12/28/12—Manifesting for the New Year

Today's Draw Classic*: Five of Pentacles from the Druidcraft Tarot. Do you suspect your thoughts may be defeating you? Do you generally come from a place of gratitude or lack? And would you rather have more money...or a greater feeling of wealth?

Tonight I'm putting together a New Year's manifestation ceremony that will take place during tomorrow's full moon. So when I stopped to pull a card for tonight's draw, I got the Five of Pentacles. Realizing the message I would give was the same as in this post from last February, I'm reprinting it with some revisions. In this week's theme, it's something to consider as we move forward into the New Year. 

The Five of Pentacles is usually a card of poverty or material loss of some sort...loss of a job, a poorly planned shopping spree or the effects of divorce. More often than not, however, when this card comes up in a reading it indicates a "poverty mindset." This woman wears beautiful, clean robes. She sports a richly bejeweled sash. Her hair is well kept, her skin pristine. She stands at the base of a budding tree. The sun shines brightly on rich, green hillside. In the background a hound is in hot pursuit of a hare. There is no poverty or material loss in this picture...except in her mind.

Poverty mindsets can happen to anyone. It doesn't matter how much you earn or how much you have saved. A poverty mindset is more about focusing on what you don't have than what you do have. And once it has you in its grips, it can literally limit any possibility you have of having more—more money, more love, more anything. Given the time and opportunity, one loss, perceived or otherwise, can act like a cancer in your life, penetrating every corner. You literally think your way into depression. And the more you focus on loss, the more you lose.

In metaphysics, it's called the Law of Attraction. It's a theory based on the belief that like attracts like. The spiritual piece to this belief is that, whatever you focus on, God or the universe will give you more of. So whatever energies you send out, will be returned to you. Therefore, if you think "I have more than everything I need," the universe will send you MORE "more than everything you need". If you think, "I don't have enough money", the universe will send you MORE "not enough money". After all, if it's what you're focusing on, it must be what you want.

Of course, much of it can be attributed to simple psychology. If you practice gratitude, you'll feel more abundant because you'll be focusing on what you have, instead of what you don't have. Conversely, if you focus on what you don't have, you'll feel more lack. Then whatever state you focus on is the one you'll carry out into the world and the one the world will respond to. Would you rather hire someone who feels like a loser or a winner? So even if you don't believe in the spiritual piece, the theory works regardless.

If you want to start putting this to work in your life, 1) begin by watching your thoughts and replacing the "negative" thoughts with positive ones. If you're not sure you're wording things correctly, put "I want more" in front of the thought. So if you want to exercise more and think "I need to exercise more", the universe will give you more reason to need to exercise. So a better way of saying it would be, at the very least, "I am exercising more" and, optimally, "I exercise the right amount for optimal physical and mental health." The important thing is to choose the statement you can most buy into and believe in.

Personally, I like to choose a thought that includes the word "feel"..."I feel healthy and fit", for example. Because, for me, it's not usually the "thing" that I want, but the feeling that comes along with it. And if you feel healthy and fit, you will protect that feeling by eating and doing the right things. As another example, having a million dollars in and of itself won't make you feel flush. If you win the money, it comes with tax issues and long-lost-cousins-finding-you issues. So asking for a million dollars when you really want to feel like you have more than enough money could actually work against you. Chances are, you want the feeling more than the money. So ask for the feeling and let the universe decide how to give it to you.

Then the next piece of this is 2) trust that it's going to happen. Don't obsess over your thought. State it once or twice a day, and then just trust that it will come to you. Then, 3) have gratitude for whatever comes. Sometimes interim steps have to happen before you can get what you want, so trust that whatever comes is in divine order and be grateful for it, even if it doesn't look like you thought it would. Finally, 4) move toward your goal, even if it means just planning at first. But set a plan, send out those resumes, go for that walk, whatever.

Like I said, it's a discipline, so if you try it for three days, then fall back into old habits, it's not the principles that didn't work. It's you. If you really want change, you'll take the steps necessary to make it happen. And if you take the steps necessary, you'll be showing the universe you're serious about this and you'll begin to see results.

*Adapted from a post made on 2/27/12.

5/9/12—Fueling The Machine

Today's Draw: Seven of Cups from the Druidcraft Tarot. Have you ever glimpsed into a whole other possible reality? What did you see? And what do you see in Tierney's Dark and Wild Adventure Into the Subconscious?

The Seven of Cups is one of those cards you can see in many ways...an abundance of choices and a lack of decision making, visions for the future turned into mere daydreams and emotions that turn into manifestations. Another meaning of the card has to do with illusions and the many facets of emotion. 

I've spoken before about this amazing emotional/spiritual music evoked healing thing I do with a woman in Maryland. What happens in the session is that we set an intention, then she chooses music to fit the intention. She relaxes me and puts me in a meditative state and plays the music, which is almost always classical. And, in this relaxed state, images form as I listen. I describe the images I'm seeing and she writes down everything I say. Then we analyze what has happened at the end of the session.

I've been doing this with her for a couple of years now. So it has become common for me to go into a really deep hypnotic/subconscious state during the session. During these times I get really cold. It's odd. It takes a lot to make me cold. And it was pretty cool in the room today, but not THAT cool. Anyway, I always put the blanket on me before a session, because it's inevitable that, at some point, I'll leave consciousness and get really cold. 

But this isn't about my body temperature. It's about my session today. Like I said, I've been doing this for two years. And while this isn't a literal interpretation of what happens, it has always conjured angels and glitter and Jesus—that type of imagery. The sessions are always very expansive and reassuring. And yes, even though I'm not a Jesus person, I have seen Jesus in these sessions. I've had angels joke around with me because I act so human as a human, when in fact, I'm one of them and I've just forgotten. I've flown as a bird. Sat with wise men. And experienced my soul as the magical, transcendent, immortal thing it is. 

For as light and ethereal as all my sessions have been, however, today's was surreal and dark. While I recognized there was a purpose to the human situation, I saw us as being imprisoned. Stored. Warehoused. Our brains were used to power the universe, not for the benefit of humanity, but for the benefit of biology. And while we're all connected as one, we are all just chemicals used to power the machine. 

Some of the things I said when I was in a subconscious state today were really deep. Usually when I go that deep my mutterings are random and don't seem to have meaning. An example might be "marshmallow butterfly elephant". Who knows what that's supposed to mean? But here are a few things I said in the subconscious state today that were actually quite lucid, and I thought I'd share:

• You can't look at something from the outside and expect to understand it.

• It's like the other side of this place [the things we see] doesn't exist. 

• It's the modern thing to be invisible. 

• I look out a window and there's no "there" out there. 

• [Someone] has got a broken foot, but we can replace that. 

• On a computer screen I see a progress bar that is making progress. And, on a pull-down menu, I'm given the option of "advise".

Another thing I said in that state was a musing about how we buy nice things, then don't use use them because we don't want to ruin them. And then they just go to waste. 

I know that seems like a lot of disconnected mish-mash. But the overall feeling of the session was that we are basically automatons within a grand machine. We think we're free, but we're imprisoned and destined to fulfill the purpose intended by the machine. That the chemical reactions in our brain that produce thought are the fuel for this machine. It doesn't really matter what we think. It's the energy produced by thinking that matters. And that (and this is how it ties back to the tarot card) everything is illusion. There is no "other side" to this place, because it's like a movie set, arranged to be the backdrop for our chemical thought process to reflect against, thereby producing more energy for the machine.

Depressing, huh? Part existentialist, part futile and part really bleak and disappointing...haha. It suggests that the importance of humanity and the ego of man is a veil created to ensure we pump out enough fuel to power "the machine", which could be God, the universe or an actual machine for all I know. But it also offers up the notion that, while we're here, we get to benefit from this really cool veil, instead of living in the reality that we're slave fodder. So we should appreciate the veil while we've got it. 

Anyway, I thought it was really interesting. It's not the normal thing these sessions reveal to me...this dark underbelly of the human psyche...of MY psyche. On the upside, though, I wasn't dismembering babies or anything awful like that...haha. It could have been darker than the feeling of futility in the service to some great machine. What does all of this conjure in you?

2/27/12—Feeling Flush

Today's Draw: Five of Pentacles from the Druidcraft Tarot. Do you suspect your thoughts may be defeating you? Do you generally come from a place of gratitude or lack? And would you rather have more money...or a greater feeling of wealth?

This is usually a card of poverty or material loss of some sort...loss of a job, a poorly planned shopping spree or the effects of divorce. Loss is part of the cycle of the building up and breaking down of things. It's usually a temporary state.

More often than not, however, when this card comes up in a reading it indicates a poverty mindset. This woman wears beautiful, clean robes. She sports a richly bejeweled sash. Her hair is well kept, her skin pristine. She stands at the base of a budding tree. The sun shines brightly on rich, green hillside. In the background a hound is in hot pursuit of a hare. There is no poverty or material loss in this picture...except in her mind.

Poverty mindsets can happen to anyone. It doesn't matter how much you earn or how much you have saved. A poverty mindset is more about focusing on what you don't have than what you do have. It causes you to dwell on thoughts of living in a tent on the edge of town. And once it has you in its grips, it can literally limit any possibility you have of having more.

If you extend the poverty mindset further, it can also include feeling like you don't have any friends or enough love. Given the time and opportunity, one loss, perceived or otherwise, will act like a cancer in your life, penetrating every corner. You literally think your way into depression. And the more you focus on loss, the more you lose.

In metaphysics, it's called the Law of Attraction. It's a theory based on the belief that like attracts like. The spiritual piece to this belief is that, whatever you focus on, God or the universe will give you more of. So whatever energies you send out, will be returned to you. Therefore, if you think "I have more than everything I need," the universe will send you MORE "more than everything you need". If you think, "I don't have enough money", the universe will send you MORE "not enough money". After all, if it's what you're focusing on, it must be what you want.

Of course, much of it can be attributed to simple psychology. If you practice gratitude, you'll feel more abundant because you'll be focusing on what you have, instead of what you don't have. Conversely, if you focus on what you don't have, you'll feel more lack. Then whatever state you focus on is the one you'll carry out into the world and the one the world will respond to. Would you rather hire someone who feels like a loser or a winner? So even if you don't believe in the spiritual piece, the theory works.

If you want to start putting this to work in your life, 1) begin by watching your thoughts and replacing the "negative" thoughts with positive ones. If you're not sure you're wording things correctly, put "I want more" in front of the thought. So if you want to exercise more and think "I need to exercise more", the universe will give you more reason to need to exercise. So a better way of saying it would be, at the very least, "I am exercising more" and, optimally, "I exercise the right amount for optimal physical and mental health." The important thing is to choose the statement you can most buy into and believe in.

Personally, I like to choose a thought that includes the word "feel"..."I feel healthy and fit", for example. Because, for me, it's not usually the "thing" that I want, but the feeling that comes along with it. And if you feel healthy and fit, you will protect that feeling by eating and doing the right things. For example, having a million dollars won't solve your "feeling like you don't have enough" issues and it comes with its own set of tax issues and long-lost-cousins-finding-you issues. But once you have the genuine FEELING of having more than enough, your worries are gone. And if you feel like you have more than enough, you probably do.

Then the next piece of this is 2) trust that it's going to happen. Don't obsess over your thought. State it once or twice a day, and then just trust that it will come to you. Then, 3) have gratitude for whatever comes. Daily gratitude for all you've received in your life—and learning to see the gifts you have—is important. Finally, 4) move toward your goal, even if it means just planning at first. But set a plan, send out those resumes, go for that walk, whatever.

Like I said, it's a discipline, so if you try it for three days, then fall back into old habits, it's not the principles that didn't work. It's you. If you really want change, you'll take the steps necessary to make it happen. And if you take the steps necessary, you'll be showing the universe you're serious about this and you'll begin to see results.