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How To Be Spiritual In A Material World
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03 Nov 2021
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Aunt Allie’s Full Moon Ritual

Last year, I met an extremely gifted medium in California: Allie Barkalow. If you don’t know what a medium is, it’s a person who communicates with spirits from the other side. I heard about Allie from my dear friend, Carolyn Miller, who is a psychic and known for her amazing tarot and aura photography readings. Carolyn told me that Allie is one of the best psychics she knows, and I figured if she’s anything like Carolyn I had to meet her.

I was immediately drawn to Allie with her bold and honest demeanor and witty sense of humor. She reminds me of a favorite aunt or wise-woman that calls the shots as she sees them with practical, straightforward advice. After the reading (which was astounding), we struck up a conversation and she shared some really useful information. She told me how to clear a house of negative energy using her sea salt smudge recipe and how she protects herself energetically during a psychic session. She told me why it’s important to sage your pillows every month since, apparently, we dump a lot of psychic stuff into our beds when we sleep!

At the end of our talk, I mentioned the full moon coming up and how I could really use a simple ritual to do with some friends (it was right before the pandemic when we could still gather). Of course, she had one. In fact, she shared with me a tried and true ritual she’d been doing for over 40 years. I was giddy with excitement and needless to say my friends and I had an amazing little shindig that weekend under the full moon in my backyard with Aunt Allie’s recipe.

I’d like to share her full moon ritual with you here — Allie said it’s okay. This ritual is specifically for letting things go. I hope you tuck it away and enjoy it for many moons ahead.

I was reminded that not everyone knows about rituals and how to do one. Rituals are an ancient way to honor the sacredness of high holy days and important moons — full and new — and to clear and to invite.

The full moon is the time of ending and releasing. It is the perfect time to end cycles, release old patterns, habits, behaviors, and thought-forms. If you are working on your ascension, such as trying to elevate your vibration, be a better person, etc., the full moon is a fabulous opportunity to let go and use your consciousness to move forward, get lighter in being, and take back your power. This is not the time to ask for anything!! That is the new moon.

This ritual is a simple one, in accordance with the native way of honoring this sacred time. Feel free to use your own prayers, words, and/or name of God.

Full Moon Ritual

What you’ll need:

  • Paper and pen for yourself and extras for friends if doing this as a group
  • 1 tea light candle and a fireproof container, such as a cast iron skillet
  • 4 extra tea light candles and 4 small bowls to place the candles in to make a sacred circle on the ground
  • 1 stick of incense
  • Cup of water
  • Pinch of tobacco
  • Handful of cornmeal
  • Smudge stick such as sage, cedar, or palo santo
  • Lighter or matches
  • Compass to determine the directions

Directions:

  1. Make a list of what you are ready to let go of in your life. This may be personally, professionally, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, financially, etc.
  2. Make sure you know when the exactitude of the full moon is. Go outside one-half hour before with everything on a tray. If you cannot go outside find a quiet place in your house where you will be undisturbed.
  3. Light the smudge stick and smudge yourself, fanning the smoke from the top of your body and going downwards, getting the back of your body and under your feet. If doing this in a group, have your friends do the same. (This is important to do at the start of any ritual).
  4. Make a rough circle, then place the four candles in the four bowls at the four points: north, south, east and west. Pour a tiny bit of water into the bottom of the bowls.
  5. Cast the circle by lighting each of the candles at the four cardinal points and invoke the angel/guardian of each direction. When done face west, the direction of endings.
  6. Ground yourself, bringing attention to what you are about to do. Invite your highest self, teachers, guides, and angels to witness.
  7. Smudge the four directions, starting first with the east. Next, smudge Mother Earth, and make a tobacco offering. Smudge to Father Sky / God / Goddess
  8. Turn to face west. Hold your hands up and face the palms out. Take a deep breath and say: “At this time of endings and completions, I now release <insert list.>”
  9. When you are finished with your list you might also include war, hunger, pollution, ignorance, poverty, lack, and loss, fear, etc. for yourself and the entire world.
  10. Make a cornmeal offering to the Earth spirits and devas. Make a water offering to the water spirits and devas. Light your incense and make it an offering to the air spirits and devas.
  11. Finally, light your tea light. If it blows out after you light it, just put it down. It has been accepted by the fire beings. If it stays lit, make sure it is in a container that will not tip over or start a fire.
  12. Ground yourself again. Make sure you have included every area and everything you are ready, able, and willing to release from your life experience.
  13. Thank the angels, teachers, guides, devas, Mother Earth, and divine self for witnessing. Ask their help in releasing and clearing those vibrations from your life and your aura. Ask their assistance in keeping those things away from you re-taking them back.
  14. Bless yourself, Mother Earth, and your life. Release the circle by walking from the east counterclockwise one full circle and ending in the west.

Turn around, and do not look back. You can go out tomorrow to pick up the candleholders. Your magic is now set and working! Blessed Be! Love, Allie

 

Kristen Bala is the founder of the Deep End, an online community that supports spiritual learning and well-being. She enjoys writing about her many passions including astrology and holistic healing. To learn more about her work, visit www.findyourdeepend.com or contact her at kristenbala@gmail.com

 

Original article here

28 Oct 2021
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Moldavite: Extraterrestrial Stone On Earth

Moldavite is a member of the tektite group, a glassy mixture of silicon dioxide, aluminum oxide and other metal oxides, with a hardness of 5.5 to 6. Its crystal system is amorphous. The color of most specimens is a deep forest green, though some pieces are pale green and others, especially those from Moravia, are greenish brown. A few rare gem grade pieces are almost an emerald green.

Moldavite’s formation coincides with the crash of a large meteorite in what is now the Bohemian plateau of the Czech Republic, approximately 14.8 million years ago. Most specimens are found strewn throughout that area. For many decades, farmers in southern Bohemia have turned up pieces of moldavite when plowing fields, and moldavite miners sift and dig through loose sand and gravel from depths of up to twenty meters. Some of the richest finds have occurred at the towns of Chlum and Slavce. A very delicate, lacy form of moldavite has been found near the village of Besednice, although this location is now exhausted. In recent years the moldavite fields have become depleted, and the stones are becoming increasingly rare.

Moldavite is the stone that initiated me into awareness of the spiritual properties of crystals and minerals, and it has been a catalyst for several of my most important spiritual experiences. It has, over the 33 years I have worked in this field, had similar effects on thousands of other people with whom I have spoken and corresponded. From my perspective, it has a special role to play in the awakening of humanity now underway.

Scientific theorists differ on hypotheses regarding moldavite’s origin. Some contend that moldavite is earthly rock melted by the heat of the meteorite crash, while others suggest that the material is of extraterrestrial origin, possibly a type of obsidian ejected by a lunar volcano.

A third theory holds that moldavite is a fusion product of meteoric material and earthly rock vaporized in the tremendous heat of the impact explosion, with the resultant gas being propelled high into the atmosphere. This gaseous material would have then cooled and condensed into a liquid glass that rained down on the crater and surrounding areas. Regardless of which, if any, of these ideas is correct, it is known that moldavite indeed fell from the sky, because of the aerodynamic shapes of certain pieces. Most scientists associate it with the meteoric collision that formed the Bohemian plateau and surrounding mountains.

The event that gave birth to moldavite was one of tremendous power. The force of the impact explosion has been estimated at six trillion megatons, far more than all the atom bombs on Earth. The heat, as mentioned above, was hot enough to vaporize rock, and the main body of the meteorite is believed to have passed completely through Earth’s crust, penetrating into the liquid iron at the planet’s core. This deep impact was described in a New York Times article as having disturbed the currents of rotating liquid iron enough to cause a reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles.

Throughout history, and even into pre-history, moldavite has been regarded as a spiritual talisman. The Neolithic peoples of Eastern Europe wore moldavite at least twenty-five thousand years ago, and the famed Venus of Willendorf — the earliest known goddess statue — was discovered in a digging site that contained a number of moldavite amulets. People of that period also used moldavite for arrowheads and cutting tools.

Feeling The Moldavite Flush

In modern times, moldavite has emerged as one of the stones most prized for metaphysical purposes. Its effects vary widely, from mild to almost overwhelming, from physical cleansings to spiritual breakthroughs — yet the common denominator seems to be the revitalization and acceleration of one’s path of evolution.

People who hold moldavite for the first time most often experience its energy as warmth or heat, usually felt first in one’s hand and then progressively throughout the body. In some cases, there is an opening of the heart chakra, characterized by strange (though not painful) sensations in the chest, an upwelling of emotion and a flushing of the face. This has happened often enough to have earned a name — the “moldavite flush.” Moldavite’s energies can also cause pulsations in the hand, tingling in the third eye and heart chakras, a feeling of light-headedness or dizziness, and occasionally the sense of being lifted out of one’s body. Most people feel that moldavite excites their energies and speeds their vibrations, especially for the first days or weeks, until they become acclimated to it.

Moldavite’s energies can activate any and all of the chakras. Its vibrations tend to focus in areas where one has blockages or wounds, first clearing these areas and then moving into resonance with one’s entire energetic system. Resonance with moldavite can take many forms — chakras can open; synchronicities can increase in frequency and significance; one’s dream life can become dramatically more vivid and meaningful; one can connect with spirit guides; physical, emotional or spiritual healings can happen; jobs and relationships can change; meditations can become deeper and more powerful — yet all these can be viewed as symptoms of a shift in one’s own energies. This shift is what moldavite can catalyze. With its high and intense vibrations, it can resonate with one’s energy pattern in a way that creates an intensification of spiritual vitality and an acceleration of progress on the path of one’s highest destiny.

Moldavite is a powerful aid for meditation and dreamwork. In both cases, taping a piece of moldavite to the forehead can have the effect of creating a much more vivid and visionary inner experience. Moldavite increases one’s sensitivity to guidance, and one’s ability to discern the messages sent from the higher realms.

Used As A Spiritual Talisman

Moldavite can be a powerful catalyst for self-healing, clearing blockages and opening the meridians, as well as energizing the interconnections among all aspects of the subtle body. It is a talisman of spiritual awakening, transformation and evolutionary growth.

In addition to use in meditation and dreamwork, moldavite can be worn as jewelry. This conveys the advantage of being able to keep its energies in one’s vibrational field throughout the day, for further strengthening of its effects. Doing this also draws an increased incidence of beneficial synchronicities into one’s daily life. Some people will have to accustom themselves gradually to wearing moldavite because of its energetic intensity, but most will make the adjustment in a few days.

Moldavite also offers an energy of spiritual protection. When one is in resonance with its high-frequency vibrations, negative energies and entities cannot connect with or hang onto one’s field. In alignment with its transformational properties, moldavite tends to disconnect one from unhealthy attachments and to magnetize the persons and situations most needed for evolutionary progress.

Moldavite tends to quickly attract whatever one’s spiritual metamorphosis requires. It also seems to cause whatever parts of our lives no longer serve our highest good to be discharged, whether we realize the need for that or not. This reminds us of Hermes, especially in regard to the speed of the changes that occur. Hermes was a being of great speed. He had wings on his feet, and was the messenger of the gods.

One phenomenon that displays a Trickster quality of moldavite is its apparent ability to disappear and reappear. I have experienced this many times. In a typical instance, I put my moldavite away on a dresser or in a box, only to find it gone the next day. Then, sooner or later, the moldavite will reappear, usually in a ridiculously unlikely spot. In one instance, I left my moldavite on top of my dresser in the bedroom, discovered the next day that it was gone, and found it again weeks later — in the container of one of our house plants in the living room! In the longest of these disappearances, my most treasured moldavite disappeared for fourteen years, only to be found eventually in the pocket of a pair of pants that I had never worn! For a long time, I doubted my memory, but this occurred over and over. And through the years, many people have told me their own very similar stories. There are numerous disappearing moldavite stories online.

What is the reason that moldavite performs these disappearing acts? I have thought at times that the intention behind moldavite’s disappearances may be to show us that the physical world is not necessarily as solid as we think it is. If that were proven to us, and if we accepted the evidence, the knowledge could be very liberating.

Moldavite Is A Stone Of The Heart And Dreams

When a person first holds a piece of moldavite, he or she often feels heat, especially around the heart. As this experience unfolds, the person frequently flushes red in the cheeks. This can be accompanied by tears, signifying an emotional release. I have witnessed people holding a moldavite and being surprised by the fact that their hearts began to beat in a different way. It is not a painful event; I compare the heart’s behavior to a dog wagging its tail when it is happy. I believe the heart responds to moldavite in this way, communicating its recognition and pleasure in the presence of this stone. And of course, moldavite is green — the color of the heart chakra.

In my first powerful moldavite experience, the sensation of energy began in my right hand where I was holding the stone. Then the current went straight up my arm and into my heart. At that point, my heart chakra opened, like a blooming flower of light. And in the next moment, the light surged both downwards and upwards from my heart, opening all of my chakras.

As an incubator of dreams, this is true of moldavite more than any other stone I have worked with. If you tape a small piece of moldavite to your forehead at the location of the third eye chakra before going to bed, I guarantee that you will dream! A lot! I have tried this many times and recommended it to others for over thirty years. Almost all of us find that the quantity and depth of our dream life increases immediately. And the dreams are often spiritually significant ones.

I believe that this happens because of moldavite’s affinity with the deep self, the part of us that creates our dreams. When moldavite lends its power to one’s deep self, a flurry of inner communication comes to us through a cornucopia of dreams. Another rather surprising symptom of moldavite’s effect on our dreaming is that most of us have to remove the moldavite during the night, because we are dreaming so much that we need to take a rest from it and sleep more deeply!

For virtually all of us, the path of spiritual evolution involves healing. In alchemical terms, we need to cook ourselves so that the impurities in our energies — the disharmonious patterns in our subtle bodies — are burned away. And moldavite just loves to do that!

Moldavite resonates with the pattern of our highest good — our full spiritual awakening and development. Thus, its influence moves us toward dispelling all patterns that are not in alignment with our wholeness, clearing the way for profound good health. However, the ride may sometimes be uncomfortable, just as it can be on the psychological level.

Something I experienced several times during my first years with moldavite was the onset of physical problems that turned out to be rooted in past lives. As people who work with past life therapy often observe, my physical ailments expressed similarities (at least symbolically) to traumatic past life events. Hypnotic regressions were helpful in completing my review of these patterns and letting them go, but I am convinced that the presence of moldavite is what brought them to the forefront.

Sometimes, especially when one is already in the throes of an apparent illness that stems from long-held unhealthy patterns in the subtle body, the introduction of moldavite can trigger a direct and rapid healing effect. It can seem as if the stone has cured a physical illness, but in my view, the presence of moldavite has simply dislodged the stuck pattern, allowing the subtle body to clear itself and bring the physical body back to health.

If one wishes to work with moldavite as a healing stone, it is often a good idea to bring another beneficial stone (or stones) into the mix. Heartenite, seraphinite, healerite and healers’ gold are good, overall healing stones that can stabilize one’s subtle body and work to soften the intensity of moldavite. In my own past, during a time when my healing was focused on the emotional body, I found that charoite and moldavite felt best to me. I urge you to work intuitively in these types of situations, and let the stone beings tell you which ones are most appropriate.

 

Excerpted from The Alchemy of Stones by Robert Simmons. © 2020 Destiny Books. Reprinted with permission from the publisher Inner Traditions

Robert Simmons has been working with crystals and stones for over 35 years. He is the cofounder of Heaven and Earth, a company offering gem and jewelry creations for self-healing and spiritual and emotional development. The author of several books, in­cluding The Book of Stones, The Alchemy of Stones and Stones of the New Consciousness, he lives in New Zealand.

 

 

 

 

15 Oct 2021
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How to Cope with An Existential Crisis

Has the world gone grey? Are you wondering what life is for? Kierkegaard’s philosophy could help you rediscover your zing.

by Skye C Cleary

Need to know

Are you exhausted from rushing through life doing the same monotonous things over and over again? Perhaps those things that were once meaningful now seem vacuous, and the passion has burned out. Do you feel that pleasures are short-lived and ultimately disappointing, that your life is a series of fragments punctuated with occasional ecstasies that flare up and then, like a firework, fade into darkness and despair? Perhaps you are lonely or pine for past loves. Or you feel empty and lost in the world, or nauseous and sleep-deprived. Maybe you are still looking for a reason to live, or you have too many confused reasons, or you have forgotten what your reasons are. Congratulations – you’re having an existential crisis. Sometimes, the questions ‘Why am I here?’ and ‘What’s it all for?’ haunt you gently like a soft wingbeat with barely a whisper, but sometimes they can feel as if they are asphyxiating your entire being.

Whatever form your existential crisis takes, the problem, as the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55) saw it, was that living without passion amounts to not existing at all. And that’s bad for all of us because, without passion, rampant waves of negativity poison the world. Kierkegaard thought that one of the roots of this problem of a world without passion is that too many people – his contemporaries but, by extension, we too – are alienated from a society that overemphasises objectivity and ‘results’ (profits, productivity, outcomes, efficiency) at the expense of personal, passionate, subjective human experiences.

In his journal, Kierkegaard wrote: ‘What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do, not what I must know … the thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.’ Finding this truth, this passion, was what Kierkegaard thought could unite an existence, overcome melancholia, and help you to become more fulfilled. Kierkegaard had some ideas about how to harness the anguish of what we have come to think of as an existential crisis. Reading Kierkegaard won’t necessarily solve all problems, but it can help you understand some of the sources of your malaise and to see new possibilities for your life.

Sometimes, Kierkegaard is called the first existential philosopher because of his emphasis on the individual and subjective experience. Existential philosophers stress freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of your choices, and certainly one of the quintessential existentialist philosophers, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80), found this vein of thinking in Kierkegaard’s writing. For existentialists, it’s up to you to decide the kind of person you want to be and how to live your life meaningfully. But these choices leaven despair because of the pressure that comes when you realise you’re free and responsible and have no one else to blame, no excuses for your behaviour. Anxiety, or despair, Kierkegaard wrote, is the ‘dizziness of freedom’. Despair is a kind of vertigo we get when overwhelmed with possibilities and choices. Kierkegaard described it as a similar feeling to standing on the edge of an abyss. You might be afraid of falling, but anxious when you realise that jumping is a possibility.

We are forced to make choices all the time, whether we like it or not. Consider toothpaste: there are so many types and it’s difficult to choose the one that’s best for your teeth. Whitening or stain-removal? Cavity protection, anti-plaque or enamel repair? What’s the difference? Why isn’t there one that does everything? It’s hard to know what the outcome of choosing one over the other will be. While choosing the wrong toothpaste probably won’t devastate your life, when you face more profound choices – such as what to study at college, whom to marry, whether to end a relationship, which career to pursue, whether to try to save someone who is drowning, if you should turn off a loved one’s life-support system – the closer you come to the edge of the abyss, the dizzier you will feel about your possibilities and responsibilities. Sometimes you live in ignorant bliss about your options but, once you become aware of them, wooziness is inevitable. As Kierkegaard wrote in The Concept of Anxiety(1844):

He whose eye happens to look down into the yawning abyss becomes dizzy. But what is the reason for this? It is just as much in his own eye as in the abyss, for suppose he had not looked down.

Sometimes, the dizziness of your freedom is so overwhelming that you might feel compelled to step back, to shrink from making a choice. Making no choice, or letting someone else choose for you, can feel easier. The greater the stakes, the deeper the abyss, and the further you have to fall if you misstep. But your personal growth depends on your ability to handle big choices yourself and not to shirk them. For Kierkegaard, bravely facing up to our choices and learning to channel our anxiety in constructive ways is vital: ‘Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.’

During his lifetime, Kierkegaard made authorities nervous because he was an iconoclast who encouraged people to think for themselves. He challenged readers to break themselves free from the brainwashing of churches and community groups that preached what to do and what to believe, particularly the Lutheran Church of Denmark, with which he was at loggerheads for much of his later life. Kierkegaard also might have been deeply suspicious of today’s social media and advertising that tells us where to spend our money and time in the elusive pursuit of happiness. In a criticism that seems to have pre-empted online trolls, he proposed that ‘the crowd’ or the public is ‘untruth’ because it enables people to be anonymous, irresponsible, cowardly, and creates an impersonal atmosphere.

Kierkegaard was a Christian, ‘albeit a maverick Christian’, as the philosopher Gary Cox put it, because Kierkegaard emboldened people to develop a personal relationship with God instead of unreflectively assuming what the clergy sermonised. For Kierkegaard, living the truth is infinitely more important than objectively knowing it. At Kierkegaard’s funeral, the archdeacon who gave the eulogy told the huge crowd not to misunderstand or accept what Kierkegaard had written because he went too far and didn’t know it.

But you don’t need to be religious to glean practical wisdom from Kierkegaard’s work. He inspired many atheist philosophers. Sartre, as I’ve mentioned, deeply admired Kierkegaard. He called him an ‘anti-philosopher’ because Kierkegaard sought ‘a first beginning’ by pushing back against boring and abstract philosophies, such as G W F Hegel’s and Immanuel Kant’s, which were very popular during Kierkegaard’s time.

Kierkegaard wrote in unconventional ways. He was witty and came up with quirky pseudonyms such as ‘Hilarius Bookbinder’. Kierkegaard wrote pseudonymously not because he wanted to hide his authorship – pretty much everyone knew which books he’d authored – but to distance himself from his work; to challenge us to question the ideas he presents; to take responsibility for interpreting the text’s meaning; to inspire us to come to our own conclusions; and to create our own subjective truths. The strategy is called ‘indirect communication’. The effect of Kierkegaard’s work is that, instead of dictating and moralising, he provokes – because you can’t tell if he’s being serious or not – and invites readers to dance with ideas.

Kierkegaard uses indirect communication in one of his most famous works, Either/Or (1843), a fictional collection of letters and essays written by different characters and presenting different points of view: aesthetic, ethical, and religious. These three views, or phases, provide a possible framework for how to endure and overcome an existential crisis. The phases are not rigid steps, but rather offer a scaffolding of possible experiences on an existential journey to reinvigorate our passion for life.

Think it through

Enjoy the aesthetic elements of your life

Kierkegaard suggested that the first mode of living is the aesthetic sphere. Aesthetic living is fun and impulsive, focused on sensual satisfaction, like a child who is discovering the world with awe and wonder. The aesthetic sphere is a beautiful phase of life, passionate and sparkling with possibilities. Consider the thrill of falling in love, the delight of seeing your all-time favourite musician live in concert, the elation of sharing a delicious bottle of wine or meal with a good friend, or the exhilaration of skinny-dipping on a whim. These experiences can be intoxicating, extraordinarily interesting, and make you feel like your life is transformed if you submit to them.

Don Giovanni – the protagonist of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni (1787), a legendary seducer who is also sometimes known as Don Juan – is, Kierkegaard suggested, the ultimate archetype of the aesthetic mode because he lives for immediate sexual gratification and sensuality. Don Giovanni is a player. He is handsome, seductive and exciting. Women find him irresistible: he has slept with more than 2,000 women whose names he records in his not-so-little black book. Don Giovanni seeks pleasure above all else, and dances through his hedonistic life.

How can you live aesthetically? Make your life as interesting and enjoyable as possible. Fall in love a lot. Rotate crops – meaning that, if you’re bored with your life, don’t be afraid to leave behind what doesn’t serve you and start planting seeds for fresh projects and new relationships that energise you. Be impulsive. Live for and in the moment. Cultivate arbitrariness for the sheer pleasure of it: go to the theatre but watch only the middle of the performance; pick up a book and read a random passage. Enjoy experiences in disruptive ways, different than what others are spoon-feeding you. Practise the art of remembering the joys of your past. Practise the art of forgetting unpleasantness by focusing on the silver linings of your misfortunes. Burn the candle of your life at both ends.

Make existential commitments to live ethically

However, an aesthete’s actions can be self-sabotaging, because, as Kierkegaard pseudonymously writes:

As when one skims a stone over the surface of the water, it skips lightly for a time, but as soon as it stops skipping, instantly sinks down into the depths, that is how Don Giovanni dances over the abyss, jubilant in his brief respite.

Don Giovanni gets his comeuppance in the end when a ghost in the form of a statue of the Commendatore, the father of one of his conquests and a man whom Don Giovanni has killed in a fight, drags him down to hell. You might not be dragged to hell by a ghost, but living purely in the aesthetic mode – though it might offer temporary respite – puts you on the fast track to a further existential crisis.

Why is this? The answer is that the aesthetic lifestyle demands a high price. Aesthetic living can be a source of existential despair when you become overly dependent on its distractions to fill the voids in your life. The aesthetic mode is dangerous when you live in a state of immediacy and instant gratification, constantly overindulging in such pleasures as social media scrolling, shopping, television, busyness, alcohol, drugs, serial romancing or casual sex. At a certain point, these activities cease to offer the enjoyment they promise, and the world turns grey.

Wallowing in such distractions only entrenches your alienation more deeply and pushes you more squarely into dungeons of unhappiness. As soon as you’ve satisfied one pleasure, you’re chasing the dragon of newness for the next high. Sometimes you’re so excited about taking risks on new possibilities, so in love with starting new projects and relationships, that you’re constantly flitting from one to the next, never finishing anything. Constantly on the move, you are like an ocean wave, surging powerfully, cyclically, with raw primal energy.

But waves froth and fizzle away indefinitely. If you’re constantly and busily churning through life, your existence amounts to a sum of moments without any real cohesion. Excitement fades and leaves in its wake disappointment and loneliness. The aesthete in Either/Or is envious of insects that die after copulation because they are able to indulge in the pinnacle of sexual ecstasy and then escape life’s greatest anticlimax – the ‘petite mort’ becomes a real one. An aesthetic life will inevitably leave you morbidly tired.

Kierkegaard’s aesthete is plagued with such soul-crushing tedium and torturous despair that he is numb. Because he isn’t truly engaged in life, he lives as if he were dead. Living void of passion makes him feel both chained by his anxieties and also cast adrift, like a spider plunging and flailing around, unable to grasp hold of anything:

What is to come? What does the future hold? I don’t know, I have no idea. When from a fixed point a spider plunges down as is its nature, it sees always before it an empty space in which it cannot find a footing however much it flounders. That is how it is with me: always an empty space before me, what drives me on is a result that lies behind me. This life is back-to-front and terrible, unendurable.

So if living aesthetically can only be a short-term solution to an existential crisis, how can you go beyond that and live ethically? Stop skimming over life like that stone. Slow down and do what you can to carve out pockets of time for reflection. Cultivate the space to become less robotic. And stop using aesthetic activities as a distraction from facing up to your existential despair.

‘Despair!’ Kierkegaard’s pseudonym writes. Despair is the entry price for transitioning from the aesthetic to the ethical sphere. Learning to love despair is an adventure in moving to a higher mode of self-development. Don’t hide from your existential crisis because choosing despair means choosing yourself. To cosy up to your despair is to choose against being beholden to your animalistic, aesthetic impulses, and towards becoming a definite and solidly grounded individual. Choosing yourself means making meaningful commitments, such as dedicating yourself to a vocation. It means setting goals and sticking to them. Dodging commitment means you’re simply hovering over life, not truly living, and as empty of substance as those waves.

To choose despair also means to choose humanity. In the ethical mode, you recognise that you live in a world with other people, that they matter, and that every choice you make must reflect a responsibility towards them. You act with honesty, open-heartedness, understanding and generosity. You focus more on what you can give to others and less on what you’re getting out of them. To cultivate your humanity, go people-watching for an hour and consider the beauty in each individual. Appreciate every person you meet in their particularity – their tasks, challenges and triumphs. Join a club and build a community of friends. Act more charitably. Help people. Commit to making the world better for others.

Choosing this kind of despair also prepares you for marriage in a way that a life of seeking sensual gratification is unlikely to. Getting married – ideally to your first love, in Kierkegaard’s analysis – reflects an ethical decision because marriage is a serious, definitive and life-changing choice. Marriage calls for a more sophisticated awareness of your existence than a life driven purely by sexual instincts. Sure, you can always get divorced, but Kierkegaard’s ethicist suggests getting married helps people take love more seriously than an aesthete would, by focusing on creating a relationship that’s stable and constant. In the ethical sphere, you actively rejuvenate the love with your partner, instead of skipping to the next relationship for thrills and a confidence boost as soon as your first one gets tough.

Face your existential abyss bravely because, Kierkegaard suggested: ‘Anxiety is the organ through which the subject appropriates sorrow and assimilates it,’ and ‘indeed I would say that it is only when the individual has the tragic that he becomes happy.’ The key to the ethical sphere is to use your despair to galvanise you to overcome your sorry dark states, refresh your enthusiasm for living, and arouse your appetite for something more meaningful in your life. You develop yourself by being patient with existence, seeing the beauty in stability, and recognising that you are your own source of happiness and creativity. You don’t need to seek excitement constantly from new external stimuli as the aesthete does. You don’t need a dance floor to dance, to enjoy life; your dance floor is inside of you, wherever you are. You nurture the ethical attitude by living intentionally (not accidentally, like the aesthete), and living each day as if it were your Judgment Day.

Leap to faith

The ethical mode can help stabilise you, but it might not be enough to resolve your existential crisis. Living ethically might even be another source of existential calamity because fulfilling your social duties can be onerous. Kierkegaard’s ethicist says of the duty of marriage: ‘Its uniformity, its total uneventfulness, its incessant vacuity, which is death and worse than death.’ Marriage doesn’t make love stay. People change and break promises, making any commitment insecure. Given how many other people are unjust and immoral, being ethical might also throw you deeper into despair. And sinking too heavily into reflection can thwart your enjoyment of life. Philosophers tend to be guilty of overthinking, and Kierkegaard’s aesthete quips: ‘What seems so difficult to philosophy and the philosophers is to stop.’

The only way truly to conquer an existential crisis is with a leap. A leap is what Kierkegaard calls an ‘inward deepening’, which recognises that the world is uncertain, but you can make a bold choice about the kind of life you want to lead. A leap is beyond the realm of feelings (aesthetic sphere) and commitments (ethical sphere). A leap is an act of will to transform your life. It’s the decision to design an existence to which you can enthusiastically devote yourself and that will uplift and sustain your being.

Kierkegaard’s leap was guided by the commandment to ‘love thy neighbour’. In Works of Love(1847), written under Kierkegaard’s real name, he proposes that universal love, or agapē, is the secret to happiness because it overcomes the fleetingness and insecurity of aesthetic and ethical relationships. Love is Ariadne’s thread of life because, as long as you love, as long as you commit yourself to being a loving person, you’ll be safe from being hurt and alone. Kierkegaard thought that this sort of unwavering faith reflects a supremely developed human being.

Perhaps you live in the aesthetic or ethical modes of life, and you’re perfectly happy and see no need to leap. Or perhaps you inhabit these realms and find comfort in your melancholy. But the rub with existential despair is that, once you have caught a glimpse of it, intentionally or not, it’s extraordinarily difficult to unsee it. If that’s you, Kierkegaard’s ideas might be a way to help you find your footing. But the only thing that will alleviate an existential crisis is to find the truth that is true for you, the subjective truth, the propulsion to leap that lies in the innermost depths of your heart. If you’re not sure what your subjective truth is, Kierkegaard suggested: ‘Ask yourself and keep on asking until you find the answer.’

Ultimately, though, a passionately lived life isn’t about an either/or choice. You can’t be all frivolous or all serious all the time. A fulfilling life is about enjoyment and ethical commitment and leaping. Your life needs some of the sort of energy, pleasures and possibilities that Don Giovanni’s life exhibits (though not necessarily indulging these in the ways he does), otherwise the world would be very dull. And the world is boring without him. You also need something of the ethical: you need to acknowledge how your choices affect other people and to take responsibility for your actions, otherwise you’ll end up alone and sad. You also need a leap to find that thing that you can devote yourself to that unites the splinters of your life, even if, for you, that isn’t a leap into religious faith. The point is to see these different dimensions of life, the ruts you might be falling into, the potential sources of ennui and malaise that stem from the way you live your life. But, ultimately, it’s up to you to choose how you juggle these spheres and how you spark your own fire to bind the fragments of your life together into a coherent synthesis. That’s the point. It’s for you to shape your life.

Key points – How to cope with an existential crisis

  • Living in the moment can be fun for a while but can also be a source of existential despair if it becomes a distraction from reflecting on our lives.
  • Avoiding existential despair doesn’t bring happiness.
  • Overcoming an existential crisis calls for bravely facing up to our melancholy, looking at its roots, and using that understanding as a platform to build stability.
  • Slowing down, cutting back on busyness, and cultivating idleness or novel perspectives on the world are vital steps in creating space for inward reflection.
  • Existential despair can be a force for good when we galvanise it to overcome our sorry dark states, refresh our enthusiasm for living, and arouse our appetite for a more meaningful life.
  • A fulfilling life calls for playful enjoyment, ethical engagement and a leap to something that can fuse together the fragments of our existences.

Why it matters

One of Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms writes: ‘For a book has the remarkable property that it can be interpreted any way you wish.’ You might very well interpret Kierkegaard differently, and that’s what he wanted. Maybe. Kierkegaard’s pseudonym also suggests that, whether you do something or you don’t do something, you’ll regret it either way. So read Kierkegaard or don’t read him. Perhaps you will regret both, but perhaps you’ll also find a path towards edification.

It’s worth remembering, though, that not even Kierkegaard followed this advice completely. He never married, for example. He broke off an engagement with Regine Olsen, who was devastated. Kierkegaard was melancholy and didn’t know how to love her and God at the same time. He said he felt ‘a divine protest’. Instead of being an adult and trying to explain his feelings to Olsen, Kierkegaard thought it would be better if she hated him. So he told her he was breaking off the engagement in order to sow his wild oats. He said, condescendingly, that he was awful to her for her sake, although it seems he thought this was the easier option for him.

Kierkegaard wrote Either/Or shortly after the breakup, and the book included a fictionalised account of the relationship. He portrayed the incident in the section known as ‘The Seducer’s Diary’ in terms of a psychopathic sexual predator conniving to seduce a beautiful and innocent young woman. Olsen went on to marry someone else, and Kierkegaard obsessed over her for the rest of his life. Only later did he realise, after all his thinking and writing about existential crises, how he might have reconciled his aesthetic, ethical and religious lifestyles with Olsen. Kierkegaard saw himself as a philosophical midwife, like the goddess Diana, who could guide people to give birth to more fulfilled versions of themselves. Let us let Kierkegaard’s wisdom inspire us on our own journeys.

Kierkegaard’s journey was a definitive leap to religion. He went into great depth about different modes of religiousness in works such as Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846) and Sickness unto Death (1849). Kierkegaard worried that atheists won’t know if they’re right until it’s too late, but other existential philosophers made very different leaps. For example, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86) leapt into writing literature and political advocacy.

How do we figure out where we might leap to? One tool that Kierkegaard hinted towards, for seeking possible leaps, is poetry. Music vanishes in time, painting is static in time, but poetry, Kierkegaard thought, is a higher artform because it exists both in the moment and beyond the moment. It exists spontaneously when you read and write it, and it exists across time because you can return to it and develop it. The most important role of poetry is that it can remind you to be both the composer and the composition of your life.

Poetry can be a tool to help you to stop and reflect on your being, to sit with unhappiness, to process existential dread. Poetry can act as a conduit of aesthetic beauty, preserving flavours and textures of love and frivolity in language. Poetry can teach you to be patient with your life, and to create an internal history for yourself. Your history is part of who you are but doesn’t determine who you are becoming. Poetry can help you to not forget your misfortunes (or to remember their silver lining) like the aesthete would, and to come to terms with your past. Poetry can also help you to explore possibilities for your leap, by encouraging you to turn inwards to clarify that thing that can unite your existence in a genuinely passionate upsurge of being.

 

Original article here

 

 

28 Sep 2021
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Moving from potential to possibilities … Becoming a limitless creator

I’ve been studying, teaching, coaching and writing about transformation for the last 35 years. It fascinates me … always has, even as teenager. How can someone fulfill their potential and become the best of themselves in life?

Potential is that part of you that’s sort of already there with you, just not popping and shining in you yet. In other words, you’re born with it and then you get to live into it.

I spent years working with potential, in myself and in others. I tried the corporate ladder and followed the rules of success. I got exhausted and frustrated and finally left all that to follow a different route. On that different pathway I discovered that there is so much more than potential available to us all. That actually one of the easiest routes to fulfilling your potential is to move onto the playground of limitless possibilities.

Possibility is what isn’t yet, perhaps has never been before. It’s new and fresh. Here you play with limitless creation to innovate who and what we can become, as individuals and as a world.

Now I know for some reading this you might go ‘Oh for gosh sakes, that’s too out there for me.’ While others will be shouting hurray and diving in to read on. So let me put it into simple terms to show you how this move from potential to possibilities can show up in your life.

I’m a coach, a trainer, an author … things that are the fulfillment of my potential as a human being. I’m pretty happy with how my life has gone so far. But me as limitless possibility, well that’s a whole other ball game.

As I entered the possibility playground, I discovered the flow of genius through me. I became a consciousness innovator and a future creator. I truly doubt that that was in me when I was born. I began to morph who I know myself as. No longer this, that or the other, I discovered that I could be anything I wanted to be. I began to create myself as opposed to being stuck with who I was born as. I no longer occurred in my world as my mother’s daughter, with definitive genetics and family history to shape me. I no longer strived to become more successful in life. I began to flow, to create, to fall wildly in love with the possibilities of me, us and this beautiful world. I went bigger in terms of visions and creations. I allowed myself to do things I never thought I would or could.

I leapt beyond all the boxes that contain what it is to be a human being. The concept that we are of mind, body and soul to discover myself as a limitless creator of all that I might become. I discovered I could talk to animals, trees, oceans and the Earth. The universe and I became great buddies, filling me with new insights and understandings as well as providing things like synergistic connections and brilliant opportunities at just the right time.

I finally realised joy in my life and began to play with effortless abundance. I laugh a lot now and am breathtaken by the beauty of this world and the people and life forms in it. I am undefinable, ever morphing into the next new levels of what is possible for me and for us all. As I do this I realise that I am part of the redesign of what it is is to be human on Earth. I call us Earthians as a new way to talk about loving being alive on Earth while being an infinite creator of possibilities for life. The term Earthian also allows me to feel a kinship with other life forms on Earth, whereas the term human tends, in my view, to make us feel separate from other inhabitants of this wonderful world.
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Today I get to hang out with the most wonderful of creators across all areas of life. Not just writers and artists, musicians and dancers, but inventors of new possibilities and innovators of how technology can benefit our world. Because once you access the state of limitless creation, once you understand how genius flows and innovation works, you want to do things that uplift, elevate and empower the world to be more awesome by the day.
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While some might think that too daunting a task to undertake, the opposite is actually true. The more you dwell in possibility and creation, the more excited you become about the future of our world and your part in making a world of kindness, generosity, connection and of course limitless creation. The whole thing is a giant paradox you see. Letting go of a defined self, surrendering to a genius universe, making a greater difference in life … these are the things that vitalise us, that bring us alive, that make us smile and rush into our days with excitement for the possibility of who and what we might become all together now on this amazing planet.

 

About the Author:

 

Soleira Green is passionate about innovating a new future now, bringing genius, connection, greatness and the miraculous into the game for us all.

 

15 Sep 2021
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What Would Happen If Everyone Truly Believed Everything Is One?

“We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness.” — Albert Einstein

“In our quest for happiness and the avoidance of suffering, we are all fundamentally the same, and therefore equal. Despite the characteristics that differentiate us – race, language, religion, gender, wealth and many others – we are all equal in terms of our basic humanity.” — Dalai Lama

 

The belief that everything in the universe is part of the same fundamental whole exists throughout many cultures and philosophical, religious, spiritual, and scientific traditions, as captured by the phrase ‘all that is.’ The Nobel winner Erwin Schrodinger once observed that quantum physics is compatible with the notion that there is indeed a basic oneness of the universe. Therefore, despite it seeming as though the world is full of many divisions, many people throughout the course of human history and even today truly believe that individual things are part of some fundamental entity.

Despite the prevalence of this belief, there has been a lack of a well validated measure in psychology that captures this belief. While certain measures of spirituality do exist, the belief in oneness questions are typically combined with other questions that assess other aspects of spirituality, such as meaning, purpose, sacredness, or having a relationship with God. What happens when we secularize the belief in oneness?

In a series of studies, Kate Diebels and Mark Leary set out to find out. In their first study, they found that only 20.3% of participants had thought about the oneness of all things “often” or “many times”, while 25.9% of people “seldom” thought about the oneness of all things, and 12.5% of people “never” had thought about it.

The researchers also created a 6-item “Belief in Oneness Scale” consisting of the following items:

  1. Beyond surface appearances, everything is fundamentally one.
  2. Although many seemingly separate things exist, they all are part of the same whole.
  3. At the most basic level of reality, everything is one.
  4. The separation among individual things is an illusion; in reality everything is one.
  5. Everything is composed of the same basic substance, whether one thinks of it as spirit, consciousness, quantum processes, or whatever.
  6. The same basic essence permeates everything that exists.

Those who scored higher on this scale were much more likely to have an identity that extends beyond the individual to encompass wider aspects of humankind, life, nature, and even the cosmos. In fact, a belief in oneness was more strongly related to feeling connected with distant people and aspects of the natural world than with people with whom one is close! Also, while a belief in oneness was related to actual experiences of oneness (“mystical experiences”), there was no relationship between a belief in oneness and feeling closer to God during a spiritual experience.

In their second study, the researchers looked at values and self-views that might be related to the belief in oneness. They found that a belief in oneness was related to values indicating a universal concern for the welfare of other people, as well as greater compassion for other people. A belief in oneness was also associated with feeling connected to others through a recognition of our common humanity, common problems, and common imperfections. At the same time, there was no relationship between a belief in oneness and the degree to which people endorsed self-focused values such as hedonism, self-direction, security, or achievement. This means that people can have a belief in oneness and still have a great deal of self-care, healthy boundaries, and self-direction in life.

Implications of a Belief in Oneness

People who believe that everything is fundamentally one differ in crucial ways from those who do not. In general, those who hold a belief in oneness have a more inclusive identity that reflects their sense of connection with other people, nonhuman animals, and aspects of nature that are all thought to be part of the same “one thing.” This has some rather broad implications.

First, this finding is relevant to our current fractured political landscape. It is very interesting that those who reported a greater belief in oneness were also more likely to regard other people like members of their own group and to identify with all of humanity. There is an abundance of identity politics these days, with people believing that their own ideology is the best one, and a belief that those who disagree with one’s own ideology are evil or somehow less than human.

It might be beneficial for people all across the political spectrum to recognize and hold in mind a belief in oneness even as they are asserting their values and political beliefs. Only having “compassion” for those who are in your in-group, and vilifying or even becoming violent toward those who you perceive as the out-group, is not only antithetical to world peace more broadly, but is also counter-productive to political progress that advances the greater good of all humans on this planet.

I also think these findings have important implications for education. Even if some adults may be hopeless when it comes to changing their beliefs, most children are not. Other beliefs — such as a belief that intelligence can learn and grow (“growth mindset”) — are extraordinarily popular in education these days. However, I wonder what the implications would be if all students were also explicitly trained to believe that we are all part of the same fundamental humanity, actively showing students through group discussions and activities how we all have insecurities and imperfections, and how underneath the superficial differences in opinions and political beliefs, we all have the same fundamental needs for connection, purpose, and to matter in this vast universe.

Perhaps now, more than ever in the course of human history, we would benefit more from a oneness mindset.

 

About the Author

Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., is a humanistic psychologist exploring the depths of human potential. He has taught courses on intelligence, creativity, and well-being at Columbia University, NYU, the University of Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. In addition to writing the column Beautiful Minds for Scientific American, he also hosts The Psychology Podcast, and is author and/or editor of 9 books, including Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization, Wired to Create: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind (with Carolyn Gregoire), and Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined. In 2015, he was named one of “50 Groundbreaking Scientists who are changing the way we see the world” by Business Insider. 

 

09 Sep 2021
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The Future Is Fabulous

 

Oh, I know, the world is full of doom and gloom right now … fears of climate change, the COVID virus and even zombie apocalypses make the list today. So what the heck am I doing writing about fabulous futures then!

Well, I’m a consciousness innovator and an alchemist extraordinaire, and here’s what I see going on these days beyond the dramatic news pieces and apocalyptic movies that fill us with dread and concern.

  • We are becoming a new species, not limited any longer by the constrictive constructs of what it is to be human. A species that is connected with all life forms, that loves and nurtures the natural world in brilliant and innovative ways, that operates in alignment with an infinite intelligence that provides us with a kind of ‘north star compass’ to find our way to brilliant creation instead of mindless destruction.
  • We respect one another, celebrating our differences and uniqueness. For we know that it is the unleashing of all of our awesome magnificence and genius creation that is the answer to it all.
  • We are discovering a new kind of power. I call this Life Power, which is used by collaborative alchemists to quantum-leap us to whole new levels of being. With this Life Power we awaken the miraculousness of Nature and celebrate the emerging possibilities of life in its potent state of creation.

You see, at the heart of everything that is happening on this world at the moment is a quantum evolutionary leap into brilliant new possibilities for life on Earth. Now, you might think me a naive dreamer unwilling to look the yuck in the eye. But you would be mistaken. For I look into the eyes of humanity, into the eyes of the Earth, and there looking back at me is a glorious new becoming that supersedes all that has gone before.

So if you’re measuring our future by a projection of the past, don’t. Measure it by the brilliance of the new’ness emerging in us all. And then join us on the playground of Creation where we are sourcing futures too breathtaking to give language to yet.

For I am the oracle of fabulous futures and I know this to be so.

 

About the Author:

 

Soleira Green is passionate about innovating a new future now, bringing genius, connection, greatness and the miraculous into the game for us all.

27 Aug 2021
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Coming Back to Ourselves

25 Aug 2021
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Life In Time-Space And What To Do About It

Who are we? Why are we here? Where are we going? Not everyone asks such questions, but some of us are driven to find the answers.

We are adept at living life in this time-space universe, but comprehending that which is one or more steps removed from this reality is not one of our specialties. We can get a sense of what lies beyond, but doing that takes as much intuition and feeling as it does intellect.

Our universe is structured by the rules of time and space. Time-space is the nature of the reality we live in: objects appear separate and distinct — this is not that. There is a sequence to events: past, present, and future — this happened before that. Currently, we are rooted in this reality, but there is infinitely more.

Time-space is not an illusion. It is very real on its own level. It is not bad, but our beliefs about it can color how we perceive it to be. Can we expand our understanding and perception to more directly sense that which is beyond time-space? Yes, but our intellect will only take us so far in that pursuit. With patience and practice, and using our intuition and feelings, we can gain a deeper experience of what is normally unknown.

For centuries people have reported experiences of self-awareness detached from their physical bodies such as experiences of near-death or expanded consciousness. There have been different ways of explaining these experiences, but the underlying conclusions are the same: who we are is more than, and independent of, the collection of chemicals and electrical impulses we call our bodies. We have an unseen side. In fact, this unseen side is who we really are. We are that and we use a physical body, as opposed to, we are this physical body and thereby we have that. What is that? Probably every language in history has had at least one name for it. The most common words in English are soul and spirit.

Our understanding of the out-of-body experience, as it is often called, is far from complete. This is difficult territory for our current intellectual nature. We are steeped in the scientific method. We use instruments to collect data. We insist on repeatability. Fortunately, scientists will continue to refine their abilities to investigate and understand extremely subtle phenomena. But some physicists readily acknowledge that there may come a time when the traditional tools of science will reach their limit of perception and become inadequate. It might not be possible to use time-space instruments to study non-time-space reality.

As long as we are attached to Earth, our ability to fully understand non-time-space will be a bit limited. Our fascination with experiencing time-space completely on its own level requires the blocking of our true unlimitedness from our human perception. Of course, we choose to do this with absolute free will. There is no coercion. If we are here, we want to be here simply because it is an incredible experience. Living a life in which the subjective experience is one of complete individuality, without the perception of the underlying oneness of all things, is extremely fascinating. In one sense, perceiving our eternal nature is not the amazing thing. The amazing thing is not perceiving it.

Finding Purpose

Living life on Earth is all-consuming. Our lives are extremely important to us. This is by design. How should we spend our time here? Be gentle with yourself and kind to others, then do whatever you want to do. Of course, there will always be the necessities of food, clothing, and shelter, although we are free to ignore those things if we are willing to face the consequences. We are free to do or not do anything, and, when the results of our choices arrive, we will make more choices. Earth life is not about finding our one perfect activity, as if not finding it would make our life a mistake. If we are honest and caring to the best of our ability, that is a great achievement. Let your interests and talents be your guide. Clarify what you desire, then create a step-by-step plan to achieve it. Engage each day with enthusiasm. Recognize the value in everything you do. Care, and do things well.

The challenge is that things do not always go smoothly. Sometimes, outside circumstances can make things difficult, and sometimes our own internal worries and fears can be strong. Recognizing and healing our fears is an important part of life. Do not be afraid to listen to the voice of your heart and mind. Your fears cannot harm you, and, with gentle attention, you can heal them.

Fear is whatever interferes with our internal balance. In obvious and subtle ways fear can affect how we feel and behave. Outer circumstances might be challenging, but if we pay attention to our reactions to them, we will learn much about ourselves.

Whenever we are unduly critical or harsh toward others, it is due to an underlying fear of some kind. If we see someone who looks or acts in a way that makes us overly judgmental of them, notice that reaction. Practice being accepting. Oftentimes, people are the way they are partly because of how they were raised or how they have been treated. Certainly, we all make our own choices in every moment, but we haven’t all been given the same positive influences and advantages. We don’t know the internal and external struggles that others face.

It takes courage to face our challenges. When you are feeling judgmental of, or irritated with, someone take a step back and muster patience and understanding. Direct compassion toward them and say to yourself, “I love you. I support you. I bless you.” Feel this softening of your heart. It will benefit both of you, especially you.

Relax 

Most of us can benefit from taking more time to relax, to tune into what’s going on inside. Relax one or more times a day. It can be done in minutes throughout the day. There are fine relaxation and meditation techniques available, or, simply sit down, close your eyes, relax all your muscles, and feel what’s going on in your chest area. Release the tension in your heart and lungs. With a little practice you will be able to lower your stress level within seconds. It is not difficult.

If you have fifteen or twenty minutes available, sit in a comfortable chair, or lie down if possible, close your eyes, and let go of pressing thoughts. With a few exhales of your breath, feel all the muscles in your body relax. When you exhale, let your lungs stay empty for several extra seconds. Do this only a few times, then breathe normally. Feel your heart rate slow down. You will feel the tension in your body melt away. If you buy a simple blood pressure monitor from a pharmacy, you will be able to measure this directly.

Relax your thinking. Be an indifferent witness to stray thoughts. They don’t matter. Notice yourself expanding, but not in a physical sense. It is not a feeling of getting larger in the room or floating upward in the room, sky, or outer space. Those are time-space concepts. Your expansion is interdimensional. Just relax and feel limitations slip away. Relaxation is a time for simple openness. Repeat to yourself, “I am now and always open to the love and support of my whole self.” Let yourself feel a sense of wholeness. Let whatever happens, happen. Even if you seem to sleep briefly, that’s okay; it may not be normal sleep.

If you wish, during periods of deep relaxation, you can create quiet feelings of contentment or joyfulness. Simply think a word such as gentleness, kindness, clarity, or patience; think the word easily and then for several seconds let the underlying feeling happen without effort. This will be subtle yet potent. Try different words a few times each. Try thinking me as soul, and let soft feelings of expansion and love filter in. If you wake up in the morning a few minutes early, you can do this while you’re still in bed and very relaxed. Deeper feelings will come more automatically with practice over time. Regular periods of such gently guided relaxation will benefit your daily life.

You can relax anytime, anywhere, even for just thirty seconds. When you get in your car, sit for a minute before driving. Don’t turn on the radio. When you arrive at your destination, sit for a minute. You can sense calmness even while focusing on something else.

It can help to leave the television, telephone, and other devices off a little longer. Listen to yourself a little more. Keep your entertainment content kind and uplifting, not uncaring or violent. Recognize and appreciate the goodness in the people and the world around you. Keep your physical, mental, and emotional energies well balanced.

Love And Relationships

Creating loving friendships is among the most wonderful of things we can do as human beings. We are each born with a strong desire to give and receive love. This motivates us to interact and share with others. If we are careful not to dampen this impulse with intolerance or the fear of pain, it will lead us to many fulfilling experiences.

Treat those around you with respect. Be supportive and encouraging. We are all learning, so be patient and understanding whenever you are disappointed or frustrated by the actions of another. Be a calm teacher when you have the opportunity. Savor the time you spend with those close to you, and aim for unconditional love in every relationship.

Be the best that you can be, then engage with the world and let your intentions be known. Be friendly, be open, and you will create many opportunities for sharing love.

Health And Death

We are not our bodies, but our bodies are the vehicles through which we engage life in this time-space reality. Illness cannot harm who you are. It is not badness. Aging is not badness, but our attitudes about aging can color our experience of it. Death is not badness. Death is simply leaving the body and not coming back to it. When you take off a heavy coat, you are still you. We do not truly lose our loved ones through death.

Fear of aging is not helpful. What is helpful is realizing that living more years creates more opportunities to learn and teach, both with our words and as an example. Many have come to believe that aging means becoming unhappy and burdensome to our families and society. It would be more appropriate to recognize that there is much to be gained by those who help someone in need, and to appreciate the contributions that the older generation can make to our communities. Wisdom comes from years of living. Balance, empathy, and an understanding of the nature and purpose of life come from paying attention over time. When older truly is wiser, everyone benefits.

If we have strong beliefs about what happens at and after death, those beliefs can color our initial experience for better or worse. It is best to be open to letting the experience unfold without fear. Reading descriptions of near-death experiences can be helpful, but they describe just the beginning of the transition. Our brains are not designed to fully comprehend our non-time-space nature. Just let the transition happen easily.

When we decide to leave Earth, we will have developed ourselves to a very high degree. A graduate of time-space is a highly regarded, wondrous being. Consider Earth life in the context of an infinite number of other possibilities. Contemplate this occasionally, not as an escape from the challenges of life, but as a way to more fully appreciate your time-space existence. Relax and enjoy.

 

Original article: SpiritofChange.org

 

 

19 Aug 2021
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Completion and a New Beginning – Full Moon in Aquarius, Sunday, August 22nd 2021

Well, I’m back…sort of. Technically still on sabbatical until Monday, August 23rd, but there are too many things popping that need some attention. The main one is the upcoming second Full Moon in Aquarius in less than a month. It bookends the one that occurred on July 23rd at the 1st degree of Aquarius. This Sunday, the 22nd of August, the second one will be at the 29th degrees of Leo and Aquarius. The famous (or infamous) Anaretic degrees are compelling moments in any astrology timeline. Here’s an excerpt from The Dilemma of the 29th DEGREE: Thor’s Hammer or a Cornucopia? by Eileen Nauman, DH(UK):

“Astrologers know that from 0 through 28 degrees, we, as individuals, have ample opportunity to work on our stuff, work through it and change it. “Work” is defined here as our emotional and toxic wounds that we’ve accrued usually through childhood or in our twenties.

And they have to be healed. In other words, we have choice. And since we are down here to grow, the 29th degree is around to ensure that we do what is needed for ourselves — even if we don’t want to do it for a host of reasons (fear, lack of confidence, lack of faith in ourselves, etc.). The 29th degree is there to ensure we WILL do it. Or, if we’ve been running away from a lot of emotional garbage that we’ve refused to own — well guess what? It’s all going to come back to haunt you in that 29th degree.

The 29th degree from a medical astrology standpoint is a loaded keg of emotional toxic ‘dynamite’ that has been ignored for some time, even decades, and it’s sitting there ready to explode. When we have suppressed or repressed emotions, this will translate over time into actual physical, mental or emotional dis-ease.

“Of course, people have free will choice and if they elect not to try and heal their own wound, they ignore it. [For example] they can ignore Saturn transits from 0 to 28 degrees of that sign. However, when it hits the 29th degree, that person is going to have the Cosmic Hammer come down on him or her. The 29th degree is a last-ditch attempt to draw the person or experience to this individual so they can get to work on discharging the toxicity they’re carrying inside themselves.

“And so, calamity hits this person with a sledgehammer. It can be a loss of a job, the spouse wanting a divorce, having to move to another state or country, the death of a spouse or child or parent. And the list goes on…but the list of things that can happen are life changing for that individual. And that’s the power of the 29th degree coming in and confronting the individual who doesn’t want to do the work for whatever the reason. No reason, frankly, is worth avoiding our own wounding. If we drew that wound in this incarnation, it’s up to us to work through it. In working through it, we learn, grow and mature and yes, perhaps even evolve, because of our efforts.

Now, I know that you who are reading this may not have any particularly sensitive points in your own soul blueprint (birth chart) for this incarnation, but that doesn’t mean one is totally out of the woods. You and I share in the collective awareness of the soul of humanity and of the planet, so we are not immune to the knock-on effects that that can have in our personal spheres. That said, this Full Moon is akin to an initiation…for the whole human race.

The little-known dwarf planet Sedna is currently also at the 29th Degree of Taurus and is being squared by the Sun and Moon at 29 Leo and Aquarius this Saturday. Some say that Sedna represents the soul’s destiny and has a hand in illumination and new consciousness. Sedna’s orbital path takes over 11,000 years to complete one revolution around our Sun, and she is way out there beyond the orbit of Pluto, so that last time Sedna was parked at the last degree of Taurus was at the end of the last Ice Age. Sedna was a goddess of the sea and intuitive feelings that belongs to the Inuit Indians of the Arctic regions.

She entered Taurus in 1965, just as the USA civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the rise of the hippie era all commenced. A big shifting in human consciousness to be sure! It’s also worth mentioning that Uranus and Pluto had just entered the element of Earth just about the same time when they both conjoined in Virgo. Sedna enters Gemini in 2024, around the same time that Pluto enters Aquarius. Sedna in Taurus could be one of the factors in the rise of the digital age since 2003, but when she gets into Gemini, it might signal a new rising of human consciousness, but one not tied to artificial intelligence or binary sciences.

At the unconscious level Sedna can represent victimization, illness, alienation, trauma, and suffering. At the conscious level she can foster profound acceptance, including of how bad things currently are, transcendence, keeping one’s heart open no matter what, and having a sense of humour.

With the Sun and Moon underpinning the archetypes of Leo and Aquarius, and squaring Sedna, I feel that we are being offered an initiation. One that can work best if we consciously choose to fully individuate into our sovereign truthful selves, while realizing and cultivating our innate spiritual connection to the elements, especially water (feelings) and earth (the body). This will be the choice point offered: evolved humanity not dependent or enslaved to digital technology, and a groundswell of consciousness opening not only to the higher cosmic influences, but also the divine influence right under our feet…and our noses!

Finally, in summary, allow me to offer the last part of Eileen Nauman’s brilliant essay on the 29th Degree:

THE CORNUCOPIA SIDE TO THE 29TH DEGREE:

“There is a positive side to the 29th degree as I wrote earlier. Think of it as a cornucopia of goodies just waiting to be given to you. If you have done all your homework on yourself and done your best to discharge your toxic dump of emotions, then the 29th degree will leave you alone. Instead, something ‘nice’ will happen to you. It might be a time of joy spent with your grandchildren, your friends, or relatives. Or you attend a workshop that inspires you. Perhaps you sign up for creative schooling, such as painting, learning to write or learn to dance. It can be as simple as a wonderful lunch with a friend or a warm phone call from someone you love. Or it could be big, like a raise, a new job, a book being sold, being rewarded monetarily or in many other ways. It will be a ‘lull’ in having to always do your inner work. It’s Cosmic Gift Time, instead. A pat on the head by the Cosmos that you’ve done the dirty work and succeeded. Then, the 29th degree becomes a time of well-earned happiness in your life. And, as always, the choice of how we want to deal with the 29th degree is ours!”

The biggest issue of the day boils down to the fact that what is transpiring on the planet these last two years is only made possible by our immersion into the dreamspell of the digital domain. There is a simile to hypnosis and collective groupthink underway, exacerbated by the Saturn in Aquarius transit that promotes the group over individuation. True spirituality is about individuation of divine consciousness in the human experience. The mystic Edgar Cayce was asked during one of his trance sessions to describe Christ Consciousness. His reply was “to know thyself to be thyself, yet one with All That Is.”

Our task, as I see it defined in reflection of Sunday’s Full Moon in Aquarius, is to define who you are not by what the crowd says you should be, but who you really are and how true to that you will be. We are all being tested and testing ourselves. Let us rise to the occasion and say choose non-compliance with anything that offends our soul and spirit, and say yes to that which is sourced in love, truth, wisdom, empathy, the spirit of cooperation, and harmony with All That Is.

So be it!!

 

About the Author:

Isaac George is an internationally recognized intuitive mentor/coach, evolutionary astrologer, conscious channel, self-published author and musician. After a life-altering spontaneous kundalini awakening in 1994 he explored various healing modalities, including hypnotherapy and Reiki. In 1998 he began spontaneously channeling Archangel Ariel and other dimensional intelligences.

Originally from the United States, Isaac currently resides in the UK and offers Spiritual Mentoring sessions and programs and Evolutionary Astrology consultations.

 

 

10 Aug 2021
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The Path Beyond The Current Reality — Rising Above The Chaos

 

What you are experiencing now, collectively, is exactly what it looks like when an old age implodes and a new one begins to take its place. This time has been a great challenge for all living on Earth. No one is exempt from this event, and what will be learned is a great opportunity for all. This is something your soul desired to witness, and you will merge with deep wisdom and truths that you will carry through into the foundation of an entire new cycle.

The damaged mirror of your imploding world will not reflect what you are seeking anymore. You are now in between realities. Everything around you that is in disharmony is an illusion. Look beyond all the devastation, anger, fear, loss, division and controversy. There is no truth in insanity. Insanity is simply fear. The soul does not know fear, because it knows the truth that it is One with God. There is nothing to gain in war. War is simply the belief in separation. The soul does not understand separation and the ego driven concept of “us versus them”. Real truth is self leveling, unifying, all encompassing, and it does not come from the mind of worldly knowledge. Truth is love, and love is the only truth. So getting drawn into all the crumbling bits of drama left over from the old reality is a waste of your energy. Look through and beyond the mirror to see what is already arriving now. Scrape away the reflection of the old world to see beyond it.

You are God, so it is simply impossible that anything created by any other human being (besides the blast of an atom bomb), could break your connection to God or the divine, or slow or stop your ascension! So there is no reason for fear, protection or defense. You cannot work your way to ascension while still fighting the old world. If you keep trying to achieve this in the rubble of this crumbling world, you will only feel exhausted, stuck, angry, confused, divided … and be stuck in indecision. If you are always working toward ascension, it will always be one step ahead of you. Because that is how you see it. If you are working to reach it, then you are also not trusting that it is available to you. The universe hears and responds to all of your presence; not just what your mind desires. There is no future; only now. Realization cannot be timed on a clock, or predicted on a calendar. Only when humanity reaches a realization tipping point is when the ascension will arrive. Ascension will flow into you with a graceful breath of allowance, without thought, without pressure and without trying.

You are experiencing incredible levels of sustained pressure and stress in the collective consciousness which can make you feel disconnected from God, Source, etc…. The human race is going through a dark night of the soul, and one often feels disconnected, disoriented, undecided, lost, and we might question the reason for our existence. It is part of the process. This is an age old, tempering process in which we are made to feel abandoned by God, only to realize that GOD has been within us all along. It is the way. We can never disconnect from God no matter what the circumstances, or which direction is taken. Those that are feeling a huge disconnect now are going through this incredibly powerful process. It does not mean that you did something wrong in any way, or that you missed your chance. It just means that you are right where you need to be. You are incredibly brave to face this void.

There is a new reality arising, and you are being readied to enter. It is waiting for you to recognize it. It will not be reflected in the current world. It will not be what you expect. Like we (The Star Elders) have said for years, this is new with new laws of nature. It is something still mostly unseen by humanity. Rise above all the uncountable, opposing layers in this collective crisis. Leave behind the world that is programmed by the old world and is fed by divisions … us versus them, fear, control, controversy, war, etc…. The answers you are reaching for are not here anymore. They are here in the beyond. This is why nothing in your world now feels right. The old world is imploding and fading into pure illusion … soon to be forgotten like it never existed. (This is where some of our memory issues are coming from.)

As the old world implodes, maintain conscious discernment when you are exposed to the many controversies, predictions and perspectives in the last bits of the old, material world. If you become anxious, or have fear of plausible future “possibilities”, it is your clue that you stepped back into the dying world. You have moved away from your center, your balance, and your inner truth. You need to learn quickly to recognize when there is an emotional hook linked to an undercurrent coming from the imploding world (this might be a feeling of heaviness, darkness or sudden anxiety). This is your divine, inner alarm saying to go back to your center.

When worldly perspectives are subconsciously embedded with the energetics of fear in a credible looking way, it redirects you into your reactive, emotional body, which means that you are no longer living in your unified heart. Once exposed, it can take time and energy to purge this heaviness out of your energy field. There is always some thread of truth in all fragmenting perspectives; otherwise no one would consider entertaining it as truth at all. But, you will do this over and over until you are so strong in your center that you will no longer be drawn into those programs or be set off by them. You are already seeing that you have become less triggered and feel a bit more anchored to your heart center. Nothing from the old, imploding world can hurt you anymore, but it wants you to think it can.

Do not let the outdated, dualistic world drag you away from your center. It is good to know what is going on in the world, and there is always a small bit of truth no matter where you look. But as the ascended masters say … do not allow circumstances to put you into an emotional state where you become unanchored in your light. Be in the present moment, and starve the outer world’s conflicts with the absence of your recognition, your energy and your light. This time is about seeing the world, but not being of the world. To be of the new paradigm is to pull your energy out of the old programs.

We are way showers. When we choose the path of non-choosing, and rise above all the biases, and dust off the chaos of the imploding world, we will create a path for all to follow.

 

~ Aluna Joy Yaxk’in, the Star Elders, with a collective of Ascended Master energies