February 01, 2019
Love, Connection, and Attachment
Tags: Receiving Love, Spiritual Intimacy, Munay
Love. It is everywhere! It is in the air, the birds, the bees, the trees. It’s the wind riffling through your hair, the rain falling gently on your face. A vast and infinite reserve of care, delight, and support, love is the essence from whence all Creation comes. And yet, we tend to think we can’t have it unless another agrees to give it to us. This leads us into scarcity, dark alleys of soul numbing negotiations for connection, and mistaking our attachments to others, for love.
Many people block love because it makes them feel unsafe. You can bring wheelbarrows of it to their doorsteps and they will continue to bemoan their barren existences, never recognizing that they have created this dearth themselves by shutting it down. The real work starts inside. If you are blocking a connection to love because people you have loved in the past have harmed you, or extracted an unbearable cost from you for it, start with connecting to something safe. Nature loves all her children, no exceptions, and asks nothing in return. Try sending a pulse of goodness out to a tree, for example, and wait. She will respond in kind, but it is up to you open up and let it in!
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May 01, 2017
At The Edge Of The Forest
Tags: Fairy Tales, Forest Mystics, Munay, Impersonal Love
As our legends have it, there is usually a mysterious man or woman who lives just outside the community, at the edge of the forest. They have been rumored to have strange powers, and because they are always alone, they are often feared. Rarely do they have partners, nor children, but animals are quite instinctively drawn to them. You may even see an owl or a raven perched on their shoulder, or perhaps a wolf or deer standing near their walking stick.
There is a reason they live at the edge of civilization. It is quieter there and their connection to Nature is profoundly more accessible outside the distractions of civilization. Further, they may have gifts and wisdom that don’t quite fit in with the cultural paradigms that have spawned them, so they retreat from the pressures of assimilation, and beat to the rhythm of their own drums.
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June 01, 2014
The Nine Rites: Ancient Initiations and Protections for a Modern World
Tags: Nine rites, Munay ki, q'ero, initiations
Imagine yourself standing at the base of a steep, rugged, snow capped mountain deep in the heart of the Andes. A small sturdy woman in a brightly colored poncho has you kneel as she plunks you on the head with her Mesa, a stone filled medicine bundle. You wince because she is not gentle and exhale a puff of steam into the chilly air. She looks into the sky and calls out in Quechua, her native tongue, then thrusts her stones into your shoulders, heart and belly. She draws your face to hers and says a few more words, then pulls your forehead into hers. You feel an electric energy arc from her third eye to yours and you melt into her. You see a flash of colors, then visions of ancient peoples from all over the world connected through these rites. Tears start to stream down your face. You have just received one of the Nine Rites that link you to the Wisdom Keepers of this land and you have the sense that you are finally home.
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