Summer Off!

Hi, All.

Sorry I've been so absent on this site the past few months! I've been busy writing and leading workshops and traveling. I plan to take the summer off to concentrate more fully on my book in progress. May your summer be bright and full of all good things.

Cheers!

Florence Scovel Shinn

March has proved to be an incredibly busy period; however, it has also been filled with tremendous blessings and abundance. In the course of my travels this month, I discovered Florence Scovel Shinn's The Game of Life and How to Play It. It was written in 1925 and very much reminded me of The Secret and Mike Dooley's TUT material.

Shinn's bottom line is: Nothing stands between man and his highest ideals and every desire of his heart, but doubt and fear. When man can "wish without worrying," every desire will be instantly fulfilled (p. 11)." She teaches that by changing your words, you can change the conditions of your life. Shinn tells us that our subconscious mind is always listening to what we tell ourselves, which is a pretty tremendous statement when you stop to consider its ramifications. 

The book reinforced many of the ways in which I think about life, and I was also delighted to hear old ideas put in a fresh way. Here are a few of my favorites:


"One should not visualize or force a mental picture. When he demands the Divine Design to come into his conscious mind, he will receive flashes of inspiration, and begin to see himself making some great accomplishment. This is the picture, or idea, he must hold without wavering. The thing man seeks is seeking him--the telephone was seeking Bell!" (p. 78). 

"In Divine Mind there is only completion, therefore, my demonstration is completed. My perfect work, my perfect home, my perfect health." Whatever he demands are perfect ideas registered in Divine Mind, and must manifest, "under grace in a perfect way." He gives thanks he has already received on the invisible, and makes active preparation for receiving on the visible." (p. 82). 


She also wrote some very powerful affirmations, many of which resonated with me:


"The decks are now cleared for Divine Action and my own comes to me under grace in a magical way."


"I now let go of worn-out conditions and worn-out things. Divine order is established in my mind, body, and affairs. Behold, I made all things new."


"My seeming impossible good now comes to pass, the unexpected now happens."


"I give thanks for my whirlwind success."


"I see clearly and act quickly and my greatest expectations come to pass in a miraculous way." 


"Unexpected doors fly open, unexpected channels are free, and endless avalanches of abundance are poured out upon me, under grace in perfect ways."


"I forgive everyone and everyone forgives me. The gates swing open for my good."


In other Shinn writings she talks about the instant help we can receive if we ask for some sort of lead before making a major life decision.


"Now it is necessary for you to make a decision, you face a fork in the road. Ask for a definite unmistakeable lead, and you will receive it...In Truth, we always ask for definite leads just what to do; you will always receive one if you ask for it. Sometimes it comes as intuition, sometimes from the external." (The Secret Door To Success)


I plan to practice these for a period of time and see what positive events and situations I can bring my way! Keep me posted if you choose to do the same.

Through Eyes of Love

There is something truly lovely about seeing yourself through the eyes of someone 

who loves you.

Poetry Party at Abbey of the Arts

Every month Christine at Abbey of the Arts throws a poetry party. The idea is to build a poem off of the image she provides. Above is what she provided for this month. Click here to join in the fun. Here was my offering:

Astigmatism

is this what happens

when vision clears?

i drop into myself

heartbeat by heartbeat

and feel blue blush

whispers against

the curve of my ear.

i breathe them

in

and step
with an ecstatic scream 

into a new reality

where you wait.


(copyright 2012)

Do we need to live a symbolic life?

I've been contemplating the importance of living a symbolic life the past few days, and I believe that it is important for us to feel like our life has meaning. Jung certainly would agree. 

During his life, he wrote many papers and delivered numerous lectures on this topic, arguing again and again that a purpose driven life is not only a happy one but it keeps our spirits uplifted. It soothes our souls to know we're here for a reason and are a part of something larger than ourselves. Here's an excerpt of a lecture he gave in 1939 to the Guild of Pastoral Psychology, London:

You see, man is in need of a symbolic life - badly in need. We only live banal, ordinary, rational, or irrational things . . . but we have no symbolic life. Where do we live symbolically? Nowhere except where we participate in the ritual of life. . . .

Have you got a corner somewhere in your house where you perform the rites, as you can see in India? Even the very simple houses there have at least a curtained corner where the members of the household can perform the symbolic life, where they can make their new vows or their meditation. We don't have it; we have no such corner. We have our own room, of course, - but there is a telephone that can ring us up at any time, and we always must be ready. We have no time, no place.

We have no symbolic life, and we are all badly in need of the symbolic life. Only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul - the daily need of the soul, mind you! And because people have no such thing, they can never step out of this mill - this awful, banal, grinding life in which they are "nothing but." . . . Everything is banal; everything is "nothing but," and that is the reason why people are neurotic. They are simply sick of the whole thing, sick of that banal life, and therefore they want sensation. They even want a war; they all want a war; they are all glad when there is a war; they say, "Thank heaven, now something is going to happen - something bigger than ourselves!"

These things go pretty deep, and no wonder people get neurotic. Life is too rational; there is no symbolic existence in which I am something else, in which I am fulfilling my role, my role as one of the actors in the divine drama of life.

I once had a talk with the master of ceremonies of a tribe of Pueblo Indians, and he told me something very interesting. He said, "Yes, we are a small tribe, and these Americans, they want to interfere with our religion. They should not do it," he said, "because we are the sons of the Father, the Sun. He who goes there" (pointing to the sun) -- "that is our Father. We must help him daily to rise over the horizon and to walk over heaven. And we don't do it for ourselves only; we do it for America; we do it for the whole world. And if these Americans interfere with our religion through their missions, they will see something. In ten years Father Sun won't rise anymore because we can't help him any more."

Now, you may say, that is just a sort of mild madness. Not at all! These people have no problems. They have their daily life, their symbolic life. They get up in the morning with a feeling of their great and divine responsibility; they are the sons of the Sun, the Father, and their daily duty is to help the Father over the horizon - not for themselves alone, but for the whole world. You should see these fellows; they have a natural fulfilled dignity. And I quite understand when he said to me, "Now look at these Americans; they are always seeking something. They are always full of unrest, always looking for something. What are they looking for? There is nothing to be looked for!" That's perfectly true. You can see them, these traveling tourists, always looking for something, always in thee vain hope of finding something. On my many travels I have found people who were on their third trip around the world - uninterruptedly. Just traveling, traveling; seeking, seeking. I met a woman in central Africa who had come up alone in a car from Cape Town and wanted to go to Cairo. "What for?" I asked. "What are you trying to do that for?" And I was amazed when I looked into her eyes -- the eyes of a hunted, a cornered animal -- seeking, seeking, always in the hope of something. I said, "What in the world are you seeking? What are you waiting for? What are you hunting after?" She is nearly possessed; she is possessed by so many devils that chase her around. And why is she possessed? Because she does not live the life that makes sense. Hers is a life utterly, grotesquely banal, utterly poor, meaningless, with no point in it at all. If she is killed today, nothing has happened, nothing has vanished - because she was nothing! But if she could say, "I am the daughter of the Moon. Every night I must help the moon, my Mother, over the horizon" - ah, that is something else! Then she lives; then her life makes sense, and makes sense in all continuity, and for the whole of humanity. That gives peace, when people feel that they are living the symbolic life, that they are actors in the divine drama. That gives the only meaning to human life; everything else is banal and you can dismiss it. A career, producing of children, are all maya compared with that one thing, that your life is meaningful.

Here then is the million dollar question: what gives us meaning in life? I believe we each know what we're here for deep within us. It sits like a small beacon continually pulsing its message to us, but we often miss it, either because our lives are too busy to hear it OR the message is not in harmony with the way we have chosen to live our lives. Still, it pulses. It wants to be known. 


One thing I know for sure is that if we miss it on our waking realities, it will show up again and again in our dreaming realities. What fascinates me about the dream life is that our waking life egos can't censor its message. A dream is a letter from home, according to Clarissa Pinkola Estes and many other Jungians. Jung wrote in Modern Man in Search of a Soul, "Dreams are the direct expression of unconscious psychic activity." "The dream gives a true picture of the subjective state, while the conscious mind denies that this state exists, or recognizes it only grudgingly."

 "Okay," you might be thinking. "This is all well and good but how the heck do you know what your dreams are telling you?"

The best thing you can do is to pick out a journal and start recording your dreams every morning. You will be amazed at what you discover!!!! The hardest thing about this is simply getting started, but it's very easy to do and great fun once you get started. 

In my next post, I'll give some tips about how to work with your journal. Stay tuned.

New Workshops Available from Bridge Between Two Worlds

Hi, All.

I am excited to announce that I will be offering new workshops through Bridge Between Two Worlds! If you've ever wanted to develop your intuition or learn more about the Shamanic journey, these will be right up your alley! 

Best of all, they will be both playful and fun. Check them out!

Marie-Louise von Franz

Back into Jungian material I delve. This month I find myself attracted to the works of Marie-Louise von Franz, and in my hands I hold her Creation Myths. Last night I read the following, which appealed to my training as a Medievalist and amateur astronomer:

"In the Middle Ages they drew all the constellations they knew, and outside them the cosmos was surrounded by the Zodiac snake, the snake on which were all the signs of the Zodiac; beyond that lay the unknown. There again the snake bites its own tail, the uroboros motif, comes up where man reaches the end of his conscious knowledge. In late antiquity, the beginnings of chemistry show that people also had certain knowledge of the elements and some technical knowledge, but when it came to the end of known facts, they again projected this archetypal image, the symbol of the uroboros, to characterize the mystery of unknown matter. In alchemy it was the symbol of the prima materia, of the original matter of the world." pp. 2-3

What appeals to me about the above is the use of symbol to fill in a blank in our consciousness. The snake seems to act as the placeholder for knowledge we have not yet attained. Like a code, some material has been deciphered and some is still encrypted. Having tracked my dreams for 13 years, I have repeatedly noticed the same symbols appearing again and again. Are these symbols mere placeholders or do they have life and breath of their own?And if they are placeholders, what is waiting for discovery and integration?

Sargasso Sea

adrift in a sea.

bound on each side

by natural elements

and waters i can't control.

gulf stream.

north atlantic current.

canary current.

north atlantic equatorial current.

a fluid box 

holds me in.

how am i supposed

to get anywhere?

i lay like sargassum

on the surface,

languidly and lazily

soaking up my vitamin d,

praying for a sailor

or scientist

to haul himself out here.

sample me!
pull my prokaryote body
up and stuff my hair
into a vial for further study.

i can't breakthrough
on my own.

i can see no shores.

i am a sea without shores,

but i can SEE

below.

all truths are

visible in the bowels

of the mother.

she shows me man's garbage
and clarifies my vision
so i miss nothing.

Spiritual Magnetism and Emerson

I really appreciate what Robert Moss has done for the dreaming community. If anything he has stripped away much of the skepticism regarding dreaming and taught thousands of people how to look within these nightly letters for insight and healing. His books are brilliantly fun and his blog feed is chock full of interesting reads. Moss also writes weekly at BeliefNet.com. It is at the latter that I found a curious little article on spiritual magnetism, which is the belief that we are all like magnets, pulling what we want toward us. The higher and cleaner our energy, the more quickly we bring into our lives the things/people we really want. 


Moss pulled a quote from Emerson to illustrate this:


“We are magnets in an iron globe,” declared Emerson. If we are upbeat and positive, “We have keys to all doors. We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.” Conversely, “A low, hopeless spirit puts out the eyes ; skepticism is slow suicide. A philosophy which sees only the worst… dispirits us ; the sky shuts down before us.”

Click here to read the entire article. 


Essentially, the more positive we can be, the faster the manifestation process. Now, this is something to really cheer and do a happy dance about, methinks!

Norse Myths, Rilke, and Jung's Individuation Process

I was at the gym yesterday morning and I brought along The Norse Myths to keep me company. One of the myths I read was "Lord of the Gallows,"which Odin's telling of what transpired when he hung upside down on the great tree, Yggdrasill, for nine nights. He tells the reader is that the experience brought him 18 different insights. It is the 18th one that captured my attention.


Odin says, "What you and you alone know is always the most potent." I know that this is true. One of the things I routinely tell myself and my clients is that we are always aware of our inner truths. Our bodies are aligned with these truths and we can touch them in an instant if we choose. However, it takes great courage to examine these inner truths and to become familiar with them. And, it takes a stronger, even more courageous heart to live out these truths in the wider world. 


It isn't easy. Yet, it has been my experience that whenever we step out on a journey, allies do appear, even if just in your dreams at first. In life, I believe the unconscious is our greatest ally. It is consistently speaking to us, guiding us, helping us removing the brambles and other obstructions from our ability to flow in life...WITH life. And this is what Jung encouraged -- engagement with life. 


We all want insight into our lives. We want our time here to mean something...to count. We ask, "What is the point of my life? Why am I here?" Sometimes the answers tumble into our minds and bodies in a flash. Other times, we sit and wait through long nights waiting for a dawn we may doubt will ever rise. This is a hard place to be. And if you, dear reader, are there, you are not alone. All of humanity has sat there and will sit there hence forth.


I think Rilke had it right when he said,


"...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."


And this is true engagement with life -- to live everything. If we can sit in that tension between having a question and seeking its answer, we will become aware of everything at once. We will know ourselves and have no more need to ask questions.

Synchronicity with Marion Woodman

I like to read Jung (and the Jungians) in the winter because the material is a natural complement to the stillness and bare boned truth reflected the trees. You're already primed to see the truth because the environment is helping you do so. What I know for sure is that the exterior world matches and mirrors the interior world and vice versa. When one side of the mirrored image shifts, so does the other. 


The past few weeks, my chosen Beatrice has been Marion Woodman. As someone in my dream group said today, "Jung brought the metaphysical to psychology," and I think she is right. The Jungians touch the soul's pulse. One of the benefits of tracking and working with one's dreams is that you quickly become aware of the patterns, the puzzle pieces seeking completion and fit, and the larger lessons clamoring for consciousness. Reading the below so closely after reading Eliot and marrying it with my own recent dreamscapes gave me chills. So, I share it tonight:

"No longer a slave girl giving away her pearls, selling out her femininity to greed and lust, Kate was now in a relationship that demanded real love, real suffering -- the rose in the fire....no longer "what can we do for each other," but "what can we be for each other." They are attempting to open their hearts, daring to leap, albeit tremulously, into the cleansing fire..."The living mystery of life is always hidden between Two, and it is the true mystery which cannot be betrayed by words and depleted by arguments."


"In such a relationship, both partners are attempting to become more conscious of their complexes and their masculine and feminine sides, both are willing to reflect on their interaction, and both have the courage to honor the uniqueness of what they share. Neither is attempting to possess the other, neither wishes to be possessed. The relationship itself is unburdened by the pressure of inchoate needs and expectations. The partners do not demand a "whole" relationship, nor do they seek to be made whole by it; rather they value the relationship as a container in which is reflected the wholeness they seek in themselves. Each is free to be authentic. Living in the now, unfettered by collective ideas of how either should act or be, they have no way of knowing how such a relationship will develop." ~ Marion Woodman, The Pregnant Virgin, pp. 152-53

T.S. Eliot and Ouroboros

I have long admired the richness of Eliot's poetry, especially "Little Gidding." When I read it, the Ouroboros floods my mind, and I am reminded how we constantly shed skin and birth ourselves. Here's the last stanza of the poem, which so neatly and beautifully captures this.

V

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
     Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Celtic Wisdom from Zimmer Bradley, Robert Graves, and Amergin

It's been a week spent nestled in my Celtic roots, reading new treasures and writing new ones. For those of you who have not yet read Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, do seek it out. While long (clocking in just shy of 900 pages), it is marvelous take on the Arthurian myth cycle but told from the viewpoint of the women nearest Arthur. I followed it up with The White Goddess by Robert Graves to read more about the goddess in Celtic myth cycles. In the latter, I discovered the Song of Amergin, which I've heard told differently and was happy to learn this version. It pulses so vividly to me that I know it sings to my ancestors embedded in my own DNA.

The Song of Amergin

I am a stag of seven tines,

I am a wide flood on a plain, 

I am a wind on the deep waters, 

I am a shining tear of the sun, 

I am a hawk on a cliff, 

I am fair among flowers, 

I am a god who sets the head afire with smoke. 

I am a battle waging spear, 

I am a salmon in the pool, 

I am a hill of poetry, 

I am a ruthless boar, 

I am a threatening noise of the sea, 

I am a wave of the sea, 

Who but I knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen ?

Gorgeous Message with Messenger Owls

I came across this on YouTube last night and fell in love with its animation and accompanying song "White Owl" by Josh Garrels. Enjoy! Lyrics are below.

When the night comes,
and you don't know which way to go
Through the shadowlands,
and forgotten paths,
you will find a road

Like an owl you must fly by moonlight with an open eye,
And use your instinct as your guide, to navigate the ways that lays before you,
You were born to take the greatest flight

Like a serpent and a dove, you will have wisdom born of love
and carry visions from above into the places no man dares to follow
Every hollow in the dark of night
Waiting for the light
Take the flame tonight

Child the time has come for you to go
You will never be alone
Every dream that you have been shown
Will be like living stone
Building you into a home
A shelter from the storm

Like a messenger of peace, the beauty waits be released
Upon the sacred path you keep, leading deeper into the unveiling
As your sailing, across the great divide

Like a wolf at midnight howls, you use your voice in darkest hours
To break the silence and the power, holding back the others from their glory
Every story will be written soon
The blood is on the moon
Morning will come soon

Child the time has come for you to go
You will never be alone
Every dream that you have been shown
Will be like living stone
Building you into a home
A shelter from the storm

Tarot Card Pull for 2012

Near the beginning of each new year, I've been in the habit of pulling a tarot card to serve as a guide for the coming days and months. (For curious souls out there, here is what I pulled in 2011, 2010, and 2009.

This year I pulled the Ace of Pentacles from my trusty Mythic Tarot deck.

What we see:

In this card, we see a merman (presumably Poseidon) who is half in the water. There is a summered scene behind him, complete with green mountains and fertile fields. The water is clear and there are four bunches of ripe grapes creeping across the rocks. Poseidon holds a large gold coin with a pentacle in it above his crown. 

Interpretation:
According to the Mythic Tarot book, this card "augurs the possibility of material achievement, because the raw energy of this kind of work is now available to the individual. Often money is made available through a legacy or some other source, couple with the ingenuity and persistence to utilize these resources effectively."

Poseidon, according to some mythologies, is a fertility god, husband of Mother Earth and lord of the physical universe. He is a raw force of nature; this card seems to suggest that the energy that was brought forth creatively will turn "its immense creative potency downward into the world, and it is this fresh emerging need to concretize and create in the manifest world that stands behind all our material ambitions. The individual who can manifest money and make things happen on a worldly level experiences something of the power of this ancient earthy god, and the Ace of Pentacles heralds the eruption of fresh ambition toward material creation and success."

Additionally, I think this card might be saying that it is time to bring treasure up and out of creative, life giving waters. Perhaps even from the realm of the unconscious. Poseidon, being half man and half fish, certainly can live in two worlds. There is bounty to be had here. A very hopeful card, indeed, and rather synchronicitous since I dreamed this morning that I pulled a gorgeous dragon sea creature from salt water and brought it ashore.

My hope here is that this card is signaling success with my creative work in the dream community, poetry contests, and with this book I'm writing for young adults. My intention is that at end's year, I'll will have publications to share with all of you. May it be so!