Sometimes, one thing, is everything

Prayer Soup

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The best magic comes from applying love, intention, and loving attention to a single idea.  I have a friend who recently learned about himself having Stage 4 Cancer.

1st ingredient: Determination ~ “He won’t die from this”

I give myself a constant reminder, to keep him in my thoughts, and offer a prayer when I think on it.

2nd ingredient: Constant Thought ~ I wear a “LiveStrong” bracelet that always makes sure he, and those prayers are on my mind.  And always gives me a connection.

And from there, it gets easier.

In a large pot, add:

  1. Locally Raised Grass-fed Beef Bones
  2. Organic Local Carrots
  3. Organic Local Celery
  4. Organic Local Potatos
  5. Organic Local Onions
  6. Organic Local Garlic
  7. Celtic Sea Salt
  8. Tap Water 😉

Bring it to a boil, let it simmer for 2 hours.

Filter out all but the broth left over, and pour into individual serving size containers.

Deliver with a hug.

Something so simple, becomes so powerful.

Sometimes, one thing, is everything

Do you have enough faith to believe your religion?

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As you have read, probably several times now, I have been working with my bias against Christianity. And after a few months, I really feel like I am in a good place with it. However, I can only let go things that happened in the past… There are some issues that are more current that I would really like to take a moment to discuss.

The one, in particular, that I would like to speak about is communion.

In June, I was had some deep conversations with an acquaintance that is a Unitarian Universalist (UU) Minister, and she was engaged to marry a Catholic guy. She had take a lot of classes on religion, she had attended his church regularly, attended masses, and at one point, the Priest offered for her to accept communion. She considered it, but thought better of it as she didn’t know how her husband-to-be would take that action. She is a minister, and a leader of faith, but was she a Catholic? Even though her being a minister of the UU congregation would not force any particular religion, she didn’t know if she was a Catholic. This pointed out part of the problem. I spoke to her about the sacred manor of that ritual, and she realized that it would good that she did not partake.

First of all, the Catholics I have met, are somewhat offended by the word ritual for things they do in their faith. “Rituals are things that have been made taboo, and they can only be evil.” When really, a ritual as a “a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.” Which applies to most of what occurs inside of Catholic masses, as well as the mass itself.

And that also leads to the problem. The making words taboo to indicate a certain level of quality over religious rights. How can the society around you assist you to make the decisions that any religious community wants you to? They can do it by social norming. Make it seem that something is bad, even in the way it is spoken about. Can bring the idea of evil into and ordinary or mundane activity.

Ritual – According to social norms, is almost equivalent to evil. Even though, the definition of the word indicates that it is exactly what happens every Sunday in a Catholic or Christian church.

I question that all of these social norms that have been created actually take away the ability to truly have faith in something? If it is evil to hear voices, or speak to spirit, how are you supposed to hear what your God wants of you? Isn’t that the job of a priest? To communicate and translate the word of God?

So, I come back to Communion. When I was 8, I was at a church, and I was all but locked in a room until I accepted Christ as my savior, and then I was forced to take communion.

With what I know now about this ritual, and now about energy, I am appalled that this type of thing can happen. If you truly believe, that when you place the wafer on your tongue, or drink the wine, you are truly ingesting the body and blood of Christ, for him to save you for your sins, forcing that on someone is more like rape than salvation.

Which leads me to ask the question, do they really have faith in their religion? This is not to be offensive, but a true question. No one I have ever met, truly took communion with the weight I would imagine that comes from that kind of commitment.

Not only are you admitting to sins that you have never taken part of, you are entering into an agreement where by you believe this entity will swoop down and save you from yourself, and in exchange, you will give life-long devotion to being the type of good that the Christ would want.

Which once again, brings up my question of faith. So many of the Christians I see acting out right now, which I accept are much more like the Taliban of Christians rather than true believers of the faith, they are finding ways to hate in the lords name. If you read anything from the bible, you will see that Jesus did nothing but love. And when he met a thief, a prostitute, a neighbor, or an enemy. I greeted them with open arms and expressed his love.

How can those who have accepted such a covenant, act the way they do, and still have faith?

And then I met God, again

Hecate

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And this time, She took the form of a beautiful pale woman in a red dress.  I was sitting in a lounging couch and She walked in, past me, and stopped.  I could see the back of Her.  I got up, walked towards Her.  She seemed deeply saddened about something.

I thought she was my dear friend, my spirit partner, Natalia.  I placed my hand (with intention of being comforting) on her shoulder. She went rigid and turned to me almost instantaneously, and glared into my eyes.  “I did not give you permission to touch me!”

It is important to know that there is not much that scares me.  Very few spirits, or entities, or humans.  Her look terrified me. I took a step back and apologized for the familiarity as I thought She was a friend of mine.

“I have been your friend, and I will be your friend, but not now.  Now we don’t know one another. Come with me.”

And then we were on the roof of the mansion we were in.  She was carving something into the stone at the top of the chimney.  She said, “To show you what I offer in our arrangement, I will help you”  She engraved something into the stone and turned to me.  “You should start to have an easier time now, we will talk again soon.”

———

When I woke up, I thought, who the hell was that?  And in my mind, I heard “Hecate, we have been close before, and we will again” followed by a laugh.

…

Things got easier…

Sometimes, one thing, is everything

Thinning of the veil

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Interesting time period as a sensitive.  This is the time of year when the veil between realities is at its thinnest, and it is easier for people to encounter spirits/entities/etc.

As a sensitive, it is always amazing the things you will see (and then realized that others don’t).  This year is a bit different for me.  I have been working closely with the new relationships I made in my Initiation to the South.

So far, I have spent 2 weeks with:

  1. Hatun Amaru (The Great Serpent)
  2. Otorongo (Jaguar)
  3. Huanacauri (Dragon)
  4. Siwar Q’enti (The Royal Hummingbird)
  5. Kuntor (The Condor) ~ Working with at Present

Will work with:

  1. Huáscar (Trickster spirit of the underworld) (Ironically will be with him/her over Halloween.  This should be interesting.
  2. Pirua (An organizing spirit of the Middle World)
  3. Pachakuti (An organizing Spirit of the Upper World)

At this moment in time, I am enjoying time with Kuntor.  And as part of this relationship building process, my team of spirits have stepped back so that I can really learn these new spirits as they will help me grow.  They are also shielding me from others.

I still speak briefly with my Ancestors, and while my team (Michael, Natalia, Aieulli) remain silent out of respect.  But in this time with the thinning veil, I hear my Ancestors, Hecate, Rabbi Jesus, Natalia, Aieulli, and Michael when none of us expect it.

Even with this much protection, it is easy to feel as if you are crazy from time to time, when voices appear in your head, and aren’t necessarily related to any of the conversations you are having.

I have been struggling with the idea of posting things about my learning process, and how I got from My Awakening (Parts 1 & 2) to where I am now.  Each time I think about it, I think that it is no longer a concern because I now understand that dilemma so well, and have grown past it. But then I realized, as this blog is for me to look back and remember, as well as possibly being helpful for others, I will start those posts.

Hecate named me, “Torch Bearer”, and by that, I take that I am NOT a teacher, but I am a person that can take people from on the edge, guide them to their path, and allow them to find a teacher.  I think that posting about my history, can help others.

 

And then I met God, again, Lost in Translation

Balance

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I have recently been so over… ummm, burdened? no.  Over… filled? no.  I have been so inundated  with new energy ever since we did the South work, in the progression of becoming a Shaman of the Peruvian lineage.  Now, it is not that that ceremony gave me more energy, it allowed me to see it more clearly. I can see more clearly, and definitely feel energy in new ways.

For quite some time, I have been considering the idea of how to proceed with this new energy. And while, there are ideas about how to harness it to help in “making the crops grow”, as it were, the biggest challenge I have had is controlling it.

In my everyday, I work hard to control my actions and my words to get exactly and only the results I anticipate.  (This is a rough practice where everyday I hope to fail a little bit less than the day before ~ But I am slowly getting comfortable in my skin)

For instance, if you are using a sword, if you focus on moving the back end of the handle only a quarter of an inch, you have to anticipate that with a 45″ blade, you will be moving the tip of that sword closer to 6″ in the opposite direction.  A small action can have a large consequence if you don’t plan ahead.  Now, what if you are handed a larger sword, a length you have never used, and you have to practice this 1/4 inch movement in a crowd of people.

This is the dilemma I am talking about.  I knew how to control my old energy.  Now that I perceive so much more energy, how do I limit my actions from changing things I don’t intend?  If I have my new sword that is somewhere between 80″ and 105″, how am I supposed to keep people safe from the tip, when I have to practice my movement, but cannot predict the range of the tip?

I took some time to think about this, and I realized that I needed to speak to someone about it.  How do I deal with this new energy, in a way that allows me to learn, while not harming people.

So much work has gone into cultivating the relationships with Rabbi Jesus, where I envy and would like to show the types of compassion he can, as well as Hecate.  She is somewhat cold and to the point.  Her energy is concise, and definitive, and she will lash out from time to time. There is so much in her energy that I feel makes me a better person.

How can I take these two energies, harness them to become who I most need to be, while being aware of this new perception of the immense energy I now keep with me. To be honest, this idea is really unsettling for me.  So I asked for help.

I met with our Rabbi, and she is truly as spiritual as anyone I have met.  Without a word from me, she informed me that she sees that I am concerned with how to wield my newly received energy. (Damn, she is good)  And we were able to speak about it. She informed me that in the Jewish faith, and forgive me for butchering this as I paraphrase, you will carry a good energy on your right, and a harder energy on your left.  The work is to realize that harder is not bad, or evil, just harder.  And if you could remove all of the hardship from your life, you would do nothing. Challenge is the proponent to growth.  And she compared Rabbi Jesus and Hecate as my good and challenging.  With that comparison, I need to respect both, utilize both, but find the balance for the life I wish to present.   ~What wisdom…

So, I am set forth with the challenge of finding where my compassion leads and where my boundaries need to become more apparent.  Still rough.  Last night, I spoke with my wife (another remarkably wise soul) and she pointed out the flaw in my thinking.  (And I think the Rabbi was saying it, and I wasn’t hearing it) it is not about, working with 1, until it is time to switch with another, it is about always holding compassion, even when you must hold a strong boundary.  It is about always living both.

Both of these energies were elated.  She had explained it to me in words I could here.  I need to hold my compassion, and my boundaries simultaneously, neither giving in, nor pushing away. I am a silo that interacts when I need to, and where I need to. The boundaries allow me to hold my own strength. Allow me to show infinite compassion while never being taken advantage of.  Balancing this dichotomy is the road to true strength over this energetic dilemma.

Lost in Translation

Nothing is Epic…

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Well, not in the way you expect. We live in a world where we have all read Harry Potter, watched the Lord of the Rings, heard an musician play their instruments in a way that simply makes our hearts weep.

We live in a world where the next film coming to the big screen wasn’t worth the money unless it somehow out-epics the last. We have moved our values so strongly to the giant, that the small are so undervalued as to be unnoticed.

Are you, by chance, aware that this allows us to be victims to that success? If we undervalue the subtle, we cover up the infinite world of subtlety that we have access to. And this is the network from within which we really hold power.

I have been in the martial arts since I was 7. And the best part of every action film is when the hero defies the odds and defeats an army alone to save his/her people. We all wish we could be that. But in reality, that epic moment, doesn’t exist. In fact, believing it exists, makes you not understand the subtle and accessible things you can do to prevent such an occurence.

You could train to wait for your big moment, or, you could spend time every day considering the possibilities, and putting small plans into motion here or there, to ensure such an epic fight never has to happen. It is subtle, and is with less ego, but the outcome can be even better. Instead of beating an army in an epic battle, you have shaped the world around you so there is little to no possibility of this epic battle never needing to happen. Although no one will ever see the effort you have put into it, the work of planning ahead and preventing the need for such a battle, IS EPIC.

A while ago, I posted about how the most complex magic is often the simplest. This is exactly what I mean.

Let’s say you are in charge of a building, instead of training for that epic battle, build a relationship with the local police force. Create security policies that ensure the best safety you can afford, teach your people how to handle a situation, and teach them to trust each other so they might work together. Still train for that epic battle, but hope it is a fall back. All of the effort and planning that goes into the logistical side of safety, also weaves a security blanket of will, intention, and you guessed it, magic.

Define what you want, and think of the subtle ways to achieve it, don’t spend your life waiting for something Epic.

Sometimes, one thing, is everything

How would you classify your religion?

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This is a question I have had put to me several times lately, and the more I think about it, the further I get from an answer.

I can tell you how I have come to the place I am. I can tell you so much about my faith, but when you ask about my religion, it asks me to classify my complex faith into a simple title. And Oh My Gods! I suck at naming things.

In fact, I nominated that I have that right taken away years ago. Of the millions of different umbrellas under which I could throw my hat, NONE are right. So, when I am asked this question, even though I am more than willing to answer, I have no answer.

How do you quantify infinite? How can you count the planets in the heavens? And then create an elevator pitch for it?

If I were to explain my religion, I would say MultiReligiousity. As the Unitarian Universalists put it, “It is like interfaith; however, doesn’t give the illusion of hard boundaries.”

As I learn more, I can see the efforts of each congregation/faith as being the efforts they need to do to appease their god. And even if the actions are offensive to me, it is still a divine act. Even if their actions are mis-guided within their own faith, they are still putting it forward thinking they assist their gods.

Who am I to question devotion, or faith, in something I might not be able to see. I can only act from within the knowledge I have, and honor your efforts at divinity. In a way, I have begun to appreciate the complexity of MultiReligiousity, and have begun to appreciate that naming a religion, is setting a boundary. It is creating a hurdle that will then have to be crossed.

When you step out of yourself, to see those around you, you act to them as if they are yourself. What was that golden rule? Treat others as you would wish to be treated? This is deeper than you may realize. It allows you to see the other as yourself, it allows you to appreciate that others have the same feelings, emotions, concerns, frustrations and ailments, that you do, it allows you to erase othering. We are the same. So making boundaries, only makes hurdles.

I think I would like to create a new religion, I call it: Oneness. It is a religion based on the fact that we are all one, and we act and treat people as they are us. Now, how do I start evangelizing this?

And then I met God, again

Awakening Part 2

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I remembered the other part of the message from Diana. “Become the biggest Brujo You can be.”

I contacted my good friends who I knew were Wiccan and we had spoken before of the Fay.  (Aine and Robb, I love you guys) Knowing the Brujo is Spanish for “male witch”, I thought of Robb. I always trust their opinions, and I know they will tell me the truth even if I don’t want to hear it.

They heard me, and when they heard 2-spirits, they said, “Shaman”.  You need to speak with a Shaman. They told me they would get back to me after they had spoken to some people about who I should speak with.  Knowing my love of Japan, and my love of the martial arts, they were thinking some of their friends that were both Shaman, and loved the martial arts.

I started researching Shamans, and shamanism.  Prior to this, I had only ever heard of Shaman in some of my favorite fantasy novels.  I learned that there were Shamans all over the world. I focused on Japan… downfall there, all Japanese Shamans were women.  While I have a lot of feminine energy, I am very distinctly male.  And I associate as male, so that was just not going to work.  So, I started to review Shamans from all of the different countries.  I learned of those from Mongolia, Ireland, Denmark, Poland, Russia, Africa, and all of the Americas.

And my eyes stuck on Peru.  The history of Shamanism in South America tells the tail of how the Spanish conquered, and as they came, they labeled the Shamans “Witches” (Brujos).  This struck me SO clearly, and I saw the density of the messages that Diana passed on.

I called Robb and Aine back.  And they said, “Two Snakes”.  You need to speak with our friend Jim.  I reached out to Jim, he and his wife were two of the most kind and welcoming people I have met, and they were so generous with their time and knowledge.  We scheduled a time to meet.

And the next time I was in the area, I ventured over to their shop: The Wandering Owl.

James Stovall, Jim, Two Snakes, Shaman Jim, and his wife Ange Stovall
Shamans/Store Owners/Teachers (several other roles)
The Wandering Owl
139 N. Jackson Street
Jackson, MI 49201
(517) 782-2780
http://thewanderingowl.com

And while I am giving a plug for them, Jim also has an amazing podcast http://thejaguarandtheowl.com

I feel no shame for adding this plug.  Giving them business, if I can, is the least I can do, as they have worked so hard to help me to get where I am.

I know my path, I know the direction, I know what it takes, and I have someone to ask questions of.

I am on the path of becoming a Shaman of the Peruvian lineage (The Q’ero, or Inca Shamans).  It is probably time to take off the training badge and accept what I am, but I am always learning.  I will always be a student.

And after hearing a path from spirit, and having it so quickly solidified into reality, tells me a bit about faith.

My eyes are open, am I looking, and I am seeing.

Sometimes, one thing, is everything

The simplest magics can be the most complicated

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You could make a million dollars, if you just do this one thing!

Sounds like it would have to be magic. And honestly, it is. But not the kind you think. Most things happen in a very practical way, and Magic can happen because your intention, your willpower, makes it happen. And while this can be, requesting/forcing energy to move at your will, but it can also be, setting a plan, finding options, and doing something.

If your goal is to make a million dollars, what do you think the first steps could be. Perhaps, going to take a shower, going downtown, and start putting in Applications to a few places. And if you got a few jobs, and worked hard for 10 or 15 years, that would indeed earn you a million dollars. Not what you had in mind, but quite practical.

Let’s think a little less grand. What if you wanted to make sure that your children would get to school safely on their bikes. Here is some simply practical things you can do to make that happen, that works like magic, but involves no magic wands or super powers.

You teach your children to be careful. You teach your children to watch out for cars, be respectful of others, build friendships, allow them to learn their neighborhood, and trust them.

Is it really magic? By definition, no, because by taking a practical route, you have taken the mystery out of it. Magic, by definition, is anything we do not understand.

But you have taken an aspect of your life, a fear that you have, thought forward and acted on it, and in a round about way, you have guaranteed the outcome you wanted. How is this NOT Magic?

You are using your willpower to control your surroundings.

I think we will discuss the kind of Magic you were thinking of a bit more later, but for now, know that your willpower, and enacting that willpower on your surroundings is one of the most complicated magics you can work, and it is tangible, and available to you right now.

Define what you want, think about how to make it happen, and take the first step.