Cardinal Virtues

I remember visiting the river recently, watching cardinals flocking together and featuring quite an aerial show.  Cardinals are beautiful birds and their cycle of power is year-round.  When flying with the energy of cardinal, we see that everything we do in our lives is important and we renew our life force or chi, if you will.  I like to think of cardinal as program development for the self.  Given their rhythm of 12, cardinal foreshadows our consciousness to gaze onward, as the end of the Mayan calendar approaches us on the Winter Solstice, December 21, 2012.  A myriad of theories postulate why this date is significant to humanity and our home, Classroom Mothership Earth.  One thing is for certain–getting stuck in the mud with fear will not be helpful.  In fact, what we resist will persist.  So, what can we do about it to stay in the flow?  We humans must be prepared for ceremony, prayer, meditation and working proactively with the spirited energies that are visiting us now and will continue to intensify as this date approaches.  None of us know where we are going, not really.  However, staying open to the flow is good medicine and even modern science confirms the power of human beings gathering in ceremony, prayer, meditation and focusing on making positive interpretations about what we see in real-time.  Personally, I am looking forward to hosting another annual fire ritual with my mates from the Clubhouse around the Winter Solstice.

True, so much tyranny exists in our dying old world and that is not fair and balanced.  I once heard a wise psychologist define that fair is that everyone does not get what they want, but they get what they need.  Also, I remember an astute psychiatrist once define pathology as merely deeply ingrained behavioral patterns.  In the spirit of that, systemic change is needed on our planet today and our consciousness must evolve if we are to survive.  There is too much hate that divides us.  Yes, we are diverse expressions of Creator, but we also share in Unity as One.  When Chick-fil-A finances anti-gay groups that try to convert folks in therapy groups from gay to straight and advocate for the criminalization of homosexual behavior, this does not celebrate one human family.  But when the creators of the Muppets flew the coup of their financial backing of Chick-fil-A, that is a step toward Unity Consciousness.  However, when the NRA and our friends in Congress repealed laws that took Federal Assault Weapons off the streets back in 2004, their decision to do that played a role in helping make it more convenient for the terror that took place recently in an Aurora movie theater massacre.  As a citizen in the USA, what a complicated mixed-message it is to send that we could be punished for how we might be  naturally oriented, but we are normally allowed to buy military style weapons to use out on the street.  Alas, my heart-mind particularly remembers learning in my CPR training that 95% of accidents can be prevented.

While the political will would certainly help tip the Critical Mass to come about, every individual has the freedom to choose how he responds to what comes his way.  That being said, it would be a much more gentle world if the choice was to play in a clean park without having to worry about bullying gang activity, stray bullets and/or residual land mines.  What will happen in this year’s presidential selection?  Lyndon LaRouche has called president Obama a modern-day Nero and a fascist.  Putting Obama aside for a moment, the alternative candidate is a businessman who hides his tax returns and hoards money in offshore investments like the Cayman Islands, a Swiss bank and huge deductions for his ballet horse.  When enough of us calm the voice of the ego and instead heed the inner voice, we will hear the answer blowing in the wind.  Meditating on cardinal can help us become whistleblowers in life by adding color to it.  When we allow spirit to flow through our hearts and minds, we organically facilitate taking flight into a positive, peaceful transition into a New Earth.  

Stay True,

Ari

Union of the Snake

I remember puttering around the garage recently, stepping into the backyard for a spell and sharing an unexpected intimate moment with a snake gazing my way from his vantage point in the grass.  Given that I was about to embark on an adventure to my 20 year High School reunion, I took my encounter with snake as an omen to shed our old skin, while allowing for a smooth transmutation process into becoming something new.  Given the changing tides, this summer is an especially hot time for reunions and gatherings.  When we face the music and participate in the theater of life, it is not always an easy buffet of feelings to consume and digest.  We are all mirrors for one another, albeit diverse expressions of Great Spirit (God, Universe, etc.).  As mirrors, we do not always like seeing the snakes reflected back our way.  However, when we tap into the fire of snake medicine, it invokes within us the process of alchemy that facilitates healing.  By embracing our own power, we wake up to our authentic selves.  In releasing our own suffering, we open up to compassion and love.  Remember that the Buddha arrived at this Earth plane to show us compassion, while the Christ arrived to show us Love.  When we heed their wisdom and walk in this Light, we facilitate the healing of ourselves, the planet and Universal Consciousness throughout by co-creating Heaven on Earth one moment, one slither and one breath at a time.

Has anyone else out there had a tendency to play with fire and get burned in the process?  In the theater of life, facing the music and taking it to the edge sometimes is an experiential learning opportunity for growth, here in Classroom Mothership Earth.  Sometimes, ingesting the poison of the bite stokes the inner flame of alchemy to wake up to our own immortality.  Perhaps our dying selves and dying world will be the death of us, but with every funeral comes a new birth.  Regardless of one’s belief systems, those of us that know the power of prayer and meditation know a direct experience with Divine Energies that are available as powerful resources to us, if only we ask.  At this junction of Nature’s cycle, it was so nice to celebrate good times with old friends and breathe in new life, while exhaling dead air.  While many folks avoided directly participating in our celebratory ritual, I know the good vibrations will be felt by even those that did not show up.  When we effectively integrate our masculine and feminine energy and heal polarity in our consciousness, we light the torch of fire medicine.  In the spirit of that, we create passion, desire, procreation and physical vitality on the material plane; ambition, creation, resolution and dreams on the emotional plane; intellect, power, charisma and leadership on the mental plane; and wisdom, understanding, wholeness and connection to Great Spirit on the spiritual plane.  Does anyone remember the scene from The Matrix when Neo visits the Oracle and the little boy in the waiting room says to him something like, try not to bend the spoon . . . that’s impossible . . . instead, imagine that the spoon isn’t there.  Readers, do you see that magic is no more than a perceptual shift in consciousness?

Snake’s energy has potential to awaken our Divine Life Force within (Chi).  If you would like to tap into this power, please consider keeping yourself energetically clean by psychically bathing yourself in white light and flushing whatever toxic debris remains down your spine, through the soles of your feet and into Mother Earth for her to receive and compost.  By embracing our power with respect to our relationships, we wake up authentically to our True Selves.  Shamans of the Americas have shared stories of a dying, snake-like god named Quetzalcoatl that would someday return.  In this Light, we will explore fantastic mythical stories like this in future blog conversations.  If anyone out there has a poignant story to share, I would excitedly welcome that.

Stay True,

Ari