Research has shown that meditation & prayer are proven practices to increase both physical and mental wellness and support a healthier, longer life.

Meditation and prayer are effective antidotes to stress and support your natural self-healing capabilities.

The Ego Mind Perpetuates Illness

The ego mind is determined to hang on to anger, resentment and the beliefs, ideas and stories of the past that separates us from our own hearts and the rest of the world.

These things perpetuate misery, sickness and suffering. If you truly desire happiness, success and ongoing health and vitality of your body, mind and soul it’s vital you become your own codebreaker!

That way you can break the ego mind’s hold over your life and release the code responsible for negative mind, chatter, anxiety, depression and the desire to hang on to resentment.

Can we really see our departed loved ones right in front of us? According to Dr. Raymond Moody, this is possible through mirror gazing, which he also refers to as scrying. He developed his own mirror-gazing technique, his Psychomanteum Chamber, which was inspired by the ancient techniques used 2,500 years ago at the Oracle of the Dead in Ephyra, Greece.

Over the years, I’ve heard Dr. Moody speak many times of the people who have gazed into the mirror in his Psychomanteum Chamber and subsequently had their own personal contact with their departed loved ones.

The path of awakening is not one where we are eternally feeling good. Along it, it is inevitable that we move through moments and periods of not feeling good at all. As unsettling and disconcerting as this may be ultimately, as the spiritual beings that we are, we have not come here to feel eternally good but to get eternally free.

The spiritual path is all about releasing and letting go of that which no longer serves us

Awakening is not about adding anything onto us. It is not really about learning anything new either. But it is about releasing, letting go and unlearning. Inherently, we already are all that we will ever be. We already are as awakened as we will ever be. We already are as spiritual as we will ever be. The Divine is already inherently within us, and nothing can ever be added onto it to make it more or bigger.

However as we incarnate onto this planet we learn to create stories and fantasies about reality. Some are of our own making. Some we have inherited from the world. From our parents, relatives, guardians, society, culture. These oftentimes are stories that keep us small and limited.

The ego's mantra is: I am not enough and there is not enough. And so, most of the stories we buy into, arise from that perception. It is a limited perception keeping the inherent Divine Light from shining brightly.

We try so hard to overcome separateness with others in the moment.

More intimacy. More rubbing of bodies, exchanging of ideas. But it’s always as if you are yelling out of your room and I am yelling out of mine. Even trying to get out of the room invests the room with a reality. Who am I? The room that the mind has built.

We spend so much effort to get out of something that didn’t exist until we created it. Something that is gone in a moment. We’ve all had moments when the room disappeared and we freaked out, or explained it away, or ignored it, or let it pass by.

A moment. The moment of orgasm. The moment by the ocean when there is just the wave. The moment of being in love. The moment of crisis when we forget ourselves and do just what is needed.

We each come out again and again. We turn and look and realize we’re out, and panic. We run back in the room, close the door, panting heavily. Now I know where I am. I’m back home. Safe. No matter how squalid the room is, no matter how unmade the bed, no matter how many bugs are crawling around the kitchen, it’s safe.

As we approach the new moon this week it’s an auspicious time to focus on setting new intentions. Ancient farmers, who followed the cycles of the moon, traditionally planted seeds in the earth during the new moon. The lunar gravity, which is strongest at the new moon, pulls water up through the soil which helps seeds swell with moisture and aids them in bursting open to germinate new life.

For us, when the moon is at its darkest and beginning a new cycle, its energy encourages us to align ourselves with new growth as well. It’s a time to go inward and contemplate what we will manifest in our lives. While the full moon is often celebrated as a time to circle and make use of its power, it is all about release and letting go of that which no longer serves us, while the new moon helps us begin something new and invites to co-create with fresh energy.

Aptly, in the 4-card Universal reading this week, the first card is Skuld, the Norse Goddess of the Future. Her name means “she who is becoming”. She is the youngest of the three Norns, or Fates, who weave each person’s destiny into the tapestry of time. She shapes the future. She comes to show us that we have a small moment in time this week where we get a glimpse into our future, to see what is possible for us. The Universe is sending signals, signs, and omens that remind us that all things are possible. These flashes of insight can become potent moments of inspiration for us.  

This two part series explores how we regularly leave our body and skim life’s surface in a mental trance, and the ways we can train our attention to come home again. We look at working with physical and emotional pain, and the gifts of love, wisdom, creativity and aliveness that arise as we learn to fully inhabit these living forms and all our senses with awareness.

Be The Energy

Trust the energy that courses
through you. Trust – then take
surrender even deeper.
Be the energy.

Don’t push anything away.
Follow each sensation back to
its source and focus your awareness
there.

Be the ecstasy…

Be unafraid of consummate wonder.
Emerge so new, so vulnerable,
that you don’t know
who you are.

Be the energy,
and paradoxically,
be at peace.
Dare to be your own illumination,

And blaze a trail across
the clear night sky…..

Danna Faulds

At one point Maharaji said, “See everything as the Mother and you will know God.” What was he talking about? seeing your mother in everything?

We, Westerners. Have our share of relationship complexities with our mothers. With interpretations galore courtesy of Dr. Freud. The view of the mother in India is different. The country is called Mother India. A Western devotee once told Maharaji he hated his mother. And nobody understood what he was saying. The concept didn’t make it across the cultural barrier. In India the mother is so deeply respected and revered, there was no way that statement could be understood. There is an Indian saying that there may be bad children. But there are no bad mothers.

The Divine Mother, the Goddess, has many dimensions. In the broadest sense consciousness and energy. Eternal spirit and matter are male and female. Out of the One in the first glimmer of duality comes Purusha. The formless spirit. Prakriti, the cosmic energy that coalesces into form. As God and Goddess. They are Shiva. Who personifies pure absolute consciousness and the seed of procreation, and Shakti. Who manifests infinite forms.

Formal spiritual practice is the very fundament for anyone who truly desires to consciously grow and unfold. It is through this formal practice that we make ourselves increasingly open and available to catch insights as to that which is true and real. That we may release and let go of the small and limiting beliefs and perceptions that keep us from going further. That keep us at the level of consciousness that we presently are at. 

However we must never forget to use the moments in between to build spiritual muscles as much as we can. It is in those moments in between the formal practice that we are really strengthening those muscles. 

Like Eckhart Tolle reminds us, it is one thing to have a regular practice of formal meditation, lets say in the morning. And a totally different other to maintain that level of presence throughout the day. 

In other words, formal meditation, although beautiful and powerful, is not enough. Formal praying, although powerful and magnificent, is not enough. The same with forgiveness, visioning and surrendering. But it is what we do in between those moments of formal practice that truly builds those spiritual muscles we need.

March 20th marked the Spring Equinox and the ushering in of spring in the northern hemisphere! After the quiet introspective season of winter, the earth seems to suddenly come bursting back to life. Everything feels new as the cycle begins again.

I live in a very rural area, so I have very few human neighbors, but I do have a front row seat to nature. Without looking at a calendar I can see the cycles of life right outside my window, and this week my animal neighbors were telling me that spring is here!

I’ve been watching birds calling to each other as they build their nests. I also watched a pair of coy-wolves (a coyote-wolf hybrid) roaming my property, looking for the perfect den. It makes me happy knowing that in just a few short weeks new life will be surrounding me, little eyes will be opening and seeing their world for the first time. Whether they are walking around on wobbly legs or trying their wings out, they are in a complete space of not knowing what their world will be but moving forward with curiosity anyway. It’s a great reminder for us to always look at the world with the curiosity of a child, without all the judgment of our past experiences to cloud up our vision.

If spirits can reach out to you, then it’s fair to say that you can reach out and communicate with them. Best of all, you don’t need a medium like me to do it for you nor do you need special abilities to make this type of loving connection on your own.

There are numerous ways to communicate with passed loved ones and stay in touch everyday, but you have to start with a strong mind-set and a belief that it is possible.

Your loved ones know when you’re reaching out to them. If you have this strong belief in place and are missing a particular loved one who recently passed, I’d like you to try the following 7 steps to invite them to your own private get-together: