Food For Thought | Ascension Lifestyle

07 Sep 2018
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Mind De-Clutter: 7 Things to Stop Telling Yourself

Living as a woman in the 21^st century can at times feel like a blessing, while at other times it seems to be getting increasingly difficult. We as women seem to have made a pact with society, and keep imposing impossible goals and standards on ourselves: and we just have to be perfect in every possible way. At home, at work, in the kitchen, with our group of friends, in our relationships: there is just no letting up.

Having in mind the fact that all of these standards are a road to self-doubt, and that self-doubt resides firmly in the mind, here are seven things to stop telling yourself, which will help you shed some of that stress that has been mercilessly piling on for years.

You’re Too Old

We all get told we’re too old at some point in our day. Wrinkle creams, skin softening screams, makeovers that will take years off; you name it, we have to hear of it. The secret here is not to listen to what society tells you to do, instead listen to the voice inside.

You’re a strong beautiful woman who will age, just as everyone will; especially the models in those TV ads! If something is bothering you, then by all means find a a spa treatment that will keep it at bay or help reverse it. The signs of ageing are something we’re all aware of, and they are something that it’s fine to want to do something about, but only if it’s because that’s what you want to do.

Don’t be taken in by airbrushed photos of women who look 25 claiming to be 45 — the real world just isn’t like that. Celebrate how your face and figure will change as you age and you’ll find that you’re so much happier!

You’re Too Young

This is the other one we have to hear about. When we’re young, we’re told to dress older, when we’re old, we’re told that looking younger is the be all and end all. There’s no truth in this, and really, you only have to do what makes you happy.

You won’t suddenly find Mister Right if you do exactly what the world tells you to do, you’ll only attract people who are superficial and focused on appearances. If you want to be able to look a bit older because deep down you know it will make you happy, then go for it. If you want to dress up or wear vintage clothes because you feel like you want to break into a new style, then go for that.

Just don’t feel like you have to. Nothing good ever comes from being pushed by a crowd of people to do something that isn’t really you.

Your Hair Could Look so Much Better

Turn on the TV and within 15 minutes an ad will pop up, so that you can hear about how bad your hair is, and how parting with your money will fix it instantly. Nobody likes to hear this, and to be honest, so much of it is said purely to try and sell you products that will quickly eat up your monthly pay packet.

Whilst you may feel like you’re doing the right thing by paying for them, you’ll soon see that there are so many other products you ‘need’. The problem with this is that it’s a never ending cycle that will have you spending more and more as you go in search of a perfection that you’ll never find.

By all means, treat yourself to a bit of a pampering session every now and again if you’re that way inclined, but don’t feel that you have to listen to every ad you hear. Sometimes it’s enough to just tie your hair up and sit back and enjoy some TV!

You Don’t Look Like an Instagram Model

Social media has a lot to answer for when it comes to images. Instagram is full of airbrushed photos where people with amazing physiques make us feel that we need to spend 10 hours a day in the gym. Whilst it’s great for these few people that have got themselves looking a way they’re delighted with, it doesn’t do us any favours when it comes to body image issues.

If you want to look and feel better, then by all means, hit the gym. Share the odd selfie if you’re proud of what you’ve achieved. But don’t feel like you have to kill yourself on the treadmill purely because you don’t look like the Instagram models. They don’t look like that, either.

You need to be on a Better Diet

You’ve probably lost count of how many different types of diets you’ve tried, and you’ll have no doubt heard about dozens more that you never got round to trying. If you want to be able to feel better and have more energy, then to be honest, a simple balanced diet is probably all you’ll need.

See how you get on with a back-to-basics approach, and if you want to take things to the next level, you will have laid the groundwork, and know it’s the right thing to do. But do it because it’s the right thing for you.

You Need a ‘Woman’s Job’

So many of us hear that you have to do certain types of jobs and skip past dozens of others when you’re thinking about applying. No matter what you do, it shouldn’t change how you view yourself. It doesn’t make you any less feminine if you want to work in a garage or for an engineering firm, etc.

You should free your mind of this kind of clutter and you’ll find you’re so much happier for it. There’s no reason you can’t do what you put your mind to, so just make sure you don’t let stereotypes stand in your way.

It’s Okay to Grin and Bear Mansplaining

Mansplaining is super annoying and it’s far more prevalent than you’d think. If you want to be able to get your point across, power through. If you want to cut someone off for talking down to you, just do it.

People may think you’re being a typical ‘bossy woman’, but free yourself from this type of stuff and you’ll be all the more happy for it. Just be you, and the world will be a better place for it!

About the Author: Ascension Lifestyle Contributor, Rebecca Brown

rebecca.dorothy.brown@gmail.com

roughdraft.eu

11 May 2018
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A Time & Money Saving Solution To Juicing

Daily juicing is a great routine to get into. We’ve all been there before, we get excited about starting a new juicing regiment only to be discouraged by the lack of time truly needed to commit to it. There are several things that need to be given consideration before beginning juicing. Understandably, health and wellness don’t come easy, you’ve got to put in the time and commitment to get results. We all have enough on our plate already. Life is just too busy, we are already juggling too much, biting off more than we can chew.

If you want to start a juice regiment, this is what you can really expect. You’re going to have to buy a ton of vegetables that will fill your fridge up, and you’ll have to go grocery shopping more frequently because the amount of juice that can be squeezed out of a vegetable is not that much. This is why you’ll need to set aside a decent budget and time for resupplying on (preferably organic) vegetables. When you take them home, the best thing for you to do is to pre-peel/chop them, which takes up more time. The biggest inconvenience is having to clean the juicer after every use, a significant, yet unavoidable responsibility of juicing. Taking it apart, cleaning it thoroughly, then putting it back together is a process that takes time out of your busy day. For those of us who plan on juicing more frequently, such as 2-3 times per day, this can occupy a lot of time.

When coming home from a long day of hard work, feeling drained, yet to scratch out other obligations off your daily checklist list, juicing and all of its tedious processes might not be a priority at that moment. This is when your daily juice regiment goals begin to slip away. Skipping one day becomes skipping a day next week. Then skipping a day or two every week becomes skipping every other day, before you know it you’re juicing once a week until you give up on yourself and forget about it. You’re defeated, life wins, and will power loses. There has to be a better way, a more efficient way that will allow you to stay consistent, which is vital to any type of health and wellness regiment. Fortunately, there is a solution to the inefficiency of juicing.

What’s more convenient than juicing? A juicing supplement. There are many juice powders on the market but I prefer Organifi. You can get all of your vital healthy foods in one supplement without the time-consuming hassle of grocery shopping, juicing, and clean up. Organifi is a juicing supplement designed to meet your nutrition and energy needs, while providing an efficient way to save time compared to traditional juicing. Having personally tried Organifi, I can honestly recommend this product in full confidence.

Organifi is great for people who travel often. If you want to keep up with your juicing regiment while traveling, Organifi is the supplement that will help you stay consistent. When your traveling you don’t have time to juice, nor can you afford to pack your juicer in your suitcase, which makes Organifi a great supplement for grabbing a green juice on the go.

You’ll definitely appreciate the amount of value Organifi can offer you. Drinking Organifi can provide you with mental clarity, daily energy boosts, and better focus, by nourishing the body with its many nutrients and electrolytes. A busy daily schedule can make for a stressful lifestyle, which is why Organifi can help prevent and combat the effects of daily stress by reducing it and balancing the hormones. In addition, Organifi will keep your skin glowing with improved rejuvenation for hair and nails as well. You can boost your immune system with the vitamins and minerals contained within the foods used in the Organifi blend. It is also useful for detoxifying your body as its ingredients are known for flushing out toxins.

The ingredients included in Organifi are:

Moringa

Moringa is an amino acid, a protein building block. Amino acids and proteins are an important part of your diet, needed to grow, repair, and maintain cells.

Mint

Mint is good for digestion, reducing cramps, and helps regulate sleep.

Chlorella

Chlorella is a green algae that benefits your body because it is high in protein and polyunsaturated fats.

Spirulina

The Aztecs used this daily for strength and energy. This is a source of iron, calcium and plant protein, and an overall great source of energy.

Beets
Beets are rich in folate and manganese which help in DNA and cell rejuvenation. The isolated mix tastes great in the supplement and doesn’t have the taste of raw beets that most people dislike.

Wheat Grass

Wheatgrass is good for your blood cells due to the high presence of chlorophyll.

Ashwagandha

This is an adaptogen (amino acids, vitamins, and herbs), a natural herb substance which helps the body adapt to stress.

Turmeric

An antioxidant that is beneficial to your health and skin.

Matcha Green Tea

A high source of an anti-oxidant called EGCG, great for weightloss and stress reduction by regulating hormones.

Lemon

A citrus fruit rich in citric acid with appetite fighting effects to help you lose weight. It also stabilizes blood sugar levels.

Coconut water

Rich in potassium and helps maintain the strength of bones in the body.

The above ingredients were all carefully chosen by the founder of Organifi, Drew Canole. Drew Canole is a Nutrition Specialist, Transformation Specialist and national spokesperson for the benefits of juicing vegetables for health and vitality. He is the founder of Fitlife TV where he shares “Educational, Inspirational and Entertaining” videos and articles about health, fitness, healing and longevity.

Drew Canole’s transformation clients include celebrities, entrepreneurs, CEO’s, authors and personal development gurus. The success of his first book on Juicing Recipes vaulted him to national attention as a first-time author and has gained media and television attention in the form of book deals, TV talk show hosting and national endorsements from some of the leading national companies focused on health, wellness and athletics.

Disclaimer: Ascension has no personal relationship with Drew Canole, as affiliate marketers of Organifi we share a portion of sales purchased through our site.

You’ll personally benefit from Organifi, saving yourself valuable time to prepare juicing meals. You’ll also save on the amount of money you spend on groceries for juicing. Even if juicing is still something you want to do, you can add more nutrients to your daily regiment by mixing Organifi into your juices. Increased energy, immune function, skin, hair, and nail growth are just a few of the many health benefits you’ll experience with Organifi.

In Summary The Benefits of Organifi Include:

Improved growth, repair, and maintenance of cells

Reduced cramps and better sleep regulation

More strength and energy by boosting metabolism

DNA and cell rejuvenation

Improved blood flow and healthier blood cells
Reduced stress

Better skin, hair, and nail growth

Increased bone and muscle strength

Weight loss

Organifi Green Juice has been tested in clinical trials, tested on volunteers over 3 months. What did the scientists find?

Organifi supports:

Weight loss (specifically fat loss)
Increased strength (in physically active volunteers)
Lowered bad cholesterol (LDL)
Raised good cholesterol (HDL)
Better quality of life (as notated by volunteers)

One of the best benefits is that the effects multiply. Men and women who drank 2 servings per day experienced 4 times the results.

Drew Carole is currently selling a 30 day supply of Organifi for $79.99, but you can buy it for $57.95. Just enter your email address below to not only receive your free juicing recipe book but to also start your order.

Organifi offers a 30 day no risk money back guarantee. Even if you simply don’t like the flavor, if you ask for your money back within 30 days of ordering, you’ll be refunded, no questions asked. As mentioned above, the stellar track record and reputation of Drew Carole’s Organifi are key reasons to order in confidence. Integrity and your satisfaction is of the utmost importance to him and Ascension.

Without a juicing supplement like Organifi, you may continue to struggle to manage your time and juice budget. For those of you who travel frequently, you may also fail to maintain your juice regiment while traveling. In my opinion, there isn’t a better product on the market to save you time, money, and the headache of not being consistent. Step into better health by taking advantage of this opportunity to radically change the way you juice, you’ll be happy that you did.

Click on the image below to order a 30 day supply of Organifi.

28 Feb 2018
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Life In the Middle Ages: Facing the Feisty Fifties

I see my folks are gettin’ on

And I watch their bodies change

I know they see the same in me

And it makes us both feel strange

No matter how you tell yourself

It’s what we all go through

Those lines are pretty hard to take

When they’re staring back at you.

~ Nick of Time by Bonnie Raitt

I got my period on Valentine’s Day. Talk about a literal red-letter day! Never have I been so unabashedly joy-filled at the sight of blood. For the first time, I truly appreciate a euphemism both girls and women have used for generations to refer to their Moontime: “my friend.”

Perhaps I should explain that I am not thirteen. I’m not 37. I’m 50, and this is my first cycle in five months. Menopause swooped in without warning last fall and I dried up like the Sahara. To suddenly bleed after a week in which I did, in fact, feel premenstrual is confirmation that my body’s still experimenting with this shift. It’s not a done deal. There’s yet time to adjust to the idea of being a Crone — and being eligible for membership in AARP (you’ve got to be kidding!)

Embracing the “F” Word

Now that the largest cohort in history is graying en masse, someone turns 50 approximately every eight seconds. Even this formidable fleet can’t stem the tide of aging jokes, however. At 50, the good-natured ribbing begins in earnest. My friend Faith, who celebrated her 50^th just weeks before me, recalled a card she received when she turned 40: “I’m going to have to say the ‘F’ word: forty! Forty! Forty!”

We lamented that the greeting card industry doesn’t seem to think we have a sense of humor a decade later. Why isn’t there a card for 50-year-olds that reads, “I’m at the age where I can freely use the ‘F’ word: fifty, fifty, fifty!!”

My parents, who do not perceive themselves as “old” in their eighties, sent me a hilarious Dr. Seuss parody of “Thing One” and “Thing Two” called, “It’s a Fifty Thing!” The birthday card included lines such as, “Thing Fifty can groove to the latest CD. (And with bifocal lenses, Thing Fifty can see!)”

Hm. It’s one “thing” to major in gerontology and enjoy working with elders in your twenties; quite a different matter when you’re on the cusp of joining a collective that’s marginalized in Western society and rendered virtually invisible.

I remember my mom telling me with pride about a man at the Department of Motor Vehicles flirting with her when she retook her driver’s test at age 65. I was 35 at the time, and even then, wondered aloud in my public speaking class “how much longer” men would continue to flirt with me.

From the vantage point of an additional fifteen years, I find my 30-something fear rather quaint.

Redefining Wrinkles and “Cool”

The fifties promise to be an intriguing balance of living in an aging body while possessing a certain ineffable wisdom and spirit we hadn’t accessed in our younger years. Although the twenty-somethings and teens I meet today often seem wise far beyond where my generation was at their age, due no doubt to the rapid evolution of humanity as a whole, there is much to be said for the joie de vivre that accrues with vintage.

Wrinkles signify ripeness. There’s a reason the honorific, “sage” is usually conferred on an elder.

I met an 83-year-old woman with close-cropped silver hair streaked fuchsia, wearing peace sign earrings. I commented that it was so cool to see “a woman of her maturity” thus attired, to which she replied, “Oh, I wasn’t cool when I was young!”

Reconciling body image with spiritual awareness is, paradoxically, only an issue if one chooses to focus on the physical. When the body becomes background — as it often is de facto in youth, with parts that are well oiled, shapely, firm, and thus, easier to “ignore” — our essence shines forth, and that’s what people see when they read the story in our eyes.

A Bountiful Harvest

Fifty is a time to harvest our joy — and acknowledge evidence of our mortality. While several of my contemporaries have already matched wits with serious illness, and a few have transitioned to the other side of life, I’ve also watched three dear friends meet and marry their life partners in their fifties. As I’ve been casting my soul mate net for a while now, this is heartening news.

Life in the Middle Ages can be bountiful, as Oprah Winfrey, our ultimate generational role model for accomplished aging, said of her 50^th birthday: “All these years I’ve been taking lessons from life experiences and feeling like I was growing into myself. Finally, I feel grown. More like myself than I’ve ever been. If it’s true what Maya Angelou says, that the fifties represent everything you were meant to be, all I can say is, watch out.”

Riley Mackenzie* embodies Angelou’s decree. In her fifties, she studied the subtleties of Argentine Tango, became a serious ceramics artist, and swung from a high trapeze. Now 68, she’s just back from a leisurely road trip around the periphery of the U.S. with her husband of almost, yes, 50 years. She’s also reinventing her marketing business with a partner, another vital woman in her late fifties. Mackenzie says emphatically, “It’s the most fun I could ever imagine having!”

Hot Flashes…of Inspiration

Age, like everything else in life, is a matter of perspective. Six months before my milestone birthday, I fell into conversation with a lively older gentleman as we waited to cross the street. He was searching his pockets for his eyeglasses, and, after I helped him find them, we walked together for a few minutes. He told me he was 100 years old, and regaled me with tales of his life. As we reached a parting of the ways, he turned to me and asked, quite seriously, “So tell me, young lady, have you graduated from college yet?”

Now, that’s the ultimate tonic for the “chronologically gifted”!

As I sit in a local teahouse, sipping rooibos and savoring my feminine cycle along with some exquisite chocolate mousse, I’m tickled by these words from The Reconnections website, on meeting the beloved: “I saw a license plate the other day, on a car belonging to a woman aged 50 plus: ‘Give me chocolate, and no one gets hurt.’ I thought that one was pretty neat until I saw a better one: ‘I’m over 50 and I’m still hot — except now, it comes in flashes.'”

How true. Flashes of insight. Flashes of inspiration. Flashes of unmitigated delight at just how extraordinary life on this beautiful blue-green planet can be. One author refers to the second half-century as “Jubilee Time.”

I’m ready to party. Considering how many playmates I’ll have in the galactic sandbox, it’s destined to be an unsurpassed blast. Bring it on: fifty! Fifty! Fifty!

* name changed to honor her privacy

About the Author:

Amara Rose can pluck a graying hair from her scalp at 25 mph; driving any faster, she waits for a red light. To see what she’s done with her first half-century, visit LiveYourLight.com. Offer her dark chocolate and you open the doorway to friendship.

14 Jan 2018
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Becoming an Extension of the Earth’s Self-Awareness

Merely by becoming aware of your inner body sensations and experiences and the body’s dreaming intelligence you become an extension of the earth’s self awareness bringing itself back into balance. You become a flow through for our intertraconnection and the embodied intelligence of the earth. Separated from our essential earthbody essence we attempt to reclaim primal unity through frenetic striving towards an imagined goal that hovers somewhere above the earth. But this goal can never be reached. In our inner life our frenetic striving manifests as stress and struggle and on the macroscopic level it manifests as economic growth and environmental destruction. In both cases the result is harm done to our bodies and to the earth.

We don’t need to struggle or damage ourselves to be whole. We are already whole, even though we are also paradoxically incomplete. Everything we need is already present or near at hand. We can experience our deepest essence now in the form of mountain like responsive ferocious, unwavering body-based presence and caring, powerful sensual and nurturing love. We can experience it in our coming together to care for each other or for the local bioregion, in our ceremonies, in our working through conflicts, in our supporting each other in times of difficulty, in our mutual empowerment and in our sharing of our myths and stories. May all beings learn to touch their deepest essence with a strong, warm and tender hand. May all beings be reborn as their great ecological connected Selves. May all beings occupy their deepest and most courageous soul. May we sing songs of victory over tyranny and injustice. May we become the guiding light back to the abundant and magical wild garden.

Artwork by Yolanda Eveleens

About the Author: Jason Hine

Jason is an Earth based facilitator, ceremonialist, deep ecologist, gardener, wilderness guide, and rebel life coach.

You can find Jason on Facebook

07 May 2016
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Spirituality? Is That Like Religion?

When I moved to California in 1981, spiritual exploration was still in my future. I had my first astrological reading that year, and the astrologer, who twelve years later would provide a reading that helped redirect my life during my awakening, referred several times to “spirituality.” She recorded the session, and on the recording you hear me asking in a perplexed tone, “What’s spirituality? Is that like religion?”

I needed to live my own spiritual journey before I understood. The terms can be synonymous, but often they are not.

The Difference Between Spirituality and Religion

The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhist community, has said, “My religion is kindness.”

The word religion derives from the Latin religare, which means “to tie fast” or “to bind together.” One dictionary definition of religion is, “a set of beliefs, values and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.” This would seem to suggest that religion is a subset of a larger rubric called spirituality.

Yet defining spirituality is a bit like describing color to one who has never known sight. Perception will vary according to your beliefs. Of the myriad online resources attempting to answer the inquiry, “What is Spirituality?” a Unitarian Universalist minister offers this view:

Spirituality is being concerned with things of the spirit — the big questions of meaning, metaphysics, existence. Being spiritual is thinking about, wondering about, and exploring the deepest aspects of reality, values, morals, and meanings.

Spirituality is mis-defined if it is equated with super-naturalism, which tends to be the mistake I find when I hear people object to the word. Nothing about a search for values, morals, and meanings implies faith instead of reason, or emotion instead of intelligence. Spirituality can be all those things, and it is to some people, but not exclusively so. After all, ‘spirit’ simply means ‘breath,’ as in ‘inspire’, ‘expire’ or ‘inspiration.’ Spirit is about being filled with life. It’s about all the ways that we try to make sense of our living, and our attempts to make good from our lives.

Thus, the Dalai Lama’s statement, like his work in the world, broadens the scope of religion to embrace its spiritual essence: both begin with how we think, feel and behave.

How What We Believe Affects Our Health

In recent years, scientists have demonstrated in the lab what mystics and spiritual teachers have been saying for centuries: consciousness creates reality. Renowned neuroscientist Candace Pert, featured in What the Bleep Do We Know!? and author of Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel, established that emotional communication begins at the cellular level, with tiny proteins called peptides.

Breakthrough cell biologist Bruce Lipton, author of The Biology of Belief, confirms that our attitudes and thoughts create our physical bodies. He writes, “Cells respond to perception by activating either growth or protection behavior programs. If our perceptions are accurate, the resulting behavior will be life enhancing. If we operate from ‘misperceptions,’ our behavior will be inappropriate and will jeopardize our vitality by compromising our health.”

In a nutshell: think negative, create warped DNA. Change your mind, change your body!

During the past few decades, medical science has also begun documenting the “faith factor” in healing. Physician Larry Dossey, a pioneer in exploring the role of prayer in healing, says, “I used to believe that we must choose between science and reason on one hand, and spirituality on the other, in how we lead our lives. Now I consider this a false choice. We can recover the sense of sacredness, not just in science, but in perhaps every area of life.”

Stepping Onto the Path

So, how does spirituality “happen”? Awakening is a journey, and just as with literal travel, this metaphorical passage is different for everyone. For many people, the call to embark on a spiritual path is preceded by a period of questioning or difficulty, when one or more aspects of your life no longer flow smoothly. This was what my summons looked like.

Being willing to surrender into the unknown is a huge, scary — and necessary — initial step, because you can’t “figure out” spirituality in a linear fashion. You might begin a spiritual exploration by reading about the world’s religions, or sampling various types of spiritual services. Some people seek out a teacher or guru. Some learn to meditate. Others go on retreat in the wilderness. There are as many ways to claim your spiritual truth as there are people. A formal practice isn’t required, although this can be a useful way to “get out of your head” in the early stages.

Ultimately, the journey to Spirit will be unique to you.

Spiritual vs. Material

Of course, it’s important to balance spirituality with the 3-D world. You don’t need to take a vow of poverty in order to live a spiritual life! This is a frequent misconception among both spiritual and religious aspirants: that a dedication to spiritual service requires one to renounce worldly possessions.

People often find that committing to a spiritual path dramatically changes their lives. Material resources may fall away, but this usually has little to do with religious or spiritual doctrine. It’s more likely a result of a desire to pare down possessions in an attempt to discover what’s necessary and valued, to release aspects of one’s life that no longer serve, or a deep-seated belief that it’s somehow “more spiritual” to be poor. Role models from Jesus to Gandhi to Mother Teresa have ingrained an unintentional link between spiritual service and self-sacrifice in our collective consciousness.

Those who possess spiritual wealth know that love and compassion are the true sources of sustenance. As the Dalai Lama so eloquently expressed, the most devout religious belief can be embodied as kindness. A person overflowing with goodwill towards others is incalculably richer than someone with a big bank account and a stingy spirit.

Full Circle

Fourteen years after wondering aloud what spirituality was, I was discussing my personal growth odyssey with my Dad. After I’d shared passionately for a while, he said, “You know, honey, when you say ‘spirituality’, I have no idea what you mean.”

My heart swelled with recognition. I took a thoughtful breath, and began to frame my reply.

About the author:

Amara Rose is a “midwife” for our global rebirth. Her services include transformational guidance, talks, e-courses, a digital download CD, and an inspirational monthly newsletter. She is widely published in health, business and new thought magazines, both digital and print. Learn more: http://www.liveyourlight.com

http://twitter.com/Amara_Rose

http://www.facebook.com/LiveYourLight

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amararose

19 Jan 2016
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Fire and Water: The Deeper Meaning Of What We Unleash

When I was deep into my spiritual awakening, I had startlingly prescient dreams; in one, the words, “violent emergency” reverberated through my mind. It was a violent emergence; birth is fierce. There is an ocean of difference, however, between Nature’s ferocity and that which is deliberately inflicted by human beings with their own agendas.

Theologian and author Thomas Moore writes, “Deep in the etymology of ‘violence’ is a strong Latin word, vis. It is the power in nature that we sense in the surging sea and the growth of grass. In our experiences of violence we witness the vain attempt of life to push itself into existence and visibility. This is a sexual power. Sex is not just about making bodies but making souls as well. The people of the world need every opportunity to be creative and visible. They need to enjoy life, not just survive. Without that opportunity, they will turn to violence, in spite of themselves.”

Life’s Novocaine

We tend to go through life anesthetized against our own yearning. The call to claim our power can be terrifying, because it means accepting our invitation to the Dance — and most of us have forgotten how to dance, if indeed we ever knew. We find it easier to lash out in anger: rage, the undiscovered country. If being “outrageous” means getting the rage out, Americans are black belts. Having lost touch with the wilderness within, we savage the Earth and each other in an effort to combat our loneliness.

War is the grand expression of this misdirected energy. It’s akin to our ability, or lack of it, to harness the power of the sun. Yoked to our solar egg, we could shine on in all our ecological radiance for millennia. Yoking means union, but we’re used to living the more limiting definition of bondage. Trussed to our desperation, we sigh, “That’s life!” Since interdependence — becoming what Kenny Ausubel christened “Bioneers,” or biological pioneers, co-creating with Nature — feels so foreign, we stay (un)comfortably in the familiar, pump up the volume, and wearily watch as the world turns.

There is a way out: it’s through. The trees are gods and goddesses who in their stillness keep the Earth’s counsel; the animals are our allies. We can commune with a snake or a sea lion as easily as with the people we call kin. The key lies in reclaiming our wildness — not as violence, but as an abiding, sensuous connection with Nature. Instead of experiencing everything at one remove, we can allow it to enter us.

My Inannic odyssey delivered me deeply into this truth. In illness and vulnerability, I threw my arms around trees and sobbed out my grief, feeling their loving embrace. I began talking to crows, paying tribute to their visceral wisdom in a poem that concluded, “A coded conversation/In guttural cries/Opens my eyes/And lifts me higher.” Stunned from exhaustion, I’d never lived in such clarity. With my brain on an extended vacation, I was forced to access a more primitive part of my being, to participate organically in the instinctual world, not merely watch.

How Peace Begins

This is how peace begins: by singing the wild symphony of Nature back into our cells, feeling the music of the spheres in our marrow, embodying the feminine creative principle. By raising our resonance, we become “the vessel which can contain all blessing,” as one ancient text describes peace. This is also how we heal our bodies, and the body of Gaia: “immune” means sacrosanct, inviolate, whole. In celebrating all life, we pulse a radiating joy that resurrects our daily dance. And you can’t wage war while dancing.

We’ve entered a new era. It is only in recent memory that strong antiwar sentiment (Iraq, Vietnam) has held sway. For much of human history, war has been an acceptable means of “protecting our interests,” “keeping the world safe for democracy,” or any number of other platitudes. If thousands, perhaps millions, of innocents had to die in the process, well, they were war heroes. And the villagers in other countries, slaughtered in the name of whatever deity one invoked, deserved death because they were “the enemy.”

Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the US House of Representatives and the only member of Congress to vote against US entry into both World Wars, once declared, “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”

She makes an enduring point. Did anyone “win” the Indian or Chilean ‘quakes? Are we “winning” the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan?

What’s really going on here? What is the higher purpose of the impulse to violence we all harbor within, to a greater or lesser degree?

Fire and water are complements; harmonized, they elevate consciousness and catalyze healing. I sang these words often during my own dark night of the soul. Instead of the old, tired dominator matrix, using firepower in an “us” vs. “them” scenario, we can embrace the true fire within us, and discover the myriad ways to channel this potent energy for good.

Embracing the True Fire Within

Becoming a spiritual warrior is a profile in courage (which means heart.) Spirit asks, “Have you the conviction to stand by your heart? Are you willing to transmute war in the alchemical fire?” The fire within is the perfect peace of God/Goddess/Creator/Innate Intelligence, which expresses outwardly as enthusiasm (from the Greek, “possessed by God”), inwardly as a calm awareness.

We’ve mastered communicating from our wounds. Now we’re in a pivotal age, creating a context in which it’s safe to share who we are in love, in truth, in well-being. Our collective task is to marry scared and scarred with sacred, density with destiny, jaded with jubilant; to become inclusive not exclusive. Because none of us is truly free until all of us are.

This is one of the meta gifts of these disasters (which means, “against the stars”): they bring us face to face with The Other, in our psyches and out in the world, so we can see how they’re one and the same. All anyone can do is introduce you to yourself. So as you look in the mirror of your brother’s or sister’s face, be kind to your own confusion, criticism, sadness, or fear. Acknowledging your strand in the evolutionary web is, in itself, a giant step on the path to peace.

It’s time for each of us to create a personal crucible: a safe container for our energies. Envision your inner chalice. Then place this cup, brimming with fiery potential and the waters of life, into your heart, where it will become a perpetual font of inspiration and renewal — and, in time, of unconditional love.

As the Maya say, In Lakéch: I am another yourself.

###

About the author:

Ascension Lifestyle author Amara Rose is a “midwife” for our global rebirth. Her services include transformational guidance, talks, e-courses, a digital download CD, and an inspirational monthly newsletter. She is widely published in health, business and new thought magazines, both digital and print. Learn more: http://www.liveyourlight.com

10 Nov 2015
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Scared to Sacred: Falling in Love with 13

In high school English I learned a 64-carat word for a common ailment: triskaidekaphobia, or “fear of the number thirteen.” The elevator in my grandparents’ apartment building omitted the thirteenth floor. Apparently the assumption was, nobody would have wanted to live on it. It was a fashionable New York City address; fear and loathing cross all perceived boundaries. I also recall a series of horror movies with “Friday the 13th” in the title.

A society steeped in superstition and a materialistic value system will find it easy to assign anxiety to anything that threatens the status quo. Thirteen is the number of movement, of change — a wild card — and that can be very scary. But it’s our lost connection with the Divine in everyday life that gives rise to such distress. Divorced from our origins, terrified of our own power, we profane the sacred: thirteen becomes unlucky, evil, a curse; symbolic scapegoat of all we’re afraid to embrace.

When we can take the thirteenth step, however, we’re on the first step of the Stairway to Heaven. With the courage to look, we find thirteen stitched into the very fabric of American culture. Thirteen colonies gave birth to a nation. The first American flag bore thirteen stars and stripes. We were on the right track back then, grounded into the roots of our heritage.

Think about it: thirteen has traditionally been cause for celebration. The thirteenth year signifies a coming-of-age, also across all perceived boundaries. In the Jewish religion, boys make their Bar Mitzvah at thirteen. This ceremony, which involves reading from the holy Torah, marks a boy’s entrance into manhood.

Girls generally begin to menstruate at thirteen. Cross-culturally, it’s common to commemorate the first blood with an initiation rite; here in the West, this significant threshold is at last beginning to be recognized as a powerful, sacred passage. (My e-course, Loving Our Lunacy, is an embodied initiation for women.)

In fact, there are even thirteen sun signs in the Real Solar Zodiac — which is not the one used in conventional astrology. Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer, has been omitted from the oversimplified Tropical Zodiac used in the West. Yet the serpent denotes transformation — and on the Winter Solstice of 2012, long prophesied by indigenous cultures worldwide as the Shift of the Ages, Earth directly aligned with both Ophiuchus and the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Thirteen, then, is a fundamental Earth rhythm, biorhythm, manifested in our physical bodies as well as the heavenly ones. To reject thirteen is, perhaps, to reject or deny some core aspect of ourselves as human beings.

How can we reawaken to our true purpose and potential, beyond the fear and perception of separateness? By reclaiming our native knowing.

One way that resonates for me is following a 13 Moon Calendar. The 13 Moon Calendar shows us a path to walk to restore right relationship in our lives, to re-member (make membership again) our journey as one Earth family. Based on an annual solar cycle of 13 moons (months) of 28 days each (the female menstrual cycle), plus one “day out of time” in which to reflect and regenerate, the 13 Moon Calendar is synchronized with Earth rhythms and human biology. It’s expansive, intuitive, juicy, flowing: life, in all its harmonious chaos.

The beauty of this apparent paradox lies in learning to honor them both/and: life is orderly and messy, pragmatic and unpredictable, spiritual and material. Living in tune with these innate contradictions, we breathe in our own magnificence, and feel nourished and held in the body of the Great Mother.

Our Gregorian calendar, by contrast, models scarcity, so we always subtly feel like we’re starving: if you get what you need, there might not be enough for me. Living a compressed, alienating, sterile existence, our spiritual lungs squeezed for air, we evince these invisible shackles in the way we treat each other and Gaia. Time-is-money, me-first, bigger-better-best, I want it yesterday, are the credos of mechanistic time. Pursued by the clock, separated from our humanity, we’ve forgotten that time is creativity, that women carry time in their bodies, and have come to accept the clock as king.

Another Earth-based analogy may also help: I’ve observed a fairly rampant homeowner disgust with the “lowly dandelion”, scourge of suburbia’s well-manicured lawns — when in fact, dandelion is one of the most healing herbs available to humanity, offering itself in abundance wherever we dwell. It’s a supreme liver tonic, known to help detoxify the body’s “processing plant.” If you want to release that pent-up rage in a healthy way, the remedy is probably available, free and easy, right in your own backyard.

Dandelion is so plentiful that I find it also acts as de facto compost within me: surrounding and helping to decompose back into rich loam that which no longer serves. Yet we curse the weed and uproot it, spray poison to keep the green carpet unsullied. When we can stop “livin’ for the lawn,” focusing predominantly on the external, and make the subtle shift from ego mind to Universal Mind, we see with such great clarity the incredible gifts all around us.

In the 13 Moon Calendar, the number thirteen, like dandelion, grows everywhere; it’s the key thread on which the harmony of the calendar is woven. And on a 13 Moon Calendar, there’s always a Friday the 13th — in a 28-day month, every second Friday is Friday the thirteenth!

As our evolutionary readiness dissolves old superstition around the number thirteen — and all it represents — our collective mindfield makes a quantum leap from mindless fear to aware acceptance of thirteen as the sacred number of the spiral, the energy of kundalini awakening, the step to transformation and growth. Unified in time, living on purpose, a metamorphosis occurs as we attune to a higher frequency.

Metamorphosis means not only change, but going above, beyond what existed before. The Sufi mystic Rumi said, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing there’s a field; I’ll meet you there.” In this quantum field, we midwife moth into butterfly. Scared into sacred. Each of us into our true purpose and potential.

What is this time of profound transmutation helping you bring to birth? Whatever it is, may it be in beauty, for the greatest good of all.

About the Author:

15 Oct 2015
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Deep “E”-cology: Coming Home to Ourselves

There’s a war going on, and it’s not with Iraq. (Or Afghanistan. Or Syria.)

This war is on a scale so vast it’s difficult to see, so ancient we’ve taken it for granted.

It’s a war that has been gathering momentum since humanity first became conscious. It cuts to the very core of existence. It’s what drives the corporations and the deep ecologists, the religious right and the lovers. It’s woven so tightly into the fabric of our lives that we’ve accepted it blandly, without knowing there was ever a choice. It’s caused untold human misery for millennia, and still it burns on, more vividly in the digital age than ever before, as our collective awakening arches toward Armageddon — or quantum evolution.

It is the struggle between truth and heresy. Between subservience and sovereignty. Between opening our minds to wisdom, and clinging to what we’d prefer to believe. Between following a well-worn path, and cutting a swath through the wilderness of our souls.

This war marshals all of our natural resources. Passion and commitment. Love and communion. Faith and ecstasy. If we use them well, our stores will increase. If we use them foolishly, a barren landscape is certain. Because this war is taking place inside each one of us.

World Wide Web

$fractal-ying-yang-jaroslaw-grudzinski$

It is a clarion call to yinify: to wed our masculine and feminine energies for internal and external balance, harmony and peace at every level of co-creation.

Becoming whole — embracing our assertive/dynamic/solar/yang side and our receptive/magnetic/lunar/yin side, both within ourselves and as a planetary organism — is the creative quest of our time. It’s a homecoming, a re-membering (making membership again). As we are able to celebrate this marriage first in our own hearts, the joy and the love we then have available to share with our sisters and brothers increases exponentially.

Evolution through relationship defines the true “world wide web”: weaving our oneness through the meeting of minds and the holding of hands.

No lasting outer peace is possible without this inner reunion. The absolution of duality is the key to living Heaven on Earth, because it means the end of judgment. As the cosmic comic Swami Beyondananda says, “Nonjudgment Day is coming.”

With nothing to choose between, we are integrated, living in integrity, whole. In the seventh century, Zen master Sengstau expressed this potential eloquently in Verses On The Faith Mind:

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.

When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.

Make the smallest distinction however
and Heaven and Earth are set infinitely apart.

Understandably, this is not an easy task for most of us to master — or to choose to master.

Many have run, continue to run, for apparent refuge, either into religious doctrine, which tells us how to think and what to believe, or into other well-organized movements masquerading as paths to freedom. Some groups purport to focus solely on spiritual love, ignoring the truth that matter is Spirit in form. Others emphasize sexual union as the ideal path to oneness, omitting the sacred element, and once again it is a lie.

It can be comforting to be a foot soldier in someone else’s army. You don’t have to do any real thinking. You don’t have to take responsibility for the outcome you help create. You can externalize your role: it’s terrorists, it’s the government, it’s anybody who looks or acts or sounds different from me. This is the old, patriarchal view that’s held sway for five thousand years. This Weltanschauung has run its course and is completing its earthly cycle, now.

If you choose not to acknowledge the war at all, you can still go on raising a family behind a white picket façade, with Sunday suppers and comfortable routines that mark a life. But the time for hiding out in this delusion is deliquescing, like Dali’s famous clocks. The light of universal fire is bleaching falsehood from our souls, enlightening and enlivening us, one by one, cell by cell, bringing more joy to the journey.

What we can learn from the limbic brain

The truth is, we’re all equal backstage, when the make-up and the costumes and the constructs come off. We are all rays of the One Being, sharing the same life support system, Mother Earth. Our similarity is the great leveler, because it humbles our unique, snowflake selves into awareness of a greater whole.

This was brought home to me recently when I was having dinner in a Chinese restaurant where I’ve eaten many times. I like a certain dish on the menu, substituting a sweet and sour sauce for the standard garlic sauce. One waiter, who is Chinese, knows my order so well he even “recognizes” me over the phone when I place a to-go order.

The other evening, dining at the restaurant, I ordered that same dish. The place was bustling. When I went up to pay, the waiter, who happened to be standing by the cash register, did not know me as the woman who always orders the dish with the different sauce.

I had a flash of insight and asked him kindly, “Please don’t be offended, but Caucasians — do we all look alike?” With a relieved grin he said, “Yes.” The Caucasian cashier was amazed by my question, but I understood. I told her, “It’s like this for every race, every culture. Isn’t it more difficult to differentiate between Asian or African-American people whom you don’t know, than other Whites?” She admitted it might be.

We’re coded with an innate affinity for our own small portion of the whole. This is the ancient, limbic brain in action, defending our “territory” against invaders; limbic means, “forming a border.” To bridge this chasm is the beginning of world healing. Recognizing the Other through conscious understanding takes both patience and practice.

To see the big picture we have to widen our scope, extend our artificial boundaries. There are no actual map lines on Earth, delineating this country, this language, this religion, this culture from the next. We’ve created it all. It’s our collective game. As we become technologically proficient, the playing field shrinks to a more agreeable size, and the game starts to seem superfluous.

A meta-field is beckoning. We’ve called it outer space. Again, we put the cart before the horse, our eagerness ahead of our readiness. Inner space is the foreign territory we must master first. Yinification begins at home.

Deep “E”-cology

This is the potential of the Internet: to help us come home to ourselves, as a species, as a people, as one culture united through whatever we choose to call the animating energy that informs our existence. The ‘Net is a universal connector, a universal translator, the key to deep ecology in the most profound sense. “Eco”, from the Greek oikos, means home. “Logy” is a branch of learning or study. Ecology is, literally, learning about home!

Coming home to ourselves means owning the truth that there is no separation, except what we allow to exist, through fear. Fear contracts our hearts and minds; love expands them. Many of us learn to open our hearts through sacrifice, which means, “to make sacred.” Releasing our deepest attachments is a crucial part of the initiation on our journey to self-awareness. Our gift is as great as our grief. The poet David Whyte says, “The rest of creation is waiting, breathless, for you to take your place.”

We can start by detaching from what numbs us (like television), and focusing on what feeds us — like “tell-a-vision,” a subtle shift that transmutes suppression into inspiration. The price of freedom is your voice. Begin to share your vision of the world you want to co-create! As you do, you become a “rainbow warrior,” awakening and balancing your energy throughout your being in order to realize the full spectrum of your purpose and potential.

Heaven on Earth exists in being fully alive in the infinite Now. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, as The Fifth Dimension sang ‘way back in 1969. They were early messengers, carrying our Divine blueprint via the medium of music.

Let’s revisit the lyrics: “When the Moon is in the seventh house”. In Western astrology, the Moon is symbolic of feminine, receptive energy, what we draw in; the seventh house is about intimate interaction with other people. I’ve dubbed this new way of relating a call to yinify: to unify in the Divine Feminine essence. “And Jupiter aligns with Mars”. Jupiter is the planet of expansion, of expressing our truth through storytelling; Mars is the planet of pure desire and, when dishonored, of war. To have them align means telling ourselves a new, expansive story: transmuting war in the alchemical fire into spiritual warriorhood.

Then, as the group sang, “Peace will guide the planets/And love will steer the stars.”

How clear the message becomes, once we are able to truly hear. The battle cries dim; the masks fall off. A layer of separation evaporates as we become transparent to the truth of who we are. People start to seem somehow familiar, even though we’ve never met them before. It’s the resonant déjà vu of realizing there are no strangers. “Service with a smile” suddenly takes on a whole new meaning.

Getting there calls for a subtle shift in perception and behavior: from acquire to inquire, from escalate to elevate, from scared to sacred. As we cease consuming planetary resources and each other at the speed of greed, let go of buying more in favor of being more, we reclaim our true heritage as Earth stewards. And then barrenness transmutes into bounty. Separation into synergy. Fear into faith. Longing into Love.

We use the expression, “Live and learn.” Implicit is the understanding that what we learn, we will also teach. We become self-renewing by gathering knowledge from our experience, forging it into wisdom in the alchemical fire, and serving as vessels to share the gift that is uniquely ours, but not meant to remain arcane.

Conscious evolution favors the curious and kind mind. Truth nourishes us in ways we might never have imagined. Synchronicity takes us by the hand and we laugh in child-like wonder as we witness Spirit-in-action, again and again and again. This is the Garden, and it is good.

Welcome Home.

By Ascension Lifestyle Contributor Amara Rose:

Amara Rose is a catalyst for quantum evolution. Her services include transformational coaching, talks, e-courses, and an inspirational monthly newsletter. She is widely published in health, business and new thought magazines, both digital and print. Learn more:

http://www.liveyourlight.com
http://twitter.com/Amara_Rose
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amararose