects every other Soul.
	10.	The Law of Manifestation. Everything manifest begins as a thought, an idea. Ideas and experiences create beliefs which in turn, create your reality. If you are unhappy with your current reality, you must change your beliefs and your behavior. Beliefs can be changed when you recognize those that are not working for you, and begin programming what will create success and harmony in your life. The unlimited creative power of your mind, through dedication, awareness and training, can be the wisdom to rise above your Karma. Within physical and spiritual laws, you can manifest any reality you desire to experience. In regard to changing your behavior, you must decide which disharmonious behavior you want to eliminate. Then be aware that you don't have to change how you feel about something to affect it, if you are willing to change what you are doing.
	11.	The Law of Conscious Detachment. Buddha's earthly teachings are best summarized with one of his statements, "It is your resistance to what is that causes your suffering." and by suffering, he meant everything that doesn't work in your life; relationship problems, loss of loved ones, loneliness, sickness, accidents, guilt, monetary hardship, unfulfilled desires, and so on. When you accept what is, you accept the unalterable realities in your life without resisting them. Some things are facts. They exist, and no matter how much you resist them, there is nothing you are going to be able to do about them. Change what you can change, but have the wisdom to accept unalterable situations as they are, without wasting mental or physical energy attempting to change what you cannot change. Out of acceptance comes involved detachment. The ability to enjoy all the positive aspects of life, but to allow the negative to flow through you with out resistance and without affecting you.
	12.	The Law of Gratitude. From the perspective of Karma and the Law of One, the more you give, the more you will receive. The more you assist others, the more you will assist yourself. The power of this Law also works in your day-to-day life.
	13.	The Law of Fellowship. When two or more people of similar vibration are gathered for a shared purpose, their combined energy directed to the attainment of that purpose is doubled, tripled, quadrupled or more. This esoteric awareness has been used by covens, esoteric religions, healing groups, and recently, worldwide meditations for world peace.
	14.	The Law of Resistance. That which you resist you draw to you, and you will perpetuate its influence upon your life. Resistance is fear, so it is something you need to Karmically resolve. The Law of Resistance assures that you let go of the fear by encountering it until you are forced to deal with it by learning conscious detachment. Example: You may have a strong resistance toward people of the Asian race; Black race, Jewish race, your mother-in-law. Your resistance is fear. The quickest way to overcome that which you fear is through direct experience, thus you will reincarnate as an Asian, Black, Jew, or mother in-law in a future lifetime. When you attain Master of Life awareness and stop resisting [your fear] by consciously detaching from the negativity, the problem will be resolved. Most disharmonious situations are solved through a change in your viewpoint. By changing your perspective, you can usually eliminate the effects of a problem, and if you are no longer affected by a problem, you no longer have a problem, although nothing about the problem situation may have changed. Another aspect of the Law of resistance states, that which you resists, you become, if not in this lifetime, in a future incarnation.
	15.	The Law of Attraction. "Where your attention goes, your energy flows." You attract what you are and that which you concentrate upon. If you are negative, you draw in and experience negativity. If you are loving, you draw in and experience love. You can attract to you only those qualities you possess. So, if you want peace and harmony in your life, you must become peaceful and harmonious.
	16.	The Law of Reflection. This Law says that the traits you respond to in others, you recognize in yourself, both positive and negative. It has four primary manifestations:

	1.	That which you admire in others, you recognize as existing within yourself;
	2.	That which you resist and react to strongly in others is sure to be found within yourself;
	3.	That which you resist and react to in others is something which you are afraid exists within you; and,
	4.	That which you resist in yourself, you will dislike in others.

In other words, you have chosen to incarnate upon the manifest plane to learn to rise above the effect of fear. Those fears will always be reflected in your reactions to others, Thus your goals are very obvious once you recognize how to perceive them. As you let go of the fear, you automatically open to expressing more unconditional love.

	17.	The Law of Unconditional Love. The expression of unconditional love will eventually result in harmony. Unconditional love is not romantic love. It is the acceptance of others as they are without judgment or expectations. It is total acceptance of others without attempting to change them, except by our own positive example. The law of unconditional love says, "If you go out of your way to express unconditional love, you automatically rise above fear, and, as you transcend your fears, you automatically open to the expression of unconditional love.
	18.	The Law of Magnetic Affinities. By Astrologically choosing the time and place of your birth, you determine the nature or the effects you will experience in your life. On the other side, before we are born, we make decisions about the lifetime we will be entering into. You chose your parents, other souls to interact with you, and the Astrological configurations of your birth which determine your character, personality, abilities, restrictions, and timing for strengths and weaknesses. If all of this seems too complicated to be real, be aware that you are only using five to ten percent of the capacity of your brain. And the brain-mind researchers say the human brain has 200,000 times the capacity of the greatest computer ever built. Such calculations as I've just described would be no problem for such a computer.
	19.	The Law of Abundance. You have within yourself everything required to make your earthly incarnation a paradise if you choose to accept that which is your divine birth-right. We live in a Universe of abundance, although the majority of those populating our planet appear to view it as a Universe of scarcity.
	20.	The Law of Divine Order, If you seek to understand the Law of Divine Order, study the natural balance of nature, for it works very much the same way. Everything is as it should be, although mankind (our energy gestalt) is far from experiencing its potential of total harmony. There are no accidents. Your energy, translated into thoughts, words, emotions, and deeds, causes all your experiences. This assures that you always have the learning opportunities you require to resolve your Karma, and, as with you, the collective thoughts, words, emotions, and deeds of mankind create the environment for us all. If enough souls focus their energy upon peace, we will have peace. If the majority of souls are filled with anger, we may all have to experience war. We are all one, and like the many sub-personalities within you, the dominant traits of mankind (the entire gestalt) will emerge to resolve our group Karma.

2010-01-15T17:25:00.001-08:00

Too late for tea (for mijori) by Pensive Peacock on Polyvore.com

Attracting the flow of prosperity

2010-01-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

Lakshmi is the Goddess of wealth and prosperity, both material and spiritual. The word ''Lakshmi'' is derived from the Sanskrit word Laksme, meaning "goal." Lakshmi, therefore, represents the goal of life, which includes worldly as well as spiritual prosperity.

I SAY..

Yes to the magic!
Yes to a successful thriving healing practice.
Yes to multiple streams of income.
Yes to collaboration and joint ventures with others of like mind and heart.

The New Year Message from Archangel Gabriel

2010-01-03T14:49:00.000-08:00

Dear Ones,

The inspiration you seek to manifest your soul’s purpose is available in this New Year as never before. When you discover your inner purpose, a sense of joyous fulfillment pervades all life. In this New Year of 2010, there will be accelerated energy to provide an opportunity for the full expression of your Soul’s Purpose. Your lifetimes have been the preparation for this abundant time of joyous creative activity, within and without.

With a grateful heart, invite the Divine Light to fill your mind and create a sanctuary within your being to receive this guidance. Strengthen the foundations of your life with your pure intention to follow the inner promptings of your soul. Remember to keep balance within and without by giving yourself time to receive love from the deepest sources of your being. This will provide the nourishment you have desired without realizing what it is you have needed all along.

As you nourish yourself from within, you have all the energy, guidance, assistance and clarity you need to take the first step to realization of your soul’s purpose. Don’t expect to have it laid before you in distinct detail, however. It is more likely you will only be given the first step, and when you take that, the next will be revealed, then the next and the next, all in the eternal now. What is long term is your intentional focus to see your life and the world in a new way, as a place of trust. Know that you are profoundly loved and are being guided to fulfillment in your purpose, with joy and gratitude in your daily life. This inner atmosphere builds a strong foundation that attracts new opportunities to your life. The prevailing wisdom of this New Year is to allow the soul to guide your actions so they become filled with Divine purpose.

Empower The Soul
It is empowering to take time to feed your soul and usher into your life more joy and light with your intentional action. The nourishment of quiet moments when your mind can rest and your heart can feel more peaceful are not to be disregarded in these times of heightened energy, with its often nerve jangling cacophony of sounds. When you can treasure your life and your self, it will feel like a new opening occurs in the world around you. Creative ideas will start to flow and in a more resourceful, inspired state of mind, you see new opportunities to take the steps that will promote positive change.

The old limitations of thinking and the structures that held them in place are self-destructing. In fact those very words hold a key insight to new pathways for your life’s work. When you think of old structures, there is a constriction of energy boxing in thoughts and attitudes. Using old methodology becomes a struggle to make things happen. The new more feminine energy of this time requires a letting go of the strangle hold those old structures contain, and a freeing of the inner spirit into new realms of exploration. The best attitude for any new undertaking becomes the child-like mind of wondrous adventure, thus allowing the spirit to soar. When your inner spirit is engaged, your heart feels lighter and this lightness creates an open mind. When your mind is open to new possibilities, opportunities abound and synchronous events become normal. When you are aware of synchronicity, life takes on a new sense of magic, hope and joy.

Creating New Foundations
These states of mind are activated by clear intentions, such as: to have the clarity and opportunity for new work that fulfills your soul’s purpose; to feel more support in your life; and to have a sense of peace and harmony within. Why not allow life to be easier and more graceful? The overwhelm that led to crushing defeat of the compassionate heart has abated. More abundant life will be allowed to transpire, as an evolutionary shift in energy is felt within each person’s being. The desire to serve the greater good will predominate the minds of those who felt lost in the years of material clamor. As more light pervades the earth, loving hearts and minds find new meaning in their lives and open to a prevailing flow of truth that awakens consciousness.

The allowing mind receives guidance that moves you forward into new realms of activity and ideas that spark your imagination to new heights. From these awakened places new creative solutions appear to bring healing to environmental questions and personal situations that have appeared hopeless. As this prevailing mood shifts your inner world the outer world follows suit. It is essential, however, that these soul qualities are set into a strong inner foundation before they can be built upon outside yourself.

Within each person rests the desire and the memory of being in Oneness with all Life; a sense of unity consciousness that is in harmony with divine action in the world. The frustration comes when worldly successes are not enough and more must be achieved to fill a need, when it is the overwhelming inner need to express Divine Consciousness that spurs on the activity. This year people are being empowered to look beyond their personal needs and assist in the anchoring of true abundance on the earth. The truth of abundance is that there is more than enough to create peaceful outcomes when basic needs are provided. When these needs are met and there is a sense of purpose, violence loses its compelling draw. Pray together that all peoples have the food and shelter they require to live life in happiness and peace. Know the Angelic Dimensions have an interest in sustaining the peaceful evolution of earth inhabitants and you can call this energy into your own life.

Sensitive Souls Unite
There are those who have always felt a little out of step with the rest of the world and, it could be said, they were ahead of their times. These sensitive beings have felt the pain and suffering of others and of the planet. Their compassionate hearts have been longing to be useful, though they knew not what to do. These are the ones who will directly feel the benefits of this energetic shift in 2010. They will feel a settling inside as they see the benefit of their prayers, and their struggles begin to ease. These warriors of the light will be able to relax the intensity of their vigilance, and will feel caring assistance that is divine in nature but earthly in manifestation. As the doors of Heaven have opened to shower them, their souls will feel the impact of loving support and connection with others of like mind. Collaboration and working together will be more prevalent and the dark loneliness begins to abate as soul families are reunited. The burden of carrying the darkness of the world shifts again as many shoulders work together to carry the load. These demonstrations of soul purpose manifesting will be more commonplace as the joy of feeling in harmony with greater purpose is shared.

There also will be many who find themselves in a downward spiral of darkness, and for those souls there also is assistance. It is necessary to raise the eyes beyond the suffering to see the help available and many will choose other paths. All is in readiness for the powerful shift that allows the momentum of a mass awakening that fulfills the desires of the majority rather than the powerful few. There is an expansion of consciousness that has opened many eyes to the opportunities available now for great change to occur.

The evolution of the earth may not take the time that so many imagine is necessary when the hearts and minds of many people are aligned for common good. Maintaining a connection from Heaven to Earth becomes a daily spiritual practice to harmonize your body and bring peace to the heart and mind. As all things are connected to Source energy, it requires discipline to overlook the disharmony and go deeper to the Divine within each person and situation. Withdraw your hate and fear of the status quo. Those feelings only give energy to that which is out of balance. Offer instead your blessings and your sense of peace along with the inner balance gained from following your inspired heart. Create a foundation of Divine Love, Harmony, Truth and Wisdom within you, and let these qualities of consciousness be the foundation you build on for your life this New Year. Don’t let cynicism and hopeless thinking poison the good works you do when you are following the impulse of your soul in the world.

Recognizing Soul's Purpose
For some, the purpose of their soul is to be a center of love working on the inner planes to provide balance in the world. For others the impulse is to build a more material refuge or expansive work of a worldly nature. It is within the individual soul to follow the promptings from the Divine Mind, allowing your true nature to develop along patterns that fit your own Divine Blueprint. If the desire is there and the mind is open, your willing heart can receive these impulses that show the way forward in life. Stillness is the requirement for you to stay in harmony with your true nature and be at peace with your self. This leads to the recognition of what the soul is trying to express in the world and what lessons are necessary for its fulfillment.

2010 offers an opportunity for soul’s communion and this gift is readily available to those who become receptive to their higher natures. The intentions of the many aspiring souls seeking peace and harmony will prevail. The Earth shall regain her balance. A balanced heart leads to a balanced life and this knowingness can guide your way. Open to this truth and give yourself time to receive love from the deepest sources within you. Ask to be guided on the path to fulfillment of your soul’s purpose in this New Year. The blessings of God are available for you to achieve this desire now and when your intentions are aligned with others, Divine Light guides your way to the peaceful evolution of the Earth.

And so it is.

Shanta Gabriel For Archangel Gabriel

Copyright © Shanta Gabriel.
www.shantagabriel.com

The Next Level Of Spiritual Awareness: Archangel Michael

2010-01-03T14:43:00.000-08:00

MESSAGES FROM ARCHANGEL MICHAEL * JANUARY, 2010
TRANSMITTED THROUGH RONNA HERMAN

Beloved masters, the majority of humanity has forgotten that within the Universal Laws there is a God-given right which allows each human Being to reclaim the ability to commune with the ascended masters and the great Beings of the higher realms. Internal communication is a direct sharing of thoughts without words or sound. This is your natural state of Being. However, there are prerequisites and conditions that must be attained before you can access the universal telepathic airways.

While in your Pyramid of Light in the fifth dimension, ask that your guardians, guides and angelic helpers join you there. Ask your personal Council of Light to assist you in your endeavors, to strengthen your resolve and to give you the power, will and wisdom that you need to move into the next level of spiritual awareness. You all are in a critical phase of your spiritual growth process, whereby you are being asked to release all that is holding you back from the spiritual freedom you are seeking. This means dysfunctional and restrictive relationships, harmful addictive and negative habits and thought patterns and possessions that are taking up too much of your time, effort and abundance.

During this shifting of the Ages cycle, you are experiencing a great variety of transformative changes. You are reclaiming all the personal fragments of energy/thought forms that you created during your long journey into the physical expression. You are reuniting with the many Sparks of consciousness that make up your Divine Self and your Soul family, and you are also striving to become a spiritual/human adult while existing in an ever-expanding, multidimensional realm of physicality.
Those of you who have laid the groundwork and are well on your way to Self-mastery are now ready for the next level of spiritual awareness. You, the Star Seed, the brave ones who have suffered through and emerged triumphant from many dark nights of the Soul in order to purge yourselves of old self-limiting concepts and energy patterns, are now ready to step to the foreground as the vanguard of evolving humanity and the inhabitants of the Light, bright and refreshed Earth.

You must consciously examine your beliefs and discard those which no longer serve your greatest good. You must remove yourself from the restrictions and the distortions of the collective consciousness belief patterns of the past. By doing so, you will gradually be lifted from the stifling density of the third- and lower fourth-dimensional environment. You must disentangle yourselves from the confinement of misplaced obligations, real or imagined restrictions, and distorted, debilitating beliefs of the lower realms of physicality. Being in the world but not of it is one if the most important truths a budding master must learn and apply. Your main goal is to return to an accepted spectrum of duality, whereby your Energetic Signature is vibrating at a harmonious frequency pattern which is compatible with the mid-fourth dimension or higher. This is the required level of harmonious frequencies needed to tap into the power and magic of the transmuting Violet Flame and to begin to access and use a full measure of Adamantine Particles of Creator Light. This Light has consciousness; and as you assimilate it and activate it with your loving intention, the gift of higher consciousness is yours to use and to share. Never forget, this Creator Light is your Life Line to the ALL THAT IS.

The world within is filled with magic, wonderment and access to abilities that are beyond your imagining. You have spent a much longer time in a non-physical reality than you have in a physical body. Earthly existence is merely a moment in time compared to the eternity of the higher realms. Your Sacred Mind is a storehouse of past experiences, wisdom and cosmic law. When the Soul merges fully with the Sacred Heart, it is a grand reunion of monumental proportions. The Soul, your intuition and your inner-sensory abilities are all etheric Light Sources. When your intentions are centered in love and projected with purity, you become a powerful source of Sacred Fire energy.

Some time ago (November, 2003) we gave you a message entitled YOU ARE THE INBREATH OF THE CREATOR. In that message we told you, "There have been some misconceptions about the Inbreath, and the popular belief has been that the Creator will Breathe In all that has been created. This is not true. The Creator is sending forth ITS radiance to incorporate all the magnificence that has ever been created. Beloved ones, you are the Inbreath. You will breathe in the Essence of the Creator as you ready your human vessel to receive more and more refined Light and the rarefied vibrational frequencies of the higher realms. You, in your human vessel, will incorporate the Essence of the Creator that is permeating the Earth plane as well as the entire universe."

We cannot emphasize enough how important the breath is in reclaiming your Divine nature. Not the shallow breathing that the majority of people on Earth have accepted as the proper way to breathe. This type of shallow breathing has resulted in many debilitating symptoms and dis-eases, as well as limiting your intake of Divine Essence, which is critical to your well being and the reclamation of your vessel of Light. We have explained and emphasized the Infinity Breath, the Accordion Breath and how important is the practice of breathing with intention. The Infinity Breath could be called the Ascension Breath, for it aligns your galactic chakras with your physical vessel, and opens the return passageways to the higher dimensions. It speeds up the process of building your ascending vehicle of Light called the MerKiVah. It also facilitates the opening of the portal to your Sacred Mind and the front and back portals to your Sacred Heart. The Accordion Breath facilitates a double benefit: it draws forth the Adamantine Particles stored within the root chakra and also the AP’s stored within your etheric replica, located within your fifth-dimensional personal Pyramid of Light, which flow forth from the City of Light in which you have established a connection. This supplies a continuous flow of Creator Particles to and through your physical vessel, then out into your personal creator wheel and ultimately out into the world of form.

In the past, we have also spoken about rhythmic breathing, which could be called the Sacred Breath. When practiced regularly, this technique will energize your bodily form and improve your health, for it will supply your physical Being with the radiant particles of God Light needed for optimum performance and longevity. It is also an effective way to radiate the Violet Flame or Adamantine Particles of Light out into the world of form for the benefit of all. The Sacred Breath entails deep inbreathing which begins in the lower abdomen. Breathe deeply and slowly as you extend the stomach and then the chest area as you envision the breath slowly rising up and out of the crown chakra. When you have filled the lungs to the maximum, hold the breath for the same span of time as the inbreath. Envision a ball of Light slowly moving down your column of Light as you gradually release the breath, drawing the stomach in as you hold the breath the same length of time before beginning the next inbreath. You should state your intention (affirmations) before you begin the Sacred Breath, such as radiating the Violet Flame or Adamantine Particles of Light out to the world, or any of the brief affirmations you have been given.

In order to get the rhythm of this type of breathing, in the beginning, you may wish to breathe in to the count of five or seven, hold for the same count, breathe out and hold for the same count until you are comfortable with the process. All four actions should be of the same duration with a smooth, fluid, effortless motion. This is also a wonderful group activity and a powerful method for spreading the Violet Flame and the Divine Light of the Creator. As you become accustomed to deep rhythmic breathing, you will no longer be comfortable with the short, shallow breathing techniques used by the masses.
Recently, a dear, dedicated Soul asked this important question: "I have a question about the practice of forgiveness. I forgive everyone with whom I’ve shared conflicting, discordant energy during my present or past lives, and I return to them, wrapped in a bubble of love, all negative memories, impacted energies and probable futures we have created together." (Page 86, Reference & Revelations * Glossary & Illustrations). I have been doing this daily and have found it to be extremely powerful. My question is: Why do we return the memories, energies and probable futures to the other people? Why not release them altogether, perhaps into the Violet Flame?"

Our beloved messenger’s answer to her was, "When we forgive others through our loving intention, we return the negative vibrational patterns we have created back into neutral Light substance. However, the other person's vibrational patterns are still in the original discordant form that were created during the negative interaction between the parties involved. We cannot transform their negative energy; they have to do that themselves. However, by wrapping their negative vibrations in love, we are sending them a gift of Adamantine Particles along with their negative thought forms, and if they so desire, it will give them a gift of Love/Light with which they can transmute their negative thought patterns more easily. If they choose not to accept the gift and, thereby, not learn the lesson involved, it will manifest again through another person and situation. However, we are released from that karmic interaction and will never have to experience it again. We have gained the wisdom from the experience, for we have responded in a loving masterful way. That is why AA Michael tells us, ‘You cannot change anyone else; you can only change yourself, which will change the dynamics between you.’

"It is the same with the Love/Light we send out via our personal creator wheel. It not only benefits us and helps us to manifest what we desire for the greatest good, but we are encased and moving in an auric field filled with Adamantine Particles of Love/Light. That is why people wish to be near us and why they feel inspired and ‘lifted’ in our presence. If they open their hearts to the gift, they will receive an infusion of God Light through us, and it is the same with the Iridescent Pink Ray of Divine Love of the Goddess and also the transforming Violet Flame. We become bearers and conveyers of this Divine Energy when we move into a state of balance and harmony, and have aligned ourselves with our I AM Presence and sincerely ask that everything we think, do and say is for the greatest good of all. Remember, AA Michael said the most beneficial gift of tithing is to share the Creator Love/Light that we receive with others, until the time comes when they can access that blessed gift for themselves.

"Allow us to give you some more thoughts to contemplate until we come together again next month: The reality of the senses – physical body consciousness: When you are in the flow of Spirit, you will exist very lightly in your body with no pain or discomfort. You may experience diminished bodily sensations except an expanded feeling of love within the heart area, and you will experience a great sense of well-being and harmony.
You must become aware of your physical body consciousness as your Body Elemental wakes up, so to speak. Gradually, it will begin to work harmoniously with you to correct all the miscreations you have manifested within your bodily form due to erroneous thought forms. Over time, you will become more sensitive to your Body Elemental’s signals. You are constantly being bombarded by the input of the five physical senses. Moment to moment, you are either evolving or devolving. Nothing remains static.

Problems arise when there is a lack of attunement or empathetic alignment with others. A negative environment caused from self-serving, inharmonious conduct often results in friction and alienation. Each person must closely examine their own feelings, actions and projections of Life Force energy because when it is tainted or misqualified, it is potentially disturbing and destructive rather then empowering and constructive.

Do not deny yourselves the blessings of the physical realm, which are your Divine birthright, by becoming a devout ascetic like so many who, in the past, sought ascension through denial by forsaking all worldly pleasure. This path does not lead to Self-mastery and enlightenment. Centered self-awareness, pure thoughts and the ability to rise above the discord created by hate, resentment, jealousy and greed are the quickest way to tame the ego and return to a balanced and harmonious state-of-Being.

When you reach a certain level of Self-mastery, we endeavor to encourage you and to get your attention by intensifying the Love/Light within your Sacred Heart. It could be called a Spiritual Light infusion.
If you can view all that is presently in your life as transitory except the Love/Light and Spiritual Fire within your heart/soul, then you will know what we are trying to convey to you. Release your fear of the past and future, eliminate the emotional and mental controls others have over you and become the free Spirit you were meant to be. We are ever near to assist and inspire you.

You are loved profoundly.

I AM Archangel Michael.

* Transmitted through Ronna Herman * www.RonnaStar.com * E-mail: RonnaStar@earthlink.net * Phone: 775-856-3654 COPY FREELY AND SHARE * PLEASE GIVE CREDIT AS LISTED ABOVE ALONG WITH MY WEBSITE.

Some musings on this full moon in cancer

2009-12-31T16:57:00.000-08:00

artwork: darragh hodges

Full Moon in Cancer: pre-verbal childhood memories; family history; returning to the watery Source; home security; family loyalties and dependencies; a sense of belonging; being nurtured and comforted; the longing for Mother (or the Sacred Feminine); creating safety in which to grow; finding emotional trust in relationships; daring to be vulnerable; having the courage to be true to your feelings.

This Full Moon illuminates: deep emotional needs; unconscious behaviors; homesickness; longing for a family and children; the protected home sanctuary; national identity (tribe, kinship, ancestry); family legacies.

It's a Good Time to:

Be with the muse, and receive impressions from the imagination.
Acknowledge your vulnerabilities.
Nurture and allow yourself to be nurtured.
Protect the frail, young or helpless.
Give shelter to an animal or neighbor from the storm.
Tune in to your ancestors.
Make something artful from your memories.
Indulge your sentimental side.
Reach out to an old friend.
Be near the ocean.

Universal Heart attunement for 11.11 intention

2009-11-24T21:31:00.000-08:00

This is a wonderful meditation to do once a week or even every day.

The Intention of this meditation is for for Global Peace & Healing. You may be experience powerful healing and peace in your own personal life. The process of healing activates cleansing, clearing, and balancing of blockages in your light energy body, so that it can resonate at a higher frequency for attracting positive results in any situation. Daily meditation in the 8th chakra (universal heart) can help you release painful and disruptive patterns, and give you immediate relief of your inner resistance to what is in the moment. As you relax you will naturally attune and align with your spiritual self, and feel comforted. When you are relaxed you become more open and trusting of the natural birth process of a new consciousness. In this state you are receptive to the ever present power of grace to mysteriously transform and heal our life.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE MEDITATION

From Jude Currivan, PhD

First choose a quiet space where you feel comfortable and sit if possible in a chair that supports your back and enables you to place both feet, well balanced, on the floor.

Now, close your eyes and focus your attention on your breathing. As you breathe out, sigh a letting go of anything in your life that no longer serves you. And then as you breathe in, sense a renewal that flows through you, gently energizing and refreshing you. Continue to focus on the cycles of your breath, feeling yourself becoming more and more relaxed and at peace.

When you feel relaxed and balanced, imagine that you are now breathing in a thread of light that flows deep within the universal heart of the 8th chakra, located midway between your heart and your throat. As the light flows within the universal heart, sense that a tiny sphere of light begins to form there and then to grow and brighten with each breath as it becomes the size that you feel is perfect for you at this time.

When the sphere of light has grown in its perfection, in turn, bring the energies of your heart, mind and sense of purpose into the universal heart and allow their essences to lovingly nurture and balance each other into wholeness.

Now, sense that as you breathe within the sphere of light and into the universal heart, this portal - the energetic bridge to your higher self and All-That-Is, opens.

Continuing to breather into the universal heart, when you feel ready, continue your awareness downwards through your body, to and through the earthstar - the 9th chakra located a hands-breadth beneath your feet and on down into the Earth. Continue to send your awareness down, deep and still deeper until you sense that you have reached the heart of Gaia. - the living Earth.

As you reach the heart of Gaia, feel a pulse of her life-giving love returning up and through the 9th chakra beneath your feet, up through your body and the universal heart and on and up to the highest realms of Spirit. And then a returning pulse of unconditional love, from the highest realms of Spirit back down into the universal heart.

Gently and easily pulse this unconditional love through you, connecting Heaven, Earth, All-That-Is and all that you are through the universal heart of the 8th chakra. As each pulse of unconditional love flows through you, feel that all boundaries and barriers are gently dissolving - as you feel more and more at One with the Cosmos.

As divine love flows through you, open yourself in the universal heart to be a vessel, a pure channel of highest intention in service to global peace and reconciliation and the healing of all the schisms that have divided us from each other and from Gaia and all her children. Allow the unconditional love to flow gently through you, in service to such healing to attune with all beings in the universal heart.

Now, as we complete the attunement, imagine you are breathing deeply three times through the universal heart, and with each breath, with love, joy and gratitude slowly bring your awareness fully back into your body. Then open your eyes, stretch and rest for a short time before continuing on with your day.

Writing from Character, Myth & Memory

2009-09-24T10:56:00.001-07:00

Some great quotes from authors from FAWC's summer program. Enjoy...

Some fiction writers find that their stories germinate from a single visual image, others from a moral imperative, still others from a title or an opening sentence. Many, however, follow the old adage "Character is plot." To put it more precisely, personality has consequence. When different personalities mingle and collide, the consequences blossom into drama and only when they are fully and deeply realized by the writer can the drama become genuinely compelling.
~ Julia Glass

Characters emerge from a writer’s latent desires and obsessions. In order to achieve characterizations with full dimension, our first organic impulses must be tempered by stylization of voice, craft techniques, and choices in story mapping.
~ Maria Flook

Memory is creative work, compounded of fact, fantasy, and imagination. Transformed by distance in time and space, our memories are slippery stuff. In this workshop we'll explore the complementary roles of fantasy, myth, and accident in imagining memory. We’ll be less concerned with recovering what "actually" happened than with uncovering the poetic structures, mythic resonance and psychic weight of memory.
~Cynthia Huntington

Poem for the Autumn Equinox

2009-09-23T17:22:00.000-07:00

Spirals

It is time to be re-woven
by invisible threads
Silver spirals spun in a night sky
Spider-Woman rattles down tonight.

It is time to release
the day to day brickwork
Release my hold on
time and sequence and expectation,
Time to float away to my
core, mother
Belly bliss of the universe.

I want to sink into her copper landscapes
roads full of fallen branches and skulls,
dreams, totems, owls
calling me from my ruins,
calling me into the fire
where dead leaves have gathered
and trees, their rooted feet
spiral deep inside Mother Earth.

I am longing to decipher
the language of night --
dark wings night cactus, coyote howls
and canyons -- cliffs ravaged by the fall
of bright stars in rapture...
They say this is the Old Knowing,
wisdom of the ages -stories of our human
struggles, replaced by She who is infinitely
greater.

In her, I want to find the
source of light --
the wholeness of worlds
shimmering beneath the ground,
I want to know who
She is, the Great Mystery
who dances when I am sleeping
in and out of the darkness.

Mapping the Inner Journey - journaling as meditation

2009-09-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

photo credit: Red Dragonfly's blog

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today I came across the lovely creative expression of Julie Hamilton, Life Coach and Creative Expression Facilitator, otherwise known as The Red Dragonfly. She voices what I have been yearning for: how to discover and honor the creative process to live our lives with wisdom. She has some very special classes, worksops and ideas that are soul inspiring. Thank you so much Julie for your gift of creativity and love!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of the countless forms of meditation we can use, journaling offers its own unique benefits. Most meditations help empty the mind of concerns and bring positive ideas from our mental landscape, but journaling helps us anchor that experience in the material world. Not every person is attracted to meditating in seated silence, and journal meditation is a nice alternative as an active meditation. It allows us to trace our journey and see where we have grown and what lessons we may be repeating. By employing a different part of the brain than creative or inspired thought, writing or typing a journal can create a greater sense of connection and union with our physical selves and the world around us.

In working through challenges, it can be helpful to first empty all worries from our heads onto the safe pages of our journal. Fears can be brought to light rather than allowing them to haunt the dark corners of our subconscious. We may even feel heaviness dissipate once our heads are free from clutter, leaving space for inspiration and the creation of positive images in their place. Often in the process of writing out all the details of an event that troubles us, something that had been forgotten will come to the surface, providing a missing piece of the puzzle. Then we can truly begin to come up with answers, and write them down beside the worries to map the way from concern to constructive thought.

For capturing guidance and flashes of inspiration, journaling is ideal. This is especially true in the case of dreams, which often fade as we awaken. While working toward goals, keeping track of progress as well as guidance from readings or divination tools can be encouraging. Though it can be difficult to keep all of our guidance in the front of our minds, if we write it down it can serve as a reminder whenever we need it. We can also use our journals to converse with our higher selves or even the universe. Journaling offers yet another way to unburden mind and spirit, while also creating a record of the present and preserving our hopes and dreams for the future.

Thank you Daily Om!

Goddess Athena is speaking to me...

2009-09-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

Athena-inspired women know no fear, or that's the face they present to the world at least. Rest assured, you can be a tough,
independent, clever and resourceful woman, but do not be afraid to explore your weaker side.

SUGGESTED MANTRA: COURAGE

SUGGESTED AFFIRMATIONS:

I am letting go
My mind is at peace
I am healthy and happy
I am welcoming peace
I allow myself to be quiet
I am at peace with myself
I feel absolutely supercharged
Today is my chance to be healthy
My vital energy resurfaces naturally
I enjoy the food that is good for me

ATHENA'S GIFT TO YOU
Athena empowers you to surmount fears, giving you the freedom to explore your independent, clever and resourceful side. Invoke Athena to "find your voice" and overcome self-expression obstacles.

Communicative energy forms a healing power that facilitates the reconnection of your body, emotions, feelings and psychic energy.

Effective communication not only leads to positive outcomes for your projects, but your ‘true you’ is honoured whenever you express your honest feelings instead of voicing what you expect others want to hear.

Invoke Athena to help you get rid of ‘I can’t’ from your speech patterns, and learn to use phrases such as ‘I want’, ‘I need’, ‘I can’ and ‘I deserve’ in order to manifest positive outcomes in your life.

MORE ABOUT ATHENA
Zeus' favourite goddess Athena was the beautiful warrior queen who stood guard over the ancient city of Athens. She was adopted as the patron of the arts and craftspeople of Athens, and her brave swordsmanship made her an inspiration to the military forces. Athena's grace and intelligence were underlying qualities to her immense courage and strength.

HER MODERN ENERGY
If Athena is talking to you today, it is likely you are experiencing moments when everything seems to be on top of you - but each time you conquer another difficulty, you feel on top of the world. Ask yourself why you are entering cycles of seemingly impossible tasks, only to surmount them then search out more. The rush that achievement brings provides you with an endorphin surge that is addictive - you are compelled to seek out bigger and better challenges to sustain your habit.

If this sounds familiar, you may be presenting a strong and courageous face to the world, but really you're drawing on your strength rather than devoting time to explore your weaknesses. It's time to unclutter your life of all the issues dragging you down - the lower you are dragged down the harder you have to fight to get back on top. Do you really want to stay this exhausted?

DO THIS
Pick up your sword and declare battle against the clutter in your life. There is as much satisfaction to be found in simplicity as there is in resolving complexity.

If you have clothes in your wardrobe you haven't worn in a year, give them away. If you have books on your shelf that you know you are not going to read again, pass them on. What junk is lurking in your drawers that you haven't used (or even laid eyes on)? Throw it out! Toss out sticky bottles of who-knows-what at the back of your fridge - fill it instead with fresh fruit, and top up with water ready for the Summer.

Spring clean your immediate environment, and feel how much lighter you feel!

From Anita's Aussie Goddess site. Thank you Anita!!!

Invoke the Angel of Light this september...

2009-09-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

Inspirational message
Let your spiritual nature illuminate and brighten each day. Pay attention! Brushing over details can create gray and stagnant areas.

We are in a time of great transformation. The inpouring of light is accelerating the need to strengthen our spiritual immunity and become a positive force of change to help our entire planetary body to heal. We are each being called to step forward into greater self-responsibility and infuse the pre-existing energy fields with our spiritual light to create new configurations.

Light is not the absence of darkness, it is the fluid and dynamic essence of life. Being a lightworker is a task for the committed, not a hobby of convenience. It is time to extricate ourselves from the many illusions we have developed about ourselves and the world in general.

The more you call home the parts of you that have become separated for whatever reason, and find a way to accept them into yourself, the more vibrant your light body becomes. The very thoughts that you are entertaining at this moment shape your future. This applies to every moment and all the moments that follow.

Here are two suggestions for strengthening your light this month. Neither one is particularly easy and both require self cultivation and willingness to learn.

First, do not gossip. It decreases the light within you and others as you pass along the story. It is time to experience our personal power and consciousness without diminishment of others but through the acknowledgement of the unique contribution of each individual. So, the choice is to depreciate or appreciate through our words internally and externally.

Second, follow your emotional triggers to their roots. You can do this by not expressing feelings as they arise, but rather holding them and exploring the deeper dynamic. This is different from suppressing the emotion. It may take some practice to discern this difference. To express the feelings discharges them, limits your understanding, and stops the process of transformation at the current trigger. This practice matures us internally by not allowing us to become entangled or lost in repeated suffering.

The Angel of Light brings you the opportunity this month to up-level, increase your frequency, and learn a new way to show up in the world. Give your ego new instructions, listen to your soul, and let your light shine.

Warmly,
Kathy
from Innerlinks

I dreamt of dragons today..

2009-09-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

See the rest on Miss Jackie Morris's blog

Happy New Lunar Moon

2009-08-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

Is the energy of Leo speaking to you? I have been receiving many memories of the past to see myself more clearly through the mirrir of my relationships. And what am I finding? I can change the way I feel about myself, the way I look at myself. I have not seen someone beautiful for so long. When I looked at my self last - I saw a lost little girl.

Today, I see a lioness, growing, learning the best kind of love... Self-love. When a small spark of hope becomes a whisper, then a word, and then a roar...be certain you are awakening to your inner-truth. You are awakening to the roar of the lion!

Here are some healing images & images that are helping me discern today.

11. Tree of Life

Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow, come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a giant tree in the midst of them all. ~Buddha

Soul Message: Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity. –Lao-Tze (Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Alchemy and Transformation: We all need to establish the principle of universal harmony and balance firmly within ourselves in order to rest assured that behind all appearances, no matter how seemingly cruel or random, resides a greater truth, one that expresses the higher laws of spiritual governance. At this stage of initiation, the spiritual aspirant pauses to reflect upon the origins of life and to seek a greater understanding of his or her karmic circumstances and conditions.

Awakening to the Archetype – Athene: One of the many wisdom Goddesses, Athene applied her considerable wisdom to commerce, farming, and many other mundane arenas of life. You are invited into the temple of Athene, where balance and discrimination are elevated to the level of skillful means. Careful consideration and observation give you the chance to set your karmic records straight.

Everyday Encounters: We must strive to live according to higher principles and truths, walking a grace-centered path with awareness of spiritual laws and justice. Cultivate discernment in your life, but learn to let go of the burden of judgment, condemnation, and criticism. Embrace the notion that your judgments are always fundamentally about you and not about the other person. We’re constantly creating circumstances and conditions in our lives that will help us see ourselves more clearly.

Nature’s Healers: The Olive Tree

Put seeds and cover them. Blades will sprout where you do your work. –Rumi
New seed is faithful. Its roots deepest in the places that are most empty. –Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Chakra Attributes: (Color: Red) (Herb: Cedar) (Function: Survival, grounding)

Healing Essence of the Chakra: Located at the base of the spine, it governs all aspects of grounding, inner security, sexuality, and safety issues brought from childhood or past lives. Becoming conscious of the first chakra allows one to tap into a life affirming power that is deep and profound.

Healing Flower: Pomegranate

Keywords: Grounding, Sexuality, Life Affirming, Primal, Foundation

Affirmations: I enjoy being in my body and I nourish it each day. I am connected to the earth and the safe foundation it provides for my future growth. I believe in my abundance.

Celebrating the New Moon in Leo

2009-08-20T17:30:00.001-07:00

I received a beautiful blessing today...

I drew a card today from Isha Lerner's Triple Goddess Deck and received the Bliss card.

O happy soul, whose body has risen from the Earth which you wander and tread on during your sojourn in this world. Made to be the very mirror of Divinity, you have been crowned with divine imagination and intelligence. –Hildegard of Bingen
Soul Message: Through the energy centers within my body that carry the life force of the universe, I am in communion with Earth and stars. My thoughts, my actions, my creative vitality, birth the return of the Great Bliss Queen. I shall walk the path of Infinite Bliss. My heart glows with divine love and joy.

Alchemy and Transformation: At this stage of initiation—through regular prayer, meditation, and visualization—the human body begins to transform into a being of Infinite Bliss. The organs are strengthened and new levels of perception are awakened. The preconditions necessary to attain true peace and freedom have been fulfilled.

Awakening to the Archetype –The Great Bliss Queen of Tibet : The Great Bliss Queen has completely gone beyond the human tendency to solidify and objectify the things of this world. For Her, life is a holographic dance of translucent, rainbow-colored patterns of energy that dip and swirl and interweave. She smiles and laughs because She is fundamentally free, and because She knows that we are, too!

Everyday Encounters: You encounter the Great Bliss Queen in your life when you are fully present and alive in the world of form, while fully immersed in your flaming wisdom bliss. When you dance wild and naked in the moonlight; moan in ecstasy; squeal with delight; sign in sweet repose; or have a good, hard belly laugh at the sheer absurdity and wonder of it all. When you let your heart break open to the agony and the ecstasy, and especially when you discover that agony and ecstasy are, ultimately, one and the same. In short, once you have awakened to your own blissful nature, you encounter the Great Bliss Queen everywhere. There is no place She is not. She is All. All is Bliss.

Nature’s Healers: Pomegranate

MY INTENTION THIS NEW MOON:

I say goodbye to destructive influences
There are rainbows in every rainfall
I am awake to my life's calling
I welcome Kali's strength & recuperative powers
I trust the Universe to provide
It's OK to release my juicy anger
I can say "no" to negative influences

I am inspired today by Mother Kali -her PASSION and physical and sexual energy. I am alert to those who undermine my self-confidence - Kali is here to hurl my life onto a new path that will ultimately prove to be more fulfilling than my current path.

My new life path reveals itself to me...HOW BEAUTIFUL.

I will wait with patience...
I will plant seeds of confidence
I will trust in my inner guide

YES, YES, YES! ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!

in gratitude,
the curious mermaid

Awakening My Inner Aphrodite & Flowing

2009-07-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

Aphrodite, Yemaya, Mami Wata, Atargatis - these are the original, ancient names of the Water Goddess, the mermaid, who shows us the way to centers of our hearts. Those centers are deep, as deep as the bottoms of oceans and we must swim great dark distances with trust and faith. Like anything else in life, it is a great journey. A night-sea journey.

Today's message from Isha Lerner's Triple Goddess deck has taught me to go with flow and navigate my ocean with ease. I love this truth - to let go and find love.

---------------------
I dive into ocean
for that secret chest
which holds my fears and dreams
loves lost, memories hidden
A life
sweet,
moon waters
swimming around me,
in a swirl of ecstacy.

I let my mermaid
lead me,
I dive deeper
towards my treasure.
----------------------

What a wonderful, synchronistic message from the Daily Om:

Working with a Larger Energy
Going with the Flow

The expression going with the flow is a metaphor that applies to navigating a river. When we go with the flow, we follow the current of the river rather than push against it. People who go with the flow may be interpreted as lazy or passive, but to truly go with the flow requires awareness, presence, and the ability to blend one’s own energy with the prevailing energy. Going with the flow doesn’t mean we toss our oars into the water and kick back in the boat, hoping for the best. Going with the flow means we let go of our individual agenda and notice the play of energy all around us. We tap into that energy and flow with it, which gets us going where we need to go a whole lot faster than resistance will.

Going with the flow doesn’t mean that we don’t know where we’re going; it means that we are open to multiple ways of getting there. We are also open to changing our destination, clinging more to the essence of our goal than to the particulars. We acknowledge that letting go and modifying our plans is part of the process. Going with the flow means that we are aware of an energy that is larger than our small selves and we are open to working with it, not against it.

Many of us are afraid of going with the flow because we don’t trust that we will get where we want to go if we do. This causes us to cling to plans that aren’t working, stick to routes that are obstructed, and obsess over relationships that aren’t fulfilling. When you find yourself stuck in these kinds of patterns, do yourself a favor and open to the flow of what is rather than resisting it. Trust that the big river of your life has a plan for you and let it carry you onward. Throw overboard those things that are weighing you down. Be open to revising your maps. Take a deep breath and move into the current.

What Spirit wants me to know this Solar Eclipse

2009-07-22T15:50:00.000-07:00

1. Song of Creation

You must become the change you want to see in the world. –Gandhi

Soul Message: The light of inspiration sparks the center of your heart. Golden and pure, this consciousness has birthed a spectrum of color that surrounds you and protects you each day. You are given blue for clarity and insight, yellow for radiant life force, pink for sweetness, red for passion, and purple for higher knowledge. You are blessed with a rainbow consciousness.

Alchemy and Transformation: The Song of Creation is the song of life, where color, vibration, inner sound, and concentration are combined with the magic of universal orchestration. The spiraling star patterns and egg-shaped halo of gold surrounding the Creative Goddess represent eternal rhythms of possibility and vision. Nothing can remain stagnant at this stage of initiation. The theme of creative movement is evident, for there is a ceaseless interaction of energies moving the spark of inspiration throughout her entire body.

Awakening to the Archetype - The Triple Goddess: In the Song of Creation, the Goddess is configured in a triangular form, for it is said Her power, concentration, and creativity stem from the Sacred Triad of light, love and wisdom. She is the divine spark of life that births the potential of the Divine Feminine in earthly form and matter. You are invited to dance with and into the Song of Creation, allowing the golden light of Her love to ignite the flame in your heart.

Everyday Encounters: At this stage, take eager yet thoughtful steps toward the new path of manifestation that lies ahead. Wake up each morning with an expectation of creative fulfillment. All of the necessary ingredients are available to you to assist your magical encounters. The Song of Creation lives through your encounter with creative word, song, and dance.

Nature’s Healers: The Iris

Second Chakra

May all things move and be moved in me and know and be known in me. May all creation dance for joy within me. –Chinook Psalter
May your life be like a wildflower, growing freely in the beauty and joy of each day. -Native American Proverb
Chakra Attributes: (Color: Orange) (Herbs: Gardenia, Damiana) (Function: Desire, Pleasure, Sexuality, Procreation)

Healing Essence of the Chakra: Located in our lower belly, it is where we relate to our bodies through the procreative centers. Through a healthy second chakra one can heal relationship problems, transform deep and hurtful emotions, and balance life.

Healing Flower: Hibiscus

Keywords: Life Energy, Creative, Procreative, Giving, Receiving, Inner Truth

Affirmations: I make my decisions from a place of hope and faith. My creative drive is strong and exciting. My sexuality is fulfilling and meaningful. I am life.

The Journey Home

2009-07-17T17:09:00.000-07:00

The beautiful message of this card from Isha Lerner's Triple Goddess Deck..

I was shown a fledgling learning to fly. Its first efforts were very feeble, but as it used its wings more and more, they became stronger until it found the freedom of flight and was able to soar to great heights and fly great distances without any effort. I heard the words: Faith comes with practice. Live by faith until it becomes rocklike, unshakable, and find the true freedom of the Spirit. –Eileen Caddy
Soul Message: We go beyond the veil of fear, lighting each other’s way. The holiness that leads us is within us, as is our home. –A Course in Miracles

Alchemy and Transformation: It is at this stage of initiation the individual becomes aware of his or her unique existence and must find a way “home” to the soul. A new level of maturation emerges, for one must meet the challenge of individution head-on. One must learn to engage with the intermediaries of the soul and live through the intuitive self that, in time, becomes the primary organ of perception.

Awakening to the Archetype – Bird Woman: The bird is a symbol of expanded consciousness and from very early times has been associated with reincarnation and rebirth. You are invited to take flight into the great heavens within your soul as you journey into the vast terrain of your deepest truth and wisdom. Identify your own journey and fly straight into the ecstasy of self-realization and rebirth.

Everyday Encounters: It is time to slow down, open the door and meet your destiny. Immerse yourself in nature. Look into the mystery of life with new eyes. Something magical is afoot. The time is now to find right relationship between body, soul and spirit.

Nature’s Healers: Shooting Star

Now I pray that each and every being’s true nature be revealed, that we each see clearly our inherent truth and find liberation from the shackles of suffering and difficulty imposed by the limitations of our mind. –Chagdud Tulku
Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
–Mother Teresa
There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience. –French Proverb
Chakra Attributes: (Color: Blue) (Function: Communication, Creativity, Connection)

Healing Essence of the Chakra: Located in the throat and neck region of the body and extending upward to include the lower region of the brain or cortex, this area holds the communication center. Through the Throat Chakra one may speak long-held truths of past hurts and, in the process, find much inner peace and a sense of personal freedom. With a healed and healthy fifth chakra, one’s words are kind, clear and truthful.

Healing Flower: Morning Glory

Keywords: Truth, Self-Expression, Song, Poetry, Clarity, Communication

Affirmations: I am the messenger. I speak my truth with clarity and courage.

Infinite Truth

2009-07-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share these tarot cards from Isha Lerner's Triple Goddess deck. The images have been resonating with me as I journey towards daily truth (prayer), inner truth and eternal Divine truth - the holy Trinity. And I celebrate this journey as I enter into my 33rd birthday. They say it is the Year of Enlightenment...and I am deeply deeply grateful for feeling that light. Thank you UNIVERSE!!! I love you so much!!

In Isha Lerner's deck, she says, the "Healing Essence of the Sixth Chakra: Located in the center of the forehead between the eyebrows, it is identified with the Third Eye. This chakra asks that a person look within to find the wisdom of the soul. It affects the brain and the neuralgic system, which stimulate the endocrine and pituitary systems. At the highest level, when this chakra has connected with the Heart Chakra, divine love and light emanates out to the world."

Keywords: Clear Vision, Genius, Imagination, Dreams, Quiet, Inner Peace

Affirmations: I see the light and it guides my way. I listen, I hear, I speak the truth.

Living in Joy

2009-06-04T14:54:00.001-07:00

This is the month of June. Can you feel the sensitive gentle rays of Venus bathing you in her loving light?

I have been feeling the awe and wonder of rain in the leaves, the blue wind, and I feel humbled to my knees as I go weak at the joy of being alive. If you have been feeling this way too, the passionate goddess of love is working in you. Freja's gifts are those that make us overjoyed to be alive!

Suggested affirmations

I live in love
I fly with love
I am right here
I stand in complete satisfaction
I embrace life in its absolute fullness
At this moment, I have all that I need
Each moment is a precious gift in beingness

Rest in peace, my friend Ari

2009-06-04T09:14:00.001-07:00

Our friend Ari has passed on to a new dimesnion and it was lovingly obvious how many lives he had touched and how many of us gathered to celebrate his life. He is pictured here with the love of his life and soulmate. We all love you Ari, may you rest in peace.

I have wriiten two poems here for you. I know you will read them from where you are.

Balloons
---------

The wind rose up
and the sky was still

All of us watched with
hushed breath,
while white balloons bloomed
across the sky.

We waited while
hundreds of prayers
lifted off the ground
from your mother and father
your friends,
brothers, thousands of them
chanting you down to Jerusalem.
Some held their breath,
Others spoke three words only,

Until one balloon, leaving
the rest, found its way
there,
among blue sky and cracked moon.

We watched you depart,
vanishing from us utterly
until you became a speck of light,
an angel hovering above us,
watching us, still.

Sun
----

What did you give us?
They ask always,
as if children could ever forget

how they first danced in the grass
balanced finally on that blue bicycle
and gazed at the black night sky,
an ocean filled with stars.

Innocents,
who see things for the very first time,
like the day I saw you in a crowd of children
nieces, nephews and friends,
but I did not know if you were
one of us or one of them,

Giggling, dimples and all
palms wide open
catching the morning sun

Happiness Attracts Abundance

2008-10-15T21:14:00.001-07:00

The Empress
© Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

Seek happiness in your life first. Then finding what makes you happy, you draw your abundance to you. This I believe is an important insight or secret to living life well.

Do you struggle with your work, what you are doing each day just to make a living? I know the feeling. I've lived my life that way for much of the past. I have friends who struggle with the same issue. It takes courage to stretch, grow and expand in new ways. And that is exactly what I've concluded that I want for myself. The half measure of just working some job to make ends meet is no longer satisfactory. Such a way is no longer a life worth living. But living a life of happiness, ease and connectedness to a truer inner purpose is a life worth living. I'm determined to live that life now. It is important to put happiness first, and through that happiness draw your abundance to you.

Read more from Rick Baker's blog >>

A new universe being born out of the ashes of the old one

2008-10-14T23:13:00.000-07:00

"Phoenix Fire - Emerald" by Walter Bruneel © Walter Bruneel

Squam Art Workshops

2008-07-14T11:31:00.000-07:00

Blends art and writing and nature. Looks like fun!

http://www.squamartworkshops.com/

Writer's Rooms

2008-07-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

JG Ballard

Seamus Heaney

Hanif Kureishi

Mark Haddon

See more Writer's Rooms on The Guardian

The Compassion & Laughter of the Dalai Lama

2008-07-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

Are you ready for the Blue Electric Storm?

2008-06-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

Blue Storm is the initiation by fire, the lightning path, the arrival of the thunderbeings who bring the final transformation. To the Maya, Blue Storm represents the storm, the thundercloud full of purifying rain, and the lightning that shatters any false structuring of reality. Blue Storm is the purification of the 'body temple' and the ignition of the light body. In these last years of a twenty-six-thousand-year Mayan grand cycle, Blue Storm comes to help you in the disintegration process that moves you from separation to ascension. This initiation by fire breaks any false containers of self that cannot withstand the flame of transmutation. Only your true identity will live through these fires, for you will be reborn in the heart of All That Is.

Blue Storm provides the water that purifies and quenches your spiritual thirst. In this state of consciousness, you stand willing to surrender everything. You give up what you seem to be in order to become fully what you are. You step into the fires of the unknown, and you are changed forever.

Allow Blue Storm's storm to purify and cleanse you.

13 moon calendar is here for 2009!

2008-06-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

Hurray! Hurray!

2008-06-23T10:22:00.001-07:00

The book reading was a smashing success. Thanks to all who came out to hear me read from a story in progress called "Far."

Happy Solstice!

2008-06-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

Celebrate summer! Don't analyze, don't worry, just ripen with the sun, move in the sunlight. Light your hearts with the celestial fire and dance into Summerland!

MUSIC TO LIGHT YOUR FIRE:

1. Cafe del Mar Volume 2: Sabor de Verano compiled by Jose Padilla
2. Chilled: Offshore by Chicane
3. Release: Breaking Down by Ananda Project

I'm reading at Dog Eared Books!

2008-06-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

THE WRITING SALON & PAMELA ALMA BASS PRESENTS

The Annual Student Reading
Saturday, June 21 6:30 pm

Come listen to stories about travel adventures, humorous tales of trauma & mystical stories about overcoming difference

Readers include:
Kate Folk
Zinnia Gupte
Kelly Kelly
Jennifer Lou
Jessica Martinez
Kevin Schmidt

Where: DOG EARED BOOKS
900 Valencia St. (@ 20th)
San Francisco, CA 94110

My new favorite writer!

2008-06-02T17:07:00.001-07:00

"Oftentimes you might not discover what a story is really trying to do until the third or seventh or tenth draft," Julie Orringer has said. "It's important to realize that the study of fiction and the development of one's writing is a long, long process and cannot be rushed."

To prove that Julie practices what she preaches, Knopf dug into her desk drawers, and discovered that relentless revision is the secret to her literary success. Here, you can take a virtual tour of the notebooks they found, all of which included drafts of stories that are included in her first collection, How to Breathe Underwater.

Take a look at Julie's notebooks.

Dedicate Universalize Cooperate!

2008-05-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

Do you feel the magik of the Crystal Moon upon us?

Little Heroes: Julie Orringer

2008-05-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

"In the name of Love, let me be close to my creation, let the deep silence touch me and the magical rush wash over me, for crying out loud -- let me write!"

Enjoy Julie Orringer's story

Julie Orringer was born in 1973 in Miami, Florida, while her parents were in medical school. She spent most of her childhood years in New Orleans and Ann Arbor, reading and writing plays and stories and making up games with her younger brother and sister. She went to Cornell University, where she majored in child development before deciding not to follow her parents into the medical profession. After graduating with a degree in English, she entered the M.F.A. program at the University of Iowa, and studied with Marilynne Robinson, Frank Conroy, James Alan McPherson, and Thom Jones.

Upon graduation in 1996, Orringer moved to San Francisco, and over the next three years worked as a receptionist in a fertility clinic, a copy clerk in the Parc 55 Hotel, a sample-picker in a fabric warehouse, and a high-tech management consultant. In 1997 her short story “What We Save” was accepted for publication at The Yale Review, and went on to win the journal’s Smart Family Foundation Award for best story of the year. Her next published story, “When She Is Old and I Am Famous,” won the1998 Paris Review Discovery Prize and was reprinted in The Pushcart Prize XXV. In 1999, Orringer was awarded a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, where she worked with John L’Heureux, Elizabeth Tallent, and Tobias Wolff. In 2001 she received the San Francisco Foundation’s Joseph Henry Jackson Award for the manuscript of her short story collection, How to Breathe Underwater. “Pilgrims” has also been selected for Best New American Voices 2001, New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, 2002, and The Pushcart Prize XXVII. Orringer is currently the Marsh McCall Lecturer in Creative Writing at Stanford. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, the writer Ryan Harty, and is working on her first novel.

About the story, Orringer writes: “When I was eleven, almost a year after my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, we attended a macrobiotic Thanksgiving feast at the home of some friends in New Orleans. The mother of the host family had died of cancer not long before, and the daughter, a girl close to my own age, showed me a glass of red water and insisted that it contained her mother’s essence. That image remained with me ever since, and fifteen years later it became the inspiration for ‘Pilgrims.’ As I wrote the story I found myself remembering the strange foods we ate, the vast, rickety tree house outside, and the general sense of disconnection between the sick parents and their bewildered, frightened children. My own mother died when I was twenty. Eight years later I continue to be surprised by how fresh that loss feels and how much I wish I could know her as an adult.”

Read Pilgrims on Ploughshares

Finding my voice

2008-05-28T12:04:00.000-07:00

Some artwork to illustrate the journey: "The Search for My Voice"

10 inspiring places to write

2008-05-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

article from

School may be out, but summer reading is always in. So enjoy this vacation season by visiting literary gatherings "held in some of America's most desirable destinations and offering a chance to hear an array of our finest living authors talk about their craft," says Pam Houston, author of Sight Hound and Cowboys Are My Weakness and director of creative writing at the University of California-Davis. "Reading and writing are solitary pursuits, so it's rewarding to be with people who share your passion." Here, she talks with USA TODAY's Shawn Sell about inspiring literary events.

Aspen Summer Words Writing Retreat and Literary Festival
Aspen, Colo.

"The Sundance Film Festival of literary publishing, held Sunday through Thursday, is on the verge of celebrating its 30th anniversary," Houston says. It brings together "first-rate writers, some of the brightest lights from New York's publishing community, in a town that has been among the writer-friendliest since Hunter Thompson showed up a half-century ago."970-925-3122; aspenwriters.org

Fine Arts Work Center
Provincetown, Mass.

From Sunday through Aug. 28, "the party goes on all summer long with week-long and weekend classes in the daytime and open-to-the-public readings in Stanley Kunitz's Reading Room nearly every night," Houston says. "The Fine Arts Work Center is the oldest continuous art colony in the country, where writers and visual artists compare notes in one of the most accepting and inspiring locales on Earth." 508-487-9960; fawc.org

Iowa Summer Writing Festival
Iowa City

"Even the sidewalks bear the names of literary artists here," Houston says. "Along the Iowa Avenue Literary Walk, bronze panels celebrate the voices that have come together at the renowned Iowa Writers Workshop, now until July 29, from Flannery O'Conner and Kurt Vonnegut to John Irving and James Tate." 319-335-4160;www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/iswfest

Sewanee Writers' Conference
Sewanee, Tenn.

"Tennessee Williams specified in his will that a memorial fund be established to encourage creative writing, and many years later his wishes are carried out each July," Houston says. "This year's gathering, July 12-24 on the idyllic mountaintop campus of the University of the South, features up-and-comers alongside the tried and true." 931-598-1654;www.sewaneewriters.org

Centrum's Port Townsend Writers Conference
Port Townsend, Wash.

"Held each year in this beautiful town, Centrum hosts the most impressive summer literary gathering (July 14-24) in the Northwest," Houston says. "Michael Collins, Michelle Cliff and Kim Addonizio head this year's list of faculty, in a town that Ray Carver and Tess Gallagher put on the literary map." 360-385-3102; centrum.org/index.php?page=WC-intro

Taos Summer Writers' Conference
Taos, N.M.

"Held July 9-15 in a charmingly weathered adobe inn, this conference feels like a family reunion, as everyone catches the relaxed spirit of the desert that has been inspiring artists in northern New Mexico for years," Houston says. "In addition to the readings, panels and lectures, members of the Taos Pueblo bring dance, drumming and song to the banquets, a paradise of spicy New Mexican food." 505-277-5572; www.unm.edu/taosconf

Squaw Valley Community of Writers
Squaw Valley, Calif.

"If you like your literature mixed with mountain hikes, bungee jumping and a swim in the blue waters of Lake Tahoe, this event offers poetry (July 23-30) and fiction, non-fiction, memoir and screenwriting (Aug. 6-13), along with inspiring scenery," Houston says. "Morning classes are followed by afternoon panels and evening readings by writers including Robert Hass, Dorothy Allison, and Sharon Olds." 530-470-8440; squawvalleywriters.org

Bread Loaf Writers' Conference
Middlebury, Vt.

"The granddaddy of all literary gatherings, Bread Loaf is in its 80th year of bringing writers, students and lovers of words together in the Green Mountains of Vermont, from Aug. 17 to 28," Houston says. "There is nowhere in America where you can hear more great writers reading more great work in such a short space of time." 802-443-5286;middlebury.edu/academics/blwc

Maui Writers' Retreat/Conference
Maui, Hawaii

"If you are a fan of genre writing (mysteries, thrillers, romances, science fiction) but want a little mainstream literature thrown in, then this is the gathering for you, held Aug. 26-Sept. 5," Houston says. "More commercially driven than the others — agents and editors come here to sign up writers — and significantly less highbrow." 888-974-8373;mauiwriters.com

Tomales Bay Workshops
Marshall, Calif.

"New on the scene but promising to be very special, these workshops will close out the summer season, Oct. 19-24, just when the weather turns perfect on the Northern California coast," Houston says. Workshops "promise writers such as Richard Bausch, Kim Barnes and Brady Udall. Participants can let the drama of the Pacific Coast inspire them." 530-757-8753; extension.ucdavis.edu/arts/index.asp

Summer & fall writing conferences 2008

2008-05-27T11:15:00.001-07:00

Taos Summer Writing Conference

July 12-20 2008

Squaw Valley Writers Workshops

August 2-9 2008

Tomales Bay Workshops

October 22-27 2008

There's a light inside

2008-05-22T16:49:00.000-07:00

There's light inside

that shines so bright

it may blind

you at first.

Look closely,

i am merely shining

your reflection

and even if you wish

not to see the light

it is my birthright,

my one destiny

to shine like the sun

Bay Area Writing Groups

2008-05-22T11:12:00.001-07:00

Writing groups are essential for developing your creative toolbox. Share your work with others and learn more about your own writing process as you offer critical and supportive feedback.

Artists & Writers Creative Group
This San Francisco group, a distinctive combination of salon and creative support group, welcomes committed writers and artists in all media who seek community and ongoing support for reaching creative goals. Led by Robert Ressler, a writer, artist and professional life coach who specializes in working with creative people, the group is intimate, personal, fun and designed for a consistent membership. For more information, visit the website or call 415.289.2212.

Creating, Not Critiquing
Since getting their MFAs in creative writing several years ago, the members of this group haven't written much new work. As writers, they claim to be a little creaky, rusty and low on oil. The idea of this group is simply to dust off your hands, put away your egos, pick up a pen, and dive in. So instead of a typical workshop-like approach, group members do writing exercises -- short, light-hearted "assignments" aimed at getting the machine cranking again -- and then share the results in a supportive group setting. If this sounds appealing to you, email the moderator.

Downtown Berkeley Writing Group
This small group of talented fiction writers meets every Tuesday between 7 pm and 10 pm in Downtown Berkeley. Each member reads out five to seven pages of fiction while other members voice opinions and offer helpful critiques. New members are welcome. Please email piyachatterjee@cs.com for more information.

East Bay Poetry Writing Group
This new group meets periodically at a restaurant for an hour or two to engage in writing exercises, critique each other's work, and enjoy a cup or plate of inspiration. The group meets on Sundays at 2:45 in downtown Oakland, email the moderator for details.

ESL Writing Group
Are you a writer whose English is a second language? Do you struggle with slang words, mental translation of concepts, and a cultural gap? Members of this group have a strong desire to express their ideas for publication, regardless of the language and medium. All genres are welcomed to join. Meetings will be scheduled monthly or as needed. Contact Jennie S. Bev for more information.

Fire Up Your Pens Poetry Workshop
Fire Up Your Pens is a small group that meets in the Berkeley hills, in a safe, fun and open setting, welcoming poets of all kinds. The group functions in a casual workshop setting, reading one poem, new or old work, and usually bringing five to ten copies for group members to discuss. Past poem topics have included sex, friendship, guilt, sitcoms, money, drugs, homelessness, detectives, dancing and, of course, the good old staples of heartbreak, lust and love. Anything's game! The goal of this workshop is to keep the members writing, to help each other, and to coax you out of your comfort zone and into dangerous territory. Perfection isn't the goal -- just experimentation and growth. If you're interested, email the moderator or call 510.486.1912.

Kicking Muse Writing Group
Kicking Muse was started in May 2001 to explore the idea of bouncing short-story fiction off a group of like-minded writers. The motivation was motivation. The group has proved a forum where creation is encouraged and procrastination discouraged. The group meets every second Tuesday in the Mission and currently consists of eight fiction writers, each with differing projects and goals. In a supportive group dynamic, writers are able to share work and pursue creative writing with a sense of structure. A small group setting ensures focus on two individual pieces each week, which means that every four sessions, two writers submit new work. Email us for more information.

The Lakeview Workshop
A new critique group in Oakland’s Lake Merritt district, this group meets Sunday afternoon twice monthly. This is a small group and very serious about writing. Their purpose is craft, but publishing is also on their minds. Members bring work and read it to receptive ears. Please send samples to Brook.

Mechanix Poets
Workshop and reading group moderated by Yves Moralex. Topics change monthly, so check the schedule for current information. Bring selected poems on the topic to read and share. Dessert is served. The Mechanix Poets meets the second Tuesday of the month at the Mechanis' Library, Room 405. Free to members and public.

Menlo Park Writing Group
Been pounding away at the computer and looking for feedback? Serious about getting your work published? So are the members of this group. Just so we're all on the same page, to join this group you should be: a fiction writer (no poets please); committed (Willing to show up for meetings -- no excuses); serious (ready to share your work at least once a month); and supportive (happy to offer critique to other writers in the group). The group meets Monday nights to do writing exercises, discuss progress with current projects, and critique each other's work. If interested, contact Danielle.

The Mysterious Writ
This East Bay writing group focuses primarily on mysteries, but is open to working with other genres. A unique company of writers, each brings different strengths to the table, with varying areas of expertise or insight. For more information go tohttp://www.mysteriouswrit.org/ or contact Charles A. King at 510.239.2239 x2321.

Ongoing Bay Area Writing Group
A long-time critique group that meets twice a month on Sunday nights, alternating between the East Bay and San Francisco, this group is interested in people who have made a commitment to their writing and take it seriously, preferring writers who are actively seeking publication. Members bring work to each session for group critique. For consideration, please send five poems or two pages of prose to Carolyn Miller, 1195 Green Street, San Francisco, CA 94109. For more info, emailcmiller355@aol.com.

Orbit Room Writing Group
The Orbit Room Writing Group is a small group of writers, each working on a full-length novel. We are a diverse collective composed of people of different ages, sexes, races and sexual orientations. We meet every other Tuesday at the Orbit Room in San Francisco. Members submit selections and critique others' submissions on a regular basis. We want to keep the group small so that each member can submit frequently, and are only accepting submissions from writers working on or interested in working on a novel. If you would like more information, please contactbookmike@pacbell.net.

Pacifica Writing Group
Writing workshop for poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Ongoing, every other Thursday in Pacifica. Meeting time is 7:30 pm. If you would like more information, please contactcamincha@mindspring.com.

Poetry Mission Gatherings
If you live in the Bay Area or plan on visiting San Francisco, you must check out The Poetry Mission gatherings, every Thursday night at Someplace Else, 1795 Geary at Fillmore. Each week, members sit around a coffee table on cushy sofas, sipping beers and smuggling cheap Chinese from the joint next door, sharing their latest work, reading poems from their adolescence, and laughing at one another's attempts at poetry. (Just kidding.) Meetings begin at 7 pm, and go on until 9:30 pm. Provocative and illuminating, this is the place to get your poetry fix.

Post Script Collective: Poetry Performance Group
Currently interested in new members for group performance and related projects. Interested poets and writers can email Byron or call him at 415.430.2160 x 4922.

Professional Writer's Support Group
This group is for professional writers seeking support for their writing and business development. New members welcome! Meetings are every other Tuesday mornings at 11 am at La Boheme Café and Coffeehouse at 3318 24th Street (cross street Mission) in San Francisco. Email the moderator for more information.

Queer Women's Writing Group
A group of women who have worked together for some time, this group is committed to regular attendance and critical, thoughtful responses in a supportive environment, meeting every month, critiquing one or two pieces per meeting, and sometimes doing writing exercises. The group aims for diversity in terms of race, class, age, writing style, background, interests, etc. -- except you gotta be self-defined as queer and as a woman/3rd gender! If interested, please email us!

Redwood Branch of the California Writers Club
Established in 1975, the Redwood Branch is one of twelve California Writers Clubs branches statewide. Active Membership is open to published writers and those in related fields of writing. Monthly meetings are informative and fun with a variety of speakers including authors, agents and marketing experts. The group alternates luncheon and dinner meetings each month to accommodate different member schedules. In addition to the meetings, the group has several critique groups meeting on a regular basis. The Redwood Branch is also active in the community, conducting writing contests for school children, sponsoring information booths at the annual Book Fair in Santa Rosa, and offering workshops and seminars on writing at bookstores and other locations. Dues are $45 a year and new CWC members pay a one-time initiation fee of $20. New members submit a sample of their work for determining which category of membership they have achieved. For a free copy of our Redwood Writer Newsletter and membership information, please email Gil Mansergh or call him at 415.l823.8128.

San Francisco Writing Workshop
This group, which offers supportive critiques and feedback, has been meeting for many years, and originally started in the old SF Public Library. The group is always looking for new members -- you can just sit and listen without reading if you want to. There are no dues or membership fees. Meets every Tuesday at 7 pm in the Meridian Gallery, 2nd floor, 545 Sutter Street between Mason and Powell. For more information, email avakiansona@earthlink.net.

Santa Cruz Writing Group
This group meets every Tuesday evening at 7:30 pm at the downtown Borders bookstore (upstairs in the café). The group, which is sponsored by Borders andFictionWeek.com, focuses mostly on writing technique and pre-publication issues. Each week the group discusses writing from members, fiction or non fiction, focusing on short pieces or segments from novels. New members are always welcome. For more information, go to http://www.fictionweek.com/ or emailwebmaster@fictionweek.com.

Santa Cruz Magical Realism Writing Group
New Santa Cruz fiction writing group forming, catering to writers of surrealism, magic realism, science fiction and fantasy. Let's drink coffee and hang out and write and laugh and get published! If you're interested in joining, email the moderator for more information.

Science Fiction & Fantasy Novel Writing Group
This new group meets Sundays at 12:30 pm at the Main S.F. Public Library. Meetings are for two or more hours: the first half consists of discussion of elements of writing, such as character or style, and the second half consists of reading and feedback of one or two members' work. The group is open to new members who are currently working on a novel. Also open to changes in meeting time and day to accommodate all members. Contact Jay Mosesson by email or phone: 415.674.3738

Sex & San Francisco Writing Group
If you are a professional single woman in your late 20s to early 30s with an active social life and a great group of friends who share extensive "Sex and the City" experiences, and you take pride in writing fun, witty emails and letters, then you might consider this wacky group in which women share their stories and preserve their unique experiences. Don't pour your heart out over a drink and forget about your thoughts the next day. Don't limit your writing experiences to a journal or to email. Be proactive and pursue this project with like-minded women. Editing and writing experience a definite plus, although not required. Let's chat!

South Bay Writers
The South Bay Writers meet the second Wednesday of each month at 6 pm at the House of Yo Rong Restaurant in Cupertino, just off Hwy 85. However, several times a year, weekend workshops are conducted in place of the regular meeting. With Pulitzer Prize-winning speakers like Al Martinez, who spoke in July 2001, the usual fees ($14 members or $19 guests), which include dinner, are clearly a bargain. Clickhere to view their meeting schedule. Nonmembers are always welcome.

Write Now!
Founded as a critiquing resource for people with limited self-discipline, this group is in the beginning stages of some interesting projects. The crew meets every other week, determining what individual accomplishments for the next meeting, swapping plans, excerpts and advice. You don't have to be a professional to join the group, but you have to want to produce something meaningful, interesting and potentially publishable. If you're interested, please email the moderator with a description of what you're working on, as well as other things that could be helpful in assembling an effective group: interests, age, goals for your project and quirky things you would like other people to know about you. It's time to write!

Writers' Bloc
A small group of writers who get together and critique each other's work every two weeks seeks new members. Whether you are just finding your voice or you have a weekly byline in the New Yorker, you are welcome. Please be committed to sharing and improving your writing through the critique process. Of course, that includes being willing and able to critique others. Writers of all stripes are welcome -- poetry, fiction, non-fiction, novels, software manuals -- come and read. OK, maybe not software manuals. This group has no leader and no fees -- all they ask is that you be willing to commit to coming to meetings every other Wednesday at 7 pm, in a non-smoking apartment at Polk & Sacramento. For more information, email the moderator.

Writing the Artist Statement

2008-05-22T10:32:00.000-07:00

Writing the Artist Statement by Ariane Goodwin is another gem of a book that helps artists reveal the true spirit of our work.

Goodwin walks us through why it's important to write an artist statement to bridge your audience and your art and how it connects with us to our personal power. She also shares who will use the artist statement: form artist-in-residencies to galleries, festivals, cafes, art patrons, places we teach, contests, exhibitions, grants and more.

Goodwin writes compassionately and gently nurtures the Da Vinci inside all of us to to believe in ourselves to leap and bound. I especially love how she explains personal power.

The only way to expand our personal power

is to embrace ourselves

exactly as we are

neither more nor less

bust as someone in a state of

constantly changing grace.

The book is also full of writing exercise about Reclaiming Our Story, Reframing Our Fears and The Only Way Out...Is Through.

Happy reading!

Creative Retreat: Artist communities

2008-05-22T10:09:00.000-07:00

Need to revitalize your creative energy? Perhaps you need to treat yourself to a creative retreat, artist colony, or residency. These are programs that support artists by providing time and space for the creation of new work. A gem of a book is the Artists Communities: A Directory of Residencies that Offer Time and Space for Creativity, and it's just that, a directory. Gone are the days of Google searches and bookmarking! This little directory is chock full of insightful essays by former artists-in-residents like Jhumpa Lahiri and Seiko Tachibana; contains a list of residences across the US and the world; and finally each residency is explained in detail with mission statements, message from the director, history, past residents and contact information.

“Artists have always needed patrons and that is what our artists’ communities have become—the least interfering, the least demanding, and the most nourishing patrons of artists.”
Robert MacNeil, Introduction to Artists Communities: A Directory of Residencies that Offer Time and Space for Creativity

Check out an excerpt from Google Books.

According to the Alliance of Artists Communities –
• There are more than 250 artists’ communities in the U.S., and approximately 200 in another 40 countries worldwide.
• 66% of artists’ communities are multidisciplinary, bringing together all kinds of creative professionals, including visual and performing artists, composers and choreographers, playwrights and poets, creative and scholarly writers, architects and designers, historians, ecologists, scientists, and more.
• Each year creative communities serve approximately 12,000 artists and provide an estimated $36 million in direct support to artists (in the form of stipends, travel, materials, room/board, technical support, etc.).

Learn about the hundreds of residency opportunities available for artists of all kinds. Find out about locations, offerings, application procedures, and how to get the most out of the experience.

Alliance of Artists Communities
255 South Main St.
Providence, RI 02903
Phone: (401) 351-4320
Aliance of Artists Communities

Kiss the sky

2008-04-18T10:34:00.000-07:00

Stand in love. Love your light. You are an artist. A creator of worlds and therefore you are meant to shine. You are a bright star they pluck from the sky.

The divine child knows this divine secret. She is a bird flying to kiss the sky. Wind through her hair, love in her heart, she is free to fly.

The child never forgets

2008-04-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

This was such a beautiful, intuitive and healing message from Alyse Young I had to share her treasure...

"Your drama or belief is not your truth. Drama is the consequence of not standing in your truth, our point of powerlessness."

Learn more >>

Mystic coast

2008-04-09T15:51:00.000-07:00

Byrdcliffe Residency

2008-04-08T14:05:00.000-07:00

Little Heroes: Tan Twan Eng

2008-04-02T16:33:00.000-07:00

Man booker's youngest publishing house gives a gift to sparkling new writer.

As soon as Myrmidon received the mauscript of Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain, they knew they wanted to publish it. The publishers thought it was a "wonderful, beautifully written story" and "knew it deserved an audience".

Bravo to Tan Twan Eng who had been rejected by every major publishing house in London for two years, and still persisted. The payoff? Published and on the Man Booker longlist.

Truly a gift.

Read the whole story >>

Little Heroes: Nora Pierce

2008-04-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

I met Nora Pierce at a faculty reading at Stanford, where she read from her recent novel, The Insufficiency of Maps.

What drew me to her was her confidence. She had the aura of someone who has walked, struggled and marched forth to achieve her goal. I hope her story inspires you just as it has inspired me.

Pierce was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and before that, a Rosenthal fellow in the PEN Center Emerging Voices Program. She is a writer with no advanced degree in creative writing or English, rather she is self-taught and persisted in creating a life that supported writing.

Her persistence has certainly paid off.

After PEN, she joined the Squaw Valley Community of Writers for a week long workshop, shortly after accepted a Stegner Fellowship, continued perfecting her craft as a writer-in-residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts, and is currently in residence at La Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris. Pierce has won numerous awards for her fiction, including grants from the Maryland State Arts Council.

Her short story, "A Safe and Infinite Silence" was awarded a Steinbeck Fiction Award in 2001. Her fiction, essays, and articles have appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Travel Magazine, Hampton Shorts, SOMA, Sojourner, and many other publications. Pierce received a BA in writing and literature from the Intercultural Studies Program, Southampton College, Southampton, NY.

Read some of her stories >>

Guess Who Loves Me Now

East Side, West Side

The road to nottingham

2008-03-31T12:06:00.000-07:00

If you want to do your MA in Creative Writing in Nottingham, here are some B&Ws of the town, courtesy of Tushar Gupte. See his set on Flickr.

Top 10: Getting your MA in Creative Writing in England

2008-03-31T11:31:00.000-07:00

10. You can complete your MA in one year instead of the typical 2 or 3 in the states.

9. If you love to travel, (and boy the Brits do!), you can travel between semesters and during summer, finish up your dissertation in the fall and graduate by November!

8. It's cheaper, even with the conversion from dollars to pounds and the international rate for students and the tuition and housing and the travel to get there - it's still bloody cheaper.

7. If you've been filled to the brim with American fiction and would like to explore English lit, here's a wonderful opportunity to open your horizons.

6. Plenty of medieval towns, treacherous royal history, and natural coastal beauty to inspire you.

5. Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Mann, the Isle of Wright, Scotland and Ireland have made an immense contribution to the world literature from James Joyce to W.B. Yeats, Dylan Thomas, Seamus Heaney, Gillian Clarke as well as regional writers who have revived the folklore of this ancient land. I trekked Celtic town to Celtic town in search of mermaid stories and found inside an old church in a small hamlet town perched over the Atlantic, a 600 year old bench carved with the Mermaid of Zennor - now a future novel currently brewing in my imagination.

4. Access to European, Asian and international students co-mingling and conspiring to save enough pennies for trips to London.

3. School trips to Ireland.

2. Meet and get taught by Granta's freshest new UK writers.

1. And the number 1 reason to go to Britain for your MA? Pure love.

These people love their books, love their words, love their authors with an undying appreciation for art. They've had several hundred years of legend and good ol' fashion storytelling to fire up their hearts (yes, Brits have fire in their hearts). Since the first pen scratched paper in 400 A.D., England's love affair with literature began and continues today in pubs tucked inside castle rocks and crevices with the whispers of kings and D.H. Lawrence still caught in the air.

It's a breath of fresh air to be around lovers of art versus lovers of the business of writing. And that's a difference you won't find in an American application or on an American university's homepage. They will wow you with writers, awards, fellowships but sometimes a writer just wants to live - have a new experience, see life from the other side of the ocean, have lunch with a Berber student, get bohemian, and love the existentialism that magically accompanies travel.

And of course, there are the mermaids. Did I mention I love mermaids?

Little Heroes: Stephanie Soileau

2008-03-31T11:12:00.000-07:00

Not so long ago, Stephanie Soileau, AB’98, was beginning to wonder if she should give up on a career in writing.

Soileau, whose path led her from Cajun roots in southern Louisiana to the University of Chicago, and later to the prestigious Iowa Creative Writer’s Workshop, was teaching classes at multiple colleges in Chicago and trying to write a novel in the crannies of her spare time. It was a losing battle. Eventually Soileau decided to apply to graduate schools in English and considered going back to school for a teaching certificate. The story she wanted to tell—of Louisiana fishing communities watching their way of life vanish along with the ground under their feet—would have to wait.

Then one day last March came a surprise as out of the blue as the cows raining down from the sky in her 2005 story “The Boucherie.”

“I was grading a stack of composition papers— like 50 composition papers—at Truman College in my office,” Soileau recalls. “I got an e-mail and read it five times before I really started to believe.” She had been selected from more than 1,400 applicants as one of ten Wallace Stegner Fellows chosen each year. The fellowship provides two years’ residence at the Stanford Creative Writing Program and an annual living stipend.

Suddenly the novel came off hold. The fishermen she had interviewed the summer before in the southern coastal areas hard hit by Hurricane Katrina, the stories she had unearthed about a mythic 1893 storm, the people who survived the flood in a boat moored to a treetop, eating oranges floating on the water—all of it came out of waiting.

By the end of her two years, Soileau hopes to have enough of her novel done to attract a publisher. Like most of her fiction, it will be set in the South. Although she considers herself a southern writer, and in 2005 “The Boucherie” anchored the Best of the South collection of short stories, her ambition is to transcend regional literature.

“Any time you write about the south and some particular ethnic group, the story is almost certainly going to be overwhelmed by a sense of place, and it becomes about the place rather than a universal story,” she explains. “I think what I’d like to do based on my experience is write a story that uses the sort of archetypes that I saw in my Cajun heritage, the sorts of characters I saw, but to make them seem more universal.”

Read the whole story >>

The Magician: Manifest your destiny

2008-03-24T11:20:00.000-07:00

If there is a particular Tarot image that portrays your goal or desire, there are many techniques for working with that particular image that will help you manifest your goal.

The image of the Magician card, when properly meditated upon, initiates you into the ancient and expansive wisdom associated with the archetype and integrate its "teaching" into your psyche. As you look at a specific Tarot image, the mind is invited to absorb its higher energies and wisdom. Meditating on a certain card allows you to raise your own energy to the higher vibration which is contained in the wisdom of the image. As you study an image or place it in some strategic spot in your home, you infuse your mind with the transformative wisdom of the image, allowing it to nourish your inner self.

The information stored in the unconscious mind is symbolic. Therefore, we can use the Tarot as a powerful means of communicating with the unconscious, in its own "language." Creative visualization is a technique that utilizes positive imagery to help you attract your desires, or to reinvent yourself. In creative visualization, you focus on a mental picture -- imagining that which you seek, as if it were already so. There is an expression which says, "Change your thoughts, change your destiny."

This is the principle underlying the use of creative visualization. Using the Tarot imagery, you can change your destiny by making changes in your energetic patterns. The images of the Tarot are able to bypass the every-day mind and the ego and directly retrieve the principles, which they reflect from deep within. The logical mind, with all its chattering, calculating, rationalizing, justifying, blaming and criticizing is circumvented. As the saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Further, this mental imaging can work in any area of life.

If you would like to bring some of the Magician’s spiritual power and focus into your earthly endeavors you can also create and enact a simple but potent ritual utilizing the Magician card. Ritual is the next step – it takes this process of creative visualization to an even deeper level.

While creative visualization provides the mental images of what you seek, a ritual takes this mental image and transports it into a physical and tangible experience. Like creative visualization, ritual is symbolic behavior and thus a potent way to utilize the tarot images. Ritual releases psychic energies and enables the releasing of inner blocks and obstacles. It can serve as a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious.

Performing a ritual may even allow you to access new and creative solutions to a problem. When done with sincerity, ritual operates on a cellular level or at the level of your protoplasm. Further, ritual can also help name and set your intention.

The Spirit of Story

2008-03-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

Outside my window waves ripple

Seagulls cry to dawn

I awake,

A spark in my heart

A fleck of golden sunlight

Spring's soft breath

Untold stories lay deep inside

Waiting for birth, for life

And so I plant my seeds,

Plant the words in the dark ground

Bless the seeds to blossom

As the Maiden Goddess breathes life into Mother Crone with a kiss.

Sprouts open,

A story blooms

In a shining field of gold

I birth the soul of each story

From seed to tree

Honor the great cycles of time

I gather my harvest for the Great Mother

Read the stories to honor her abundance

The darkness from where the words came

The heavens where they will fill with light

An d I return to the dark earth

To smell her and find her

She, who has given birth to me