unconditional love
Shine Your Heart Light This Holiday Season
Times have been tough this year. The alignment of the stars have not been overly kind to most of us. Public health crises, economy, politics, mayhem. And in this atmosphere relationships are even tougher than ever to navigate, especially with Venus and Pluto aligning in Scorpio.
My beloved dad, who passed twelve years ago, often said, “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” Situations or people may appear hopeless and dark in these times, but it is important to remember that even the smallest flicker of just one tiny candle can shine a light for others to hold on to. Astrologer Pam Gregory, reminds us to breath into our heart centers, to raise our vibrations. In doing so, each one of us can be that tiny candle, flickering in the dark.
The holidays will bring families together. But holidays can either be celebratory occasion of merriment and cheer… or a war zone of toxic viewpoints and unwelcome meddling. It can often be an unresolved issues ‘free-for-all.’ A nosy sibling might tell you what they think, while you did not ask their opinion! Or, Uncle Bob may dip a little too frequently into the spiked eggnog, drowning all the fa-la-la in his wake.
It occurs to me now that the happy Bing Crosby tune Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive I heard on the radio earlier was no accident.
You’ve got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between
You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene
Raise Your Vibration With Love And Light
Everything is energy, vibration, and frequency. Everything! Changing your vibration changes your frequency. This can lift the veil between dimensions. You will see things differently. Your intuition will evolve.
If you think limitation, you are limitation. If you think abundance, your are abundance. If you send the universe messages that you deserve something, positive or negative, the universe will send that to you in return. Positive or negative.
I often have clients ask why they keep attracting a certain kind of romantic partner. In my experience the issue is not in the attracting of that person, but rather understanding why they stay with that person.
There are many dysfunctional people in the world. So, attracting dysfunctional people is not unusual. But keeping them in your life, putting up with them, being intimate with them, and marrying them is not about them and their dysfunction. It’s about you. Your vibration is sending out a signal that you believe you deserve that kind of person. If you believe you deserve dysfunction, you will attract dysfunction.
We all meet at least one mentally healthy, well-adjusted person in our lifetime that we were not attracted to. Why? Our vibration was low or not in resonance with that person’s energy.
How do we raise our vibration? By engaging with input energies with high vibration frequencies. If you watch television, watch ‘higher vibration’ television. Bad reality TV, violence, horror movies and crime shows lower your vibration and attract darker energies on all dimensions. Too much radiation from phones, computers and television sets also lowers our vibration.
Lifestyle choices also determine our energetic frequency. Drugs and alcohol lower our vibration. Same goes for processed food with chemicals, additives and pesticides lower our vibration. Conversations that are petty, gossipy, and negative not only degrades others, but also lowers our vibration. Fear, anxiety and anger also lower our vibration.
Learning To Check In With Spirit
It is likely you have a friend, co-worker or relative that is in an unhealthy or even abusive relationship. We all know people who are kind, sweet, giving, and thoughtful, who become involved with emotionally absent, dysfunctional, abusive partners.
I know someone who is currently in such a situation. Her loving nature and generosity far exceeds anything I have ever experienced in another person, and I count myself exceptionally lucky to have her as my friend.
We have known each other for many years, but have only recently developed a much closer relationship, because we have both experienced a deep loss in recent years. Grief and bereavement becomes somewhat more tolerable if one has a close friendship in which you can safely express and share your sorrow.
Judging by my friend’s gentle, kind nature one might expect she would be with a life partner who has similar traits and appreciates her, but shockingly she is in one of the most toxic relationships I have ever encountered. She is not being physically assaulted, but she is subjected to unbearable verbal and emotional abuse.
It has been going on for a very long time. I continue to offer her my unconditional love and support but feel at a loss beyond that. I have asked her why she is still in that situation with so very little to indicate there will ever be any miraculous changes? But she has always evaded these questions.
Recently, she finally confessed her reason for staying with him: she is worried about what people might think and say if she leaves him! I asked her what people? She replied, her friends and family. They might find fault with her for breaking up the family.
Stop Blocking Yourself!
Have you ever felt like your life is just going nowhere, or you can’t connect emotionally to another person? At these times there is always one thing after another, and events in your life simply don’t seem to ‘gel’, or go right. Maybe you can’t get the job you want, or you are lonely.
There are so many barriers we have to deal with, but there is a way to overcome all of this. The best way to do it is by truly knowing yourself – through self-discovery – and by letting go of people and material things that hold you back.
So many times we invest so much wasted energy in people-pleasing. Instead of constantly trying to please others, we could use this time to live a happier life, with greater more spiritual awareness, which will in turn make us much more useful in our service to others. Instead we spend so much time thinking about things we may have done wrong, the wrong others have done to us and regretting what we could have done differently
When we try and reason about our mistakes it just leads to anguish, because we have a lack of faith – faith in God and in ourselves. But, if we go before the thrown of God and get on bended knees, we will find that inner peace, grace and forgiveness that so many people venture off to far of places, looking to find. That inner peace and joy is always there and available, we just have to look up!
Also, we are concerning ourselves too much with the things of the world, putting too much value on financial success and material possessions. These can become obstacles that keep us from connecting with those we love, or want to love. It is pure self-sabotage.
The Fierce Journey To The Heart Of The Goddess
There are many divine beings around us throughout our lifetime. When I do a reading, a variety of angels, spirit guides, ascended masters, and goddess archetypes may show up to lend their wisdom, love, and guidance to my clients, for whatever situation they are going through.
Not only do we have guardian angels constantly with us, but we also have various ‘inner band’ and ‘outer band’ spirit guides who interchange through different periods and cycles in our lifetime. We also have deities or higher-level beings with us during certain times.
Recently I have had many encounters with the goddess Kuan Yinin during readings. She is the Buddhist bodhisattva associated with compassion and was first known as the ‘goddess of mercy’ among Jesuit missionaries in China. Guanyin, Guan Yin or Kuan Yin, is short for Kuan-shi Yin, meaning she who ‘observes the cries of humanity.’
She is a popular goddess in Chinese folk religion and worshipped in many communities and cultures all over the world. In the mid-17th century outlawed Christians in Japan created statues of the Catholic Virgin Mary disguised as Kuan Yin, known as the ‘Maria Kannon.’
I have always associated her with compassion, kindness, and forgiveness, but I was recently reminded that Kuan Yin rides a dragon! This makes a lot of sense to me, now that I have examined her legend more closely.
Kuan Yin is teaching us by example. To arrive at a place of compassion and kindness, we must first piece through some uncomfortable feelings of anger, sadness, and fear, to arrive at the ‘heart of the goddess.’ Kuan Yin rides her dragon of fierce bravery through stormy waters and scorching fires. She follows through with the journey to a place of completion and does not avoid the challenges that confront her along the way.
The Wisdom Of The Trees
The annual seasons profoundly affect perennial trees. Each year many species of perennial change color, release their leaves, go dormant, and then come back to life in the spring with new growth.
As humans we could learn a lot from these trees. Firstly, they are naturally in tune with the seasons. They can ebb and flow with the natural order of things. For a season their leaves will gather up energy from the sun for growth. They bask in the light and find nourishment. And they can do this because of their ability to release the old when the time comes.
There are times in our lives when we also need to release the old things from the past. All our life experiences have natural course and expiry date to them. All our relationships in this physical life are also temporary experiences. Knowing this allows us to be in the flow with the cycles of life and the afterlife.
Too often we resolutely cling to the past, which causes us to feel stuck or keeps us from developing the types of relationships and experiences we truly want. If the trees were to hold on to their old dead leaves, there would be no room nor energy for further growth. It would be impossible for them to thrive and be nourished by the sun.
There is also no way for trees to perpetually grow. One time I planted a tree late in the season. I gave it lots of nourishment, but over the winter it died off. By fertilizing the tree, I was creating a condition that would not allow it to survive. The fall is when trees release their leaves so the wood can harden off.
Too often people want to run to the next experience, and the next experience. Or they they try to make an experience last indefinitely. They want to make the ‘summer’ of their peak human experiences last forever. They never give themselves the opportunity to let go and properly grieve what has been, in order to recenter and become stable and energized for the next spring.
It is important for us to acknowledge our actual life experiences and move through the winter seasons in a way that prepares us for the next season. There is a temptation to just keep running to the next experience or next relationship to satiate a previous painful experience. However, in doing so we create situations that are toxic and unsustainable.
Life Invites You To Dance
In the quietude of the morning, as the sun gently rises with a golden glow glistening through the trees, I feel a calm within reflecting the clear blue sky. The season is changing. The heavy heat and humidity of summer has dissolved into an idyllic balance of coolness, warmth, and lightness in the air.
It is a time of transition, moving toward autumn, but not fully there yet. For me, it is a season of revitalization and renewed inspiration. The vastness of nature expands all around and the interconnectedness of every soul within it reaches the forefront of my awareness.
Today, I will be intuitively teaching a dancing with nature class at the World Peace Sanctuary nearby. All of life is a dance with nature and its Creator. We are invited into that partnership and party of life, to move together in joy and harmony.
But how do we join the flow? It begins at the feet, at the root of the tree of life. In Srimad-Bhagavatam, the great celestial sage Narada instructs, “As pouring water on the root of a tree energizes the trunk, branches, twigs and everything else, and as supplying food to the stomach enlivens the senses and limbs of the body, simply worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead through devotional service automatically satisfies the demigods, who are parts of that Supreme Personality.”
Not only are angels, nature spirits, and demigods part of the tree, but so are we. Like leaves upon it, we are connected not only with the twigs, branches, and trunk, but with the root, the very source and sustenance of all life. By watering that root with our whole-hearted attention and intention, we are nourished, supplied, and satisfied.
But what does this mean practically? It means peace and growth rest not in pursuit of individual desires, but in harmony with and service to Divine desires. Endeavoring to serve separate interests is futile and unfulfilling, just as watering the leaves and limbs of a tree individually would be. They would dry up and die if simply watered separately. Continue reading