11/2/11—Leaving an Offering for Pele

Today's Draw: Six of Lava Stones (Pentacles) from HazelMoon's Hawaiian Tarot. Still worried about money despite my excellent post on manifestation two days ago? Having a hard time releasing your money fears? Or is time the thing of most value in your life these days? Ever considered making an offering to "The Gods"?

Today we get another card that has to do with our relationship to money. The Six of Pentacles is about the cycle of giving and receiving. A couple of days ago we talked about how the simple act of feeling flush can attract more prosperity into our lives and how the fear you won't have enough will just breed more fear and more "not having enough". 

This card is about the same thing, but from a different angle. This card is about keeping money in circulation...the giving and receiving of both time and money. So for those of you who feel you don't have enough time, the same principles apply. If you don't think you have enough, you won't. If you resent what you give, it supports a belief of not having enough. But if your belief is that you have enough and some to spare—and act that way—then you'll have enough some to spare. Simply put, as Mike Dooley puts it (google him), thoughts become things.

The book for this deck explains the picture is of the Hale Ma'u Ma'u crater on Mount Kilauea on the Big Island. Hawaiian legend says the Goddess Pele lives in this crater, so it's a sacred place. You can visit there, be cleansed in the steam vents and leave an offering for Pele.  

The other day I mentioned that, when I feel fear about money, I'll do certain things. I'll take myself out for dinner and leave a large tip. One time I picked up the tab at a nearby table, completely anonymously. I didn't even hang out to see their reaction. Not that long ago, I gave $10 to a woman who was begging on the street because it was the smallest bill I had. She was very grateful. It was probably the biggest contribution she'd gotten that day. And I cried all the way home because there I was, worried about money, when the smallest bill I had was $10 and she was begging on the street. 

I call it tithing to the universe. You can call it leaving an offering for Pele. I make a practice of it, doing it even when I'm feeling flush. One of my favorite things is to pay for one or two of the cars behind me when I visit Skyline Drive, which is a scenic roadway through Shenandoah National Park. Breathtaking views. Personally, I like to be anonymous and not receive anything in return except the enjoyment I get from doing it. The act is not just a message to the universe that I have more than enough, but, like the steam from Pele's vents, can be very cleansing, washing the fear away and replacing it with more productive thoughts.

Although I've placed a lot of attention on ridding money fears, this is a good practice to consider if you're feeling pretty stable and happy with your money situation, too. And what I'm talking about is beyond the automatic checks you write each year to charities. All that's good, don't get me wrong. But spontaneous acts increase the emotion and energy, giving your offering an extra punch, imo. Besides, they're fun and really good for knocking out sudden incidents of fear. 

Of course you should never give away money you can't feel comfortable giving and if you can't pay your bills this month, maybe save your offering for another time...or give some clothes to charity. But many of us who are worried about money can manage to part with $5 or $10 or $20 without feeling it. And when you share it with someone less fortunate than you, both of you feel more flush. Which is like getting a bonus Pele steam-vent spa cleansing for free. So, what can you do to make someone else smile today?

11/1/11—Peeking Through the Veil

Today's Draw: The Elder of Fire (King of Wands) from the Gaian Tarot. Is there someone on the other side you'd like to communicate with? Do you believe you can? Do you think there's anything to the notion that the veil is thinner at this time of year?

We've had this exact same card before. This is the shaman, the witch, conjurer. She uses her mature, developed command of fire to bring transformation. She is intimately conversant with the other world. 

In the pagan religions November 1 brings Samhain, a harvest festival. The most potent time of this yearly celebration is believed to be on Halloween night. Samhain marks the end of the light half of the year and the beginning of the dark half. While it is the end of one cycle, it is the beginning of another and carries the potent energy of beginnings. Some believe in the silence of the dark at this time of year, you're better able to hear whispers from the other world—whispers that bring messages and the seeds of change. 

The Elder of Fire challenges us to explore the secrets of the dark—the spirits and mysteries that exist on this earth, unseen, alongside us. Her ceremonies and rituals shift her consciousness into the other side of our world. She reminds us that we are capable of great creation, transformation and communion with the unseen. 

They say this is the time of year when the veil is the thinnest. I always think of my mother at this time of year, because her birthday was a few days ago. I feel I've been visited by my father many times, but I've never really felt my mother around. There was nothing left unsaid between us. Maybe that's why. But my sister has felt her often. 

Sometimes it's little disconcerting when we can't feel the energy a loved one who's passed. But I believe they can see and hear us, even if we can't say and hear them. So tonight and tomorrow night I'm going to just talk to her, whether she's there or not. And maybe in the dark, I'll hear some whispers in return.

10/31/11—Manifesting Prosperity

Today's Draw: The Nine of Pumpkins (Pentacles) from the Halloween Tarot. How do you feel about your relationship with money these days? Do you feel rich or poor? And is it possible your feelings might have more power to shape your reality than you imagine?

The Nine of Pentacles is a card of prosperity. But it's not a showy prosperity, it's more of a quiet comfort when it comes to money. It's dignified and refined. The lady in this picture has few worries. And without those worries her mind is free to seek knowledge and the other stimuli of life.

A lot of people, myself included now and again, have money worries these days. And Halloween can teach us a lot about the art of manifesting money (or anything else for that matter). The reason I say this is because we all buy lots of candy and give it away freely. That's the way of Halloween. We don't mourn every fun-size candy bar that crosses our threshold. We're more focused on the costumes the kids are wearing, the weariness of the parents or whatever. We give freely, because it's what we do. In fact, I think giving on Halloween carries less turmoil for people than giving at Christmas does. 

And what that means for manifesting is this—when you hold on tightly to money or material things, you're telling the universe money is in short supply. And when you focus on money being in short supply, the universe gives you more money in short supply. Because, in the universe, whatever you focus on is what you get more of. It's a simple principle. Think you're too fat? You'll get more "too fat". Think you need to quit smoking? You'll get more need to quit smoking. Think you don't have enough money? You'll get more "not enough money".

Halloween gives us a day to feel flush and able to be generous. When we focus on giving, we'll get more to give. When we focus on having enough, we get more enough to have. And when we focus on having enough to give, we get more "enough" to give. Whenever I start to feel "poor", I take myself out to dinner and leave a smile-making tip for the waiter. I act like I am infinitely funded by the universe. And so I am. 

So when you're giving out candy to the kids Monday night, feel like you have more than enough to give. And remember that feeling and take it into the next day and the next. The secret to manifesting money is not to focus on the "need", but to focus on the lack of need. Crazy, huh? Feel fully funded and you will be. Whether or not you have money has less to do with how much you spend than you think. Of course, if you want the money to respect you, you have to respect it. But it's more about how you feel and think about money than it is about how you spend it. 

And if you think that's a bunch of hooey, then consider this: you can be poor and feel rich. Or you can be poor and feel poor. The choice is yours. Feelings are choices. So if feeling poor hasn't done anything for you lately, try feeling rich. If feeling rich doesn't bring you more riches, then you can go back to feeling poor again. If you want. But at least you'll have tried something different to break you out of your funk.

10/29/11-10/30/11—Choosing Harmony

Weekend Reading: Two of Ghosts from the Halloween Tarot by Kipling West. Be on the lookout for a new friendship or love this weekend. If not that, look out for a new quality emerging in a current relationship. This is a time to acknowledge and celebrate the significant others who add to our lives, whether they be lovers, children, friends or partners. Keep things in perspective. The importance of them in your lives is greater than the little things that may bother you in the moment. Let go and let it be a harmonious weekend. You do have that choice.

10/28/11—Looking Into Our Nurturing Tendencies

Today's Draw: Mother of Earth (Pentacles) from the Today's Journey Tarot. When is nurturing too much nurturing? When is nurturing something else entirely? And, if you consider yourself a nurturing individual, have you ever taken a look at the motivations that might run beneath your loving ways?

We've gotten this card five or six times this year and we've talked about self-care, nurturing, being gentle with ourselves and the whole "putting the life mask on yourself first" thing. This is the card of the nurturer, the earth mother. 

Look at this woman. There she is sitting on the floor of some polar habitat with no door, wearing a short-sleeved green dress, hair all pulled off her neck, bottle feeding a little polar bear. Awwww, cute. 

But wtf is she thinking??? You just KNOW she's gotta be freezing her arse off. The polar bear can wait while you put on a coat, lady!

Some of us are nurturing people and it comes second nature for us to care for others before we care for ourselves. Or to take better care for others than we take of ourselves. And in some situations, like with an infant child, feeding them NOW to keep them from crying IS taking care of ourselves...haha.

But as noble as it is to care so deeply for others, we also need to ask ourselves why we're doing it. Especially if it depletes us. OK. Some of you are parents and you're PARTLY excused because you have children to raise. But you're not off the hook from asking yourselves why, especially when it comes to the things people look at you a little goofy about. 

Like maybe you go to cheerleading practice every day without fail, even though you're not the coach. Or you never leave your teenage child alone in the house. I don't know. I'm not a parent. But think of some examples from things all the other parents are doing that you're not...or that you're doing that isn't the norm among parents. And ask yourself why. Many of the things you do will withstand your vetting—much of our nurturing is just that. And many of the choices we make with those we nurture are personal ones based on how we want to raise someone.

But sometimes we're doing these things less for our child's (or friend's or partner's or sibling's or volunteer person's) benefit than for our own. Maybe we do it because it gives us a sense of value, because it fills a hole inside of us, because we aim for martyrdom or because, by doing it, we don't have to focus on our own needs, demons, inadequacies, whatever. Parents or not, sometimes we invest in others so we have an excuse for not investing in ourselves...so we have an excuse for not facing our own fears. 

An example from my life might be the fact that I take my dogs everywhere with me. They never stay in kennels or whatever. As long as I have them for that excuse, I never have to travel outside of my comfort zone. It makes saying "no" easier to others. It makes it easier not to take risks. Coming up soon, I have a situation I can't get out of where I have to travel and I finally took the step to find a dog care solution I could be comfortable with. I'm inviting someone into my (messy...haha...from yesterday's post) home to spend the night with them. Hopefully I'll be able to call on this person again in the future. Then I won't feel so uncomfortable about situations where I need to travel and can't take them with me. 

But see, here's the thing. I could say "I don't like to leave them" or "I always want them with me" or "I don't trust strangers with my babies" and all of that would be true. Society would let me get by with saying it just like society lets "helicopter"  parents say that they're "involved with their children and invested in their future". While all of that is VERY true (it's no secret how much I love my dogs) it's also true that I limit myself by being so "nurturing". There are places I don't go that I would like to go because of them. Things I don't do. And while I know they'd gladly lay down and die to spend time with me, I'm not sure I'm doing them any favors by not putting them into someone else's care now and then. 

Do you see what I'm getting at? Sometimes we do perfectly nurturing things, but there are reasons beneath them that aren't nurturing (or evolutionary) for you and aren't as nurturing as you'd like to think for the people you nurture. And then there's the whole phenomena of pouring yourself into others' issues so you don't have to face your own. We all do it from time to time. And this Mother of Earth has come along today to invite us to take a look at those we nurture and ask why we do all the many things we do. 

10/27/11—Questioning Your Authenticity

Today's Draw: The Princess of Cups from the Victoria Regina. What parts of your life can you say are truly authentic to you at a soul level? Do you ever find yourself doing things and wondering why? Do you sometimes feel like you're washed away on someone else's plan?

The Princess of Cups is a romantic, idealistic, a dreamer. In the book for the Victoria Regina, it tells us that the girl in the drawing is a young Queen Mary. As a teenager, she was chosen to marry Prince Albert Victor. But just after they were engaged, he died. 

Everyone loved Mary because she was so affable and the royal family wanted her to transfer her engagement to the next in line to the throne, George. She complied and they ended up having a good marriage—by all accounts a better one than if she had married Albert Victor, with whom she was not in love. 

There was—and still is in some societies—a time when women were unable to command their fate. They were told who to marry. They were kept from higher education and a career. They were expected to be socially and intellectually subservient to men. They were socialized to think in certain ways. And their main roles included reproduction and home economics. (Do they even have that in schools anymore? Home Ec?)

The truly shocking thing is that this was going in our country less than a hundred years ago! For some of us, it was the reality for our mother's or grandmother's generation. How far we've come. But have we—any of us, male or female—truly come into command of our own power? 

How many times have you just gone along with the plan? Do you know the difference between your desires and the desires of "the plan"? Cooperation is one thing. But putting something like marriage or Queenship in the hands of others is a little much. Still, it worked out for Queen Mary.

Many years back I remember having a "crisis" about what in my life is authentic to me and what's not. What was a function of the way I was raised or socialized? What's a function of what I think society expects from me? These are worthy questions to consciously explore, because you might find you're following a plan that's not of your own making. 

I know cleaning is one of those things for me...haha. Growing up, we had a very clean house. My house? Not so clean. Kind of cluttery. Not Hoarders bad, though I do have one Hoarders room. But you'll find dust in places that were unacceptable growing up. I don't move furniture very often to vacuum. I only mop when I can't stand it anymore. My kitchen would horrify some of you. But it's authentic to me. Cleanliness isn't a priority. Nobody's getting sick or anything, but then again, House Beautiful isn't setting up any photo shoots.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's not filthy. If you came over here, things would be neat and surfaces would be wiped, but it certainly wouldn't live up to my mother's standards. And, when my mother has a place of her own, she can keep it any way she likes! (That's just a joke. My mom passed 27 years ago.) But when I asked myself why this was one of my priorities when I a) live alone and b) don't feel comfortable in sterile, minimal environments, I came up empty. I maintain to my standards. I still wrestle with society's "plan" for how things "should" be. But I find that, by not inviting society over to my house, we're able to maintain a healthy balance. 

See, this may seem like a silly thing, but what it really all comes down is perfectionism. At least for me. I remember in my younger years when I lived in an efficiency, my place would be immaculate, all the grocery shopping would be done, fresh flowers would arranged and my farmer's market trip would all be done between 5am and noon on Saturday. It felt good to have everything so ordered with the whole day stretched out before me, sure. But it wasn't me. The voice saying "do all this by noon and dust and polish and blah, blah, blah" wasn't mine. My voice was saying "what kind of freak gets up at 5am on a Saturday just so they can run around like a chicken with their head cut off?"

When you're caught up in living automatically, without questioning why you stress yourself out to do X or act in a Y way, it's so hard to tell whether you're doing this because it's the plan or whether you're doing it because that's who you are. At least it was hard for me. I'm sure there are still many things I do without question because it's the plan. They're hard to spot sometimes. 

So consider what you do or how you act or what you might agree to that's not quite you. It will probably show its face as something that takes way more of your energy to do, be or say than it should. Or maybe it's like my perfectionism thing, where you just wonder if you're a little crazy for being the way you are. Then ask if the insanity is authentic to you. Could you live, act and be another way and feel more like yourself? If so consider doing something about it. :)

10/26/11—Questioning Why We're On The Path

Today's Draw: Nine of Spikes (Wands) from the Ironwing Tarot. Why do you think we generally pursue "bettering" ourselves? Why do we strive to be more godly? And isn't the pursuit of shedding our egos driven by the ego?

For as much as yesterday's card was about destruction, this card is about creation and transformation. Ultimately, though, they're the same thing. The burning hand-like spikes bring a magical heat that signals the path of the cicada from its 17-year sleep below the earth and its transformation from flightless nymph to the cicada we know.

If you're a tarot reader, you may not recognize this as a traditional meaning, but in the sense that the cicada summons its reserves and invests all its energy into its final push to transformation, it is. 

The first thing I saw when I looked at this card, however, is what we've been talking about all week...shedding our ego and rising to see the truth. So many people react strongly to the word ego, thinking it's meant to suggest that they think highly of themselves. But that's not exactly the kind of ego I talk about in these entries. Yes, there's a sense of self-importance and self-centeredness to it. And if you think you're devoid of those qualities you're mistaken. But, spiritually speaking, it's bigger than that. 

Ego is that part of ourselves that forms attachments to things, attitudes, image and such. It's that part of ourselves that lives in the past or future, that defines our identity, that sees ourselves as separate from others. Speaking in terms of us and them is an ego thing. In my opinion, the word "should" is completely owned by the ego. If you're human, you have an ego. In my belief, ego is the weight that tethers our spirit to earth. 

So over the past two days, we've talked about the freedom that comes from releasing attachment to the ego and we've talked about the conflicting voices of the ego that keep us from taking the direct route to our divine selves. Today has little more to offer to the picture except this: like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, the cicada has to completely shed his identity before he can fly. Heck, the cicada can't even see the sun—see the light—before it sheds its old form. 

As I had touched on earlier this week, I don't know why or if we "should" try to live in divine spirit on earth. I just know that I'm drawn to doing that. Logically thinking, though, I think humans are meant to be humans. I think we're here to be humans. So those beliefs are in conflict with the journey to shed ego and experience ourselves as spirits on earth. Life can have meaning without being on that journey. So it's not about finding meaning. And, of course, we can be both human and divine. In fact, that's more like what we are.

It's just that those rare moments in life that defy space, time and ego and allow us to stand squarely in the light of spirit are truly the most beautiful moments in life. I suppose the pursuit of this can be like chasing a high. There are few people who achieve it all the time. Eckart Tolle says he lives free of ego. The Dalai Lama probably does. Being that way all the time is too ambitious for me. Clearly there's nothing wrong with being our best selves. But why are we so set on being a better person if not for ego reasons? Maybe once we get to a certain point the ego dissolves, but we start on the path for ego reasons, don't we?

If you have any thoughts on all this, share with me. I think if we're going down a path, we should at least know why. I tend to follow my heart and we can certainly move forward without knowing why. But my approach to life is "question everything". And after three days of the same types of messages about ego this week, I think it's time to question why we don't just sink deeply into our humanity and leave our spirit selves for when we shed this skin.