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June 01, 2016

The Perfectionist’s Trap

Tags: Perfectionism, Individuality, Uniqueness, Acceptance, Shadow, Creativity

You see it in the fine print of advertisements, the subliminal messaging that there is a state of perfection that you have yet to achieve. It may be your looks, your ability to earn, your social status or even your health but something is amiss, and until you fix it, expect to hide in shame.

Many of us are indoctrinated into this belief system by parents who know that part of mastering their own drive for perfection is having the perfect child. You were marched into formation and asked to tow the line, given rules to live by and standards to achieve. In the process, however, you rejected the parts of yourself that aren’t perfect. When we put our imperfections in shadow we can only see them externally, in our judgements and pity of others. Many, ironically, try to overcome these divisions by helping others change to their ideal.


May 01, 2016

Sorcery

Tags: Sorcery, Ethics, Shamanism, Gossip, Evil, White Shaman, Dark Arts

Sorcery is the darkness that thrives in the shadow of Shamanism. While shamans use their powers to heal, sorcerers, like Darth Vader, take that same wisdom and turn it inward for personal gain. The sorcerer can make an enemy suddenly sick or curse a family for generations. They thrive on having power over others because their wounds drive perceptions of their own shortcomings. Our emotions tune our vibrations. The essential differences between the sorcerer and the shaman, then, is simply the nature of their intent.

In the days of old sorcery and shamanism were often entwined. Using shamanic wisdom to do harm to another was an acceptable form of survival between waring tribes. As humans have evolved many have come to recognize that having power is a responsibility that comes with a set of ethics and a code of honor. There is difference between having power and having ill will. Today’s shaman believes evil lives in the hearts of men and women, not as an independent principle.


April 01, 2016

The Modern Shaman

Tags: Shamanism, Animism, Archetypes, Power, Nature

Some people believe calling yourself a shaman is akin to saying “I am God.” A Shaman, they say, is a trickster who takes many magical forms, transcending space and time. Only others, they say, may call you one!

If we look at the word “shaman,” we find it is simply the (Siberian) Tungus tribe’s word for “medicine person.” Every indigenous tribe, from the beginning of time, has had a person, or two, whose role it has been to connect with the Creative Force on behalf of the tribe, to ensure their survival. They were everyday people with emotions, egos and even relationship problems to work through, but they were sensitive to energy. Their sensitivities helped them to heal the sick and help track down animals for food. They could see the dead and they could hear the spirits of Nature. Their job was to be an intermediary between the seen and unseen. When their skill sets were first recognized as children, they were pulled aside and trained to be of service to the tribe. There have always been these people, every culture, ours included, has relied upon them.


March 01, 2016

Keeping It Sacred: Asking Permission

Tags: Respect, Entitlement, Honoring, Sacred Relationships

Our world is running a thousand miles an hour with a new technological advance just around every corner. We run to keep up and take shortcuts to get there. In fact, it is an unwritten law in our Western Culture that we do, or take, and if necessary, make apologies for it later. This sense of urgency puts us neck to neck, scrapping for what we believe, by birthright, is ours. We seem to have forgotten how to have respect, however, and how to honor each other in our scrambles up the ladder. Is it any wonder that nothing feels sacred anymore?

If we take a step back and look at the philosophies we have inherited in the West, we can see that there is a drive for more that is rooted in deep fears of scarcity. We have been doing and taking, without apology, for millennia. To be assertive denotes a position of power and strength. It gives a message of boldness that is forthright and highly revered, but it creates dissension when no permission is granted.


February 01, 2016

Fight Flight Or Freeze

Tags: Anxiety, SuperCeptor, Highly Sensitive Person, Fear, Spiritual Angst, Depression, Fight or Flight, HPA Axis

One of the most crippling side effects of being highly sensitive is running high levels of anxiety. Sensitives, or SuperCeptors, are highly tuned to pick up on the nuances of their environments, keeping their bodies forever on alert. They are not the only ones, however. Anyone who has been imprinted by a stressful or traumatic period in their life, also has a brain tempered for further stress.

In the first five years of our lives everyone’s brain is being “tuned” for how it is going to react to the world. If those first years are filled with high levels of stress, we develop a brain prepared for more. Unfortunately, this creates a “trigger happy” stress response ready for danger behind every corner.


January 01, 2016

The Fifth Element

Tags: Ether, Five Elements, Fifth Element, Moderm Shaman, Lao Tzu, Shamanism

Consider a clay pot. It starts from minerals found in the earth. Mixed with water it becomes a malleable substance that can be shaped into a form. Bake it in a fire, stoked by the winds of the bellows, and you temper that object, giving it a strength that can hold up under use. Just as this pot is born of the four basic Elements of Creation, Earth, Water, Fire and Wind, so too are we. But as every alchemist and shaman knows, there is a fifth element at play as well.

From the beginning of time, cultures have broken Nature down into its basic constituents in an effort to better thrive on Planet Earth. Ancients alchemists recognized that there is a visible world constructed of four basic elements. Each one has a different  temperament. Water, for example, has the uncanny ability to shift forms. It can move from solid ice, to a liquid, and finally to gaseous steam. Fire, alternatively, has the properties of transmutation. It consumes entire forests, for example, making way for new growth. From the subtle flap of a tiny butterfly wing powerful Winds arise, and of course there is the Earth element, giving us the basis of all structure and form. The fifth element, Ether, they say, is more elusive. It is the consciousness between atoms, the very fabric of the sky.


December 01, 2015

Cultivating Our Soul Gardens

Tags: Holographic Universe, Creating your reality, Astological maps, victims of circumstance

Each of us was born into this world with a signature energetic pattern, or map, we are using to learn and evolve from. Our astrological charts, the exact positioning of the planets and asteroids at the moment of our birth, and our souls with their imprints, or unresolved past events, act as an invisible skeleton upon which we build our life experiences. What we build, however, is based on how we perceive.

As human beings, we use the five senses and intuition to measure what is happening around us and then we filter that through the mind to build perceptions about the world. We are initially unconscious of the soul maps we brought in with us, and see things as just happening to us at random. We will believe ourselves to be victims of circumstance and blame others for our discomfort. In this world of blame and shame we cultivate fear, anger and resentments, and then continue to generate similar experiences. As a person becomes more conscious, however, they will start to recognize that how their interpretation of these circumstances determines what they will experience.


November 01, 2015

The Rescuer

Tags: The Resuer Archetype, Healer Archetype, Wounded Healer, Shadow, Lightworkers

Many of us, with our huge hearts in hand, reach out and help our fellow beings in their struggles and times of need. While this is a natural extension of our human capacity to love and care for one another, there is an archetype called the Rescuer that is a much different animal.

The Rescuer starts off innocently enough, as someone who wants to help, but they  soon become seduced by the power of their role. When we help someone else we are in a position of strength that the other person is temporarily without. If all we do is reach in and help them stand up again, we have answered a call of service. Many of us learn early in life that by rescuing the struggling members of our dysfunctional families we feel better about ourselves. When we start doing it for personal gain, we are no longer performing a selfless action.


October 01, 2015

Who Is Driving This Bus Anyway?

Tags: Ego, spirirual materialism, Type A spirituality, Spiritual discipline, Soul Consciousness

Many of us have profound connections to the Divine. Some people hear guides, some channel and some just “know“ things. It is brilliant and exhilarating to actually receive messages from the Divine! It is important to know the voice of your ego too, however, for your individual consciousness has a sneaky way of trying to jump in and steer that bus!

As any spiritual disciple knows, the first stumbling block on the journey to genuine connection is the individual consciousness or ego. In fact, it is probably the only real obstacle in our path. Many try to stamp out their egos, or deny them, in an attempt to make that connection clearer but the ego isn’t going anywhere! It is the part of us that oversees the day to day operations of our survival on the planet, part of the software that comes with the body. Its job is to identify with the things that will insure our success and survival. It defines itself by roles, gender, race, job, birth order, etc. It also evaluates its standing and rank in any environment in an effort to find the niche it can survive in best. In fact, when it retracts from its duties we find ourselves feeling lost and depressed.


September 01, 2015

Giving The Hero A Rest

Tags: Heroes, superstars, Heros Archetype, relationships, divine masculine

We were all raised to believe in the Hero, a caped man, woman, or dog even, who swoops in to save the day. We see strength and altruism in this archetype and we want to emulate it. Every kid has stuffed a towel in their shirt and run around the living room, jumping off chairs in an attempt to fly like Superman. We pretend to have superpower strengths as we slay the most daunting of monsters. As we grew up many of us continue to play out these roles in our adult lives.

Men, especially, have traditionally been charged with the task of being the hero of their families. They have been the go-to person to fix all that goes awry in the household, and until relatively recently, have provided the lion’s share of the income. They’ve kept the roof from leaking, the cupboards full, and they’ve protected the premises from intruders. We have asked them to be our heroes and we have asked them to be our warriors. These roles, however, demand a certain amount of emotional distance. A hero doesn’t cry, and someone sensitive to another’s pain, does not a good warrior make. In fact, we have trained our young boys to deny their feelings so they can step up and “be a man.” There is no analogous role for a woman. There are traits we expect a woman to have but no equivalent pressure to “be a woman.” Many women in our culture even choose to adapt themselves to these same standards, because they are so highly emphasized.


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