spiritual awareness
The Magical Energy Of The Moon
The Moon has a powerful influence on our lives. Not only does it determine the tides of the ocean and how plants grow, but you may have noticed it also affects our mood! Connecting to the powerful phases of the Moon can bring enlightenment to your life by way of the moon’s cycles and movement. It can shape our lives and the choices we make. Being in tune with the Moon’s powerful energy can bring you greater awareness of body, mind and soul.
Depending how the Sun, Moon and Earth align on a particular day, only a part of the Moon is usually visible to us. The tracking of the Moon’s phases goes back thousands of year in various spiritual traditions and cultural customs. Traditionally, the New Moon is considered to be the start of the month and a good time to start anew. And the Full Moon is seen as a time of celebration, delight, and mystery.
A Full Moon occurs every 29.5 days, when the Earth is situated directly between the Sun and the Moon, making it appear to us on Earth as a complete circle… illuminated and breathtaking! Native Americans relied on the Moon to guide them in daily life. They gave symbolic names for each of the Full Moons, based on the unique events of each particular month of the year.
January – Wolf Moon
The January Moon is thus named due to the cold, snowy winters, when wolves would howl hungrily outside tribal villages, looking for food. January’s Full Moon is also known as ‘Old Moon’ and ‘Ice Moon.’
February – Snow Moon
February’s Full Moon is named for the abundant snow that usually occurs during the month. The snow made it hard to hunt, and food in the winter was scarce. Therefore it is also known as the ‘Hunger Moon.’
How To Live A More Spiritually Aware Life
To lead a more spiritual, and therefore a happier and more fulfilled life, you do not need to develop a passion for incense, or hire a guru to assist you in going through some form of spiritual awakening. Instead, you may be comfortable with more down to earth approach.
Firstly, it is important to recognize that religion and spirituality are not necessarily the same things. Religion is just one form of spiritual practice. Spirituality itself is something that comes from within the individual.
Spiritual awareness is a sustained belief that there is much more to life than meets the eye, something greater than yourself, even though you have no evidence for it. Hold onto this belief or feeling, as it is very, very real!
One of the best ways to get in touch with your spirituality is to spend time in nature. It does not matter whether you live, in a town, city, or rural area, connecting with nature is imperative, as it will help to bring a sense of peace to your overworked mind, and it will uplift your spirit with its rejuvenating power. By doing so, it will assist with your spiritual development.
To become more spiritually aware it is also important to learn to control your inner dialogue. Becoming a more spiritual person involves monitoring your inner voice and making sure that your self-talk is healthy. Meditation can be particularly helpful in this respect, as well as recognizing any negative thought patterns or false beliefs that you may have.
Choosing A Spiritual Path With Heart
There are many blind choices we make when we are too young or inexperienced to make the best decisions for ourselves. We are born into a family, or raised in a culture, for example, with its unique traditions and beliefs, or lack thereof, and we are usually quite susceptible in our youth to these influences.
In the process of becoming an adult, the questioning of such beliefs and traditions leads us towards who we will become, to discovering what truly resonates with us, and what does not. But this is something we may have taken lightly in our youth, and therefore needs to be looked over several times in our life to find out with real sincerity what is truly calling us.
It is possible that being born in a traditional Christian home, for example, we felt constrained and limited, even small and powerless, ultimately causing us to reject all dogmatic religion. For someone else, brought up maybe in an atheist home, the search for God or faith may bring a profound sense of empowerment and life purpose that nurtures their life. It all depends on us as individuals, and how we process our own reality.
Carlos Castaneda writes in The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, “Before you embark on any path ask the question: does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him.”
Entering The Lions Gate
We are fast approaching the metaphysically significant date of 8/8 this month – a day that is known as The Lions Gate. This is an excellent time to take a look a look at what meaningful events have occurred in your life over the last year, as well as any wounds that may have been triggered for us.
The Lions Gate is a time of alignment of the Earth, the star Sirius, and the galactic center. As Sirius rises in the sky, Orion’s Belt directly aligns with the Pyramid of Giza. The alignment is called Lions Gate, because it occurs when the Sun is in the astrological sign of Leo.
Sirius is known as our ‘Spiritual Sun.’ We are constantly bathed in the cosmic rays generated by the Sirius system, which includes Sirius A, the larger star, and its binary twin, the dwarf star, known as Sirius B.
The ancient Egyptians celebrated the New Year at this time of Sirius’s heliacal rise, or first appearance on the Eastern horizon just before sunrise. This was also the time of year when the Nile River would flood, bringing life and fertility to the fields. It is interesting to note that the ancient Egyptians somehow knew of the existence of the dwarf star, Sirius B, despite the fact that it is not visible to the naked eye.
Around July 6, Sirius is conjunct to our Sun, starting a phase of its closest proximity to our solar system, and there is upswing in the cosmic rays which infuse us with photon light energy, light codes and divine wisdom. These cosmic rays, with all its spiritual information and activations, are automatically received by all life on Earth, as well as the planet herself.
The Unseen Spirit World Around Us
While traveling this summer, I stayed at in a vacation rental home on the coast of Oregon. It is an older house which has been completely gutted and redone from floor to ceiling. It has every finishing touch you could imagine and is across the street from the beach.
One day, while sitting in the master bedroom with the door partially open, I thought I saw a white, sheepdog push the door open with his nose to come in and greet me. He looked quite happy with his tail wagging. He was adorable and filled with loving energy. I blinked my eyes and looked again, but he was gone? I then realized I had just seen a dog in spirit, who used to live in that house.
Many people have this type of occurrence happen on a daily basis, but do not understand or trust what they see. Often we glimpse things out of the corner of our eye, or peripheral vision, but most of us interpret this as simply being due to our imagination. We thought we saw something, but there was nothing there when we looked again. Unfortunately, our modern culture encourages us to trust only our logical, linear mind over our intuition.
When Spirit shows up in the form of our deceased loved ones from the Other Side, and this includes our departed pets, we can become aware of them through our psychic senses. People who are more sensitive tend to be able to pick up on the subtle presence of Spirits who come to visit.
Honor Your Most Magnificent Self This Summer
Taking time to experience the wonder of the summer season truly is medicine for the soul. My favorite summer activities include dipping my toes in a nearby lake or ocean, feeling the healing energy of the natural quartz sand against my skin, and finding renewal in the essence of the season.
Too often we move through our days and weeks completely engulfed in work, and the chatter of the bustling world. Our lives tend to be caught up in the motion of the world, with little time for self-care and centering.
Many of us awake in the mornings to the national news that often leaves us drained even before our day begins. We shower, have breakfast, down a cup of coffee, and anxiously show up for our families and our careers.
Many hours later, we return to our homes, where we are met with even more news via network and cable outlets, competing with their own spin on identical breaking stories. We reach for our smart phones or laptops and headlines scroll across our screens. When is enough truly enough?
In light of the endless social and environmental concerns permeating our planet, our species is globally experiencing stress like never before. But surely the Divine Presence within our amazing Universe would not leave us stranded on Planet Earth without the tools to transcend stress and what seems like utter chaos.
Spiritual Hypnosis
Did you know that there are parts of your consciousness from which your spiritual being transmits? Many of us tend to trudge forward on a little known path toward finality, oblivious to our spiritual being. We often only dwell in the here and now of the conscious mind, and we forget or neglect those aspects of us that pertain to our higher spiritual self.
Each one of us has a spiritual mind. It’s our wise mind, the all knowing self, which guides us to seek peace, to love one another, and to forgive others, as well as ourselves. It calls us to be healers in every sense of the word, to seek bliss and enlightenment, and to have a better human life in a better way.
Some hypnotherapists, who practice spiritual hypnosis, define our different levels of consciousness as follows:
The Conscious Mind – from which comes everyday thoughts, actions, logic and judgment
The Subconscious Mind – where all your life experiences, memories, feeling, habits, and reactions associated with them, are stored, as well as our unconscious body actions such as heart beat, breathing, digestion, bio-action, and so on.
The Super-Conscious Mind – the I am of the higher self, of unconditional love, light, and wisdom; being of peace, compassion, forgiveness and the bliss of enlightenment.
The Unconscious Mind – the over-soul of all incarnations of lifetimes; stored karma.