Spirituality
The Disappointed Jesus In London
To be fair, I did not visit to the city of London solely for esoteric purposes, but I found the energy signature quite different and stark there, compared to Athens and Berlin.
I found the atmosphere in Berlin, for example, electric, yet peaceful. Stepping off the U-Bahn at Wittenberg Platz in the middle of the high season, I was engulfed by a comforting low-level hum of German families and tourists doing their Saturday afternoon window shopping. The people here did not seem to have a care in the world. The streets were crowded , much like that of London, but not once did I feel a sense of angst or claustrophobia. The warm buzz was actually quite welcoming and pleasant… and this is major coming from a highly strung empath like myself.
Berlin woke me up on a Sunday morning with the nostalgic chiming of church bells. I was staying inside one of the surviving wings of the Neues Schauspielhaus on Nollendorf Platz, in the Schöneberg district of Berlin. It was built in 1905 as a theatre and concert hall, in the then fashionable Art Nouveau style. Maybe Bertold Brecht was there in the 1920s, discussing his plays with someone in the very room I slept in that night, or maybe the bands Depeche Mode or The Human League used it as a dressing room in the 1980s. While those bells were ringing in the distance, I almost expected Christopher Isherwood’s character Sally Bowles to sneak down the corridor of this old building, back from a busy, decadent night’s work at the Kit Kat Club cabaret. Continue reading
Spiritual Awakening, Now What?
A few years ago, in the time leading up to 2012, I wrote a blog post about the symptoms of spiritual awakening. Well, here we are in 2014 and some of us are wondering what to do now?
Some of us feel as though we didn’t make it. Some of us are wondering if we made it, but don’t know it? Some feel as though they have awakened, but have hit a plateau and are unsure of what to do next.
All of these examples are types of plateaus we must face in our diverse journeys. I can only offer advice on what I have personally dealt with and come to embrace in my own.
The Shaman’s Schmetterling In Gottsdorf
In my previous blog I shared the story of the sign I received from the ancient oracle during my visit to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Well, the magical presence of the butterfly totem did not end with my visit to Greece. In all of the other countries I was to visit on this particular European tour, I would encounter butterflies at every sacred site, and during special moments I shared with significant others.
The miracle continued when I arrived at a country inn in Gottsdorf, outside Berlin, Germany. This was to be the venue for a four day meditation seminar I was attending. The event was set to take place in a cozy Yoga studio attached to the small hotel.
The moment I entered this room, I noticed a small altar the seminar organizer had set up for the time we would be working in this space. The display was charming and colorful, but that was not what drew my attention. No, what struck me instantaneously was the large, vibrant butterfly hanging on the brick wall behind the altar.
Yes, indeed. I had received yet another mystical route marker along this personal odyssey into self-realization. This time the butterfly was not black and white, like the one who came to whisper in my ear at Delphi. Instead a brightly colored paper butterfly waved hello to me from above! It was like a psychedelic kaleidoscope reminiscent of the shapes one sometimes sees in sacred geometry art… or tie-died T-shirts from the 60s. Continue reading
Nobody Deserves To Be Happy!
Many self-help gurus will espouse the virtues, the sheer righteousness if you will, of deserving to be happy. You deserve to be happy? What does this truly even mean? (meant to be read in a most sarcastic tone of voice with a slight touch of incredulity thrown in for good measure).
I take umbrage, I cry foul to this so called deservedness. What makes you so special? For that matter, what makes me so special? None of us deserve to be happy any more so than the next guy or girl.
People, living breathing people, are being subjected to atrocities all over our planet in ways that some of us cannot even bear to think about, because we’d never sleep cozy in our beds at night if we did. Aren’t these people deserving of this ‘happiness’ also? They often times don’t experience it, because of someone else’s pursuit of happiness. Continue reading
How To Heal A Broken Heart
It can be very difficult to heal from a broken heart. It is no accident that there are so many sad songs written about lost love, and so many stories in magazines and on talk shows about failed love relationships. Many self-help experts proclaim they have the true answer to how to heal a broken heart.
I know from personal experience that it can be one of the hardest things in life to understand and overcome. When I had my heart broken, I used music in healing process, because I could relate what the song was about. Some people prefer to write in a diary to process their thoughts and feelings; sometimes they even write a letter to the former lover to get a few things off their chest. Continue reading
In The Powerful Presence Of The Maiden Goddess
Many centuries have come and gone since the Athenians ascended the Acropolis to seek the guidance and protection of Athena, the maiden goddess of wisdom, war and divine intelligence. Her status as the favorite daughter of Zeus, and powerful patron deity of the city of Athens, remains evident to this day.
Expecting to be mostly drawn to the Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus, when I visited the Acropolis of Athens in Greece*, I was instead keenly aware of the omnipresence of Athena’s legacy. My undergraduate education in literature and drama afforded me a reasonably good understanding of the role of the god Dionysus in ancient Greek culture. I knew about the festivals and plays, and as a student I often imagined visiting the remains of those historic open-air auditoriums. Continue reading
Lou’s Inspirational Story
A friend of a friend always felt a calling to do animal rescue work, and this calling beckoned her to a Swiss-based rescue group called City Dogs in Romania. She saw a picture of a dog named Lou on their website, fell in love with him and arranged for him to be transported from Romania to Switzerland.
There was something special about Lou, and people who have had that special soul connection with a pet will understand this.
When Lou arrived the connection between them was immediate and all seemed fine with him. However, this is what happened after Lou arrived, in my friend’s own words: Continue reading