Magic, Myth and Metaphysics

Faery Tradition: Rose Power, Part 2

“These modern times are difficult for all races, and the problems are largely human-caused. Although there have been enormous natural disasters in the past, none have been caused to this extent by one species; nature normally is able to balance life forms much sooner, before they overrun the entire planet. However, you must remember that humans have arisen from nature and are still a part of nature. There is a much bigger picture to do with what is happening on the planet, and the part that the human race plays. Re-balancing will take place one way or another; how humans will fit in to that re-balancing is a choice your race is in the process of making at this pivotal time. Choice is one of the unique attributes of humanity that has contributed to the situation; yet it can also bring you into balance—if you so choose.

Humans everywhere are now aware of the fact that your race is responsible for the conditions you see in the world. You are also waking up to the fact that the needed change goes beyond outer actions, although those are certainly critical. But you are as a race coming to understand that the more basic need is a shift which involves returning psychically and spiritually to the Earth community. As you open to the awareness that you are not actually separate, you come face to face with many amazing realizations of the truth of your existence. Psychically speaking, you are like drops of water in an ocean that have somehow created the idea of separation from the ocean, drawing imaginary veils around yourselves to make sure you maintain the idea of being only a drop. Then, as these seemingly individual drops, you have managed to pollute the rest of the ocean, which is the collective world psyche that contains all the other beings—including what you term as inanimate ones. In this oceanic psychic realm, all forms feel the impact of all others.

Put simply, at this time in history humans are in the position of needing to apologize to and ask forgiveness of all the other beings that dwell on, around and within the Earth mother—from physical to nonphysical, from microbes to mountains. Asking forgiveness implies taking responsibility, and constitutes the first step in allowing awareness of our interrelationship and interdependence. The asking is done person by person. Very few on Earth at this time are exempt from the destruction of psychic and spiritual separation. There are ways in which most people, especially in the dominant cultures, are contributing—even if only by feeling powerless.

The healing can begin by turning to us, acknowledging the pain of separation, letting love flow, and asking for help. This is where the power of Rose can be a great help. If you will conduct a simple ceremony in which you use a rose, you can feel what I am saying.”

Tomorrow’s post will cover the actual ceremony.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Faery Tradition: Rose Power, Part 1

Today’s posting comes from a faery being who embodies the energetic power of rose. Faery consciousness is intimately tied up with the natural world; plants, water, soil, rock, air, fire, sun, moon and all living beings. However, the faery beings maintain awareness of the energy flow and inner properties of these things, and of dynamic relationship in the universe. They perceive the whole, rather than discrete objects. So in that context, here is the first part of message on the vibration of Rose.

“Rose, in the natural world, is the embodiment of love. This plant, especially the wild, uncultivated, un-hybridized rose carries the love of the Heart of Creation into the physical world. If you will meditate on and with Rose, you will meet its energy in the inner world, where you can bathe in its vibration of acceptance, forgiveness and loving understanding. This is especially critical for humans who are opening up to the pain of what their race has done to the other species and to the planet. Rose embodies the love and forgiveness of the planet towards the ignorance, separation and damage that humans have shown within the web of life.

It is important to allow yourself to open to the pain because the avoidance of pain keeps you in that separation; yet allowing consciousness of the enormity of the truth can be overwhelming. This allowing involves opening your heart back up to the planet in a way that has been shut down for centuries, which has permitted the destruction of your home and the home of millions of other life forms, both seen and unseen. In this case, love and pain wind together like tendrils of a vine.

In order to face what is inside of you, heal the separation and turn back to us, you need support. Rose gives that support; it is the physically-manifest vehicle of the love, and the understanding of the human condition, from the faery world. What’s more, the power of Rose goes both ways; it also embodies and carries your love back to us. The vibration of Rose enhances the flow of love in both directions, bringing mutual healing.”

Tomorrow’s post will continue the discussion of working with Rose to heal the rift between humans, animals and faery beings.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Spiritual Growth: Decision Making

Everyone is faced with thousands of decisions every day; from what to wear, to whether to buy that extra can of beans on sale, to how to break the news to the boss that you need more time for your project. In addition, big decisions may hover—such as whether to sell now or hold off, whether to go for a different career or not, or how to repair a sinking relationship. Decisions can be overwhelming, especially if the outcome seems critical. Here are four things to remember about decision making that come from a viewpoint of your own natural, spiritual wisdom:

1.      Avoid making an important decision when you are feeling anxious, stressed or overwhelmed about the subject. Your decision will not be as good as if you wait until you feel calmer and more at peace. Remember that figuring it out is less effective than gathering information and allowing the decision to arise from a quiet heart place.

 

2.      To access this heart place, you may need to allow the stressed feelings to pass through. This is done by welcoming them, while noticing that they aren’t actually you. They will usually come with thoughts, sometimes a whirlwind of thoughts. If you can just allow the thoughts and feelings all to be there without feeling that you have to gnaw on them, figure them out, explain them, or hold on to them in any way, they will move on. Paying attention without buying in to them allows you to get information: what is really important to you here? Is someone else trying to control you in the situation and tell you which way to decide? Does this fit what’s really right for you? Let your feelings tell you what’s true for you—this is accessing your heart place. While your intellect is helpful to some degree, your heart is a better guide than your head in big decisions.

 

3.      Look into the implications of each choice. Draw a line down a piece of paper and list advantages and disadvantages of each option. When you look at them outside of your own spinning mind, they may help to clarify what’s true for you.

 

4.      Take care of yourself and acknowledge your own natural common-sense wisdom. Do something that helps to shift your mood. This can allow a deeper answer to bubble up from within. Trust that your inner, wiser self knows what is best for you. If two or more choices all seem very balanced and equal, realize that you could pick any one and maybe no one is best. Do the choices all seem equally bad? Maybe there is a better solution you haven’t yet seen. Allow time for the decision to become clear.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

About Spirit Guides

The term “spirit guides” has become popular these days. People hope to get answers from the other side about everything from relationships, to career decisions, to what to do about the neighbor’s dog that won’t stop barking. Partnering with inner intelligences can be expansive and life-altering; however it’s critically important to remember three main things about relating to spirit guides.

1.      Many so-called “guides” are no wiser than you. Just because they are discarnate does not mean that they are more evolved or see a bigger picture; in fact the reverse may be the case.

 

2.      Even more important, many of the questions asked of spirit guides are ones that should be answered by your own wisdom. Depending on anyone else for answers assumes that you are incapable of getting it for yourself. This dependence disempowers you, and stems from basic feelings of inadequacy. It is far better to make a mistake and learn from it than to hang your decisions on another’s opinion (whether a spirit guide or a physical person) and then blame them if things don’t work out as expected. Do gather information and listen to opinions, but don’t give over your final decision-making power to anyone else. This keeps you from growing.

 

3.      Spirit guides come in many types, both human and non-human. Getting to know the difference and being able to navigate in the non-physical world takes practice and discipline for most people. Jumping into spirit guidance or psychism without caution can be dangerous. Make sure to find a teacher whom you can trust, and take your time to learn to discriminate between garbage and true partnership.

If you will remember these three points when it comes to either getting or giving spirit guidance, you will be in a better position to stay in balance. Remember, at your core you yourself are all-knowing, all-pervading consciousness. Coming into direct experience of this and allowing it to express through and as you gives the highest value to your life.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Spiritual Partnership, Blessing Los Angeles Part 2

Yesterday I wrote about setting up a partnership with faery beings to bless the land in Los Angeles. This post continues the story of how it went.

I charged the pebble by taking it around to the seven directions, so that the beings who embody the special powers of those directions could all put something of their influence into it. Again, they—not me—knew what was needed to best bring about energetic balance. As I finished the ceremony in the early dawn, a bird chirped outside the window of my hotel, followed by another and another. Suddenly a whole cacophony of birdsong erupted, an entire flock waking up to the new day amid the sounds of freeway and clanking machinery. Nature lives among and around us all the time; this expression felt like nature’s response to the fact that I was taking time to work with them for energetic restoration. The cheerful bird sounds brought me untold joy and deepened my sense of partnership.

After breakfast I went outside to give the pebble to the land. I had thought to give it by the trees where the birds had sung, but when I checked with the spirit beings, they didn’t want it there. The feeling I got was that the pebble, being the center of the new energies, would be a bit much for the birds. So feeling a little exposed and foolish, I put it behind a bush in the parking lot. I stepped back to the hotel sidewalk to feel if that was an appropriate place, but again the spirits said it wasn’t quite right yet. The pebble needed to be buried. (“Great. How am I going to do that? I don’t have a digging tool and besides, digging a hole in the parking lot is going to look really strange.”)

Looking around, I noticed a cement planter box out on the corner by the sidewalk. Maybe I can sit there and use the pebble itself to dig a little hole without being too noticed for suspicious-looking behavior. Inspecting the planter, I found an old lighter someone had thrown away—“Yay, my digging tool!” So sitting down on the edge of the planter, trying to look nonchalant as though I were just waiting for someone, I dug a small hole and buried the pebble, where it now comfortably rests, emitting a subtle yet powerful energy of balance and harmony for miles throughout the entire area.

Energetic healing of the land blesses all beings. With this partnership, the faery beings of that particular region and I set up an energy field that brings a healing frequency to this place. They feel it immediately; the animals feel it instinctively and humans, although they probably don’t notice it, are still influenced in a positive, unconditional, life-affirming way.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Blessing Los Angeles

Whenever I travel I like to conduct a blessing for the local Earth spirits and ancestors who dwell in the land. Today I am in Los Angeles, at a hotel near the airport. So I have just conducted my usual ceremony of connecting with the spirits here to give them a gift.

What I find usually most helpful to the spirits is an object that is charged with whatever they need to restore energetic balance to their area. Since I have no idea what these energies are, I simply ask before I leave home what sort of object they would like, and let them charge it when I get there. This time I brought a plain grey pebble, which is quite common. Faery work usually uses simple natural objects which blend in with what’s around.

Today I started this process first by energy cleansing the hotel room and myself, so that the space in which we would be working together would be free of distracting influences. Then I opened a gateway or well into the land through visualization, and communed with the energies of the land. This process serves to connect me with the primal, or original blueprint, of the land that exists in a changeless ever-present state in the inner worlds.

I found myself on a coastal plain not far from the ocean, with sandy soil, low dune-like rises in the land, covered with some grey-green sorts of creeping plants. There were sea birds everywhere, and I could feel the consciousness of the whales and dolphins, lords and ladies of the sea, out to the West. The faery beings embodied the energy of that threshold place where earth, sea and sky are merging. Of course, I could also feel the present-day reality of buildings, airport and airplanes, pollution, weight on the land of buildings, people, cars, sidewalks, and human psychic energies left everywhere. This is the normal feeling of a city.

Because there is such a disconnection between the human consciousness and the consciousness of the land in modern society, I perceive that cities are painful to the inhabiting spirits, which is one huge reason that I leave gifts. Tomorrow I will go into what I did and what happened as a result.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Respect at Sacred Sites

Visiting sacred sites has become hugely popular, with eco- and spiritual tourism businesses booming. While actually being in the presence of places of special energy and significance is tremendously rewarding, many people are not aware of how to behave in a way that respects the spirits of these places.

There are obvious transgressions that would be offensive in any context, such as loud talking, drinking, leaving trash around or marking with graffiti. But another problem that has arisen comes from people who respect the sites, have spiritual experiences there, and leave feeling inspired. Often these people will conduct rituals and leave their “gifts” behind. These gifts are often used-up candles, and flowers that wilt and die, both littering up the landscape. The gifts actually become trash.

Besides this, people want to take souvenirs of the sites with them; stones, plants, even pieces of buildings or graves. This act of taking, especially without any real contact with the spirits of the place, constitutes theft. It is an aspect of humanity’s disconnection with the land and assumed entitlement, which alienates the nature spirits of the sacred sites.

If you are going to visit such a site and want to bring a gift, I suggest that you journey there in spirit before you ever leave home, connect with the spirits of the place, tell them you are coming to visit and would like to bring a gift. Ask what they would like as a gift; what would help or uplift them. They don’t want cut flowers; to the spirits, these are dying and are already compost. The sorts of objects that I have found most popular are small pebbles which have been charged with energies specific to the needs of the spirits. But sometimes a song, recited poem or prayer is welcome; a physical object is not always necessary. Giving music or spoken word is a good practice if you are not sure what the spirits would like, because there won’t be any chance of litter.

And in any case, no matter what you do when actually there, be most careful to fully clean up after yourself! In this way you will show the kind of respect that you probably intended in the first place.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Spiritual Growth: Stop and Feel the Space

Here is a way that you can stay connected with the deepest part of yourself as you go about your day: take a moment every so often to feel the space between the atoms and molecules. Since matter is made up almost entirely of space—and solid things are barely more “dense” than air—stopping to feel the space between and within the atoms will help you to become less caught up in the trance of what your senses tell you. You might begin to realize that this physical world is just as dreamlike as the sleeping one, all resting like a cloud on empty space.

But the best part is that the space is both conscious and creative. It is the source, the wellspring from which you and the world emerge. If you will notice this, notice the space not just from what seems to be inside your body’s molecules, but “inside” of everything around you, you can come to the experience of the manifest world as one huge flow of energy. This is a felt sense of what scientists tell us is actually true.

Furthermore, if you pay close attention to your experience, you may notice that your very awareness is not separate from this space. Can you find a boundary to your awareness? Can you find anything to point at? Is it even energy? Or is it just aware beingness? These questions are meant to point to a noticing activity, rather than an answering-mind activity. Taking a few moments each day to notice what your present moment experience truly is can eventually lift your whole life out of suffering.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com

Beyond Coping with Stress: Peace Pilgrim’s Model

Peace Pilgrim was an amazing American saint, who walked for 28 years across America and Canada with no possessions except what she carried in her pockets, accepting food and shelter only when it was offered, all for the purpose of promoting peace. In India, the tradition of being a “wandering mendicant” like this goes back thousands of years, and people expect to offer food to those—mostly men—who follow such a path. But Peace Pilgrim, who gave up her home, all of her belongings, and even her name at age 45, had no such tradition to support her; yet she walked across the country from coast to coast, covering more than 25,000 miles on foot, talking to reporters, college classes, small groups of people and anyone who would listen for those 28 years.

What prompted her to do this? Outwardly, when she started in 1953, the country was embroiled in the Korean War. But for Peace Pilgrim, bringing about peace was so much more than stopping a particular war. It meant shifting our collective mindset away from seeing war as an answer to anything; coming into deep personal peace and working to solve collective challenges. To her, it meant growing up mentally, emotionally and spiritually. She accomplished this to such an extent that she became a model and inspiration for thousands of people, crisscrossing the country on foot through the Cold War, the Vietnam War and beyond, until 1981.

Coping with Difficult Times: Stop Resisting

Even if your past actions and present circumstances are causing turmoil or difficulty, you always have a choice of how you react. Every situation—no matter how hard—is a gift from life that can help you come to deeper understanding, balance and fulfillment if you will stop resisting it. Being caught up in resistance to what’s so in your life, and keeping your attention only on the surface events and emotions is the real “problem.” Hint: this isn’t something foreign; practically everybody does this many times a day.

Your attitude towards life, not the events, is what causes your feelings. When you resist your life by resisting other people or what is happening around you, what you are really resisting is your thoughts and attendant emotions about them. This only serves to suppress the thoughts and emotions, which keeps them stuck inside you. When you instead allow the feelings to lead you to pay attention to the thoughts that are causing you to react negatively, you can begin to let them both dissolve away. If you don’t resist your thoughts, they always eventually flow onward, taking the feelings with them. Your mood lifts and your thinking becomes clearer.

This approach takes you below the surface of what’s happening. On a deeper level, when you can welcome your pain and allow it to flow unresisted, you automatically know how to rebalance to a calmer, happier place. You have common sense and natural good feelings if you will take the time to remember that you aren’t the drama or even the pain. You actually do have the answers if you will quiet your mind and allow those answers to come through your heart. If you are in the habit of mental spinning, chronic depression or another long-held pattern, you may have to do this quieting over and over, but it is your ticket out of suffering, no matter how hard your outer life may now seem.

For more information, visit my Seminars page and my Professional Services page, call (831) 212-2168 or email andrea@awakeability.com