Joy Now, and Every Day

             Many religions and spiritual belief systems talk about beginning each morning with prayer or meditation or some sort of Honour/Blessing.  I am a huge fan of this practice, and I try very hard to incorporate it on a regular basis.

             Sadly, waking up is a challenge for me.  Whether by alarm, on my own, or with the help of a person, none of these methods work well, nor are they easy.  I’ve been this way my entire life.

             Today, because I was called to Jury Duty, it was even MORE tragic than usual.  Our group was released before one p.m.  I was able to catch a nap/go back to bed, in an attempt to reset my internal clock and to finish last night’s sleeping.

             When I got up (the second time), I was reminded of this:

Divine Timing

             As you may recall, Time and I have a restless and prickly relationship.  We bicker.  We tussle.  We hardly ever agree.  Time has a way of always moving, and I’m a person who sits down a lot.

             While I fully believe that everything truly does happen for the reasons we originally mapped out, I also know that Free Will, and the general shit-show which is our complicated existence here, play in to this equation, and along its corresponding time-line.  There are too many factors throughout our Journey for us to count, our tiny human brain can’t math them all.

             Another Universal Truth is that we can improve ourselves and our situation/emotional position in extremely simple ways.  We don’t HAVE to count all of the things.  We can merely allow the Divine Timing to flow, taking its natural course.

             This particular messenger, the one who has come to help us with validation and to act as a guide, is one who speaks of my favorite option, that of choosing Joy.  That of going with the highest best choice for all involved.

“Lalita

The Red Goddess

‘Playfulness is a spiritual power.

Laughter leads me back to the light.’

Who She Is:

Lalita represents the spontaneity which graces a heavy moment and reminds us that joy is a powerful spiritual practice.

Lalita Tripura Sundari is a Hindu deity known as the red goddess because of her connection to desire.  She is often depicted sitting on a lotus with 16 petals known as the ‘fulfiller of all desires.’

She is holding a golden bow, which represents the mind, and five golden arrows, which represent the five senses.

Lalita is known for her spontaneity and for liberating her devotees with joy.  She’s the consciousness that comes when we get so caught up in taking ourselves seriously, causing us to forget the (profound) simple pleasures like a breeze on our face or the taste of sun-ripened fruit.

She reminds us that we don’t have to be perfect ….. what’s divine is inherent to us, it’s remembered, not learned.

When Your Soul Selects Her Card:

Answers arrive from disengaging with the energy which created the problem or question to begin with.  We so often hold tight to what we desire with a grip that actually inhibits it from arriving.

The secret to desire is holding it lightly.  The secret which the red goddess knows is that we already have everything we desire.  So we can trust that what the soul craves is and always has been ours.

This is the levity which sparks a shift, a change, an expansion – that is the moment where we remember we are not separate from what we desire, nor from the divine.

Lalita is the levity which comes when we loosen our death-like grip on what we desire.  She’s the much needed reminder that we don’t have to suffer our way to what we want most.

The path to what we desire and to becoming the soul we need to be in order to receive it can be paved with joy, with divine play, and with a sacred process of lightening up all along the way.

Soul-Voice Intention:

How can I add more playfulness to my life right now?

Intention:

Playfulness is a spiritual power.

Laughing leads me back to the light.”

Today’s Deck:

Divine Feminine Oracle by Meggan Watterson and Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman

 

 

 

.

Advancement

             Any time a person would say to me, “you’ll change your mind” I’d immediately bristle and think NO I WON’T!  Then, I became more determined than ever to NOT change my mind.

              Time is strange.  It does weird things to our brains (not to mention our bodies, no, like really, we are not mentioning bodies, they’re just meat-suits, so who cares).  This week marks the 11th year that my sister has been gone.  In the first decade of loss, it was fresh and painful, sharp and biting.

             As we enter the next chapter, it is still a wound, but it is made of scars.  They throb, but it’s a dull ache, nothing so pointy as before.  The years chip away at our grief, while at the very same time bringing newness.

             I am changing my mind about things.  I have grown, and I’ve even healed a tiny bit since she left.  Here’s an example.  I used to detest with a white-hot fiery passion both Sundays and Autumn.  The day before school/work, was torture.  The end of my summer felt like an amputation, every year.

             Now?  I’m glad the heat is gone.  I look forward to colder weather, longer nights, the seasonal transitions and transformations.  On the work schedule Sundays are my Friday.  Ahead of me there are days off to enjoy.  No alarm clock, no structure.

             It’s about:

progress and process.

             We move along our path, we participate in our journey.  We evolve and spiral ever higher.  Change can be slow and it can be smooth.

             If we take the time to understand why, and we take the time to allow our lessons to sink in at the rate which best suits us; no rushing, no guilt, then those changes can be absorbed, as opposed to battled against.

             Living with the loss of a loved one is horrible.  However, it IS something we can survive.  Ten years seems like a lifetime.  It feels like we’ll never get through it.  And then, before we even notice, we’ve moved another year along this path.

             Breathe through it, breathe with it, breathe.  Progress is made when the process is allowed to flow on its own timeline.

             And for some validation, we have this messenger to accompany us, and to remind us what is of value/where our focus is most useful.

“Sarada Devi

The Divine Mother

Unconditional love exists with me.

The presence of love is the absence of judgment.

Who She Is:

Sri Sarada Devi embodies the feminine power which initiates seekers onto a spiritual path through unconditional love.  Sarada Devi was born in Jayrambati, India in 1853 to poor Brahmin parents.

As a little girl she worshiped a clay figure of the goddess Kali, meditated, and began to have visions.  At the age of five she was betrothed to the priest of the Dakshinewar Kali temple, a beloved mystic name Ramakrishna.  Ten years later, she joined him at the temple and they began their lifelong spiritual marriage together.

Sarada’s husband performed the Shodashi Puja with her – this meant that Sarada was positioned in the seat of the goddess Kali and was addressed as Sri Ma, or holy mother.

She is considered to be Ramakrishna’s first disciple.  They both became notable mystics with large, international followings.  Sarada helped form the monastic order for devotees after Ramakrishna passed.  And because she was so beloved, a monastic order was founded for women in her honour.   She paved the way for future generations to enter the spiritual life.

As a spiritual instructor, Sarada Devi was known for treating all of her disciples as her children.  Many of her devotees relate that she initiated them in a dream.  She appeared as a goddess in human form and gave them a mantra.  When they met her for the first time in person, they would recall the dream and know instantly that they were encountering their guru.

When Your Soul Selects Her Card:

Sarada Devi loved all her disciples unconditionally and equally.  In her teachings she emphasized that there is no such thing as a stranger.

She encouraged her followers to understand that everyone we meet is actually a part of us, and is connected to us.  And that if we want to experience true peace, we need to own the fault and judgement which we project onto others.  We need to see our own faults and forgive them with love.

Sarada Devi whispers gently to us, ‘no one is a stranger, my child; this whole world is your own.’

The goal is to let us mother ourselves with unconditional love.  That’s the only love which will quiet those harsh, critical voices within us.  So we can stop wasting our time mired in judgement of others and ourselves, and get on with being the perfectly imperfect light that we are.

Soul-Voice Mediation:

What am I currently judging or criticizing about myself?

Intention:

Unconditional love exists within me.

The presence of love is the absence of judgment.”

Today’s Deck:

Divine Feminine Oracle by Meggan Watterson and Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman

Today’s Sharing:

is to say that my Seattle kid co-hosts a new podcast.  Go HERE to see what that’s about, and be sure you listen to their first episode.  It is enormously entertaining!

 

 

.

 

Freedom to Heal

             There is a lot of bad news lately.  There is also, as is more often the case than we realize, a lot of good in the world, too.  Both are presented to us for learning purposes.

             In the past few months I’ve been handed a whole heapload of these bad/good “opportunities” (in the form of memories triggered by media coverage).  I’m drafting a written piece which I hope to publish (with the encouragement of my Seattle girl, who has been instrumental in helping me acknowledge these past actions, and amongst the community of strong women who were an essential part of this entire process). #MeToo

             I’ll let everyone know how it’s going, and where it will appear, once I’ve made my way through all of the history and the pain and the mess.  For right now, though, our message is exactly the support we can all count on.

             The Universe would like us to look at (and honour) our

Recovering.

             Don’t confuse it with recoverY, because what we’re focusing on is the action, the activity, the traumas, and the moving through them.  To gain our freedom on the other side.

             I was asked (after I realized that yet ANOTHER fucking experience had been buried way deep by my damaged mental vault) how leaving it all down there had been working out for me, these past four decades.  The answer is, not terrifically well, not well in hardly any way.

             We all know that the only way to it is through it.  If we don’t shove ahead, face our past, our present, and where we need to make our future, our journey will be so much more difficult.  Yes, it’s going to be HORRIBLE for me to recall all of those experiences, but if I don’t, I won’t be able to move forward, and they will continue to manifest themselves as a disrupted and confused mind, covered in blame for shit that was never my fault, should never have happened to a child, a teen, a young girl.

             Our most powerfully channeled and beautifully illustrated Divine Feminine is still the correct and current choice; this validation, is of course, precisely the guidance and empowerment which will be best for us all.

             (Like seriously, I could NOT believe this card when I flipped it over.)

“Akhilanda

The Goddess Of Never Not Broken

‘Everything happens for my liberation.

I choose to become only more love.’

Who She Is:

Akhilanda represents the essence of the phoenix, she is the indestructible energy that embraces change.  She knows that everything is conspiring to transform her into only more love and light.

Akhilanda is an elusive goddess from Hindu mythology.  Her full name is Akhilandaeshvari.  Ishavri in Sanskrit means ‘female power’ or ‘goddess,’ akhilanda means ‘never not broken,’ so she is the goddess of never not broken.

She can never be broken, because she always is.  She is the embodiment of what we try to avoid – the dissolution of our ego’s identity.

Her power is unparalleled.  She radiates the potent light and joy that’s the goal of change, transformation, or pain.  There is very little written about her, she is meant to be known through experience.  She is an intimate, interior goddess who we meet when we are in the darkest moments of grief and heartbreak.

She shows us where our energy is trapped, where we have been stifled in routines or others’ expectations of us.  And she whispers the liberation we all experience once we let ourselves break open and allow the new expression of our self to come blazing through.

She reminds us that we always have the power to choose to see every event as yet another opportunity to become more light, to become more of the radiant soul we are here to be.

When Your Soul Selects Her Card:

Many of us exert tremendous energy in the effort to not break or fall apart.  We resist our grief.  Our heartbreak.  Or we deny the need to change until the choice no longer feels like it’s ours.

Something sideswipes us in our ordinary life and shatters who we think we are and how we identify ourselves.  Here’s what Akhilanda reminds us:

Vulnerability is our greatest strength.  If we are always broken, we can never break.

Akhilanda is the most intimate and personally powerful goddess because she meets us in the moments when we can feel most alone, most exposed, and most afraid.

She models how to thrive in the midst of change; she uses pain to joyfully and purposefully transform.  She sees everything as an opportunity to release what isn’t serving her.  And she knows that being broken isn’t a failure, or something we should avoid, it’s actually the whole point.

We are here to let our ideas of ourselves go up in flames, so that beneath the ashes the soft core of who we truly are arises.  And so that we remember it’s not the heart that ever breaks, it’s the ego.

The heart only ever expands.

Soul-Voice Meditation:

What heartbreak can I see now as an opportunity to expand?

Intention:

Everything happens for my liberation.

I choose to become only more love.”

Today’s Deck:

The Divine Feminine Oracle by Meggan Watterson, illustrated by Lisbeth Cheever-Gessaman

 

 

.

Advancing

             We need to acknowledge the transitions in our lives, and it’s helpful to do so with a nice positive attitude.  Sadly, we’re flawed beings, and often we simply can’t.

             We are on a changing path, a twisty road, long and winding (as the song says).  We are blocked, sometimes.  We encounter construction or washouts.  It’s not like this WON’T happen, because it truly will.  But rather, it’s how we handle these detours which helps us with our lessons.

             Today the Universe is talking about our

progress.

             And our passage.  How we make the movement and the motion and the journey meaningful,  not stressful.

             One way is to be prepared for the trip.  I’m an over-packer.  I do not travel light.  (No surprise there.)  Unfortunately, even if I think I’ve brought all the items that we might POSSIBLY need.  I still forget shit.  Always.  Like, every single time.

             On the plus side, we don’t ever really go anyplace which is so remote that I can’t find a store of some sort.   And it’s that way on the spiritual plane.  We are never so far away, so lost, that we can’t reach out and access help.

             In fact, we’re staying with our new cards, and the validation couldn’t be more perfect.  Here is the light, with which we may travel into the dark, and back out again.

“Brigid  ~

The Goddess Of The Eternal Flame

‘I am an eternal flame.

And each day, my light grows brighter.’

Who She Is:

Brigid represents the essence of an inner dawn, and the healing which comes from knowing that the best is yet to come.  Brigid is the goddess of pre-Christian Ireland.

She is associated with the Indo-European dawn goddess and the coming of spring.  She is honoured in a Celtic festival called Imbolc which takes place half way between the winter and spring celebrations.

It is said that at the moment between dusk and daybreak, Brigid arose into the sky with flames like rays of the sun blazing in her hair.

There is a shrine near Kildare in Ireland that is sacred to the druids because it is believed to have been a place where Brigid’s priestesses tended to her eternal flame.  This is where they learned the ancient healing practices which are associated with her.  And this is where in 480 C.E., Saint Bridget built a monastery in honor of the goddess, creating a communal and consecrated center for women’s religious life and learning.

Brigid is associated with poetry, and with all things elevated: states of being, high rising flames, lofty dimensions, inhanced wisdom.

She is said to have created the whistle for calling out from one person to another while walking through the night, which lifts the wanderer with its levity and reminds her she’s not alone.

When Your Soul Selects This Card:

There’s a moment when you are making your way through the dark and suddenly (after what feels like days, or months, or even years) a ray of light comes through to you. A lightening happens.

Each step isn’t quite as hard to make as the one before.  And you feel a great shift begin as if now you’re headed toward something new.  Something even brighter.

Brigid is the essence of that first flame, that first ray of light.  Brigid reminds us that the darkness never lasts forever.

Her eternal flame represents the truth that the light never leaves us and can never be extinguished.  It simply gets obscured.  She reminds us that every day is actually filled with light; there are many days (and times in our lives) when we endure thick cloud cover, when that flame which exists within us is blocked by pain or confusion.

Brigid is the sweet sound which reaches us in the dark and reminds us that we have never been on this journey alone.  Brigid is our sign that the dawn is here because we made it through the dark winter, the dark night.

We can lift our head.  The healing has happened.  And now each next day is bound to be brighter.

Soul-Voice Meditation:

What allows me to feel light more often, every day?

Intention:

I am an eternal flame.

And each day, my light grows brighter.”

Today’s Deck:

The Divine Feminine Oracle by Meggan Wattson and Lisbeth Cheever Gessaman

 

 

.

 

Restoration

             In the spirit of true, and continuing, transparency, I need to tell you that it’s approximately the surface of the sun here, as far as heat goes.  And, according to the apps on my phone, it will continue to be like this for another two weeks, or ya know, until fucking forever.

             I get it.  It’s summer.  But truthfully, I can’t stand these temperatures.  This oven-like weather makes me physically nauseous and entirely unpleasant to be around.  I can’t think.  I can’t sleep.  I can’t hold a thought, nor a conversation.  It’s disgusting.

              Just wanted you to know how I’m doing.   And why we don’t have a personal channeled message.  I can’t rest and listen when I’m finding it hard to breathe.  I become enraged, and more swollen than usual.

             The reason for this post though, is a beautiful and positive one.  We received a wee giftie that I’d forgotten about.  It was on order, and then it appeared.  (Some items I simply can’t purchase locally, and I’ve had to become okay with that.)

             It is THIS DECK.  And it is glorious.  I keep seeing signs and posters and stickers and t-shirts, all of them saying: the future is female.  No offense, obviously, to those of you raising sons, I happen to know, up-close-and-personal, that those boys are included here.  This statement is not just truth, it’s also mythic.  The males who are birthed and instructed by feminists are just as much our future.

             This afternoon, three women in my life came through, in a big and important way.  I have daughters, I have born nieces, I have married-in nieces, I have sisters-in-law.  All of them are strong and bright, loving and kind; I know we can count on them to help, personally and globally.  It gives me hope, merely thinking of them.

             This is our first draw, the first of many more to come.  It is perfect in its validation, its message, and its tone.

“Catherine LaBoure  ~  

The Patroness of Miraculous Healing

‘I am ready to heal.

I am worthy of the miracles meant for me.’

WHO SHE IS:

Catherine LaBoure embodies our capacity to facilitate our own healing.  She was born in Côte d’Or, France in 1806.  When Catherine was nine years old, she picked up a statue of the Virgin Mary after her mother’s funeral and said with a kiss, ‘now you will be my mother.’

As a young woman, she became a member of the nursing order of Saint Vincent de Paul in Paris.  She chose this order after she had a vision of Saint Vincent’s heart in the Church on Rue de Bac.

In 1830, Catherine had another vision, this one of Mary standing in the vesica piscis with rays of light streaming out from the center of her open palms.  She asked Mother Mary why some of the rays don’t reach the earth.  And Mary explained, ‘those are the graces for which people forget to ask.’

Catherine was instructed to create a ‘miraculous medal’ based on this vision of Mary.  All who wear them, it is believed, will receive great graces.

Saint Catherine’s miraculous medal became widely popular among all sects of Christianity.  It is still worn by millions all over the world to this day.

WHEN YOUR SOUL SELECTS HER CARD:

It can feel effortless to ask for what our loved ones need.  We can fall on our knees at times to pray for the health and highest possible outcome for our beloved children and partners or friends.  What’s often far more difficult is asking for all that we need.

For many of us, lack of self-worth can get in the way of realizing that we can ask for so much more.  And that ultimately, there is no difference between praying for our own needs and the needs of our loved ones.

There are so many miracles, graces, and blessings which don’t arrive simply because we don’t ask for them.  The spirit world is ethical and doesn’t interfere with our intrinsic right to choose our own adventure story.  Free will is ours.

So we have to ask for the Universe to intervene in the effort of our own healing.

Ask and you will find.  This is a spiritual truth.

And also, suffering is optional.  Suffering doesn’t glorify us nor make us more holy.  At any point we can ask for the highest possible good to shower down on us.

We can ask to be healed in ways we can’t even imagine by handing the healing over to the divine.

The healing might not arrive in the way we picture being healed.  Our lower back may still throb with pain, but our heart has shifted and there’s a miraculous amount of light within our lives again.

If we can hand over an attachment to what healing is going to look like, we can receive all the blessings waiting for us.

SOUL VOICE MEDITATION:

What can I ask for help in healing?

INTENTION:

I am ready to heal.

I am worthy of the miracles meant for me.”

             Thank you, to all of my Divine females (and the males in their lives).  Thank you, Meggan Watterson, for channeling this oracle and sharing it with the world.

 

 

.