The Fool’s Way

In the tarot, The Fool is about to set off on a journey. Many versions of the card exist, and quite a few of them show a character about to walk off the edge of a cliff. Some people think the Fool doesn’t know any better. In his innocence, he just doesn’t pay attention well enough to his surroundings and he is just one misstep away from looking the fool!

This is one layer of truth, but what if there was more to it? I have been feeling a strong connection to The Fool for a while now, and I wanted to know more. So, I decided to journey to the energy of The Fool and find out what he brings to me right now. A friend gave me a hand made version of the card for a focus, and what I brought back seemed like it was bigger than me and my life right now. The Fool gave me a monologue and I decided to share it with you in the hopes that you might find something to take away as well:

As I approached The Fool, he reached down and pulled up some grass. Holding it up for me to see, he said, “This isn’t real.” I was still trying to decide if that was a foolish or a deep statement when he reached out and pinched me. As I yelped, he noted, “That isn’t real, either.” With one swipe of his hand encompassing the entire scene before us, he added, “None of this is real. Knowing that is important.

“You are afraid of getting hurt, of falling, because you think you have been here before. I tell you that you have never walked this path, so how can you know you will get hurt? Did others tell you that you would get hurt? They’ve never been here either.

“The path I walk you can’t see … and neither can I. It is not out here where we see a cliff.” Tapping his chest, he continued, “It is in here. To walk, you need to know this space and step when She tells you to step and don’t step if She doesn’t tell you. She is the one who sees the path.”

“The path She sees is the real stuff. Out here, none if it is real, so it doesn’t matter if it looks like smooth ground or a cliff. Doesn’t make it any more real.

“You can do this. You just need to SHIFT….”

Level Up

A little over a week ago, I was driving into work and saw two unusual (for me) sightings. First, a coyote crossed the road in front of me, pausing at the halfway point to look right at me on his way to the farmer’s field on the other side of the road. It had been years since I had seen a coyote, and with the shamanic training I have been doing, I was pretty confident that this did not bode well for the day. The energy of Coyote is that of the trickster. He always works for the highest good, but it is almost never pleasant. He pokes and pricks the ego, forcing us to deal with uncomfortable situations or feelings, or even putting us in a position where we have to move forward on something we’d rather avoid. Definitely not fun!

I was feeling all angsty as I thought about this, when I looked up and saw a hawk flying in my general direction. I see hawks a lot more often than coyotes, but this one landed on a telephone pole next to the road. I slowed way down and watched him watch me as I drove past. Once I was beyond the pole, he took off in the same general direction as the coyote. My immediate reaction was that this was a followup message to the warning from Coyote. Hawk was reminding me that I could get through what was coming my way. I just needed to remember to trust in the bigger picture.

Needless to say, I was feeling pretty uncomfortable by the time I arrived at work. I spent a few minutes in my car, meditating and listening to the birds in the nearby prairie, settling into my center before I went into the building. Within two hours of seeing coyote, I was called into a meeting with my boss where he let me know that, as the Brits would say, I was being made redundant. I like the sound of that so much better than saying that I was being laid off, and in this case, it was also more accurate. I am being replaced, and so I truly am being made redundant. Although we had agreed a while back that I would be leaving, no date was set and I guess I thought I would have more time to find the next step on my journey. This was my notice that the time was now.

The details of this are mostly irrelevant. However, I feel this whole period in my life is a part of a transitional time for me. A frequent sign of the shift is supposedly leaving behind jobs, people and situations that no longer serve your highest good. I have been lagging my feet in this regard, in spite of mostly embracing change. I guess I wanted to grow, but didn’t want to be too uncomfortable in the process! Silly me. I should have remembered a favorite quote from George Sand (from the novel, Mauprat), when she reminds us all that “No change, even from bad to good, can be accomplished without pain.” You get to a point in the transition process when you simply have to let go of what was, even if you kick and scream while doing so. I know this intellectually, so why is it so darned hard sometimes to live from this truth?

I have been chewing on this ever since I was given a transition date (yes, that is the phrase he used), and I think the Divine is trying to answer me, if I will only listen. I want so much to understand what is going on, to retain a little speck of control in this otherwise chaotic time in my life, even if I know that control is illusory. That yearning for understanding may or may not help get me through the rough bits, but it is my nature to try to make sense of all that I see and to pass on any understanding I gain in whatever way I feel drawn to share.  So, when repetitive information starts popping up, I see it as a sign from the Universe that the conversation is not one-sided, and we are indeed in a dialogue; In the last several days, I have been surrounded with messages about change and transcendence.

The most mundane example of these messages is related to a conversation I had with my adult daughter about how I feel I normally deal pretty well with whatever life sends my way, but that I am feeling a bit out of my depth at the moment. We both love gaming, so I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised that we simultaneously used the phrase “level up.” In gamespeak, this is when your character gets enough points and experience to get bumped up to the next level in the game. The beginning of any level always seems more challenging until you get the knack of it. Since my life has suddenly taken a sharp turn for “more challenging,” we decided that I must have leveled up. I simply need to get used to what the new level requires and I’ll be fine. I admit that the metaphor makes me smile.

Ironically, this morning, the same daughter shared a post with me on Facebook. It was a picture from a page she follows with the phrase “When life gets harder, you must have just leveled up.” She found it last night and thought the timing was perfect, so she had to tag me. It felt like a gentle reminder that this really is what is going on.

To complement this, just a few moments later, I saw a page I follow had posted about the symptoms of transmutation and ascension (How to Raise Your Vibration, by Sabrina Reber). The theory is that transition times are not comfortable. As we change, we go through a period of confusion, overwhelm, detoxification and anxiety. The author assures us that this is normal, even to be expected. It is simply manifestations of an adjustment period to the additional energies flowing into our lives. Needless to say, there is no set time frame for how long these periods might last, only the dubious comfort that they are temporary. According to Ms Reber, we can speed them up by embracing them instead of fighting them. Doing so will make the transition period more intense, but of shorter duration. Reiki, meditation and intention all play a role in escalating the process. This makes sense to me, and since I have almost always been one to embrace intensity, I actually find embracing the transition to be desirable. The discomfort is a price I am willing to pay in order to become more authentically me.

So, this last week or two has been a rough one for me emotionally, and explains my absence on the blogosphere. However, I do think that good things will come of it in the long run. After all, summer is upon us and that is my favorite season. Who knows? I may even get to enjoy this one! As an IT worker, it has been a very long time since I truly enjoyed summer, as that is when many projects are scheduled, in order to take advantage of the end user vacation absences. I have also come to accept that I need to reinvent myself to be happier on this turn of the wheel. “Reinventing” can be much more drastic than simply changing jobs, and it has taken me some time to find an emotional comfort level with that idea. I hadn’t realized it, but I had placed limits on what the next step could be for me, and that was leaving me feeling trapped. Now that I am consciously letting go of the limits I placed on myself, I am feeling a renewed commitment to be open to change and to embrace my most authentic self.

It is freeing, really. Scary, too. And exciting. Lots of conflicting emotions keep bubbling up, which is yet another symptom of transmutation. Go figure!

Integration

Originally written as a handout for a course in shamanism:

As each of us learns and grows along the shamanic path, we come to have a perspective on the significance of the different components of the path, based upon the experiences we have had. When I contemplate the topic of integration, I realize immediately that it is a deeply personal process.  As I think about what it has come to mean to me, one word comes immediately to mind: Change.

Change is the one constant in life. Every time something changes, whether it is a birth or a death, a new job or winning the lottery, a professional healing session or a personal journey, you have to determine how best to incorporate the changes as you move forward.  In effect, you must integrate the new life events into how you live and process information.  Integration, by definition, is a process for change.  If you think you are integrating an experience, but nothing in your thought processes or your life has changed, then I would challenge you to rethink how well you are integrating what you have learned.  I strongly believe that it is impossible to integrate anything successfully, and have everything in your life stay the same.

As I thought about what I wanted to share with you about integration, the challenge became immediately apparent: Every person and every journey is unique. There are no hard and fast rules of how to integrate what we bring back from our journeys. So, what I have decided to do is to share my perspective on integration. I hope that there are seeds within these words that you can use to find ways to approach your own integration work.

When I journey and bring back soul pieces or information, integration is a way for me to honor both the connection to spirit and the knowledge that has been brought back. I am able to think and live from a new place, when I add the knowledge gained into my life. Like peering through a window that was dirty but has been cleaned, the world looks different when I allow integration to change my point of view. This new perspective may well heal me, or give added insight to events in my life, but it is also a bonding between me and the spirits.

Sometimes the changes in my world are small and cumulative, while other times they can be truly and dramatically life changing. No matter the scope, I use the following general techniques to help with the integration process:

• I document what I have been given and where it leads
  •  Whether it is at the time of the journey or as soon as I can afterward, I write out my journey, or my impressions of what I have been told when someone journeyed for me. I may put down some first impressions about the implications of what I have been given. If this was in a circle, I may also include what insights others may have shared. As I move forward with integrating the change in my life, I also journal the process.  

 

• I try to remain open to nudges from spirit
  • Whether it is my daily meditation practice or a habit I am trying to develop of listening within, I try to remain aware of synchronicities, or their opposites – a desire to do something outside my normal routine. I am not a very habit-based person, so this means trying to remain very aware of my own motivations. If I am thinking about a recent journey when my rune bag catches my eye, it may well be time to sit down and cast the stones to deepen my understanding of the journey.

 

• Integration means change
  • Thinking about the journey information and drawing a mindmap, journaling, tarot or runes are all well and good, but they are simply the prep-work for incorporating some type of change into my life. An insight may change how I process information. I may get a suggestion to change a habit I have had for years. I may be healed of a past trauma, changing how I see the world. No matter the details, integrating the information isn’t complete until I start living it out.

I would also mention that I have found it is an easy trap to continually go to the same comfortable techniques when working on integration. Although there is nothing wrong with frequently turning to the tarot, for example, I have found that it is often when stepping outside my comfort zone that I get the most powerful insights. Since I journal the whole process, it is possible for me to look back and note patterns that can make me question if I am creating a habit rather than listening to the nudges within.

Integration work is some of the most important soul-work we can do, so find the ways that work for you and make them a part of your spiritual practice. Your life will change. Your spiritual connections will strengthen, and you will grow as a person.

Face of Faith

I came across an article recently about how some people have recently claimed “Jedi” to describe their faith on an official census, and it got me thinking. For quite a few years now, I have been reading about a burgeoning religious movement in Western countries, founded on the precepts outlined in Star Wars for the Jedi Knights. There is also a huge fear among many fundamentalist Christians that the Harry Potter series or His Dark Materials series are directly responsible for the resurgence of practitioners of witchcraft and magic. I know that I, personally, have found an immense amount of wisdom and insight from reading and rereading the Dune series and the Canopus in Argos series of books. I was thinking about all this, letting it mull around in my mind, as I drove to work today. As I did, I wondered to myself what is missing in mainstream faiths that so many of us reach outside any defined, main-stream faith for answers?

Then I realized that, for myself, it isn’t really all that complicated. I see everything as having a spiritual significance, whether it be the honor guard of red-winged blackbirds that escorted me down the road or the sense of connection I feel to the works of Frank Herbert and Doris Lessing. More and more, I reject the concept that I am not allowed to embrace all of my life as being part of my spiritual path. For this reason, fiction writers who express spirit in their work appeal to me. The more they make me think, the better!

I don’t claim to know for certain if this is the case for anyone else, but I do think it reasonable to assume that this refusal to be limited by the boundaries of other people’s belief systems plays a role in the current explosion of spiritual exploration. I see it as similar in some ways to the Gnostic movement of early Christianity, where the inner gnosis (knowing) is unique to each person and to be honored for the guide that it is. The gnostic movement was initially crushed by the catholic (universal) movement, and the Catholic church was born. They could not have been more different. One defined the connection to God as unique to each individual. The other said that the connection to God is so mysterious that only the initiates (priests) could guide people and interpret that Truth, thereby setting up a hierarchy that has lasted straight through today.

The pendulum has begun swinging the other way now, and the idea that I need someone else to facilitate my connection to God seems downright silly to me. Many of us who believe similarly could probably be considered gnostics. I believe that God is all around me, inside me, within every breath I take … why in the world would I need someone else to help me connect to that all-pervasive Divine Energy? If anything, I just need to get out of my own way and the connection is simply THERE. This could be considered a very “gnostic” sentiment.

I believe that this awareness that Divine Energy is truly everywhere is rising in the world. With it comes a scepticism that we can or should segment spirituality off to one day a week, or certain hours of the day, or even to certain segments of the population (as in ‘my truth is the only truth, so you must believe like me’). There may have been people in every era who believed in the sanctity of all life and the deep inter-connection between all that is, but what makes things different now is the fact that there are so many people all over the world who are willing to literally step away from the confines of their church, mosque and synagogue and openly embrace the idea. They may or may not still want the membership of a faith group and the rules / dogma that frame a belief system. If they do, they create one that is more embracing of this ancient truth become new again, even if they have to reach into ancient history or fictional worlds to find a suitable template.

I find this all to be completely fascinating. From my reading and research, I understand that most indigenous cultures never really had a “church,” per se. Spirit was woven into the very fabric of every day. The Western culture imposed the concept of a specific place and time for acknowledging spirit on every group they encountered. It seems a bit schizophrenic, but it is necessary to segment off the inter-connectedness of all things if one wants to create a culture of greed and competitive enrichment. Pulling back from that greed, we have to reach for a different belief system, so I find it wonderful to see that the indigenous spirit may be rising from the ashes. Indigenous peoples are reigniting their original cultural fires. Westerners are awakening to the idea of the ever-present numinous as never before. As each of us finds a way to connect to Spirit as authentically and persistently as possible, we bend or break the dogmatic rules that have surrounded us and we allow the energy of the Divine to infuse more and more of our lives.

I am not saying the mystics haven’t always existed in mainstream religions, but the idea that we are a thread in the whole web-of-life-that-is-Spirit and that each thread is just as important as any other is a dramatic shift from the concept of God as something outside us, with the spiritual hierarchy reflected in the physical world hierarchy, as well.  This concept changes our outlook on our own lives and our perception of the world around us. “Magic” in the form of the miraculous is reborn as we realize that the other is an illusory concept. As we perceive the world differently, we naturally start thinking differently. Those that feel they need the old paradigm to be able to navigate life are terrified of the change they see. As a friend once told me, “What if you walk outside the walls of organized religion and you fall down the slippery slope to the abyss?!?” This is a very real fear for many. From my perspective, he would rather be safe than free.

The irony is that I see no problem with him staying within his walls until he is ready to walk outside them, if he ever is. Unfortunately, the existence of those of us who walk outside those walls is perceived as a threat to those who are within them. “What if the children and other impressionable souls see you and want to emulate you? I want them to be safe and that means they can’t go out where you are!” Like the dieter who throws out all the temptation in their pantry, the most conservative expressions of faith don’t want to even see that there might be another option. Frankly, it is a control issue.

I believe that this is the crux of the energetic shift taking place across the world right now. There is a tug of war taking place between the old and new paradigms. The Divine Reality hasn’t changed one whit. It is our perception of that Reality that is evolving. All this triggered in my thoughts by a simple article on the rise of the Jedi among us … because everything really *IS* connected.

What do you think? Am I full of beans? Does this resonate with you? Let’s talk …

Why do I write?

This was a question from the writer’s retreat I attended in February with Julie Tallard Johnson. The question keeps poking at me, like an insistent child. Obviously, I was meant to answer it … so, I thought I’d share my response. I hope that each of you has something in your life that calls and calls and won’t let you go. As big a pain as it can be at times, I wouldn’t change a thing!

I am called to write by an itch inside me. It seems like I simply can’t NOT write. Writing, in many ways, is how I process life, put it in perspective, find meaning for my days and connect to the world around me. Anais Nin once wrote that “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.” For me, writing is how I get every last drop of juiciness from my living. One might even say that I live my life a third time when I re-read what I felt prompted to write!

My life has always been this way. I have journals dating back to my teen years, though I am not sure I would want any eyes but my own to see them. Reading them, I can see how I was trying to make sense of the world and people around me. I was still youthful enough to think of myself as the star of my life, rather than one player among the ensemble cast I now feel around me. Everything that happened seemed momentous, which, of course, it was! Whether it was my heart being broken for the first time, the death of a beloved pet, the emotional heights of true love or the heady sense of success when I conquered a class subject, I had no idea how often they might occur and so I marked them with a passion and an intensity that still echoes in my life today.

I read those journals and see the beginnings of the person I am still in the process of becoming. The outline is there. Having written it all out, I can not escape the foolishness or the magnificence of my past. Both perspectives are important to remember. Even reading old poetry or short stories, I note what caught my mind’s eye, what made me want to express “did you see this?” in some way. I still stop and contemplate those same truths, seen from the changed perspective of the years gone by. They still catch me, and I find that life truly is a spiral and we revisit many of the same places along the way. Like the rooms of our youth seen from an adult height, they may indeed look very different, but that changed perspective is another piece of the puzzle of defining the truth of something. One perspective is never enough.

That passion of wanting to share the aha moments in my life is still there, itching under my skin. Even if my words were to never be read by anyone other than me, still I would write. That others may read and find something to help them on their journey, or cause them to think differently about an event in their own lives, is a bonus.

So, I was asked what calls me to write and I find it challenging to put that one thing into words. The calling is both inside and outside myself. It is a bridge between worlds and it is part of my life’s purpose to build it. I must connect A to B. If I don’t, my personal universe will suffer for its lack. I don’t know how else to state it. It is that primal.

Truth

There are tons of *Big Questions* out there, but one of the bigger ones is “What is Truth?” A friend and I got into a discussion about this on my Facebook page this week, and I found it really interesting. No one else joined in, of course. People tend to be afraid of discussing Big Questions. As a society, we just aren’t very good at it anymore, if we ever were!

How we approach the idea of Truth (note the capital ‘T’) tells a lot about how we approach life, I think. Is it all about absolutes? Do you think you know what Truth is? Can you recognize it when you see it? I think we would all like to think we do … but we don’t all see it the same way, so what does that mean? What does it mean that we can’t agree on what truth or Truth is? Obviously, this has a huge impact on the world as a whole, since wars are fought over my truth versus your truth every day.

Whether it is with regards to religion, philosophy or politics, my vision of truth is what drives me. I suspect that yours drives you. I think we are afraid to discuss them, because we might have to admit that our truth isn’t the only one out there. I believe this is something we all sense deep inside, else we wouldn’t be so afraid that it might start a fight to share our opinions. If there is a truth we can all agree on, perhaps it is that one!

I remember talking with a friend many years ago and describing Truth / God as a humongous faceted diamond. None of sees exactly the same facets. Each of us finds it beautiful and awe-inspiring, but when we try to describe it, our best efforts don’t match up. It doesn’t matter how hard we try, there will always be differences in our descriptions. None of us is trying to be deceitful about it. We simply have unique perspectives. We each see a different set of facets! If I try to believe and follow your vision of this amazing Truth, I will not be living from my own. This is the essence of the gnostic belief system from the time of Christ. We each have our own inner knowing (gnosis) and, if we are spiritually honest, that is what we have to live from.

Perhaps that explains why it seems that, in general, people associate who they are with their version of the truth. I think I tend to do this too, mind you. When someone questions the validity of my version of the truth, it feels like they are attacking me, personally. It takes conscious effort to remember that these two things are not one and the same. We truly can have different opinions about the nature of reality and manage not to hate or fear each other … if we are willing to let go of ego.

I have heard ego described with the acronym, Edging God Out. I believe that Truth, with that capital ‘T’ is actually just another of the many names of the Divine. So, as soon as I start letting my ego get into the conversation, I have Edged God Out – and I have lost my vision of Truth …. Likely, I don’t have so good a grip on lower-case “t” truth either! This is why I truly do believe that we all let our point of view color our capacity to understand any kind of truth. It is how we are wired! Objectivity is not our strong suit as a species, and to really get a grip on the truth, we would have to have such a wide view of the world, it is beyond our capacity even to contemplate.

Does this mean it is all relative? I don’t think so. If I can’t see the whole truth, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. As a spiritual person, I believe it is my fool’s journey to learn to trust the Divine Truth, not my puny human interpretation of it. To honestly let go of ego and trust Truth even close to 100% of the time takes the faith and the capacity to surrender of a Jesus, a Buddha or a Gandhi. I am not saying it can’t be done. I am saying that I am not there yet. I am working on it. I try to listen within for the still, small voice before I open my mouth, or move my feet, or start typing. It is hard to remember that it doesn’t matter if I am right. I don’t need to be in control to be happy. As a matter of fact, if my ego is in control, the Divine isn’t! So, I try to remember to let go of that pesky ego, and keep focused on what really matters: letting Spirit speak through me without any hindrance from me, letting Spirit use my gifts to be of service to others without my trying to inject what I think is best into the mix.

It is a practice though, and I have a very long way to go.

Rebirthing Myself

I have mentioned before that I am currently at a potential turning point in my life. I have the opportunity to reinvent myself, to allow a rebirth of my essential nature to take place. As with many things that are deeply spiritual, it is easier for me to mention things it is not, rather than what I believe this rebirth is: I know it is not about staying in the same routines that got me where I am today. I believe it was Einstein who said that doing the same things over and over again, but expecting a different result, is the definition of insanity.

I want an awakened life, but I am not entirely clear on how that will be manifested. I have come to realize that this doesn’t mean that life will be any easier or more magical. It may be, but that isn’t the point. To me, the point of this adventure is to be as transparent as I can possibly be to the Will of God/dess. How do I do that? How does anyone do that? One of life’s biggest questions!

I watched the amazing movie, “I AM” this weekend. One of my takeaways from this film is the idea that I need to approach my life with a different set of questions than I ever have previously. I certainly want to be happy, but should that be the focus of my questioning (as in, “What should I do to be happy?”). If I accept the idea that true happiness comes from union with the Divine, then my real question becomes “How do I take these gifts and skills I have and use them to make life better for others?” or even “How do I express the Love that I Am with what I have been given?”

I have to find my own path of service. This isn’t as easy as it may sound. You see, I have previously balked at the phrase, “a life of service,” because I remember being burned out by helping others when I was younger. I thought a life of service meant that you gave everything you could to anyone who asked it of you. Even just giving of myself to those who appeared to have an honest need was enough to set myself up for abuse. It took me a very long time to come back to myself, from that time in my life. To be honest, I have absolutely no desire to ever return to that feeling of being utterly depleted. I am wiser now, though. As I have learned more about people and spirit in general, I have become aware that different kinds of service come naturally to different types of people.

One of the ways I have come to this conclusion is through studying a bit of the Burkino Faso numerological Wheel. When I find my place on the wheel, I see that I am a Fire person. I am not an Earth person who sustains others, even to his or her own detriment. Trying to live from a place that is not mine will deplete and damage me more assuredly than anything else. Instead, I serve from a place of Fire. My source is the ancestors and the dream winds. A part of me has always known this. When I first read this idea, it immediately resonated with me and gave me a sense of peace. Again in my life, I find reassurance that my role is to walk between the worlds, to translate from one reality to another.

My next question then, is how to incorporate this insight into the change I am about to make?

I don’t yet know the answer, but I am working on it. I have recently started including time in my meditation ritual for letting the universe know that I am ready to move on to a new job, and that I need help in finding my way. I say it out loud, “I am ready to change jobs, and I need help finding my way.” You wouldn’t think that saying it aloud would be that different from the internal dialogue, but WOW. It certainly is! The first time I did this meditation, I was amazed at the immediate and powerful sense of joy and peace that washed back over me. I am convinced that this is exactly what I needed to do to bring the universe to my aid.

I believe that my next step is to keep my awareness open to any possibility that comes my way, keeping my eyes open for synchronicities and unusual occurrences. I don’t want to miss a wonderful opportunity because it isn’t what I was expecting!