Tag Archives: Politics

Resurrecting the Light with Beetle

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Last week, we followed Dog tracks.  Along the trails, I found myself being more affectionate with my family and mindful of boundaries in relationships. While celebrating the Winter Solstice, we noted hot topics of gratitude and letting go, while coaxing back the light.  On the Gregorian calendar, we embark on 2013 and continue pressing onward in our Consciousness’ assent.  We are in the process of Climate Change and co-creating a New Earth right now and you are It.  Some folks were terrified of Doomsday scenarios that promised the end of the world.  Others were disappointed about being disappointed that our dying old world didn’t fall off the cliff, while immediately being transformed into a Golden Age on the day after.  But aliens didn’t take over and Hillary Clinton went to the hospital–thankfully receiving quality health care without worry of how to pay for it.  Soon we welcome the arrival of the Chinese-Lunar New Year, as Spring begins budding underground with Groundhog.  Before too long, we will know energetic balance again on the Spring Equinox in March.  I awoke the other night to a clear vision of a Beetle gleaming across my inner sky.  Like the Sun’s movement across the sky, Beetle moves from East to West.   Mother energy has been revisiting us at this time, as feminine-yin energy is dominant and we are turning more inward.  Meditating on Beetle medicine is like tapping into a mutable orientation.  Whether we are Franz Kafka or an Average Joe, we are all capable of metamorphosis.  Is anyone else inspired by a bug’s capacity to radically change from an egg to a grub stage and then fly away as a winged creature?  In women, this is somewhat akin to menopause or “mentalpause” as I have heard it called.  Do I embrace this heated change or fight it like a war on something I reject? 

During our tracking right now, many of us remember our heavy heartfelt losses.  There is much pain and it is hard to make friends with that.  Picture the horribly uncomfortable position of grieving the death of a partner, while giving birth to a new child simultaneously.  Some folks have lost their jobs, their homes or gone through gut-wrenching break-ups, separations or divorce.  Even our worried well in the pampered West, are waking up to the hard times we are living in.  Others feel like they don’t know who they are anymore and are uncertain of who they are becoming.  In the mystery of Life, has anyone ever lost a loved one to suicide, unexpected death or any other permanent physical good-bye?  It is a mixed blessing to feel the spirit of the season and also really feel the deep hurt and anger regarding our myriad of deeply traumatic soul wounds, including the inequities, pain and suffering on our planet today.  After I lost my mom to suicide, I felt abandoned and forced to enter into adulthood with deeper wounds than your average Bear.  I had already felt that before she whacked herself, but the void widened, part of me died as well.  But it wasn’t the first time I felt that way, nor will it be the last.  Tempting as it was pursuing career goals, objectives and being driven to distraction–doing the inner work is always what yields fruitful  and sustainable returns.  Living isn’t really sustainable until we wake up to our deeper feelings, while stoking the fiery embers of passion and courage to move toward intimacy, while letting go of egocentric avoidance tactics that keep us asleep.  Some of us have fantastic avoidance mechanisms in place that get in the way of us getting in touch with our deeper souls. 

The old world of white privilege is dying too and it is OK to grieve that.  Some white folks feel like they are losing their country and for them, things seem to be getting worse and they are feeling resentful about it.  Some complainants at the top of the economic food chain do not think it is fair that they might have to pay a little more if the Bush tax cuts fade away.  But a simple perceptual shift reveals that when the playing field is leveled for everyone else, there is enough and we can all win.  When I see a community of straight white men going out on a limb and intimately sharing their feelings around a fire and cheering for gay folks being allowed to join our formerly exclusive club–it fills my heart with hope to see Karma being cleared.  Yes, social change is slow and Great Spirit works in mysterious ways.  Human rights, gay rights, gender equality, civil rights, worker rights and culturally sensitive mental health assessments and testing and equal access to resources are all manifestations of our forward progress.  But we need to remember that conservative energy anchors us in our traditions and be sensitive to that too.  Sometimes this looks like taking one step up and two steps back. 

We cannot always be in control of our lives and remain in our inner peace bubble.  Spiritual beings having a human experience need to come down from the mountain and learn to be on the ground with our fellow brothers and sisters.  Sometimes, our securities wane gradually, while at other times they wash away instantly.  We need to remember that we can control our attitude and how we respond to the cards that are dealt, regardless of how uncomfortable we feel about them.  But the democratic process is messy.  We are all in this together and we all have a say in the great waves of changes coming our way.

Stay True,

Ari

Dog as my Co-Pilot

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Does anyone out there remember the bitter taste that accompanies being taken out of inner peace?  While sitting in the hot seat recently, I reflected on my own tendency to get distracted from the distractions, while yielding at taking a closer look at the cumulative effect of what has taken root.  Haven’t I already been there, done that?  Didn’t I already deal with this old wound and can’t I just get on with it?  Did I mention getting really pissed off about it?  But it is the journey, not the destination.  Meditation reminds us that within the process of taking a closer look, we wake up to the deeper layers of our souls–while carrying an accompanying gift bag to make friends with that.  If you are anything like my dying old self, perhaps you have allowed your ego to play spirited tricks on yourself to keep you asleep.  One popular technique is cleverly bypassing the deep hurt of traumas, such as abuse and abandonment issues.  Have you observed the voice in the head that asserts a convincing argument that you have successfully bypassed a putrid stench that you would rather avoid smelling?  However, from a position of empathy, how can I expect to truly blossom into a new flower and sow the seeds of Love, if I do not allow myself the shitty job of composting?  When working Dog medicine in the positive, Dog is a good reminder to heed their message to delve deeply into our soul’s sense of service to others.  The spirit of dog helps us remember our human shortcomings, both in self and in relation with others.

Descendants of coyotes and wolves, I can’t help but appreciate Dog’s presence during the past 10,000 years of our human story.  When I was a child, sometimes I felt myself transform into a greyhound as soon as my feet hit the playground during recess.  I would impatiently stare at the clock and fantasize about the bell signaling to us that it was time to get outside and play.  In fact, it was a magical experience that I shared with constitutionally similar alpha male types that featured behaviors labeled today as AD/HD in clinical speak.  While at a holiday brunch with friends recently, this memory inundated me when a woman commented that she thought a greyhound would be a good fit in our home, should we ever add a dog to the litter.  And then I shared a heartfelt connection with a similar canine breed while tracking in the woods.  I don’t know how our cat with queen bee and feral tendencies would feel about it, but I don’t think the guinea pigs would feel threatened.  And our child is getting older and could help out with the care-taking responsibilities, so I want to be open to the possibility.  In the meanwhile, you don’t have to be a dog lover to feel inspired to be more good-natured, affectionate, friendly, travel in packs and see the good in folks without being judgemental.  Dog is a good remedy to become more devoted in our relationships and nurturing and protective as parents.  Dog also helps us remember to be more discriminate with our personal boundaries and remember to not give our power away to others when looking for direction.  There’s nothing wrong with seeking consultation or guidance through friends, therapists, coaches, etc.  But when it comes to our own souls, we need to explore the depths of information available there.  Ingesting Dog’s energy teaches us how to be more affectionate and faithful companions.  As adults, we teach our children how to become healthy humans by having fun, playing and enjoying life.  Remember that modeling is the most powerful form of teaching.  The old world of “do as I say, not as I do” or “children should be seen but not heard” is dying, as is too permissive, negligent and rigid parenting styles.  Discipline comes from the Latin word disciplina, which means to teach.  Lecturing my own child and students about being a spiritual being having a human experiences is not as powerful or meaningful as working together to prepare a family style meal and hugging good-bye after breaking bread with folks from the office.  It doesn’t matter if you are a union member or not, we all need to tend to our core.  How do you like them apples? 

When we take an authentic look within ourselves and the world around us, we feel the deep anger and hurt from real gut-wrenching atrocities and inequities that abound our Planet today.  The other night, I had a clear dream of a dirty nuclear explosion, juxtaposed with an elaborate, composting mechanism that produced green energy, leaving a crystal-clear Carbon Footprint.  Even gated communities and executive neighborhoods in leafy suburban communities have a darkness on the edge of town.  Whether we target greedy wealthy individuals that throw temper tantrums about so-called fiscal cliffs, blame secularism, gay folks for raising kids or Jeremy speaking in class today–we need to dive deeper to find the pearl within.  There will be no peace in our world until we find it within ourselves.  Riding with Dog as your co-pilot will help you effectively navigate through your journey.  On December 21, we said good-bye to our last Winter Solstice on an old Mayan Calendar.  On December 28, we welcome our last Full Moon of 2012.  Did anyone else feel a shift in our collective consciousness?  In a community of men, we stood around a fire and expressed our deep feelings of gratitude, letting go and hopes for a better world, while coaxing back the light.  Further, we reflected that all it takes is a perceptual shift to dissolve our violent and aggressive tendencies to let go and let God when Life’s happenings feel out of control.  At the end of the day, Great Spirit created us in a Blueprint of Love.  Now if the predator in me remembers that at the scent of a de-cleater during our next Sunday morning football game, we’ll all breathe cleaner air, while here on the ground.

Stay True,

Ari

Remembering the Geese on Mythical Journeys

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I remember hearing ancestral wisdom whispering to us that it is a good time of year for letting go.  Here on Nature’s cycle in the Northern Hemisphere, we are approaching the Winter Solstice, the darkest time of year, where folks are turning yinward and many souls are exiting Classroom Mothership Earth.  On some level, this time signals an end.  However, from a cosmical energetic perspective, we all embark on a dying experience, whether realized or not.  In this process, a promise of re-birth awaits.  Yes, we are well-trained by a developmentally delayed perspective that tells us to fear death, be afraid of the dark and forget spirit, particularly in America.  Rather than embrace the Unknown, we tend to fear what we don’t know, while some of us cling to blind faith and continue skating on the thin ice of modern life’s sea of intellectual concepts.  Others check out by indulging in a garden variety of distractions, opiates of the masses they are in this world of 10, 000 things of bling-bling.  Is that bad medicine or what?  Those in the advertising industry know that most of us do not really feel comfortable in our own skin and so they make a killing by profiting from us buying into a perception that the consumption of certain products will somehow enhance our self-image. But these remedies are really only skin deep.  In the spirit of that, flying with geese offers us the opportunity to soar within our True Selves and access the hero within Life’s mythical quest. Geese fly in a V-formation and epitomize balancing competition and cooperation vis-a-vis a sense of harmonic teamwork.  Meditation on their V-formation, a figure 8 sign of infinity, helps us enter new portals to new possibilities, new ideas and venture to distant places in our spirit-mind-body vessels.  If you are exclusively identified with the surface layer of the material realm, it is true that membership has its privileges, accompanied also by pleasure, pain and suffering.  Meditation on geese facilitates flight into deeper realms, where acausal connections and phenomena await.  I hardly think strict behavioral psychologists would take notice when conducting their social science experiments.  Even if you dismiss the existence of something, are you not acknowledging that it is real, on some level?

Whether or not Barack Obama is the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln, the connections between the two men are striking.  Slavery has been a sad reality in our human family’s history.  Although overt Apartheid is thankfully a dying breed, today’s slavery hides behind master illusionism.  Lincoln once said, “as I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master–this expresses my ideas of democracy-whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.”  Both the oppressor and the oppressed suffer.  Will Obama and other leaders be master pretenders to the throne or will they access their inner royalty and use their positions to empower the massive change that our Mother and the overwhelming majority need to enact here on Classroom Mothership Earth?  Rather than letting go of 18, 000 workers, companies like Hostess could choose to let go of the temptation to increase CEO compensation by 300% and upper management by 200% and the gall to ask a federal judge for an allowance of 1.8 million in bonuses to top dawg executives.  How sweet is that? Moreover, if Pepsi is really the choice of a new generation, then they will use their presence in Uganda to stop the spigot of bigotry of an anti-gay bill that is backed by some Evangelical Christians that have close ties to a constellation called The Family.  I hardly think Michael J. Fox’s former TV character Alex P. Keaton would approve of those family ties, conservative as he was on that show. Internet freedom is also at risk at the UN conference in Dubai by threatening new restrictions on free speech.  Climate Change is trending right now and becoming a hotter topic–a global reality that humanity must deal with, whether we want to or not.  Our survival depends on it.  If we embrace Climate Change and effectively weather the changes so within as without, then we will make the quantum leap with grace. However, if we resist it, then it will persist in a way that tastes more bitter than the fracking insanity that sticks like tar in the sands of our Mother’s belly today. Even our nervous woodland creature friends know that denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, ma chucka.  When the floods arrive, they usually find themselves moving to higher ground, rather than getting washed out. 

On the playing field of life, some of the guys from around the way like to play football on Sundays.  Maybe we’re playing on borrowed time and a loony bunch, but that doesn’t stop us from flocking together on cold mornings.  Even a guy in his 60’s still runs the field and inspires the rest of us that you’re never too old to play. Last week, I caught wind of a flock of geese and signaled their cadence to my teammates.  The view feathered our ripple, spirits soared and our game really took flight after that.  We all take turns playing quarterback, evenly mix up the teams and usually balance cooperation and competition.  While love taps and occasional de-cleaters happen from time to time, arguably the most aggressive act in the archives was when one disgruntled squirrel character threw the acorn at another hyena player, to stop his endless running commentary.  But of course that didn’t work and the hyena is still laughing and talking smack.  Some guys have dropped out due to fear of getting hurt.  But there is risk in every breath we take.  Taking it to the edge requires trusting that the Universal pillars of Love and Truth are a real safety net that catches us and sets us free.  In the Great Spirit of that, when ingesting the free energy of geese in our internal slow-cooker, we marinate on the traits of fidelity, perfectionism and adventure.  Given that geese are vegetarians, flocking toward increased veggie consumption or eating a vegetarian diet for a while might be good chicken soup for the soul.

Stay True,

Ari

Feasting With Turkey, We Give Thanks For Our Shared Blessings

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I remember hearing stories about turkey leading the flock by harmonically harvesting balance, here on the ground of Classroom Mothership Earth.  For example, turkey notoriously drives squirrels nuts when She levels the playing field by taking back squirrel’s stockpiled hoard.  Whether a nervous woodland creature’s modern-day version of Robin Hood, or a Shaman from the Americas, turkey is good medicine for warding off evil spirits.  Have you ever noticed a room lighten up-almost immediately after someone new enters a shared space, where the air just felt heavy with an attached negative vibe?  If so, you might have been the free recipient of some turkey’s shared blessing.  Turkey’s strength lies in their numbers.  When consuming their energy, turkey has the potential to awaken inner vision, feminine energies and infinite possibilities.  In our modern world of 10, 000 things and bling-bling, the more humanity consciously consumes turkey’s positive spirited energy, the more we co-create a more equitable and sustainable New Earth.  Isn’t this just another utopia (or dystopia), ego-centered labeling mechanism describing a totalitarian new world order, communism, socialism and/or devilishly fixed idea of Heaven?  No.  What we are talking about right here, right now is a perceptual shift in consciousness, starting at the intrinsic, individual state of consciousness and reflecting back that picture of the world around us.  From the perspective of Great Spirit, turkey reflects win-win scenarios where abundance is available for all of us to share.  We become the change we want to see in the world. 

Have folks caught wind of the forecast that Wal-Mart workers will strike on Black Friday?  Don’t we already have way too much stuff?  How much money do the heirs to the Wal-Mart empire really need anyway?  Is it really too much to ask that the working folks of Wal-Mart earn a livable wage, with access to the same health care as Wal-Mart’s top dawgs enjoy?  Cheap for me to say, I’ve hardly shopped at Wal-Mart since it came on the scene.  However, when I pass one of their stores, I imagine the building running on renewable energy, with a greenhouse-like park atop its structure and a garden-like oasis that families and children can safely enjoy.  Maybe a sweet penthouse nestles there, like an oversized wolf den, where the landlords and groundskeepers live like Hobbits, boroughed within the structure.  But I digress.  We have much suffering, polarity and disparity on Earth today.  Climate Change is forecasting stormy weather that is affecting the way we live.  Are we going to allow ourselves to get in alignment with Nature, or are we going to resist the changes in weather so within and as reflected in our outer world?  To date, we humans have been so outer directed in our program development.  And yet, we are pre-wired to evolve into our Higher Selves, where the cosmetic and insatiable old world of the dying ego is losing its grip on our plight.  Great Spirit resides within all of us, just waiting to awaken to flow like a fountain of youth that gives freely and replenishing itself endlessly.  When we enough of us awaken within ourselves by welcoming turkey’s shared blessings, we simultaneously co-create an egalitarian human family of politicians, business folk, movers and shakers and salt of the Earth folks that intuitively know reciprocity and egoless harmonic giving and receiving.  At this moment in time, we will see turkey’s meditations reflected more clearly in our internal experience with external reality, with an unfolding convergence.

Being present is not always easy.  In fact, it is easier to be distracted from the present moment, hypnotically lost in the robotic doings, than to merge with it.  Yes, there is an endless commentary from the voice in the head that feeds off incessant, predominately unconscious and mostly repetitively negative thoughts and the accompanying choir of emotional reactions.  When we become aware that we are aware, we create space around our thoughts and attached emotional reactions.  The more frequently we become a passive observer, the more we are equipped to watch this drama unfold like a movie before our eyes, without reacting to it.  When this becomes an integral part of our daily walking meditation, we start replacing those pesky soap operas, by consciously choosing to co-direct a solution focused script.  Perhaps the ring tone of this melody sounds like a John Lennon earworm singing, I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round.  In dreaming a new dream, solutions are our focus, rather than creating problems that the ego insatiably feeds on.  The most important prayer, if you will, is to carry an attitude of gratitude with what is happening right now in this present moment.  Find a way to say thank you to whatever the situation might bring.  Like a vampire bite, dark emotions carry venom.  Bloody serious.  Why not sink your teeth into turkey to ward off foul food for thought?  In spirit of birds of a feather flocking together, use this energy to drink in the turkey medicine in you, pass it on and be pleasantly full. 

Stay True,

Ari

Isn’t Owl Medicine a Hoot?

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I remember our child coming home from school, sporting an owl’s mask recently. Some moments thereafter, I was having a conversation with folks in a shelter from the storm and couldn’t help but feel captivated by an owl statue nesting there.  Following that, I received a spirited forecast from some friends that included owl’s significance at this time on Nature’s clock.  Owl’s medicine is powerful and we recognize its wisdom when paying attention to the omens in our lives, particularly when watching Channel Now, here on Classroom Mothership Earth.  In becoming more conscious in our program development, we are noticing ring tones getting louder that are arriving in our consciousness in the forms of visions, dreams and deeper feelings.  In our awakening, we see our soul’s recognition of these nuances and making the necessary shifts in alignment with our changing tides accordingly.  When we allow ourselves to heed the calling of Great Spirit, the Universal Quarterback if you will, we empower ourselves to expand our collective awareness, rather than analyzing exclusively from our intellect.  There is nothing wrong with using our intellect. However, if we only rely on our intellect without balancing our awareness and intuition, then we will collectively continue participating in the current nightmare we are living in, proliferate human egotism, suffering and our ultimate extinction on our planet.  When Jesus said, “be of good cheer!  It is I; do not be afraid”, what he was talking about is humanity waking up to the I Am Presence within our own inner state of consciousness.  In the spirit of that, we co-create Heaven on Earth.  The Christ wasn’t telling us to develop a devilishly fixed idea that demanded our blind worship of a mental concept of an iconic rock star.  He wasn’t asking us to be groupies, rather he was asking us to evolve into the light of consciousness.  I believe that Creator manifested Christ Consciousness into the body of Christ so that we embody Being when we are awake.  Like Christ, consuming owl energy assists us in effectively seeing in the dark without being afraid.  When we perceive through owl’s lens, we peer into the future, akin to the psychical power of clairvoyance.  Beyond the realm of probability and statistics, lies the higher realm of Infinity, where possibilities abound. 

We are at a crossroads today in our Nation, Americans, Planet and Universe throughout.  Not long ago, the United States was in a civil war when Abraham Lincoln our Nation’s President.  The Country was divided then, as it is today.  Slavery existed then as it does today.  Both the master and the slave suffer from the shackles of ego-centered oppression.  We are more polarized than ever and on the brink of something unknown, as many prophesies and calendar’s have forecasted.   While we almost had our first orange President (but with white ears), we still have our first biracial President of European and African decent.  Curiously, owl hints at reincarnation.  Has anyone else out there observed that Barack Obama looks strikingly similar to Abraham Lincoln, in both physical stature and energetically?  Have you heard the positing that Obama is the reincarnation of Lincoln?  Will he suffer the same fate for standing his ground on the edge of the cliff as we all gaze into the Great Void of the unknown?  Many of us are sleepwalking through our lives, as if in a hypnotic trance, lost in the robotic doings of life and completely identified with the voice in the head.  Who is that voice?  Do we have the courage to take the quantum leap into unchartered territory?  When you read the politics of this blog, do you find yourself feeling whacked at times?  That is what it feels like to wake up and it does not feel comfortable or secure.  But there is security in knowing that waking up is both a death and a rebirth.  Waking up means we are willing to allow ourselves to effectively weather the Climate Change of  growing pains when shedding our old skin and rising up from the ashes like the phoenix.  Do you have a tendency to resist the weather inside of you and as reflected in the outside world around you?  Or, do you consciously accept what is and say yes to the situation as it unfolds, through radical internal non-resistance and pacifism?  This does not mean we condone the tyranny.  Rather, it means that we accept what is.  In that acceptance, we harness our power and take conscious action to do something about it.  By releasing negative pollution within, we send it into the fire and transform this energy into a renewable higher vibration.  This is what happens when we heed the messages from our lower Chakras by feeling those experiences organically and then sending them love, by cutting back to inner peace by sticking in alignment with our Higher Chakras. 

Now is the time to be in alignment with our spirit, mind and bodies.  Now more than ever, it is a good time to give thanks and let go.  We are all living vessels traveling here together.  Now is the time for our business and political leaders, the haves, the have a little, want mores and the have-nots to accurately reflect policies that embrace what is good for the goose and gander alike.  There is enough and we can all win.  There is nothing to be afraid of.  The power and labor of Love is a boundless energy that springs eternal.  In the music within, can’t you hear the earworm, celebrate we will because Life is short but sweet for certain?  Remember that the moon will still shine, the sun will still rise and our darkness is our sunlight.

Stay True,

Ari

Patroling with alligator, adapting with coyote and making magic with cats

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I remember alligator vividly swimming into my dreams this week.  Alligator symbolizes primal energies of birth, motherhood and initiation and reminds us that we cannot experience death without life, nor life without death.  Alligator navigates water and land, symbolizing birth and creation.  Breathing fire into mythical connections to dragon, alligator reminds us to dig in our own Beings to unearth the treasures hidden within our own Secret Garden.  Alligator is good medicine to consume for cultivating new wisdom.  Its power moves swiftly, but if we do not harness its creative flood by staying buoyant, then we will sink like a stone.  Alligator powerfully helps us swim with the energies of the New Moon on Tuesday, November 13th.  Like a master T’ai Chi martial artist, alligator maintains a wide open angle gaze, while remaining submerged in water.  Energetically, its medicine hints at higher vision and clairvoyance.  In alligator’s wake, we notice the trickster coyote trotting into our consciousness, reminding us to carry a sense of humor and not take ourselves too seriously.  Coyote gets caught up in his own tricks, which do not always work.  Paradoxically, the tricks reveal treats in the form of laughter and joking that elevates consciousness and energetically lighten things up by stoking new and different viewpoints.  Coyote helps us balance the delicate dance of wisdom and folly.  Pouncing forward, cats remind us of the magical and mysterious elements of Life, provided that we are willing to navigate the darkness effectively.  Following election day, our cat revealed a penny to me from 1968, just before the light of day.  Somewhat akin to that era, present day Maine leveled the playing field by opening up marriage to all folks, regardless of how they are oriented in their sexuality.  Today, the line that was drawn and the curse that was cast evaporated before our eyes, but not without formidable resistance from a mountain of opposition.  Cats help us tap into the magic and mystery of Life, even when we feel that we are on the ropes, so to speak.  Their energy helps us wake up and see more clearly, even if we are hypnotically sleepwalking in the dark. 

On the surface, our planet is a hot mess, while the belly of our Mother is cooking up Climate Change as She re-births Herself.  In our Nation’s changing demographics, we nearly had our first orange president, chameleon that he is.  Has anyone out there noticed that many Caucasians, particularly those with economical means and positions of power are turning orange these days?  Thankfully, coyote helps us get comfortable in our own skin and embrace ourselves in the way we are naturally oriented. But the orange brother was defeated, as Barack Obama was re-elected to a second term, with high hopes from many that he will lead more gracefully during our transition into Aquarian Unity.  However, we need to remember that he is a business candidate of Wall Street and a crafty politician.  Movements like Occupy Wall Street are not going away, just as resistance from our friends in Congress, Supreme Court and High Command will continue to intensify.  The era of the wealthy viewing our Mother as a playground for the privileged is dying, just as the appetite for equal access to resources growing.  But spirited wisdom teaches that there are no enemies, separations or us and them.  We are all cut from the same cloth in the eyes of Creator.  Here in Maine, the will of the people recognized that the valued tradition of marriage will expand to all human orientations.  Gay folks will no longer be legally closeted and viewed as separate but equal from their heterosexual friends, whom until now, have exclusively enjoyed the privileges of marital membership.  Many folks have opened up their minds and hearts to the understanding that holding back our gay brothers and sisters from playing on a level field is the same form of discrimination as the color-gender line from an era ago.  What a long, strange trip it has been, but with clean energy, we keep on truckin’.

Are you feeling invested in and identifying with the robotic doings of everyday life?  Do you feel identified with any particular role that you play in your life?  Are you invested in the realm of outcomes and expectations?  Perhaps the energies of alligator, coyote and cat will help you dissolve and disarm those pesky entanglements with form and help your spirit express itself more freely and responsibly in this world of 10, 000 things.  During the week ahead, may we consider ingesting the energies of alligator, coyote and cat in our consciousness.  In this process, we gently allow ourselves to re-create ourselves anew by tapping into our primal depth, keeping our wits about us when balancing our wisdom and follies and remembering the magic and mystery of our daily routine.  Together, we watch the movie of our lives unfold before our eyes wide open.

Stay True,

Ari

Dreaming with Salamander and cleansing withTurkey Vulture

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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

Flying high with Eagle, staying grounded with Racoon and keeping it real with Blue Jay

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I remember walking out of school the other day, while joining in with some co-workers gazing at a bald eagle soaring the heavens over a near-by stream.  I couldn’t help but snatch the friendly reminder to pay close attention to our spirited encounters with our animal friends and open up to their cadence to walk with one foot in the material realm, while also stepping into the realm of Infinity.  In much the same way as an eagle flying over a valley, our ripple was feathered to pause to reflect on its teaching that we need to remember to see the big picture in the Book of Life and see all directions.  Moreover, eagle has strong talons that remind us to keep our feet on the ground, so that our spirits don’t soar too high.  In this way, we maintain perspective and balance when bringing back wisdom from the Dreamtime, for effective integration into our Earth Walkabout.  But with this great power, comes great responsibility.  Some moments later, blue jay sent an assertive and positive tweet to remember to stay true to ourselves.  Somewhere in time thereafter, a dead racoon reminded me that Fall is leaving us behind and the veils are thinning at this junction in Nature’s Cycle.  Raccoon helps us remember that it is a good time to wear masks while exploring primal knowing and accessing wisdom from Unknown realms.  Raccoon medicine helps us become true master martial artists in the sense that we cleverly know what mask to wear to tap into our inner power.  Further, raccoon helps us balance our intellect and intuition to effectively sort through this process and relax and allow what we are looking for to appear organically.

Does anyone else out there in the participatory audience wonder why these free offerings aren’t all over the mass media to assist us in an effectively transition into a New Age and Paradigm?  I know some of the top dawgs at the top 1% experience a high concentration of Nervous Woodland Creature energy when considering this possibility.  From a position of empathy, some folks might wonder where they fit in, when barking up a more colorful tree with deeper roots.  And I know many folks that pass for white privilege in America feel that they are losing their country.  Some folks remember their working class parents having good jobs, more leisure time and nice vacations away at camps with access to waterways and outdoor fun.  But when we open up to the realm of Infinity, we know that abundance is there for all of us here in our nation, the Americas, planet and Universe throughout.  Although I believe in a philosophically free-market, based on bartering and sharing of resources–a simple shift in taxation with representation means less money for weapons of mass destruction and equal access to eco-friendly resources with special emphasis on the human factor.  We need to remember that what is good for the goose is good for the gander, ma chucka.  What would happen if humanity were to embrace the amazing power within us and send love to everything?  I have been practicing this skill when observing how polarizing politics have become, especially here in the USA.  In fact, many of my liberal and progressive friends out there became enraged when some Republican candidates said that pregnancies resulting from rape are part of God’s intention.  And of course folks on the religious right argue that God would never allow a woman to choose to abort her child.  With all this bickering, what gets lost is that free access to quality health care co-creates less rapes and less unwanted births.  However, the Hidden Hand wants the prize-fight to continue, while distracting us from the truth that there are devilishly dominant forces that wants to remain unexamined–the Great Deceiver, if you will.  Some of my closest friends sarcastically laughed me out of a room when I accurately pointed out that President Obama, when it comes to policy, is really a moderate Republican, business candidate of Wall Street.  Mitt Romney, the other pop candidate is right-wing white guy that speaks in a paternalistic tone and sprays himself to look darker to appeal to folks of color.  What a chameleon.  Really, master illusionist Carl Rove and company don’t scale back to buy our vote!  Can’t you hear the thunderous W.C. Fields energy commenting, what a catastrophe.

So what can we do about this mess?  Checking in with our inner voice and voting with our conscience is typically good medicine.  With open hearts, we send love everywhere.  We are pre-wired by Great Spirit to let our inner light shine and illuminate the shadows within our inner space and without our orbit.  Like Jim Belushi’s character in Animal House once said, “it don’t cost nothin’.”  If you find yourself disillusioned during this election year, with the ways of the world, or more importantly what is going on within yourself, just send love to it.  Take an honest look at your thoughts, how you are feelings right now in this moment and simply send love to whatever arrives in your field of vision.  Yes, feeling shame and guilt are important to own so that we may move forward in our journey.  After taking an authentic look at why we feel shame and guilt, we become ready to send love to the shame and guilt, so that it can be released for healthy compost.  Then notice what happens.  I welcome your experiences with that.  Also, please enjoy powerful energies of the Full Moon without getting a fever or too nervous and try to stay calm in the pocket during the hurricane.

Stay True,

Ari

Roaring with Lion

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I remember watching an after school PBS program with our child recently.  Although I have not yet had the privilege of seeing a lion in the wild, I am named after this creature and even within the comforts of our own home, it is strikingly obvious that it’s a jungle out there.  However, we humans are pre-wired with the capacity to borrow lion’s courage when we need to assert ourselves by clearly stating our goals and objectives with dignity and respect.  While all creatures are equal members of Great Spirit’s pride, is there a more noble creature than lion?  Yes, having an attitude of gratitude is always good medicine to ingest while leaving our Carbon Footprint during our Earth Walkabout.  Given that we are expanding souls, it is merely natural for us to want more.  Regardless of how powerful the ‘Wizard of Oz’ might appear, meditation on lion helps us remember to access courage within ourselves.  In this process, we discover how to tap into our feminine energies of creativity, intuition and imagination.  Moreover, lions are natural martial arts masters,  in the sense that they are here to teach us how to pursue our desires through stealth by avoiding danger and confrontation.  In much the same way as Master Yoda taught Luke during his Jedi training–lion reminds us that the Force (Chi) is used for knowledge and defense only.

On the global, geo-political front, prideful phat cats are sitting atop mega-corporations, while devilishly violating every conceivable free-market principle, though bullying abuses of power and economic strangulation.  Here in the Americas, it is an election year in the USA.  As featured on the Corporate Media, the Presidential ego-centered debate revealed to us yet again that president gas is still president gas.  While current President Obama identifies himself as a Democrat, the reality is that his policies are that of a moderate Republican, given that he is a business candidate of Wall Street.  True, he has spoken in populist rhetoric that resonates with many of my progressive and liberal friends out there, but wake-up and smell the coffee folks!  So what, are you going to vote for Mitt Romney to protest the conservative, business as usual mantra that bank on us in staying stuck in fixed, intellectual concepts?  Even further to the right on the political spectrum, Romney is a step closer to fascism than Obama.  A Romney administration will cut already miserly social-democratic programs and will funnel more money to the top 1% of the wage earners.  In fact, ever since the New Deal was reluctantly implemented during the era of FDR, it has been continuously beaten back by corporate power.  If you grew up in a place like South Philadelphia or any other blue-collar community with working class values, you probably thought that becoming a Republican and working for a private company was an act of rebellion and saw yourself as a cut above the other stray cats in the old neighborhood.  As Americans, we are living in a more polarizing times that ever and yet we are properly indoctrinated to allow the corporate media to successfully pull the wool over our eyes, by sleep walking in a hypnotic trance-like state.  But big money is a well-oiled machine and keeps our fuel injected Military-Industrial Complex running on Dunkin.  Really, even a cop can hardly afford a donut these days.  As if that were icing on the cake, drug dealers and private tyrannies run health care.  Before giving myself an earthquake like we had in Maine recently, I remember to channel Chris Rock’s energy by reminding folks (by cracking on insurance companies) that if they were really doing their jobs, then they would return our investment in them if we did not end up using what we paid them for in the first place!  Insurance companies make their money by betting on the probability and statistics that they will score a maximum economic profit, before we lay claim to one iota of what we paid into their pool of cash.  Dead serious, isn’t that enough to make anyone sick?

Perhaps some folks out there are not purring after reading this blog entry.  Maybe some others feel helpless about what they might do about it.  However, isn’t the cat’s meow that we can take responsibility for our own individual state of consciousness?  Getting stuck in negative thoughts and feelings will only yield more negative returns.  But choosing to look at the ways of the world with an open heart and mind and send love our internal experiences with them is empowering on both a personal and collective front.  Like a lion, we might not look like we are working harder, but we can learn to work smarter by focusing on the positive and by becoming more conscious and mindful of our thoughts, feelings and behavioral patterns.  When we meditate on the energy of lion, we stoke the Weather Underground by breathing fire into a New Sun and co-create a New Earth one step, one breath and one moment at a time. 

Stay True,

Ari

Isn’t Cougar Medicine the Cat’s Meow?

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Does anyone remember the great Native American footballer Jim Thorpe, or Wa Tho Huk, which translates as Bright Path in English?  Jim Thorpe was Sac and Fox Indian (and a wee bit Irish too) and was born and raised on a Reservation.  Although Bright Path never competed in the pentathlon or decathlon until he ventured to the Olympics in the early 1900’s, he won both events and was declared the world’s greatest athlete by the King of Sweden at the time.  But given how institutionalized racism was back then, Thorpe’s medals were taken away from him, citing a violation that he earned a few bucks playing semi-pro baseball before he competed in the Olympics.  There was nothing uncommon about that back then, just that Jim didn’t use a different name like other athletes did and later admitted that he wasn’t very wise to the ways of the world.  For those of us that watch professional football today, it might be hard to imagine that a Native American was the first president of the NFL (before the league was called the NFL).  Moreover, there is an old story that Wa Tho Huk shed light on some white players who didn’t want to level the playing field by allowing some black players to join in, by asserting something to the degree of, who cares what color they are, we’re here to play some football!  In today’s game, it’s hard to be a person of color and become President and it’s not always easy for a white man to be allowed to run with the ball.  But as we move on up into a New Age and Paradigm, we celebrate the good times of our diversity in unity as colorful rainbow children of Great Spirit.  Given his versatile athleticism and capacity to know when to lead and when to follow, I wonder if Jim Thorpe had a cougar totem as a power animal spirit guide?

Here in the Americas, the planet and Universe throughout, we are moving full steam ahead toward the Samhain, where the veils thin and the playing field levels between the material realm and the spirit realm.  With an election year rapidly approaching, I wonder if there will be trickery of coyote energy during this presidential election?  Will it be somewhat akin to 2000, when America flip-flopped between moderate Republican Al Gore and right-winger George W. Bush?  What a bunch of malarkey we have going on in American politics today!  Yet again, we have two candidates of Wall Street in our business run society that protects the status quo and seeks to block leveling impulses with expensive consequences that tax the average working American, who still tends to vote against his own interest, but without realizing it.  America is a business run society and it shows.  However, even a business run society has the potential to weave more egalitarian spiritual strands into its webbed matrix.  When resources are shared in a more equitable way, we see that there is enough and we can all win.  When our collective program nurtures healthy development of all neurons and neighborhoods with an open mind and open heart, then we equally invest in all sentient beings being equal creations of Great Spirit and nurture our Mother.  Do we continue pillaging our Mother that gives us life during our Earth walkabout or do we choose to dream a new dream?   Do we allow ourselves to shed light on psychic blood sucking vampires with dark energies surrounding them like Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan?   Do we allow skilled politicians fed by egotism to continue feeding off the ignorance of the American public at large?  Do we continue to vote for our current policies that suppress and repress our Global Community?  Who knows for sure, but remember there is a real political slugger named Rocky that is trying to run up the Capital steps that I hear makes a lot of political sense.  What is the old guard afraid of by allowing run-off elections and giving politicians free and equal access to air time?

With cougar, we have the potential to wake up and find the confidence to get in touch with our own true power.  In that, we learn to balance when to assert our power with masculine-yang energy and when to gently allow it to unfold in more feminine-yin energetic expressions.  Cougars are natural tai chi masters in that they teach us when to follow and when to lead, when to speak and when to listen.  All great leaders are good listeners.  And good listeners know how to hear the pulse of the planet and understand how to respond to the needs of our global community.  Cougars can jump up to 40 feet.  While meditating on cougar energy, just imagine the possibilities if humanity borrows its medicine to take a quantum leap forward into a New Earth!  Remember that when we become healthier by digging in and unearthing our own power, we need to ward off the naysayers that want to hold us back by convincing us to maintain the Satanic better the devil you know mantra.  Godspeed . . .  

Stay True,

Ari