Spirituality – Connecting To The Divine

Full “Blessing” Moon

Today is the full moon for July. It has many names, like “Buck” moon because antlers start to grow in July, “Thunder” moon because of the many thunderstorms, “Hay” moon because hay is harvested in July. My favorite name for July’s full moon is the “Blessing” moon.

The July moon is called the “Blessing” moon because we encounter so many blessings during this month. A hike in the backcountry of Colorado, where I live is awash with wildflowers. The streams and creeks nearby are full, providing life to downstream communities. Wild herbs are ready to be gathered. The blessings we receive during July are incredible!

I’ve done a reading for you of what to look out for in the next few weeks. Remember that the Mercury Retrograde continues until August 1^st.

I used the Wisdom of Avalon deck and pulled card number 45 – LOVE! This is such an appropriate card. It’s a real reminder that love is at the center of it all.

“This marker reminds you to show kindness and compassion to all whom you meet on your path – be it a beggar on a street corner, a coworker, a family member, an animal, or a plant whose leaves need pruning.”

wisdom of avalon - 45 - Love - resized

So in the coming weeks, remember to actively feel love for everyone you meet. Bestow your blessings on each of them. You don’t have to say anything out loud, but feel it in your heart.

When you eat, be grateful for the food that brings you sustenance. Think about the long process which brought that food to your plate and be grateful for the farmers, the wind, the rain, the sun, the truck drivers, and the grocery store.
As you are driving, feel love and gratitude for the other people in other cars driving near you. Give the road you are driving on a blessing. Think about the plants, trees, and wildlife that were killed or relocated to create this road and be grateful to them.
When you wake up in the morning, be grateful for your bed and your roof.
As you check social media, be grateful that technology has allowed you to reconnect with old friends and keep a stronger connection with current friends and family.
Actively feel love for your spouse, child, parent, or friend who has been causing you grief recently.

Feeling love and gratitude in some of the situations above can sometimes be challenging. Ground yourself and connect to the Divine above, and that should make it easier.

I love you. I bless you.

Be grateful for the blessings that are already in your life. Recognize each of those blessings. Feel the love which comes with each blessing.

Full Moon Blessings to you all!

Holiday Driving

Keeping yourself safe during road trips is so important. Here is how I protect myself.

Thanksgiving is only a few days away and many of you will be driving to visit family and friends. Do you ever worry about staying safe on the highway? I know I used to.

Drive along any interstate, and you’re bound to see road kill on the shoulder. When I see any dead animal, I feel sad, of course, and say a quick prayer for their journey. But I also think about what an animal like a deer or antelope could do to my car and the impact it might have on my passengers.

Many years ago, I started a ritual to protect myself on road trips. It’s easy to do, and simply requires a bit of visualization. If you read my blog from last week, you’ll know I talked about creating an energy bubble to protect yourself as you go about your day. This ritual expands on that one.

What you’ll want to do is to visualize a protective bubble around your vehicle that travels with you. My bubble extends quite a ways in front of my car, and on both sides, especially onto the shoulder of the highway. If there is a field or woods on the side of the highway, I extend my bubble there as well.

Ask your spirit guides and guardian angels to maintain that bubble for the duration of your trip. (Although I do visualize it again if I’m driving another day.)

Another thing I do is to ask one of my spirit guides to fly ahead of me to keep anything dangerous out of my way. One of my animal guides routinely volunteers to do this. She is fierce in her protection of me. I can see her claws out in front of her making sure that I stay safe.

Remember, once you arrive at your destination, to also keep a protective bubble around you at family gatherings. They are sometimes challenging! But, this is a time for giving Thanks and Gratitude. Feel yourself filled with love for each family member, regardless of your past history.

Blessings!

4 Easy Steps to Creating Protective Energy Bubbles

It’s easy to protect yourself from other people’s energy. Read on!

Recently I have been working hard on creating a protective energy bubble around myself every morning. I feel like it has been getting easier and easier to do, and yesterday I had proof that it is quite effective.

I had arrived at a meeting early and was chatting with some of the other attendees. A woman next to me was talking to someone else on the other side of me. At one point, she gestured with her hand, coming very close to my head. “I’m so sorry!”, she said. “I didn’t mean to hit you!”

Here’s the thing. She had not touched me. But she felt as if she had come into contact with something solid. This was pretty exciting to me! Not only is my energetic bubble protecting me from the energy of other people, but it is physically protecting me as well.

Do you create a protective bubble around yourself every day? It’s easy to do -just follow these quick steps:

Ground and center. Visualize and feel the energy of the earth flowing up through your root. Then visualize and feel divine energy coming down through your crown. Feel those energies connect in your body like an electric jolt.
Visualize a bubble forming outside of your energetic field. (If you don’t know where your energetic field is, just go with two to three feet out from your physical body.)
Infuse that bubble with the kind of energy you’ll need that day. Many times I’ll fill it up with love and make the boundary of the bubble porous to allow only love in or out. I especially will do that on a day when I’m feeling grumpy – it doesn’t do anyone any good to allow that negativity out!
Finally, if I feel I need extra protection, I’ll add a more solid layer on the outside of the bubble. If I want to be invisible, I’ll cover the bubble with mirrors.

It’s that easy. Let me know your experiences in the comments below!

New Moon blessings!

Attend To The Shadow – Oracle Reading for November

(Note: I wrote this post last October, but somehow never pushed the “Publish” button. I’m publishing it now …. in May. It still seems applicable, and I would love your comments.)

I purchased a new deck of cards at the Witches’ Ball last weekend. They have been giving me some great readings and insight into my personal life.

I thought it would be good to do another reading for the general population using this deck. It’s the Magic of Flowers oracle deck by Tess Whitehurst, wonderfully illustrated by Anne Wertheim.

My question for the month is “What is the most important thing we can do to heal our nation?”

I pulled the Dahlia card. Dahlia wants us to attend to the shadow.

I find this interesting even before I start reading the description. I feel that there is so much darkness in our world right now.

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There are so many differing and divisive opinions. It seems to me that people on both sides think they’re 100% correct without looking at the merits of those who disagree with them.

And this card is saying that we need to attend to the shadow, to look at the darkness. This card is saying that we will find our answers when we look where no one else is looking.

Blessings to you all!

New Moon

Here’s a helpful ritual for the New Moon to set intentions for the upcoming month.

The New Moon is today at 1:12pm Mountain Time. I’m planning a private ritual to set my intentions for the upcoming month. Do you take advantage of the moon’s energy when you’re working on an important project? It’s a very powerful ally to have in your tool belt!

First:

The first thing I do is to think about what I want to accomplish in the next month. I generally do this a day or so beforehand. Sometimes I have a big project and know exactly what needs focus. Other months I have to think about what I really want. Once I’ve decided, I write my intention out on a slip of paper. I will also write my goal in my journal along with a full description of exactly how achieving this goal will impact my life.

Another thing I like to do the day before is to try to locate the New Moon in the sky. I like this website to help me figure out what time the moon rises and sets, and it’s approximate location.

The next thing I do is to create an altar for this New Moon. I look to see which sign it will be in and which planets govern that sign. In this case the New Moon is in Libra which is governed by Venus. I’ll add some jade, amazonite, and rose quartz to my altar to honor Venus. My altar also includes a carving of my spirit animal, and a gift from a friend who has passed. Then I’ll include some incense.

Last:

Once I have my altar set up, I can begin my ritual. At the time of the New Moon, or as close as I can get depending on my schedule for the day, I’ll head outside to see if I can see the moon. The New Moon is hard to see; it’s just a tiny thumbnail! And, especially on a sunny day because it tends to blend in with the background of the blue sky. Don’t freak out if you can’t find it. Know that its energy is all around you. Also, if I can’t be outside for any reason, I just do my ritual inside.

Next, I’ll ground and connect to the Divine. (I have a quick description of my grounding process on my blog about Full Moon energy.) I’ll think about my intention for the month. Then, I’ll call in my spirit guides, guardian angels, and archangels. I tell them what my intentions are. I ask for their blessing and assistance in accomplishing my goals. I ask them to watch over me and help me make good choices during the month. Finally, I’ll thank them for their guidance.

Since my altar is generally inside, once I’m done with the ritual, I’ll go to my altar, light some incense and place the slip of paper beneath one of the crystals. Daily, during the next two weeks, I’ll think of my intentions and ask my guides and angels for their assistance.

This can be a powerful ritual! Please let me know your results in the comments below.

Blessings!

Labyrinth

Thoughts on how a labyrinth relates to everyday life

This past weekend I had the chance to walk a real labyrinth for the very first time. I’ve seen them before, of course, but they have always been way too small to walk on anything but your tiptoes, let alone to get a true experience. I attended the Festival of the Muses: A Goddess Gathering this weekend. It was held at Joyful Journey in Moffat, Colorado. In addition to the spa experience (hot springs, sauna, massage, etc.), they also had a very large, and well thought out labyrinth.

I walked it twice, both times in the morning. Because there were plenty of other women/goddesses at the Festival, I never had the chance to walk it alone. But even walking it in quiet meditation with other people was a magical experience.

When I returned home, I wondered about labyrinths in general. How did they come to be? Were they used by pagans thousands of years ago? Every one that I’ve seen recently, with the exception of the Joyful Journey labyrinth, was built into a church floor, generally no bigger than 6′ in diameter. Were they used by the ancient Christians? What was the history?!

History:

Turns out the first known use of a labyrinth was a story from Greek mythology. It was built for King Minos of Crete to hold a Minotaur. In reading the story, it sounded to me as though it was more of a maze to keep the Minotaur in, than a labyrinth with an easy exit. (A Minotaur is a mythological monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man. Here’s the story in Wikipedia.)

As I’ve read more, I’ve learned that there is a distinct difference between a labyrinth and a maze. A maze has multiple paths with choices to make when a path splits. To make it more confusing, there are many dead ends. A labyrinth has a single path in, and the same path is taken to get out.

Labyrinths were incorporated in Christian churches as early as 1000 AD, but I haven’t been able to find out what purpose they served.

More recently, labyrinths are built in public spaces and on church grounds as a way for individuals to walk a path of mindfulness and contemplation. That was certainly what I experienced.

My Labyrinth Experience:

So many thoughts bubbled up as I walked. My intention was to walk the entire thing thinking of what I was grateful for. But so many other revelations were made for me that I started thinking of those things as well. And, of course, each revelation was just another thing I was grateful for!

I realized that walking the labyrinth was a lot like a big project. You start working towards the project and you get turned around. You continue working towards it and you can see the end; you can see what the end result will be. So many twists and turns and you feel like you’re going backwards, but all the while you are still working towards your goal; in this case, the center of the labyrinth.

Once you reach the center, you feel so grateful. You realize all you have to be grateful for. And, when you finish a major project, you also feel so grateful! Regardless of the project, you know how much you have accomplished and how much you have given to the world by completing it. In the same way, you recognize that by walking to the center of the labyrinth, you have given so much to the world. You have spent undivided time in gratitude, and in connecting to the Divine, or just walking silently and meditatively. Just by doing THAT, you are giving back to the Universe, giving back to the Divine, giving back to Mother Earth.

This labyrinth had a beautiful marble angel at the center. She has received many gifts – crystals, flowers, and other precious objects – from previous visitors. What a beautiful sight to stand there and take in all the positive energy from others who have walked that path. As I stood in the center, I turned to each of the Directions and thanked each of those spirits as well.

As I made my way out of the labyrinth, I noticed things I hadn’t noticed on the way in. It’s all about the ebb and flow of life; the ebb and flow of your breath. It seems as though my heart had opened just a little more, so that I could be that much more observant of my surroundings.

A rock that looked like a rock walking towards the center, looked like a heart on the way out.

Tag: Spirituality