soul
Everyone Is An Artist
Art is a powerful form of self-expression. It allows us to communicate complex emotions and spiritual concepts through various mediums such as the visual and fine arts, music, dance, acting, creative writing, and so on.
When we are being creative we connect with the subconscious part of ourselves. This can be a powerfully healing experience to help us process and integrate our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and life experiences on a deep level.
When we are children, we don’t have any preconceived ideas about art. If you observe young children, you’ll see this very clearly. They don’t worry about how ‘good’ an artist they are. Most kids just see art as a form of play. They love to draw, or paint, or color, and are typically pretty thrilled with their creations.
So, what happens along the way that we become so self-conscious about our artistic endeavors? It seems to me that at some point most people have had ‘the artist’ within subtly discouraged or silenced. Whatever the case may be,suffice it to say that life takes over at some point and being creative artistically takes a back seat.
“I was never very good at it anyway,” or “I just did it for fun,” are common remarks I’ve heard from people. But what’s wrong with not being very good at something? Especially if it’s fun? Moreover, the benefits of spending time being creative are vast! Art Therapy is growing in popularity and more studies are being done around this modality.
One particular study focused on people with chronic illness or cancer. The researchers looked at the impact visual art activities such as painting, drawing, and pottery had on patients and found that art helped to distract them from thoughts of illness.
Art therapy improved their well-being by decreasing negative emotions and improving positive ones. Depression levels were also reduced, and medical outcomes improved overall. There were also reductions in stress, anxiety, and distress. Further there were improvements in the patients’s spontaneity, expression of their grief, positive identity and social interactions.
The Soul Future Of Past Relationships
To outward appearances, endings are a structural matter – now there is a relationship, now there is no relationship. From the soul point of view, ending is a different experience of the relationship.
Ending is not literal at all, but rather a radical shift in imagination. For example, a woman’s father passes on. In her soul the relationship may now intensify and may become the dominant myth shaping her other relationships, her career, and every other aspect of her life.
Memories of her father may now become more vivid than ever, and new feelings may surface. He may be more influential in her life now than when he was alive.
Another example might be a man who divorces his wife, thinking that now his thoughts will turn toward a new life. With the struggle of decision and separation now passed, feelings formerly nudged out of awareness now come to the forefront.
Completely unexpectedly, he now has dreams of her seducing him, suggesting that in some way ‘she’ now has renewed desired for him. Years later, he says what many people say: “I didn’t have to go through that divorce. If only I had known then what I know now…”
Apparently there is something in every relationship that is eternal, that goes on forever, and that wants to be exempted from the life-decision to cut ties. If you are experiencing this, it is not your imagination. You are simply being quite human.
Obviously, our relationships are not as simple or as limited in scope as we sometimes like to think them to be. There are only so many people we come to know in a lifetime, and an even smaller number with whom we live intimately. Continue reading
Soulmates Are A Divine Grace
Soulmate connections are a very real and powerful phenomenon, but many people find it difficult to determine whether someone truly is a soulmate, or not.
In my experience a soulmate is someone to whom we feel deeply connected, as though the communicating and communing that take place between you were not the product of intentional efforts, but rather a divine grace. This kind of relationship is so important to the soul that many have said there is nothing more precious in life.
We may find a soulmate in many different forms of relationships and in all areas of our lives, including friendship, marriage, work, family and recreation. We even find it with a delightful ‘critter’ – the pets we feel that special connection with.
Many times, when a soulmate first comes into our life, we have that feeling of familiarity as if we have known them before. Often, indeed, we have known them in a past life or many previous lives.
The famous American psychic Edgar Cayce stated that a soulmate is an individual who we have an ongoing connection with. The soul picks up on this longstanding connection with that person again and again in various times and places and over many lifetimes.
Most importantly, Cayce further stated that we tend to be attracted to another person at a soul level, because by being with that individual, we are somehow provided with “an impetus to become whole ourselves”. This is also known as ‘soul recognition’. We are therefore not drawn to our soulmate simply because that person is our unique complement.
My Near-Death Experience
About 12 years ago, right before Christmas, I had a lot going on in my life. I was taking care of my two kids and my brother. My cousin had a three-month-old baby, whose mother was in the hospital with complications due to diabetes. He brought me his new baby and asked if they could stay with us, and if I could care for his son while he worked. He was working the night shift, from around 7pm till 4am. Of course, I said I would help in any way I could.
Between my kids’ and my brother’s schedules, and now this new baby who was colicy, I was exhausted at the end of the second week. Somehow, I also got food poisoning. Never having had food poisoning before, I didn’t know the symptoms and thought I had a touch of stomach flu. Being so tired, I hadn’t realized how sick I actually was. After about 18 hours of fluid loss, I become so dehydrated that I had a seizure. My eyes rolled into the back of my head and I fell down. Apparently, I was clinically dead for around 1½ minutes.
I did not experience all of the typical near-death phenomena. There was not any floating over my body; there was no white light, no tunnel. I was simply here and then I was there. The first thing I remember is walking along a sort of grassy path. I don’t remember turning around to look behind me, but, I just knew that there was a darkness from which I came, back there.
There were two people there to greet me. A woman and a man, the woman spoke to me first, and the man was a little ways behind her. Today, I could not tell you who these people were. But, when I was there, I was so glad to see them. It was like when I had sent my kids to summer camp, and they were gone for all those summer months, and I missed them terribly. It was the same feeling I got when seeing my children for the first time returning home. I had a deep love and bond with these two people.
The next thing I remember is that I was taken to the top of a mountain. There was no journey to get there, I was just there. The only way to describe the mountain is that it was like standing on top of Pikes Peak and looking out. I was so high up that the only thing I could see was blue sky.
The Spirits Of The Mountains Are My Soulmates
There are times in our lives when we know that our inspirations are coming from something beyond the personality. These visions come from a land beyond the physical, even beyond words. They are concepts we have no words for, we have only our inner knowing. The personality moves over and we find ourselves relying upon something beyond the five senses, or sheer logic.
Perhaps that sixth sense is the emerging force, which is the next step in the evolution of the human race. A developing being knows it is no longer appropriate to depend only upon the physical world. This being will develop the skills it needs to see and feel and work within the unseen territory of the soul.
Once we acknowledge the soul’s existence and approach it with respect and sacredness, the personality becomes aligned with the soul. With this alignment comes respect for all life, and many difficulties usually experienced with the unconscious personality can be avoided.
When our soul becomes mindful and directly involved with the physical world, we greet each day with the deepest part of ourselves, and all activities become gratifying and purposeful. It is the gratitude that we give each day that gets us off the karmic wheel of debt, because we now see the sacredness of all life. W
I have much to be grateful for. The desert’s barrenness, along with the mountains’ majesty, stripped me of my ego long enough to allow the healing forces of the sagebrush to greet my soul. Sage has healed my physical body during illness, my emotional and mental bodies during depressions and confusion, and it has healed my soul of desolation.
Promise Of The Stones
Those of us who find ourselves drawn to stones or minerals are called to be servants of the soul of the world. Our teachers, showing us the way to do this, are the stones, and what they have to teach is far, far beyond anything we can possibly imagine. The stones are spirit beings who through millions of years of development are embodied with great healing and wisdom.
Rocks, minerals, crystals and gemstones are known in traditional shamanism as “the stone people.” They are the original beings of who came long before the plant people, standing people (trees), animal people and the human people. Philosopher Alan Watts said in one of his talks, “Rocks are not dead…minerals are a rudimentary form of consciousness.”
For this reason, they are much older and wiser than us humans and we can learn much from them, especially when it comes to energy work and healing.
The spiritual-metaphysical properties of stones are the promise, as spoken by the stones, of what could happen if we approach them as living beings. It is their promise and has to be heard and felt on their terms, not in the terms of our personality needs.
For example, if a stone promises prosperity, to take that offering literally is to abuse the meaning of the stone, for ‘prosperity’ spoken in an intimate relationship cannot possibly mean “you are going to make me materially rich.” If I say to a dear friend, lovingly, with all my heart, “I wish you prosperity,” I am not saying, “You will become materially wealthy because we are related!” What I am saying is that because of our intimacy, your soul will prosper and the world will shine brighter.
Truths In Your Astrological Chart
An astrological chart can be a wonderful tool – a marvelous means of gaining insight into who we are as a person. Reading your astrological chart and having it interpreted correctly is the only way to be able to use this tool effectively.
Many people think that their Sun Sign is the only important aspect to know, and little do they realize that it is a mere piece of the astrological puzzle.
We are complex beings, made up of a variety of astrological aspects. It is important to combine all these elements and influences, in order to truly function at the level of which we are capable. The world around us needs a combination of things to ensure the continuation of life and we are exactly the same.
If you over water a plant you can kill it. Too much, or too little, fresh air and sunlight may or may not damage a plant. We are just another expression of nature, except that we have arms and legs.
For example, a young lady has her Sun in Taurus, her Moon and her Venus in Aries and her Ascendant (or rising sign) in Libra. Let’s go one further, and say that all these planets fall into her Seventh House. Can you determine what this young lady’s Achilles heel might be? In other words, what might her downfall or her soft spot be?
The answer is love. The reason for this is that her Moon (who she is on the inside, her deepest darkest self) is in Aries – a fiery passionate sign, prone to impulse. Her Venus is also in Aries, and her rising sign Libra (the ultimate lover). They are all in or near enough to the seventh house, which rules love and partners, to just about control every aspect of her being, until she has been properly ‘broken in’, just like you would a wild horse.
She has great, harsh lessons to learn in her life about love. She will, no doubt, while she is younger and more resilient (at least in her mind) fall in love many times a day, and for each moment give it her absolute all.