metaphysics
The Power Of Mindfulness
Many spiritual and metaphysical teachers focus much attention on spiritual practices like meditation and mindfulness. The goal of these practices is to allow our consciousness to shift away from the past and the future, to focus instead on the present moment.
It is important to understand that the past is over. There is nothing taking place in the past any longer. This is important to understand if someone has a habit of rehashing the past in their mind. It doesn’t matter if someone is focusing on positive past experiences or negative events. Too much attention on the past is never useful.
The future is another area where people expend a lot of mental attention. Fantasy and worry are the two most common focuses when obsessing over the future. However, there is no amount of fantasy or worry that can ever make someone’s life better.
When we expend too much of our energy on the past or future, we are sacrificing the precious present moment. For this reason many spiritual teachings and traditions encourage mindfulness and meditation. These practices allow us to recognize our daily thought patterns and help us gain an understanding of where our attention is focused.
The present is the only moment that is real and that truly matters. This is where everything is happening – in the now. This is also the only moment where you have any real power.
Aligning Yourself With Abundance
We tend to focus a lot of mental and emotional energy on abundance and prosperity. Which is a good thing. As humans we are meant to live an abundant life. However, I have talked to many clients that have been focusing their attention on abundance, but say that they only experience lack.
From a metaphysical and spiritual perspective there are several reasons why this may occur. The first is that people are often unclear about what they want. Second, it is common for individuals to invest their energies on limited mindsets about abundance, or a lack of trust. The third primary reason why people don’t achieve what they say they want, is that they focus on what is absent, rather than on what is present in their lives.
The first challenge, that many of us must overcome to experience true abundance, is to be clear about what we really want. Too often people seeking abundance simply think that a certain amount of money in their lives will fix their problems. However, abundance is often less about money, and more about a personal sense of security and stability.
True abundance is not the amount of money one has in the bank. Abundance is about having enough time and freedom to do what we want to do in our lives. True abundance is the freedom to achieve personal goals and enough energy to create happy and fulfilling relationships. And yes, money too. Money is certainly one factor to the equation. However, many things that people say that they want can be achieved without having access to a limitless amount of money.
The Halloween Ghost In The Art Gallery
A couple of decades ago, I was opening a new location in downtown Santa Fe for the owner of a chain of art galleries. As a gallery director by profession at the time, I was excited for this opportunity. Furthermore, it was an interesting location from a metaphysical perspective, due to its previous occupants. Once upon a time, it had been a part of the local bus station, and it was directly across a former burro alley from one of Santa Fe’s oldest hotels.
I noticed a subtle, yet potent energy in the gallery space from the beginning of the endeavor. Clearly, some spiritual entity was attempting to direct the gallery through me, and had other ideas about what kind of art should be displayed here! Of course, it did not match the kind of work the absentee owner had in mind. But I was being pushed psychically to consider more traditional pieces, as opposed to the contemporary focus that the living owner required.
An interesting event happened when I hired a contractor to build some art storage, which was also to serve as a divider between the showroom space of the gallery and the office area. Every time the contractor would work on the new art storage bins, there would be a kind of rustling noise after he left. It was unmistakable, yet every time I would try to locate the source of the noise it would stop, as if by magic.
The Phenomenon Of Out-Of-Body Experiences
An out-of-body experience (OBE) is a phenomenon that can happen after surgery, when we experience severe trauma, during meditation, astral travel, and so on. They are also associated with near-death-experiences (NDE). It is usually characterized by a feeling of leaving your physical body, or observing yourself from outside your body. I have experienced this phenomenon several times in my life.
Reports of OBEs vary from person to person, but they often involve the sense of floating above one’s body, or looking down on yourself. You may also see a bright light during an OBE, and sometimes colors and a warm, pleasant sensation. Some people see deceased family members.
In my experience an out-of-body experience is a unique opportunity to step outside of our physical existence into the spiritual realm. Sometimes we experience this because our soul needs to ‘restart.’ So, when you are in a state of meditation, or when you are feeling relaxed, or sedated after surgery, this may happen to realign the body and soul.
Part of the soul’s purpose is to keep the vessel (our body) alive. Our soul is connected to a silver cord, much like an umbilical cord, which keeps things intact, so that we can always come back to our body after an OBE.
Taking On Karmic Debt
If a person broke into my home and committed a robbery, the police would definitely be called, charges would be laid, and the ramifications of that particular act would remain in the capable hands of the legal system. Since this is a willful, intentional act, that individual deserves whatever consequences would be dished out to him.
His ongoing problem, which he may not be aware of, is that although he would be paying his penalty, perhaps with a prison sentence or something similar, he still would be accumulating also a karmic debt. This he most likely would not even consider at the time.
Karmic debts do not disappear. One must always account for them at some given time. It is a universal law that never wavers.
You would most assuredly agree with me that this kind of crime is a clear one that is easily interpreted. A person wanted what was not his. However, this did not deter him. He knowingly, on a conscience level, sought to commit an unlawful act, despite the grief and trauma it might cause his victim. His wrongdoing is plain to see and, despite restitution or an apology, profound damage was done to the owner of the property he stole.
But suppose another character committed a different kind of crime. One that was not so blatantly noticeable, however, it caused the same emotional harm to another, or possibly even worse. The person might knowingly and willingly create a scenario that leads to a series of events that becomes extremely traumatic or detrimental to another.
Developing Your Spirit Communication Skills
Spirit communication is the process of sending and receiving information to and from the spirit realm. This process can sometimes be overwhelming for individuals. The spirit realm and nature sends us inspiration, messages, comfort and guidance. In every moment of every day we receive information. Are we deciphering that information correctly? Are we also clear in our requests to Spirit?
There are many ways spirit communicates with us. For example, a synchronistic song playing on the radio, which we associate with a loved one in Spirit; unusual behaviors, or unexpected appearances of animals, birds or insects; seeing so-called ‘angel numbers’ or synchronistic clock times like 11:11 or 12:12; Ouija board messages, as well as Tarot and oracle card signs; pendulum dowsing; and dreams.
Then there are messages relayed by intuitives, psychics and mediums during professional readings, using the clair senses, channeling, divination and mediumship. These modes of communication can be natural for some, but also a developed skill for others.
Were you a child that had imaginary friends or saw relatives who were dead? If so, then you have the innate capability pre-developed, but you may need to enhance and strengthen your communication ability. Not to become a professional psychic reader, but to be better connected in life. Strengthening comes through discipline, commitment and a passion to be of service.
Easy Manifesting Ritual For Today’s New Moon
Today’s New Moon offers a great opportunity to invite new growth and fresh opportunity into your life. The New Moon is a time of rising power and an ideal time for new beginnings and manifesting your desires. This is the perfect moment to set your intention for a new love, a new job, a new home, or any new project you may have been planning.
The phases of the Moon do not imply that the Moon changes in any way. It is the relative position of the Earth and the Moon that changes, creating a variety of angles in which we receive the sunlight reflected off the surface of the moon.
A full lunar cycle is approximately 29 days. The moon ‘grows’ from New Moon and gets ‘bigger,’ until it reaches a Full Moon, after which it recedes again. The eight Moon Phases in order are New moon, Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full moon, Waning Gibbous, Third Quarter, and finally Waxing Crescent.
The lunar cycle does not fully coincide with a calendar month. Some months may have two New Moons, while others only one. When there are two New Moons in the same months, the second one is called a Black Moon and it occur about every 32 months. The New Moon is considered, in most spiritual traditions, the start of the lunar cycle.