ancestors
Multi-Tasking Does Not Cultivate A Quality Life
I’m sure there has been a time in your life when you may have been too active on a hot summer, day without adequately hydrating, or juggling far too many tasks at once without taking a break. While you may have crossed the finish line, or pleased your boss by checking off all the tasks you completed, your sense of well-being was probably rock bottom, and your nerves frazzled. You possibly also questioned whether or not the best version of yourself showed up for life the next day.
Although many of us have found ways to multi-task our hectic lives, research is increasingly showing that effective multi-tasking is in fact a myth. Working on multiple projects at once doesn’t necessarily make us high achievers, or a successful super humans. Multitasking for most individuals merely replaces quality with quantity, and often leaves us feeling overwhelmed and disconnected from our deeper purpose.
As a spiritualist, I make it a practice not to judge how others achieve their everyday objectives and goals. But I do counsel many people who seem to have traded quantity for quality in their lives, and are missing out on the gift of savoring the sweet taste of personal achievement that is purposely focused and uninterrupted.
While old habits are tough to break, each of us has the innate capacity to build new processes within our mind. Psychological tools, such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) for example, can be used to re-program the mind to think differently.
Metaphysics and New Thought spirituality also teaches that through positive thinking we can manifest healthier outcomes in all areas of our lives. Many indigenous peoples also have a long tradition of spiritual practices, such as vision quests, dream interpretation, divination, and rituals and ceremonies, to help seekers find their best path.
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.’
My Great Grandmother’s Mysterious ‘Sugar Cookies’
My great grandmother made incredible cookies. She called them “sugar cookies,” but perhaps a more appropriate name for them might have been mysterious mystical magic cookies! Everyone loved them – youngsters like myself, as well as our family’s elders, and every age in-between.
Those cookies still bring back so many wonderful memories. They had a special aroma of freshly-baked delight that wafted all the way outside her kitchen window and down the lane beside her charming little home, where she lived with my great grandfather. As a child I couldn’t wait to get to their house, so that I could partake of those delectable sweet treats.
They were round, but not perfectly round. They had that authentic homemade look, which made them even more exquisite to my childlike enthusiasm. And, there was a rather unique spiciness among the ingredients; it was a spice that I had never tasted before in anything else. Oh, my! I especially loved the barely charred edges they usually had, as a result of leaving them in the oven a bit longer than necessary. Those crisp little edges made them all the tastier to me.
I remember sitting at her kitchen table, watching her scoop up the ingredients, one by one, and adding them to her mixing bowl. I didn’t know how much of each ingredient she was using, because she never used a measuring cup. She just knew how much to add of everything. I believe this style of instinctively cooking from scratch is practically becoming a lost art, with all the digital recipes and modern utensils we use nowadays to cook even the simplest of things. And perhaps some of the true character and originality has also been lost in many of our ancestors’ recipes.
Leaving Your Spiritual Footprint
A footprint is an impression left behind by a human foot or shoe on the ground or some other surface. If you have ever been at the beach, you have probably noticed that this is the one place where a footprint is so easily and readily left behind. It I also not too difficult to determine if the impression was left by a an adult, or a small child. But have you gone any further than merely noticing those footprints? Have you ever wondered where does the person live who left that footprint? What is their education and career? What is their current relationship status? What is the life and legacy embedded in each of those imprints?
Human souls also leave behind their ‘metaphysical footprint’ by fulfilling their spiritual calling and soul purpose in their lifetime. The more exceptional or extraordinary ones are written about in our history books. They are great teachers, prophets and spiritual leaders that have left a discernible legacy behind when they departed from this world. When any person takes on a cause, with sometimes the most forceful opposition, to create an new and improved world for the common good, it is always an indicator that a spiritual footprint is being made.
Saint Teresa of Calcutta, simply known as Mother Theresa, for example, is certainly a spiritual icon that has left a well-established footprint of compassion, kindness and charity that continues to be recognized all over the world. We do not expect her to have been a perfect person, but the sincerity and love that she professed for some of the most spurned and downtrodden cannot be denied by anyone. It is to me abundantly clear that she indeed left a footprint of love, compassion and acceptance which equates at the end of the day to her being totally connected to and aligned with spirit.