Without Swimming in Creative Waters with Seal, Our Minds Might Drown in Madness

Cheers to welcoming a New Year!
Enter in 2017 – on the Gregorian calendar at least

Seal breathes in fresh air into the dark chambers
of the cold, dark waters of our collective soul . . .

Lucid dreaming awakens primal creative elemental forces
symbolic of water and feminine, yin energies

A Full Wolf Moon is coming soon . . .
Before long, it will become the Chinese New Year of the Rooster . . .

What does your inner wolf and rooster need to make friends with right now?

Part of anxiety is blocked energy that wants to express itself through creativity
Another piece is letting go of judgments that charge the ego’s grip

But you can listen to the voices of anxiety with an open and passive attitude

The chattering monkey can become theater, and you can find humor in
the attack of the nervous woodland creature energies

In the Northern hemisphere, our days are getting a little brighter
until light and dark are equal again on Spring Equinox in March

And then light will peak on the Summer solstice in June . . .
Festivities are alive, and energies are expressed outward in community

At that point, masculine energies are dancing vibrantly again, while
falling back in equal rhythmic alignment with feminine on Autumn equinox in September . . .

Here in America, are we not still fighting and struggling to let go of
issues related to taxation with(out) representation?

This marks for a nation of millions peppered with blue states versus red states . . .

Such a Uzi scenario of marketed, mixed martial arts messages and
polarizing allegiances, merely reflecting opposite sides of the same coin

Inherent in colonial roots, slave-trade politics is unearthed . . .

A developmentally delayed electoral college swaddled in its
comfort zone is apparently secured

Does that formidable system not still seek to divide and conquer
the privileged few from the overwhelming majority?

Does the market not take stock in what supports the greater good?

How will our new president-elect
Donald Trump handle the challenges faced by the herd?

Tis the season for outside the box thinking to awaken creative,
new ways of working together

Mercury in Retrograde helps us revisit old connections . . .

Hopefully an opportunity for us to rework past tense dysfunctions
into healthy novel scripts

Use the energies of the New Year to let go of your projections . . .

May we allow ourselves to focus on our close encounters
with the many blessings flying around our energies fields!

Yes, Winter is in full swing . . .

But Groundhog Day is right around the corner with a friendly reminder that
the seeds underground will be starting to think about waking up then

See you further on up the trails,

Ari

Out of the Body Experiences with Penguin

Penguin leaps out of the water and takes flight into the air
In this space, we are propelled out of our bodies . . . .

Meditation on Penguin awakens powers of dreaming lucidly
We are given access to multidimensional exploration . . .

Our souls leave behind our temples to venture deeper into
alternate states of the astral plane

Gently connect with the tides of this Full Wolf Moon to
psychically stream into your dream-team

May our spiritual wings power our vessels further
into oceanic depths of the Dreamtime

Meditation offers us safe passages for traveling inward
into the vast galaxies of our inner skies with
a safe haven anchored back in this Earth

But facing physical death is an unknown transition . . .

Losing our loved ones to death can be rough on the living
Unexpected deaths can especially leave us feeling angry,
confused, depressed and with deep sadness

Sometimes we just want to hide away from the rest of the world

We survivors are reminded of our own mortality
and feel survivor’s guilt as well as struggle with the lack of control
that we truly have for what happens to us

But we can control how we respond to these tragedies
Painful as it is to taste this bitter aspect of life –
We might as well do the best we can to lean into our feelings and be vulnerable

We are here to learn how to cope with life’s stress in the living moment
while we are still breathing

Make peace with yourself and with your loved ones who have passed on
You can help them ascend through the power of surrender and forgiveness

Get out alone in Nature and sit in the elements for a spell
If you are uncomfortable or having a hard time sitting with what is . . .

Free yourself to get down with the elements and just “let it be” . . .
This is a healthy way to loosen our entanglements with form

Doesn’t the cold chill in your bones from the wind
remind you that you are still alive?

And then isn’t the forecast of a scalding hot shower, saltwater bath or fire
something to look forward to?

Let go of that thought for a moment and just be mindful
of your surroundings and let yourself quiet down

Pretty soon, the animals will speak up and do their thing
What messages does Nature have for you to receive?

Let your inner child remember the surprise birthday party of every moment
Expectations are forgotten as exploration and discovery is your experience

May we be empowered to flex our co-creative dreaming muscles consciously –
so that we can weave them into our waking reality

We have explored how the Empire prefers to remain hidden by going unexamined
As such, we have been told a patriarchical story that
glamorize a dominant script of masculine power

But the Emperor Penguin is a good role model for redefining masculinity . . .
Showing us that Father Sun nurtures Mother Earth with loving warmth

Historically, a nurturing role has typically been ascribed to women and femininity
Penguin alters our traditional ideas of gender roles into a

New dream for humanity where we sew creative feminine threads
Woven together into a new masculine tapestry with energetic equanimity

Hope to see onward up the trails,

Ari

Tunneling Underground with Groundhog

Groundhogs radically lower their body temperature, respiration and heartbeat
Securing a protected slumber to keep safe and sound while frozen in time
During this week’s Full Snow Moon

Do you ever feel like you are sleepwalking through life in a hypnotic trance?
Every day is the same
Like Bill Murray’s character in the iconic film Groundhog Day
Even when killing himself, he cannot escape his suffering

But there is a way out of our suffering by leaning into our pain

A Groundhog’s Winter hibernation
Symbolizes death and rebirth while we are breathing
Waking-Up the embers of underground unconsciousness
Unearthing mysteries of death without dying

Pregnant with dreamy seeds of who we want to become
When Spring Eclipse season buds into our consciousness
While slumbering in dark tunnels of our soul

Lucid dreaming sheds light on our underground digging and tunneling
Do you feel your subconscious mind waking-up?

Life and death are deeply mysterious unknowns
But we do not have to physically die to live
with a healthy relationship with our mortality

Regardless of the weather forecast, unexpected changes happen
Order and chaos are in a fluctuating tango
Our boarders and edges soften with time

Are you sending clear signals for boundaries you want respected?

Mercury in retrograde resurrects relationships from our past
Use this period to release and let-go of stagnant energies
Like feeling abandoned, rejected, resentful or bitter
Gently allowing healing to take place instead of developing an attitude

Regarding past regrets . . .
Remember that you win when you choose forgiveness
Give yourself permission to grieve so that you can move forward

Are you handling the accompaniment of mixed and conflicting feelings
that are rising up to the surface without getting stuck in global overwhelm?

But rather than skillfully avoiding our pain and discomforts
Through sophisticated symptom relief . . .
If only we develop our tolerance threshold, accept and even embrace
our internal deaths and rebirths with grace

We breathe in the fresh air of every living moment . . .
And then exhale its death in the next moment of kin . . .

We can let go of our resentments and digest bitter
Relaxing the charge we have felt by our pain

If only we learn to live in the present as it happens
We gently allow a distant past of abuses or projected future fantasies
Pass with care

We awaken to the metaphor of reincarnation
Transcending the Law of Cause and Effect
Reworking and revisiting Groundhog Day
Into a magical mystery tour of
Right Now!

See you further on up the trails,

Ari

Diving with Loon into the depths of the Soul

Loons give their Penguin friends a swim for their bills in their depository to dive deeply into the water’s abyss.  Winter is a time that we turn yinward and dive deeper into our soulful inner sea of consciousness.  Winter and water represent feminine energy, the dark Yin on the Chinese symbol of the Yin and Yang.  Loon medicine helps us wake up to lucid dreaming or becoming more conscious of our dreams and visions.  Paying attention to our dreams helps us take a reflective look at our waking lives and empowers us to living more authentically.  We all dream, whether we remember our dreams or not.  If we want to have more of a say in our lives, then it stands to reason that we might take note of what our dreams are saying to us.  Winter also represents darkness and the death cycle in Nature.  Mother Earth’s heartbeat slows down at this time. Given that we are a living embodiment of Nature, we are meant to slow down too.  However, many of us have a tendency to resist our natural internal orientation during Winter by trying to stay up in our activity level.  Although balance is always important, your soul will know the deeper acoustics of harmony if you allow yourself a bit more rest and get in touch with the deeper feelings that accompany Winter’s energies of death, grief and loss.  Now is the time when our dreams and visions germinate, somewhat akin to the seeds underground that are beginning to start thinking about waking up as we approach the Chinese-Lunar New Year in early February.  Like buds on our trees, the dreams and visions we are pregnant with now will begin to fruit around the Spring Equinox in March and their manifestation power intensifies as we approach the Summer Solstice in June.

In modern society, especially here in America we get pretty fired up about our guns.  Many folks are citing our Constitutional right to bear arms and some even openly carry a piece by asserting their right to do that and don’t see anything alarming about it.  During my childhood, I grew up in Michigan–boy do we really love our guns there.  Some folks believe that having a gun will keep them safe.  But we have more gun related deaths, many accidental within the privacy of one’s own home, than anywhere else on the Planet.  The NRA is a powerful organization with a lot of money to assault our friends in Congress to shoot down sensible gun control laws.  We have a chock full of military style weapons that end up in the wrong hands out on the street where there are dangers of bullying, desperation and poor impulse control.  Since we love our wars, the resistance energy behind the mind-set of war predictably promotes more storms brewing ahead.  Instead of real homeland security and crime prevention by funneling our resources into positive community connections, treatment, education, healthcare, infrastructure and creating good jobs for the 20 million folks who want to work, our leaders balk at this by concentrating monies at the top of the food chain.  Beef:  It’s what’s for dinner.  I remember visiting my dad as a kid and on some of those visits, he taught me to shoot a 22 by the time I was 6 years old.  Although my dad liked to shoot from the hip and lacked an adequate understanding of childhood development, I do appreciate that he was strict about teaching me the basics about gun safety.  Guns symbolize power and security, but they often manifest danger.  Those of us in touch with our deeper feelings are  grieving the terrible tragedy that happened in Connecticut recently.  I once lived in Connecticut and still have close friends there, so the tragedy has weighed heavy on my heart.  But in the grieving process of this tragedy, I know in my heart that it will lead to an awakening as we move onward.  Even in death, there is rebirth.  I have gone through this process many, many times.  Haven’t we all?

When swimming with Loon, we dive deeper into our souls, as our collective consciousness shifts onward.  Instead of God Bless America or Allah Bless Muslims, we dream God Bless Mother Earth and all living creatures.  Loon helps us understand the depth of our connection to the Dreamtime and reminds us we are all cut from the same cloth of Great Spirit.  Creator’s original Blueprint was a loving One.  Sadly, but understandably, that got distorted.  Given that we are all a reflection of that image, meditation on Loon helps us perceive this in our Being and make friends with that.  We are all living embodiments of All That Is.  Since we are all One, albeit diverse expressions of that oneness, killing someone else is ultimately directed at the self.  Although this truth is mind-boggling, I came to a point where this made sense to me intellectually.  But now I am arriving at a deeper intuitive understanding of this truth in my Heart.  That is why we speak of killing with kindness.  When we come out of our inner peace bubble and remember that there are no enemies, then we truly co-create a New Earth together one step, one breath, one moment at a time.

Stay True,

Ari

Dreaming with Salamander and cleansing withTurkey Vulture

I remember walking along the trails with a student, when he noticed a salamander.  After exhaling dead air, I felt alive after taking a conscious breath of fresh air.  Further along the festival of Life, I became engaged in another conversational flow with one of the cats I roll with from around the way.  After helping him pick up some fallen branches left over from Hurricane Sandy, I said a prayer of gratitude for the storm’s minimal impact in our neck of the woods, while simultaneously expressing a silent blessing to our friends to our South that were affected more dramatically.  Given that I had just cast my absentee ballot, our conversation quickly cut to a commercial about going blue.  Although I didn’t turn into a wolverine or get depressed while listening to my feline friend’s assertion to vote in that hue, it saddens me that we are merely one step away from a dictatorship here in the United States, in that we are more polarized than ever in our collectively boxed-in mindsets.  But seeing two women on a presidential ticket here in the USA fills my heart Chakra green with hope!  When we truly walk in alignment with Nature, we shift our focus less on the odds by levitating into the realm of Infinity, where holographic possibilities abound.  With turkey vulture and salamander as a spirit guides, we ride the thermals of life, elevate our Auric vision and invigorate our energetic field around us.  Moreover, we shed our old skin to make way for rebirth and effectively navigate the elemental forces of land and water.  In this process, we co-create Heaven on Earth by consuming a healthy spirited diet, while feathering each other’s ripple in a positive vibration of Love and Light.

If we are to co-create a more egalitarian culture here in the Nation, the Americas, Planet and Universe throughout, we need to heed the cadence of Classroom Mothership Earth and the heart of Great Spirit.  All creatures, great and small, above and below are equal in the eyes of Great Spirit and we are all nourished by our Mother Earth.  Nature has an organic way of leveling the playing field and we see that play out in Climate Change.  Some of you have noticed that I have selected Tom Brady as a metaphor for staying calm in the pocket, especially when blitzed by unpredictable and turbulent weather patterns in the form of Giants.  Tom Brady personifies someone who may not have been blessed with the greatest natural talent, but he has become greatness by avoiding catastrophes time and again.  Specifically, the future Hall of Fame quarterback effectively demonstrates T’ai Chi like subtle movements in the pocket, psychically reading and adjusting to relentless defensive storm fronts and maintains a wide open angle gaze downfield, while believing in the possibility of making a big play, against apparent all odds.  Now if you think I’m throwing low balls at the rest of the team around him, I’ll bet that turkey vulture would concur that would be a foul ball.  Like a salamander, Brady slithers between the elements and demonstrates metamorphosis right in front of our eyes.  Like switching gears from running and passing, Mother Nature shows us similar shifting fronts of waning light and movement toward the dark.  Here in the Northern hemisphere, we officially turn our clocks yinward in the week ahead.  Masculine-yang energy is fading to black as feminine-yin energy is becoming more dominant, until it’s climax on the Winter Solstice and the end of the Mayan Calender on December 21, 2012.

Given the corporate media’s compartmentalized view of Nature’s new normal, we must get into alignment with Climate Change by embracing this phenomenon, rather than resisting it.  Humanity has a say in how we navigate this process and rather than hate the media, we must become the media.  On a personal spiritual front, experiential wisdom reminds us that what we resist persists and we must become the change we want to see in the world.  Yes, large socialist mega-corporations that continue to rape and abort our Mother need to wake the f-bomb up and stop fracking around folks, as my Midwestern aunt that likes to rant provocatively asserts.  We are spiritual beings having human experiences.  As such, we have the capacity to right the ship, come about and lead an unprecedented shift in consciousness while floating on the waters of life.  When we see things in our field of vision that are alarming, the Universe is providing us an opportunity to send the power of Love to whatever floats in our orbit.  That means that we acknowledge our anger and other flood of negative emotions that arrive and then gently breath those feelings out, while sending them Love for compost.  In a sense, we swim on land and surf the shifting tides into a New Age and Paradigm, one step, one breath and one moment at a time.  This kind of mulching has a much more pleasant stink to it than getting stuck in the muck.  By sending Love to our inner space, we shift from pollution to healthy renewable energy for all to share. 

Stay True,

Ari