Tag Archives: Spirit-Mind-Body

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

Getting Back on the Horse, while riding Freely, Powerfully and Responsibly toward the Winter Solstice

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We humans have been paying attention to Nature’s cycles, like our time-tested traditional celebrations with Solstices and Equinoxes for at least 45,000 years.  When time traveling in our spirit-mind-body vessels, we watch our ancient Sumerian ancestors saddle up with horse’s power and venture outward.  Moreover, Western astrology reveals the sign Sagittarius as a man-horse hybrid (centaur), while Chinese astrology showcases the horse as one of its 12 signs.  In shamanism, ingesting horse medicine allows a shaman to fly through the air and reach Heaven.  On December 21 2012, we mark the end of the Mayan Calendar, signaling the death of an old world and a birth of a new one.  Will we observe a major global event that we all bear witness to or will we remain in the dark?  Is it the end of the world as we know it?  Will extraterrestrials come out of the closet to humanity?  I don’t know about that, but I believe we are in a process of a radical transformation in our consciousness, our Planet and the Universe throughout.  It is hard to deny that more energies are streaming in–particularly for those of us sensitive to them.  We are consciousness, rather than what consciousness identifies with.  When we wake up to that, we become the change we want to see in the world around us. Historically, horse has been seen as symbolic of burial rites and birth, which synchronizes with the death energy of Winter.  Somewhat akin to tracking animals, we might not actually see physical evidence of heavenly activity here on the ground. However, when staying alert, we awaken to perceptual shifts that allow us to see and hear our spirited friends speak to us.  In our modern world, particularly in the West, perhaps this means that we kill less, give inner peace a chance and stop fueling wars that are destined to lose.  What we resist, persists.  When co-creating a New Earth, individual and collective egos wane and spiritual powers wax on.  In this Love and Light, we invest in loss–less inner pollution and more renewable clean energy radiating from within our Heart centers.  Horses represent freedom and power and remind us that we always have choices.

I remember when a past teacher from the old school once confidently asserted that we live in a causal and deterministic Universe.  Further, he argued that freewill wasn’t scientifically plausible, master illusionist that he was.  On the surface that might be true, particularly when identifying with victim consciousness. Responsibility is the price tag of freedom–sobering but empowering.  Moreover, it isn’t always easy to see the reality of our choices and accept the consequences that follow the choices that we make–especially when we are unconscious of them, spiritually speaking.  When horse gallops into our energy field, we ingest powerful medicine to get back in the saddle and blaze beyond the surface area of cause and effect (karma) and leap into the realm of infinity, where intention, abundance and possibility await. While there is science to this phenomena, we probably won’t find it in Establishment science as reported on the corporate media.   How long will it take for the movers and shakers of our Planet to giddy up with horse’s energy by modeling a balanced medicine shield to facilitate the movement toward power to the people?  Is bullying workers by threatening to cut their hours to pay for healthcare fair and balanced news?  Isn’t blaming an abused person for making poor choices in relationships an example of the same criticized victim behavior?  Isn’t a parent who enables their child’s behavior partly responsible?  Don’t we all bear some level of responsibility for school shootings, given the culture we are part of?  Demonizing is part of devolution and victim consciousness.  However, hitching a ride with horse helps us evolve our collective awareness by trotting  into a new frontier of egalitarian freedom and responsibility.  We are taking back our ego-centered projections and authentically looking within our own inner state of consciousness in a respectful way.  Spiritually speaking, when we eat like a horse, the ego shrinks as personal power grows.  We hear a lot about Christ this time of year.  Who was He?  When we understand our Divine Nature, we understand that Great Spirit gave birth to Christ as an incarnation-embodiment of Christ Consciousness, the Divine Marriage between God/Goddess and masculine and feminine (yin-yang) energies that flow inside all of us.  When standing in our I Am Presence (consciousness), we know this experience of Love and Light.  Christ arrived to show us that the Kingdom of Heaven is within all of us and inspiring us to Love one another.

Developmentally, humanity is struggling right now.  We can all stand to develop the social skill of empathy by remembering the experience of walking in someone else’s moccasins, slippers, boots, etc.  We all win when we remember the spirit of compassion, caring, teaching, loving and sharing our gifts, talents and abilities with one another.  But many of us don’t know how to effectively emote, govern our own behavior and have difficulty accessing and acquiring a sound repertoire of social skills.  At any given moment, many of us still position ourselves as inferior or superior toward our fellow brothers and sisters, while clinging to a belief that we are separate and disconnected from one another.  There are enemies to kill and wars to fight and win.  This is how we  justify the subtle and provocative violence we commit against one another.  When we feel right inside and wronged by someone else, we tend to act out by attacking another person.  We have different preferences in this regard.  Some of us prefer cutting someone up by way of a sarcastic comment that is cleverly cloaked behind an angry edge, while others bully by physically threatening or assaulting another human being.   Some folks make a killing by hiding behind desks, while voting for more weapons of mass destruction and rationally arguing this insanity as doing the right thing.  However, when we humans remember that we are all beautiful black stallions, while saddling up with inner peace and sending Love to one another, we help blaze heavenly trails on Earth for all to share.

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

With Lizard, We Consciously Draw Our Dreams and Visions To Scale on Classroom Mothership Earth’s Blackboard

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A long time ago, I remember catching wind of a fantastic story that the Star Wars saga was actually based upon true events that took place in the Pleiades constellation.  I don’t know about that, but by George, has anyone else heard about a UFO documentary coming soon to a theater near you that posits a revelation of the truth about extraterrestrial involvement on Earth and our collective history?  In the spirit of that, has anyone heard the reimagined story of Master Yoda shedding light on Anakin Skywalker’s curiosity about the difference between Heaven and Hell?  Yoda respected Anakin’s natural Force (Chi) sensitivity and power.  Given that Anakin respected Yoda’s wisdom, he sought counsel from his reptilian friend, by asking Yoda to describe the difference between these places.  First, Yoda became uncharacteristically provocative with the young Jedi by putting him down, calling him a bastard son of a slave and elaborating in that manner. Given his orientation and propensity toward reacting to his anger without reserve, Anakin lit up his saber and was ready to behead his deeply respected Master teacher.  At that point, Yoda said, “hell that is.”  Immediately, Anakin remembered his True Self, relaxed, calmed down and cracked a smile as he put away his saber.  At that eternal moment, the wise lizard asserted, “Heaven this is . . . Physical location they are not, but internal state of consciousness they are.”

Here on Classroom Mothership Earth, a growing number of us are realizing that a deeper reality lies beneath our conscious minds and surface reality of our Planet.  Poignantly, I noticed a lizard arriving in my consciousness recently that served as a bell of mindfulness to pay attention to synchronicity, signs, symbols, dreams and visions.  In the theater of Life, it’s as if lizard is there to help us realize that we are the dreamer behind the dream by watching ourselves with a healthy, detached perspective.  By consciously allowing the arrival of the Dreamtime into our material reality, we are invoking a light-hearted dance between spirit and form.  Meditation on lizard is good medicine for that.  We are here to wake up to the reality that we are spiritual beings having human experiences, not the other way around.  But in our developmentally delayed cultural wars between our attachments to the egotistical mental constructs of us and them, we have been programmed to view ourselves as disconnected and separate from one another and from Great Spirit.  However, we are all One and we are here to wake up to the awareness of that.  I like to dream big and envision peace in the Middle East and a Garden of Eden there now as a Fertile Crescent it once was.  However, I know that I am also part of the heaviness that resides in the energetic field that envelops the old world of Abraham, founding father of the World’s Big Three religions.  Some folks view Israel as a democracy, while carrying a separate intellectual concept that perceives the rest of the region otherwise.  But with respect to the classic Woodie Guthrie song, both lands are part of Great Spirit, meant to be shared in harmony.  We are all part of the land, as the Earth is our Mother.  What we do to Her, we do to ourselves.  While I envision the global dismantling of weapons of mass destruction, I know that I have to disentangle the tentacles of egotism that resides in my Being.  It is seductive to worship the god of judgment and opinion, like a good armchair quarterback.  When we wake up to the awareness that mind is an illusion, we are no longer unconscious robots in the human-made constructs of the world.  When the CEO’s and workers of fast food corporations awaken to the perspective that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, perhaps they will break bread together by enacting a more livable, equitable and sustainable business practice.  Somewhat akin to effectively digesting last week’s hungry Lunar Full Moon, we stick in alignment by shifting gears that facilitate a healthy digestion process when cooking up a New Earth–particularly as we move closer to the Winer Solstice on December 21, 2012.  It might feel like small potatoes, but even one fry can make a difference in France and beyond.

When we allow the light to illuminate the shadows, we look authentically at our natural orientation, especially our shadow sides.  When we keep our wits about us to laugh at ourselves like the full bellied Buddha, we see that Nature often holds up a mirror for us to look at, particularly our shadow sides. Ingesting lizard medicine is a good remedy for this walking meditation.  Saying yes to the energy of lizard means that we say yes to increasing our perceptual powers and heightened sensitivities to physical, emotional, mental, psychic and spiritual subtleties in perception.  But remember to proceed with caution and be mindful of the ego’s trickery during this process.  Increasing our true power means we are neither superior or inferior to anyone else.  There is ego in powers of perception.  Awareness understands that we simply are what we are and it is what it is.  We are consciousness itself, rather than what consciousness has identified with.

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

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

Porcupine Medicine

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I remember hearing stories of some Native American tribes using porcupine needles for acupuncture.  While most of us think about acupuncture, yoga and other meditations as arriving to us as gifts from the East, a closer look points us to these same treasures being available right here in the Americas.  Perhaps the Fountain of Youth, in much the same way as the Holy Grail was the relentless pursuit for what is already available to all of us, if only we allow for it.  While hiking in the woods yesterday, I exchanged pleasantries with a nice couple along the path.  Moments thereafter, I heard a rustling in the leaves and noticed a young porcupine schlepping along as only our prickly rodent friends can.  I called out to my hiking friends and we all enjoyed watching porcupine with a renewed sense of wonder and childhood curiosity and innocence.  Had I been too distracted by taking in the radiant falling leaves or been too invested in fantastic imaginative realms, I would have missed the opportunity to indulge in the encounter with porcupine and share it with a larger participatory audience in the theater of life.

Did anyone out there see the recent presidential debate between the typically cool President Obama and mild-mannered challenger Mitt Romney?  I only made it through about a third of the event, when I started fighting off demons.  Was it just me, or did Obama’s energy radiate flat Chi?  I tried to imagine how I would have felt, or my wife for that matter, if our anniversary was celebrated by a big money corporate event, like a professional sports playoff game.  In our developmentally delayed culture in the USA, we thrive on winners and losers and spend relentlessly on winning a desired outcome.  In professional football, bounties are offered as incentive to exploit an edge and it’s the same way in with respect to the top dawgs in politics.  For example, in the ego-centered debate, our two-headed, one-party system is censored by a Corporate mob that will cut to a commercial if real issues are discussed in a truthful light.  If votes really didn’t count, then big money would not try to block certain populations from voting.  What are they afraid of?  Here in America, we have been so indoctrinated by Corporate propaganda to believe that democracy, capitalism and a free market are the same thing.  I still believe in a free for service economy that looks more like a philosophical free market based on bartering.  However, a more immediate and pragmatic solution is to infuse spiritual values into capitalism, where cooperation and competition are balanced and a round-table approach where circles are valued, rather than the dying linear, top-down and hierarchical approach that mirrors what we see on the tele.  By focusing on our inner spiritual development, seeing the silver lining and making only positive interpretations will take us to the Promised Land so within, as without.  Rather than worrying about whether right-winger Mitt Romney wins the election or not, focus on porcupines medicine to release our judgments, perceive beyond the veil of separation and experience Unity with Creator and All That Is.

Many of us on the spiritual path become too serious and forget the innocence and humility of what the energy of porcupine has to offer us, by remembering playfulness and curiosity as a way of life.  Many adults get too bogged down in trying to be too intellectual or trapped in the vicious cycle of greed and fear.  However, Great Spirit has a Divine Plan and we all have the freedom to get into alignment with that.  There is a much bigger picture going on than political victories.  If we have faith in Divine Intervention and we become the change we want to see in the world, by letting go of outcome, then we know that the Kingdom of Heaven is everywhere, provided we stay awake with an open heart.  Porcupine helps our energy flow in a healthy direction toward healing, rather than becoming stuck in victim consciousness with whatever shame and guilt we might feel.  These negative energies of our lower chakras are meant to serve and inform us about ourselves.  Once we understand and accept their messages, typically vis-a-vis bodily signals, then we are equipped to release their dysfunctional stories and co-create something new.  Porcupine is merely one point that works to stimulate energetic alignment in climbing onward in our journey together–especially as we leave behind a dying world and move closer to fine in a whole New World.

Stay True,

Ari

Hummingbird humming in our spirit-mind-body

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I remember when hummingbird spoke to me while sitting in the woods recently, taking in the wonder of the natural world around me.  However, the message didn’t arrive in English, there were no other humans present to judge that and I didn’t ask if my nervous woodland creature friends had any green cards.  Admittedly, I was almost fooled by my fleeting encounter with hummingbird, as some dragonflies flitted about that nearly cloaked hummingbird’s presence.  But I recognized a slight acoustical variation and felt the great power generated from its spirited wings moments prior to my eye-witness encounter.  And then a leave fell in front of me and I observed a slight tremor in the Force (Chi), if you will, by noticing a slight change in color–evidence that Autumn is on its way.  In fact, the Fall Equinox rapidly approaches us on September 22, 2012 here in the Northern hemisphere, on Classroom Mothership Earth.  Hummingbird reminds us to find joy within our Being, regardless of what trials and tribulations we have been through and whatever roadblocks we may encounter down the pike.  Given hummingbird’s ability to fly in all directions and stop on a dime by hovering in dead air, I wonder if Barry Sanders had a hummingbird as spirit guide?  When meditating on hummingbird, I am reminded of great Master teachers like Jesus and Buddha.  Have you heard that these God-realized humans lived with the spirited wisdom that while taking life too seriously is foolish, being naturally playful and child-like is best medicine.  When having an open, passive attitude toward life, we welcome an abundance of positive energy that is free and clean fuel for our collective soul.  When meditating on hummingbird medicine, we allow ourselves to consume the sweetness of life in a balanced way–a harmonic convergence spirit-mind-body, so to speak.  As humans, if we want to change our trajectory on our planet and the Universe, then we need to leave behind a cleaner Carbon Footprint that walks in alignment with Nature.

Has anyone out there ever heard the joke about when the Italians “discovered” America and one Native American looks to his friend and says, “there goes the neighborhood?”  Well, when I caught wind of some of the Republican National Convention, I couldn’t help but get swept off my feet by the whirlwind of pep rally energy.  Anyone duped by the political rhetoric of Republic ideology is lured into the conceptual framework of their platform–specifically the Ron Paul ring-tone of libertarian, rugged-individualism that plays on natural sentiments of the audience.  Admittedly, I was initially surprised that our current moderate Republican President, business candidate of Wall Street, was not featured in front of the podium.  Instead, we paid for the privilege to be propagandized by some rich guys, that were placed in front of our telescreens by some really rich guys that feed this corporate mob during the liberal pour of their dog and pony show.  But I can appreciate why right-wingers like Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and master illusionist Carl Rove want to keep moderate Republicans like our current President out of the room, without a chance to defend himself in this ego-centered debate and charade.  Did anyone see Clint Eastwood steal the show with the empty chair?  True, Obama is still a mystery and it is normal to fear what you don’t understand.  But many of us are wise to their act.  Soon, we will see act two with the Democrats, but what we have here in the USA, is a one-headed, two-party system that is one step away from a dictatorship.  Even the pathetic Democratic party, that fronts itself as working toward its democratic principles, is fed by the same high octane Tea Party and deep pockets.  Doesn’t the film that is sold to us read like a parody of a fairy tale that you are embarrassed to read to your grandchildren?  Are we being fleeced and caught up in a golden straight jacket?  Here in Maine, governor Paul Le Page boasted like thieves after a looting, while being received by thunderous applause, he bragged about meetings held in secrecy to push forth an agenda that undermines worker’s rights, public education and welcomes more abundant pillaging of our Mother.  Personally, I feel an empathic compassion for Le Page, in the sense that he doesn’t see himself as a house slave that has forgotten his brothers and sisters in the field, while serving his master and overindulging in the excesses of Mansion on the Hill.  Who payin’ you?  Have folks forgotten that this country was built off the backs of free and indentured labor?  Would there be an American Dream, if it were not for the sacrifices of our Native American and African-American brothers and sisters and many other colorful folks?  And yet, when we gaze upon the chimes of freedom and see our friends in Congress, do we see equitable representation of their hard labor?  Is the Middle Class being fairly compensated for their hard work?

But I didn’t write this blog entry to change the world in one fell swoop.  Rather, in spite of the intentional boxes that are programmed into our collective psyches, perhaps we might allow ourselves to find a breath of fresh air in hummingbirds mantra that life is full of joy and re-program ourselves from inside out.  Are you allowing yourself to taste the sweet nectar of life, a moderate indulgence of sugar and the like?  True, most of us didn’t grow up in a Mayberry like fantasy, but we all have the power within to transcend the hypnotic trance suggested to us by the master illusionism that hides behind the curtain.  Remember the wise old saying, “the truth shall set you free?”  But don’t take my word for it–please consider testing out the power of hummingbird’s medicine yourself.  Maybe the next time you find yourself feeling swayed by a carefully crafted commercial, you will picture a hummingbird and start humming to yourself.  There is powerful energy in sound and humming is a natural way to energetically wash your spirit-mind-body and access inner joy immediately.  In this light, we peer into the realm of infinity and co-create a New Earth, one step, one breath and one moment at a time.

Stay True,

Ari