And then I met God, again

New Beginnings

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This year has been full of tumult. I have a feeling that the next year will challenge me in new ways, before things get better.  But in this year, I have grown more than I had hoped from the beginning. And I am proud of myself.

It is amazing how you set your intent to learn and to grow, and how you never end up in exactly the place you assumed you would be in.  Learning is an ever-changing snake-like path that you will continue to ride as long as you chose to move forward.  Getting off is an option, but I think that that would be the only way to not move towards your goal of growth.

This year, I have stumbled upon the reality that my wife and I have paid tribute to, and received the benefits from the bounty of the God Shiva. The common understanding of Shiva is as the Hindu God of Death and  Rebirth.  But, my realization this year has been that Shiva is not only for the Death and Rebirth of a person or spirit, but that of ideas, and habits… Shiva is also the God of changing intention, and attitude.  Shiva is a proponent to change and growth.

Without the death of something, the growth of another cannot occur.  Since the beginning of my marriage, my wife and I have chosen each other every morning.  We do not assume that we will be together forever because we took vows.  We continually come to one another with our challenges, fears, happiness’s, inspirations, efforts, confusions, you name it. And with each new conversation, we speak, we think, we accept our initial emotions, then we think about each other, and how sometimes the person that needs to change in a hard time is us and not them.  We make the choice to grow, and with each time we chose a harder path for the other, we grow closer together.  We change.Let me come up with a clear example.Let us say she came to me with the idea of wanting another partner. (Male or female is irrelevant for this situation, but pick which over works for you)10 years ago, my mindset put me in a place that would make me angerly say, “No.”But if I inspect that emotion, why it is so strong, I would have seen that I was reacting to the idea of, “but that is my body, and I don’t want to share it with anyone else.” The concept of, “Mine.”  The concept of ownership and property. And although I would have definitely felt it strongly, it would be hard to admit that that is what it was. Because even in my 10 year younger mind, the concept of “Mine” was strong, but, I didn’t believe on ownership of a partner. (Yes, I know this conflicts, but it is amazing what you can reason past)
(I realize that for some of you, there is a religious concern, but when you think hard about that, you might also see that the idea of property is involved. And if you have a religious concern, continue reading anyway, this does not end in judgement on you or your religion.)

And when I think about what it means to me, and why I react so strongly, there are a lot of questions that come up.

Do I own her body?
Do I own her emotion?
Does she owe anything to me to listen to my concerns?
What needs am I not meeting?
Are there needs I am unable to meet?
What are her needs that drive this interest?
What about another partner is she looking for?

And it comes back to, this question was posed to me, not asked of me.  She is a wonderful strong individual, completely independent of me. This is why I love her so much. So, if there is nothing owed either way, what reason would I have to say no to her about this?

The only answer I could say, that is true, and not ego-centric about this, would be the answer to another question than we have been talking about.

Is this idea, an idea that is worth driving us apart?

I personally feel that, as a strong individual, she has complete ownership of her own mind, body, and spirit.  I am grateful for the amount of those three things she is willing to share with me. And I enjoy making choices that cause her to chose to allow me to be part of her.  But what is the limit?So, is it worth driving us apart?You could say, “No, it is not worth driving us apart.” Or, you could say, “You are a wonderful person, but, I cannot say yes to this.  But, you may make the choice to chose another person, instead of me.”I think the Sex Columnist, Dan Savage, said it best, “What is your cost of admission?”I specifically chose an example that I thought could pose some personal introspection to many people.  I can’t tell you for sure how I would answer the question above if it were posed me.  But, this process that I followed here, is a tribute to Shiva.  It is looking at my mindset, thinking hard about different perspectives, and challenging each thought to shape itself into it’s best appearance.Death of an old concept, rebirth of a new concept (formed loosely on the old)In so many small decisions, and most of the big decisions, Shiva has been the code to help us continue to chose the decision that was right, even when it required challenging growth.In the upcoming year, I hope to continue to hold favor with this God, and also hope that the challenges and decisions I need to make are smaller and less challenging, but, I am confident I have the tools to move forward either way.

 

Sometimes, one thing, is everything

Malicious Intent

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Reviewing my Facebook stream, I stumbled across on of those posts that was basically saying, “if you don’t pass this on, something terrible would happen.”  And it made me feel truly sick.

To the point that I wanted to shut down my computer and walk away.  I went through my usual frustration about why someone would pass on that tripe, and I came to a realization.

The image was Photoshopped.  And while that was a pretty obvious statement from the beginning, I realized that someone put a lot of effort and energy into making that image disturbing, and passing it around to disturb people.  I have seen many terrible things, and many of them are true things that can and do happen to people.  But this image was different.

Through an image, shared on Facebook, I could feel the response in my soul of this persons ill intent.

In an attempt to not further feed that effort, I would like to simply respond here and state that, sharing things on a social media platform, will neither alert Bill Gates that he should send you a check, nor will it give you ill luck, or a horrible disease.

Let’s be careful with what we are sharing, it can do worse things than you expect.

Sometimes, one thing, is everything

Perspective

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So many of the changes I see in the world are around me are due to the subtleties that I can now see, as well as the new perspective I am willing to accept. The subtleties have always been there, I just didn’t see them before. It could be that I wasn’t looking, but I think it actually has to do with the fact that I didn’t know to look. There are several ways to explain this; First, what are you good at? What have you studied?

I have been studying in the Martial Arts for about 25 years, and I have to tell you that it has ruined many Martial Arts movies for me. Now that I know what I know about Martial Arts, most “Martial Arts” movies, really qualify as an aggressive dance film. And have only a little more action than “Dirty Dancing” or “Step it up”. The difference is that I can now see that the movements in the Martial Arts movies, are dance moves (or actual martial arts movements made to be a dance) that are choreographed to be flashy for film. When you learn more, you can see things you didn’t see before.

Learning to do something, is like a means of learning a language about that thing. So, the more words you learn in a language, the more specifically you can speak from within that language.

Imagine that you were in a space ship, you were a couple million light years outside our solar system. Let’s say you activated the Time Machine button and traveled to 14 billion years ago. Would you have any way to tell if it worked? You would start in the black of deep space, you would end in the black of deep space. Or, did you know, that as a scientific fact, if you were to enter the event horizon of a black whole, the change in the gravity would be so immense that you would lose concept of time? if you had a friend, that was falling into the black hole near you, but had not yet reached it… To them, you would appear to freeze in time. To you, they would appear to ages before your very eyes.

Imagine that you are truly immortal. You cannot be killed. You have no recollection of any creation or birth. How do you judge time? If there is no end date, does each day have so much importance? Does time have value to you if it is truly infinite? To make this a little more tangible, think about how slowly or quickly time seems to go for you. Everyone with whom I have spoken, tells me that the years just seem to go faster, the older you get. Imagine how long a day feels to you in your 30’s or 40’s compared to the length of the day from when you were 7. Now think how quickly a day must go by if you were 250 years old…

If everything we experience is finite, isn’t it worth finding the subtleties that teach us the value?

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.