7/25/12—Coming Home

Today's Draw: Island of the Falcon from the Celtic Book of the Dead. When you've been away on a trip, what do you see, smell, hear or sense on the return trip that tells you "home is near"? Do you feel like you energetically connect to your home before you arrive there? And what about your soul's home...what do you suppose it sees when it's time to return to the place from whence it came?

The Celtic Book of the Dead is a story about a hero's oceanic quest in search of the otherworld. Through his journey, he encounters 33 islands, each of which delivers a lesson through mystical creatures and experiences. As the hero approaches the Island of the Falcon, he sees a familiar creature—an Irish falcon—giving him comfort that he is nearing home. Indeed, the Island of the Falcon is the last island on the trip. 

The story of the Island of the Falcon comes to tell us that whenever we've been on a mystical or spiritual trip, it's important to reground ourselves back in our everyday existence and reconnect with our purpose on the way back home, otherwise we may fall prey to cruel reality when arrive. The book says all journeys ends are marked by some landmark or familiar symbol to help us do just that. It's also a way of assimilating all we've experienced during our time away. 

In human terms, this is like when I come home from the mountains. I'm out in the country and I don't have to work. I don't have to be anywhere or do anything. Everything moves slowly. I live a different version of my life for a short time. Somewhere along my trip home, usually when I hit the first major highway (and nearly get sideswiped by a car doing 95 in the slow lane), I start "coming home" in my body, mind and soul. 

When I've just been gone for a few hours, there's a layer of "arrival" I experience when I get within a mile or so of my home. That's when I tune into my waiting dogs and get anxious to see them. Anytime I'm away from my physical home, I feel an urging to get back. Since I work at home, leaving the nest isn't an everyday thing, so I'm very connected to the comfort of this space.

The phenomena works the same in the opposite direction. On my way out to the mountains, for example, I leave my everyday world and feel the energy shift when I exit from the major highway and hit the one-lane roads. There's an imaginary line you cross when you leave the dense energy of the metropolitan area and start hitting the lighter energy of the countryside. It's something you can feel physically, psychically, emotionally...every which way.

I'm guessing we all know what I'm talking about and all know that landmark or symbol that "brings us home". But since we're talking about bigger journeys this week, so I'm about to get all heavy on you. What do you suppose is the first thing you see when your soul makes its journey home after you die? Most people report a white light or tunnel. Do you think that's the landmark or symbol your soul recognizes as a cue to reground itself in spirit energy? Or do you think it's something else?

What might be even a harder question, though, is what do you suppose your soul saw on the way to inhabit your body before you came here? What might it have seen, felt or experienced to say "OK, it's time to ground myself in earth energy and be a human again"? And what if your soul has never been to earth before? What might be a more universal symbol that gave it the cue to prepare to take form?

The book for this oracle says the landmarks of your physical home are also the landmarks of your spiritual home. So what might those landmarks be?

7/24/12—Choosing Your Life Before You're Born

Today's Draw: The Life We Long Ago Chose from Illuminate! Life Journey Cards by Linda Clayton, Part 2. Do you believe it's possible you chose exactly the life you're living long before you were even born? Why might you have chosen this life, with both its struggles and its gifts? What did your soul come here to learn?

What I'm going to talk about today is something not everyone is going to believe in. But it's something that's interesting to consider nonetheless. It requires believing we all have souls that may have been alive as humans before.

People who believe in souls generally believe that the soul comes to earth in human form to learn lessons for its own growth and/or healing. If that sounds like a reasonable belief to you, then it's not far off to consider that your soul (or some other force) might have a hand in choosing the lessons it would learn while in your body in this lifetime. I mean, they don't just come down here to learn a lesson-free life, right? That would boring. And, besides, have you ever met anyone who had nothing to learn in their lifetime? Of course not. So it's logical to assume that souls might come down here with some sort of agenda or lesson plan to complete.

Looking at the image above, imagine you're the soul on the right and you're just about to travel down into some lady's pregnant belly and be born on the earth plane. What happened in the moments before you made your journey? What agreements did you make? What lesson did you say you were willing to learn? What tradeoffs were you willing to make to learn those lessons? And what lessons did you NOT come down to learn? What was that "life you long ago chose?"

For example, I don't think I came here to learn any lessons about poverty. I'm by no means well off, but I've got a life I'm very comfortable with. I've been like that every day of my life and there's no reason for me to believe that won't continue. My situation may not be enough for a lot of people—I'm not someone who's into extravagant things, so I don't require as much as someone who is. I can easily live without the things I can't afford. I don't overspend. And when things are a little tight, money or opportunity always shows up for me. So struggling over monetary or material concerns doesn't seem to be on my list this time around.

But what might be on my list is learning different avenues to love beyond the romantic form. Romantic relationships haven't worked out well for me in the past, meaning the cost felt greater than the value received. The longest relationship I've had was just shy of two years. After that, you can count the string of others in months apiece.

I just don't think I'm made for it, frankly. I like men. I enjoy sex. But some key ingredient in having a good, solid relationship with a man eludes me. It's probably because I'm a loner at heart. And I don't want to be tied down to anything that might limit my options. I'm sure most people don't see love in that way, but I do. And even though the highs of life are higher when I'm coupled than when I'm not (and, I might add, the lows are lower), overall I'm happier without a man in my life. I'm more balanced. I'm more "me".

That said, I feel more love in my life the way it is now than I've ever received from being coupled. I pour my own love into my dogs and my work and my dreams and hobbies and friends. And all of that gives right back to me in palpable ways. I believe that, because I'm not dependent on—or distracted by—the dynamics of romantic love, I've become more attuned to some of these other forms. In short, I'm not missing anything in the love department, and looking around me, I thoroughly believe I experience more love on a daily basis than the average person does. It's just not romantic love.

And let me clear here...I fully acknowledge that other peoples' experiences of romantic love are different than mine. For some people the dynamics are effortless. For others, being alone leaves them feeling like something's missing. I get that and I'm not making comment on others' choices. I'm just speaking of my experience and what I have and haven't come here to learn. Self-reliance, finding new avenues to love, feeling okay with being different in that regard—all of these are things I'm here to learn.

Which brings me around to say it hasn't always been easy. It's hard when every decision rests firmly on your shoulders. And trust me, my choices are frequently misunderstood. People think I'm asexual or a lesbian or afraid or have never experienced love. For most people, being the way I am is outside their frame of reference. Either they think something's wrong with me or they're convinced I'm unhappy.

So another lesson I've come to learn is allowing others to feel and think whatever they want about me in this regard...to move beyond the ego need of fitting in to others' ideas of how I should be. Truth is, when I meet a man who can add more than he subtracts in my life, I'll be happy to meet him. But in the meantime, I've built a nice nest o'luv for myself through other means. So nice in fact, I'm not motivated to go looking for him. And because like attracts like, he's probably not looking for me either. And we're good with that. ;)

Anyway, those are just a few of the lessons and tradeoffs I figure my soul might have made before coming to earth. Thinking this way works for me, because I figure if we made an agreement about something before coming here, then we might be more agreeable to the things we just can't seem to try to figure out.

Entertaining this line of thought is great for introspection, but it's also interesting to consider when you look back over the life of someone you've loved who has now passed on. From that final perspective, it's interesting to see how their entire life might have led to that final moment. We all have a story like that...a trajectory upon which our life moves. Sure it may all be random. And there may be no such thing as soul or an agreement or a past or future life. But whether you believe in that or not, musing over the "life you long ago chose" in this manner can teach you a lot about the life you're choosing now.

7/21/12-7/22/12—Making the Right Choice

Weekend Reading: 22/Rain, 24/Sunset and 32/Snow from the Transparent Oracle by Emily Carding. Read individually, these cards speak of cleansing and renewal, closure and peace, and purity and silence—all good things to take into your weekend. But if you examine the three cards placed on top of one another (as you can only do with Emily's transparent cards), you may notice all three forms of water are depicted...solid, in form of snow; liquid, in the form of droplets; and gas, in the form of the steamy rays of the sun. We, too, have a trinity of forms—body, mind/ego and spirit/soul. Water doesn't have a choice in the form it takes. Surrounding conditions of temperature dictate the form it assumes. But we do have a choice in how we respond to surrounding conditions. We can respond physically. We can respond with our intellect or ego self. Or we can respond with our spirit/soul self. Remember this weekend that, no matter what happens outside you, you have a choice. You are in control of how you respond. So consider responding in the way that brings more love, joy and self respect into your life.