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Shifting….

It seemed as though people I spoke with wanted this past week to fly by as swiftly as it could. I kept hearing the words, “It just feels so heavy.”

Even with the celebrated holiday of love we call Valentine’s Day, many were challenged with old resentments, bitterness and anger from generations past and traumatic life events.
It was a week where the fear of being stuck and the actual reality of it coincided with such raw emotion that a feeling of hopelessness was felt by some. The desire for changing one’s life, one’s reality, one’s existential experience was heightened. Combine our internal mechanisms with what we see happening in our world today and we have a storm created out of illusion, one powerful enough to challenge every sensible notion of humanity and our roles in it. I don’t mind our roles being challenged, I welcome it. I don’t mind the fear, the anger or the heaviness. I embrace those as well. I mind the illusion. I mind the attachments we have formed to the illusion. I mind the emotions that we allow ourselves and our roles to be defined by, not the fact that we have these emotions and we should embrace them in a constructive way. The illusion will morph and our emotions will further our growth if respected with compassion and utilized for the greater good of humanity. I felt the heaviness too this past week. My emotions found a safe space inside of myself, flowing freely, fostering a different grounding to the earth readying myself for the expansion and healing we are all about to enter into.

Dreams

I don’t believe in shattered dreams.
I believe in shattered belief systems.
Dreams simply avail themselves differently amidst the time and space continuum; when one’s heart surrenders to faith and the power of Creation allowing a dream to become fulfilled by the hand of the Divine igniting it.

Trauma

The definition of trauma and its long term effects can be easily defined by scientific and psychological means. In my experience, trauma and its response mechanisms are subjective for each person struggling to heal through it. One of the defense mechanisms I have been working on these past few weeks with clients is their relationship to confusion amidst the traumatic experience. The confusion and its ensuing patterning provides some sense of relief, comfort and familiarity to those who choose to utilize it as a form of self preservation. On the other end, it can also be used to further self-annihilation. When I enter into the confusion with another, I enter into it gently as the confusion many times becomes its own reality, separate from the traumatic event itself. I find that when we integrate confusion in its pervasive state of saturation to body, mind and spirit, the traumatic event we are trying to heal from depletes us of any sense of identity we have ever known about ourselves or even who we think we were during the event that traumatized us in the first place. We are then dealing with both the trauma of the event itself and the trauma created by the confusion. Overwhelm sets in, we disassociate even further from our bodies, and we spend much of the time trying to find out who we are in relationship to the confusion so we can avoid facing the actual trauma. I respect everyone’s need to heal from trauma in their own time and space. That is one of the most sacred relationships I know on the healing path. The threads between a traumatic event and our responses are both individual and multi-generational. One of the suggestions I make to clients is to find ways to feel useful while they are both in the height of the confusion and when they are more grounded. In this way, they can see that the identities they have created can shift as they feel safe in exploring their usefulness in this world. I have seen tremendous positive effects with people struggling with PTSD when they begin to see themselves as an integral part of society, useful human beings whose worth does not have to be defined by an event that changed their lives forever.

Earth’s Prayer

Oh tormented earth; forgive us our trespasses as we have forgotten our own sacredness amidst your gentle womb. We walk upon your flesh, indignant in our right to take from you what does not belong to us. We have forgotten in all that we are, you provide the sustenance of our living breath, the nourishment of our beating hearts, the wisdom of our compromised minds. May we endeavor to know you completely and uninhibited by a fear so powerful that it diminishes our capability to respect you in the ways you deserve to be respected. Oh Mother earth, forgive us our trespasses. We KNOW what we are doing wrong. May we be given the courage to rise and do what needs to be done.

Eve and the Forbidden Fruit

 

It’s time for Eve to embrace her power. Destiny be forever changed. The serpent only reminded her of her duality; her innocence lost in the confusion of self, in the Divine, in the world around her. The sacrifices of the feminine have shaped humanity, leaving teardrops at every threshold. Temptation challenged both her strengths and her weaknesses, until she became raw with emotion, searching for holiness in every crevice within herself.

Brought to her knees not by the Divine, but by a paradise which was flawed in the very beginning of its inception, only to ignite shame in perceived wrongdoings of the soul. Reaching for forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge is the beginning of one’s inner work, shedding layers of self to eventually come to the understanding that true knowledge has no form. The nature of paradise is not to condemn. Eve knew that, but questioned her own authenticity at the desire to know more, to feel more, to want more. There is no shame in human emotion, more so confusion. The projection of such emotion which arises out of desperation can inflict pain to self and to others. We are not descendants of original sin, but of a destiny of great power emblazoned by love. The feminine is rising. Take heed of her strength. She will be the bearer of an extraordinary light, and have the ability to bring darkness to its knees. The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge will be forbidden no more. In fact, Eve will forget it even existed as she sources from her own sacredness.

Chaos

Chaos has the power to become an extraordinary catalyst in surrendering to the Divine. Approach it reverently. Therein lies Providence, a sacred alignment humanity struggles with grasping in the face of the unknown. Never underestimate the light resting quietly within that chaos. You will find it once you meet surrender.

Solstice

On this winter solstice, the darkness harkens for the light. Wading through rivers of confusion for centuries, yearning to be touched by a grace whose acquaintance it has never met before. Slowly, it emerges out of chaos, only to realize the light had been holding its hand the entire time. The light calls herself grace.

Spiritual Gaslighting

 

Even some of the greatest traditions in the world have succumbed to this. Gaslighting occurs when a person is made to question his or her own reality, internal, external or otherwise.
Spiritual gaslighting is another form of manipulation whose scope of power has influenced generations in the quest for spiritual evolution. It can be very challenging to discern as many of us on a spiritual path seek guidance or insight from mentors, teachers or others who have walked the path before us. I myself have had mentors who have been instrumental in my inner work. They were carefully chosen by the inner work I perceived they had done on themselves. I remember in my early twenties  how theories like the law of attraction, karma(you reap what you sow), all negative emotions creating illness; left huge imprints on all of us studying the work that many times it left us feeling more traumatized and guilty than when we started our journeys. All of a sudden, all of our life’s manifestations became something to be remedied as opposed to something we needed to take responsibility of in a compassionate manner as simply a part of the coherent whole. The power was put into our hands as opposed to ‘Thy Will Be Done.”  If we didn’t remedy the patterns, then we weren’t powerful enough. Spiritual success for many translated into standing in your own power, setting things right, and manifesting. I still hear this today and watch the myriad of clients fall prey into depression when they ‘put it out there to the universe’ and it just doesn’t happen. Or they do years of work on themselves and the pattern doesn’t change. When I share that what changes is their relationship to the pattern, sometimes that ends up being not good enough. Spiritual knowledge will always include theories, mores, rules etc towards evolution. Whether this knowledge comes through books, a friend, a mentor, a filter is always present. My filter is present as I write this. I’m human after all and I embrace every shadow within myself as well as my light. Knowledge will be framed according to the presenter’s own frequency and learning curve. Some form of manipulation is always present in the healing arts. Manipulation in and of itself does not have to be defined negatively. If done respectfully it can allow a thought, an emotion, or the physical body to unwind and create its own relationship with the Divine, not the relationship the mentor is wanting. It might be one in the same, but when a person is destabilized to such a degree on their path from words from a book or a mentor to the extent that they no longer trust anything within themselves, I myself would take a step back and reevaluate. One of my mentors gave me great advice when I was younger. It was something to the effect that after you feel like you have learned and grown a lot, it eventually gets discarded because none of the rules of spiritual engagement seem to apply anymore. That has been my truth as well. The rules are there to give us something to hold onto for fear of diminishing the ego. After a while, it’s just you and God. No book, no mentor, no fellow traveler can come between you and that relationship. So no, if things aren’t going your way, you aren’t manifesting what you feel you should, or you are not where you want to be in this point in your life, it doesn’t mean you did something wrong. There’s a whole universe within you and outside of you where ripple effects take hold and a greater purpose is served beyond our understanding for why things happen and why things don’t. If any of the books you read or mentors who guide you help you find peace within your internal and external universe, then Amen.  There is a subtle line between spiritual gaslighting and truth and in the end, it is between you and God to figure out what supports you.

Meet Me Halfway

Meet me halfway and I will come to you running. With all the answers you will ever need. In words unspoken, ignited by the explosion of love which cannot be contained in hearts alone. With each breath I take, you will be my every beginning in this universe of light. Never broken or displaced by your love for Me. Perhaps disheartened by your love for each other. Meet me halfway and I will show you the love you are capable of. I would offer you the sun, the moon and the stars but you have them already. Born within you a cornucopia of miracles, waiting for you to step into the light and receive.

The Year of Reckoning, 2020

 

There comes a time when our existential experiences no longer fulfill a destiny we thought we were aligned with.
Our perception of the Divine shifts as our lives unfold into realities we don’t quite understand, realities which no longer serve a purpose and have carried us thus far.
We will seek illumination amidst the mundane, transformation amidst the darkness, stillness amidst that which unsettles us, revelation amidst the unknown.
Some are running fast towards enlightenment to escape the pain, the emptiness of being.
The year ahead is the year of reckoning. Not one of punishment, but of realignment to a reality where the collective has the opportunity to embrace forgiveness to such a degree that we will know loss in ways unknown to us before. Loss of self and our perceptions of who we think we are within the emptiness, the pain,  the unknown, and in our quest for enlightenment.
The Divine will command an intensity of stillness that will envelop us in rapture more than any other time in history. The thread of humanity will no longer carry individual needs to the heavens as we understand them but collective wounds embracing all living things will create the new alignment. For some of us, it will feel like such a power struggle, exhausting every bone in our bodies as we expend mental energy in wanting to understand the Divine’s every move. The Year of Reckoning will compel us to come together because of the loss we will experience on both personal and collective levels. There is beauty in this loss, a holiness which we have never experienced before and can only do so once we surrender. We will expand into forgiveness with more ease and a grace which will give humanity the opportunity to love to a greater capacity than we thought we were ever capable of.