Who Do We Trust?

  

By Rev. Amari Magdalena

Erik Erikson believed that trust is developed from birth to 18 months. During this stage, the infant either comes to view other people and himself or herself as trustworthy or comes to develop a fundamental distrust of his or her environment. Trust is defined as a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.

As we move through infancy, early, middle, and later childhood into adulthood, trust may become an issue in our interrelationships. If the initial trust was broken in the earliest developmental stage it may take considerable therapy to learn trust.

Early broken trust leads, in shamanic shields terms, to a skewed South Shield.* The untrusting child carries that lack into each relationship in hopes that somehow magically, the other person will help them overcome their trust issues. In essence, they are looking for that compensatory partner. Of course, the rising dissolution of these relationships speaks to this issue.

When you may hear someone saying: “I just don’t trust anyone.” What they are truly saying is they don’t trust themselves sufficiently to even speak to trust of others. It’s a signal to any therapist or spiritual advisor that inner work is needed.

For an aware adult, that lack of trust may signal a need to develop and foster trusting themselves. Inner child work along with redirecting the North Shield and awakening the Nagual shields of West and East, can make a huge difference in healing basis distrust. This inner work was some of the most successful that I experienced with students and myself.

I was left with my grandparents from about 4 to 10 months. That helped me later understand why I was so attached to them. At the same time, the parental absence at such an early juncture, surely had its impact. There was no social media platform in those days to have us see missing persons in our lives. And written communications at such an early development stage didn’t have any meaning. I’m certain trust was broken.

Thus, I recognized my own need to develop adult trust. That can be done, with a lot of work. First one develops self-trust built on evidence that we can become reliable, truthful, and strong. As we assess and build more self-trust, we can then extend it to others.

At the same time, we need to attract trustworthy people and have some device for forgiving small lapses in trust. I’ve often said that compassion without discernment can be dangerous. That suggests that after we deal with the ‘me,’ we learn to deal with the ‘we,’ and then if we are most fortunate, we come to embracing the greater ‘us.’’ In actuality, that is part of our life work.

We may wish to develop markers of trust in new relationships. A European friend of mine observed how Americans almost instantly trust people rather than build trust over time. That instant trust and superficial bonding can lead to disappointments. In the romantic realm I once wrote a piece on 22 guides for Metaphysical Lovers to help people avoid the karmic macarena.

Discernment certainly comes into play if we are going to embrace and recognize another’s worth for inclusion in our emotional world. Our media often exposes us to such unrealistic pictures of romantic love that we may have incorporated delusional expectations about ourselves and other people’s worth.

The bottom line, is start building self-trust. Develop criteria for the types of people you’d value coming into your lives. Become trustworthy. Demand trustworthiness in all of your relationships. When that wounded inner child shows up, take some time to talk with him or her and see what old emotional issues are still unmet. Become the person that meets those needs and perhaps you will stop finding others and entrusting them with your basket of unmet emotional needs to foster.

Trust is elemental. Our world has shown us many, many examples of misplaced trust on all levels. Yet ultimately it is up to us to discern what is and is not working for our emotional stability. Start with you. Become more reliable, trustworthy, and strong. When we have that inherent trust in self, others, and life, our lives become the heaven we seek.

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” William Shakespeare

“Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” Stephen Covey

“Trust is built with consistency.” Lincoln Chafee

“He who does not trust enough, Will not be trusted.” Lao Tzu







*Awaken Your Inner Shields: Transform Your Life." by Amari Magdalena

Self-Love for Just the Way You Are

Self-Love or Self Loathing

By Rev. Amari Magdalena

If you remember Billy Joel's popular song, "Just the Way You Are," perhaps you wondered if you love yourself, just the way you are. For many, its the challenge of a lifetime.

Having been an accountant for many years, I learned early about “T” accounts.  Assets are on the left; Liabilities and balancing Owner’s Equity are on the right.  The left has to balance the right even if Owner’s Equity is negative.  Now in truth, the ideal balance sheet has a lot of assets and not too many liabilities with a positive owner’ equity.  And, so it is with our self-concept: important to recognize our assets while keeping our self-judgment and perceived liabilities under control for a positive balance.

We could also use the resume metaphor:  if we want to get the job, it is important that we put our best foot forward.  At the interview, we may be asked about our ‘shortcomings,’ and thus we need to be aware of any attributes that get in the way of our potential success for that company.

And, so it is with our self-perceptions; we can love or loathe ourselves, our choice. Which brings up this important topic.  How much do we love ourselves?  Every single person on the planet has innate gifts and also talents.  All of us also have some things that get in our way.  The recognition of both is often colored by external messages from childhood to our present adulthood.  Too many messages of deficits, may cause us to loathe more than like ourselves.  Too many messages of unearned praise, on the other hand, can lead to false self-love or narcissism.

I believe that one of the secrets of life, is learning to come to balance.  Therein, I experience contentment and can more easily tackle the inevitable challenges that a life lived offer. That said, it can be a life work that many are unable to complete and thus, in reincarnation, return to work on. It is a choice once one becomes aware of it and begins to lift the veils of illusion.

Shamanic practice offers a lovely way to facilitate finding personal balance in love and ameliorate loathing, transforming it into non-judgment and desire toward acceptance of our foibles. The Four Agreements™ addresses important awareness’s for beginning the process.  Awaken Your Inner Personas: Transform Your Life*gives important tools for working with and ultimate transformation of inner balance.

My personal story was one of finding that balance and surrendering the Drama Queen story. I’d come through riding the peaks and valleys to finding that between space of peace. Almost every day I am aware of my inner judgments and have to pause and ask myself:  “Am I playing an old tape or is my judgment still valid.” If I find validity, I can then choose to change the behavior or thought, or simply laugh at its existence lovingly. 

I’m the Queen of Calm most of the time.  Under high stress I can be taciturn or very angry.  If no one is around, I may resurrect the old habit of throwing things across the room. Pointed expletives may be heard through thin walls at those times.  When I get through with my little tantrum and take time to breathe, I’m often found laughing heartily at my outburst.  In this way, I can live with my foibles without indulging in self-loathing.  

It is my belief that our purpose on the planet is to love; how we express our love, is our work. That work begins at our home within.  If we do that work with due diligence, we can than express our love through our innate talents and abilities and complete our life journey to service.

 In Toltec Shamanism there are three paths or lessons: Awareness, Transformation, and Intent.  The latter is the Service of Love.  Completing the transformation between Self-Love and Self-Loathing becomes paramount then for our individual happiness and the planetary evolution that is now ongoing.

Doing something each day to support loving yourself reaps great rewards in your life.  The first person you may greet in the morning mirror, is you.  Smile and say, “I love you just the way you are.”  And, the next letter you write, make it a love letter to the beautiful being that you are.

"I don't like myself, I'm crazy about myself." May West

"To love yourself right now, just as you are, is to give yourself heaven.  Don't wait until you die. If you wait, you die now.  If you love, you live now." Alan Cohen

"Love yourself unconditionally, just as you love those closest to you despite their faults."  Les Brown

"If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself." 

Barbara De Angeles

*Awaken Your Inner Personas: Transform Your Life by Amari Magdalena.  Available in paperback and eBook on Amazon and book selling locations.

When Not to Help Others

Rev. Amari Magdalena

Most of you reading this are innate helpers.  You care deeply about others, are empathetic, and a natural helper/healer.  What a gift you have!  How wonderful that you can offer yourself in service to others in your unique way.  So your asking yourself when is the ‘but’ coming or why is there a problem with this. My answer is timing and request.

This is a tough one for many of us, me included.  I was so often problem solving in my kids lives that I’ve often been informed by them that they are adults. I’ve had to learn to listen better when they share, not respond with my similar story, and only then, ask if they would like to hear a suggestion. Of course, preparing for the answer that they may not want my suggestion.

I’ve observed the help issue in many situations lately with some of my metaphysical friends.  As I reacted to unsolicited help, expertise, or unwanted divination with some degree of irritation, I thought it time to talk about it.  Why would I react away from help?  Because, I only needed an ear, not a solution.

I believe that what will ultimately heal humanity is when social/emotional environments are created in which people feel fully independent, empowered, and capable of handling their lives. In other words, that evolved human can say to themselves as issues arise, “You got this babe!”  The reasoning behind my belief is that when we are too dependent on others to solve our problems, we don’t own the results. Thus we always perceive ourselves as less capable, able, etc.

When we jumped to problem solving for others without giving them time to reflect, absorb, comes to terms with, etc., we can cause psychic and emotional harm.  Oh, yes, we intended for good but missed the mark. My question is, did we ask you?  No. When you jumped in with your solution, did we feel listened to?  No. When you consulted your own guides instead of giving us space to consult our own, why did we shrug you off? It was interference, plain and simple.

Well intentioned you may have been, I totally understand that.  It’s also possible that at some unconscious level, you were playing a little one-upsmanship. We can often get so full of ourselves we forget the source of our healing talents-Spirit. When I follow guidance, all is well.  When my ego gets in the way, no good comes of it.

I’ve been a Reiki Master for 25 years and a Shamanic Healer for almost 30.  If there is anything I’ve learned along the way, it is to get the hell of the way so Universal Life Force Energy can use you as a channel.  I had the wondrous experience of positively transmitting energy to heal burns, shoulder displacement, breast cancer tumors, gallstones, ovarian cancer, chemo aftereffects, troubled pregnancies, paralysis, tendon tears, hiatal hernias, psychological issues, anxiety, trauma etc.  And, I know without a doubt, I am the vehicle not the source.

When people have come to me for healing, the first thing I ask is: “Are you ready to be healed?” This is to make them a partner in the process.  I often spend time in a platica (heart talk) to discuss contributing factors like diet, stress, relationships etc. before we do the actual hands on work. I’m prone to giving homework to people so that clients can make claim to their own healing.  If this isn’t integrative medicine, I don’t know what is.

But I digress.  It is a wonderful thing when people reach out to help us when we are faced with an illness.  The feeling of having people who care is immeasurable. That said, please take time to truly hear the person and support all the emotions they may be having over a disagreeable diagnosis. * Give them space to cogitate, ruminate, and masticate the situation.  Trust that they have consulted their own inner physician for information. When they ask, oh Yes, show up. If I ask for a little energy or prayer on FB, I am very grateful that you are willing to do that and care. And, I will ask!  I’m in hopes you will also ask me.

Be the help that is invited, and you will be providing an amazing service. Know the right moment and you’ll have loving, devoted friends forever.  They’ll love that you gave space and then showed up when the team (tribe) was called in. Then, and only then, will you serve to uplift and carry out your service.

"When we give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed." Maya Angelou

"It's impossible to hold up the banners of victim and victory at the same time." Lysa TerKeurst

"Be helpful but don't allow others to depend on you too much.  Help by teaching them how to help themselves."

*One exception is when the person is unconscious or unable to respond. In that case, the family may ask for your healing help.

Circles That You Find

By Rev. Amari Magdalena

Our outer and inner Cosmos’ contain many circles.  Our planet and others in our solar system are round. In our lifetimes, we will be participants in circles; some beautiful and fulfilling, others perhaps challenging.  The unbroken symmetry of circle moves us through the medicine wheels of our lives.

We are born, pushed through a circle as the womb and cervix dilate and the round head presses through the opening of the vagina.  Most of us were surrounded then by welcoming family and/or the attendants at our arrival.  Some would go on to know siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and peripheral family and close friends.  Others would not be so fortunate yet would still be in circles institutionalized though they may have been.

As our lives progressed, we would join other circles of marriage, unions, fraternal organizations, institutions of learning, celebratory, social, life passages etc.  Our inherent need for socializing moves us throughout many circles as we spend time on this planet.  Yet sadly so many of us live alone now, in boxes.

One wonders, why we’ve constructed structures in square and rectangular fashion.  We are most often housed in structures with corners and right angles. Having lived in the great American Southwest many times, I was often struck by the adobe homes.  Corners were rounded.  Archways prevailed between rooms.  Everywhere there was demonstration of the feminine hand working what might have been angles into curves. Though the structures themselves were not round; the curves compensated.  Perhaps these constructs represented both the Yin and Yang aspects of the builders.

Why then do we live in these confining structures?  I am reminded that most laboratory experiments with animals find them contained in square or rectangular cages.  When we visit a zoo and see the animals in their respective indoor enclosures, they too are in right-angle structures.  No wonder they pace; we all would if so enclosed.  Yet we are; just bigger cages.  Confinement is the name of the game. We need to find ways to spend more time in circles, for sanity.

One of my great attractions and love of shamanism came from joining rituals that were conducted in circles-indoors and outside.  When I lived in Sedona with an accessible roof top garage, I was gifted the ability to create an outdoor medicine wheel on it.  In South Albuquerque, I celebrated the moons and seasonal changes in a Kiva.  In Tucson, I had a beautiful outdoor altar for ceremonies.

Indoors and out, except for my current small apartment, I’ve had a large floor medicine wheel defined by hand-made Ruins tiles.  When I can sponsor a small moon gathering here, I create the same on a small round coffee table.  Yet I so miss my big medicine wheel.  I also feel the loss of participating in more outdoor circles due to my physical walking limitations.  Yet the memories of many beautiful circles keep me at peace.

Circles remind us that life is always moving.  As we move around one, we experience the rhythmic movement of the sun and moon from ascending energy to descending-rising and falling.  This, for me, helps me stay in touch with a concept that all things change.  We experience birth, growth, and death. We also experience community in circles-vital social connection. 

Ultimately, I believe, it is in sharing circles that we build our tribe.  I feel tribal connection is the missing piece of experiencing greater peace worldwide. I’m reminiscing about the Coca-Cola commercial with “I’d like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love… I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony” with people of all colors, races, etc. gathering.  It was about connection and finding something everyone enjoyed sharing-commercial though it was.

In Atlanta, for the three years I lived there, Jeni and Rick Prigmore sponsored a Peace Circle every Wednesday evening.  For that night, in the middle of the week, we sat in circle holding Earth Globes or imagined ones and affirmed for peace.  It was a family (tribe) of love.

Our chaotic times and fractured attention from digitized living, call for more circles.  My hope would be that wherever you are, be moved to restore circles; all kinds of circles.  Bring people together!  Build sweat lodges and round structures.  Celebrate those influential globes in the heavens that so affect our living.  Foster tribes for good. Get out of the windmills of your mind and engage in the circles that you find.

“A circle is the reflection of eternity.  It has no beginning and it has no end-and if you put several circles over each other, then you get a spiral.” Maynard James Keenan

“The whole universe is based on rhythms.  Everything happens in circle’s, in spirals.“  John Hartford

“Circles create soothing space, where even reticent people can realize that their voice is welcome.” Margaret J. Wheatley

Why Choose the Road Less Traveled?

By Rev. Amari Magdalena

Driving along recently, I was taken by the shimmering leaves of fall.  Instead of turning on the usual road to my destination, I chose to continue ahead.  What a wondrous display of gold, cranberry, and sienna as I drove through a wooded area.  As is often my experience, when I decide to veer from the familiar or prescribed course, wonder awaits.

I remember Richard Burton’s character in The Night of the Iguana, commenting on the fact that we live in two worlds: the realistic and the fantastic.  That has stuck with me for a very long time.  At 33 I heard Jim Weatherly’s song, The Need to Be, and knew it was my calling and changed my life direction. Over my lifetime since, I’ve often selected the fantastic.  Though there may have been real prices to pay for such choices, and there were; I would not have chosen to miss this different road. 

In Toltec shamanism we speak to the Nagual and the Tonal worlds.  The Tonal is the familiar, realistic as it were, with its metronome of time beating out what and where and with whom, we might live a more ordinary life.  It’s the 9 to 5, 7 days a week, 365 days in a year living that can be very comfortable for many.

The Nagual world leads to the path of magic and the extraordinary.  That is my favorite path as it holds the keys to what I like to call the phantasmagorical. It has always directed me to highest good even when it challenged all my assumptions and the ‘shoulds’ I was raised with. 

This path of now 44 years has given me amazing experiences.  I’ve been at 14,000 ft in Peru participating in a Quechua Despacho; conducted ceremonies in the Far East; addressed an assembly of 22,000 people; authored books; initiated apprentices with fire; promoted earth-based teaching nationally and internationally; communicated with spirits in ruins across the Southeast and Southwest; produced and hosted a radio show; started a women’s center at a university; birthed a sex information hotline in the PNW; co-hosted and produced a women’s talk show pilot before The View; co-conceived of an international women’s organization; eased people through the tunnel at death; stepped through portals of time and space near Bolivia; been hosted by political dissidents in Tito-ruled Yugoslavia and Basque ‘terrorists’ in Spain; climbed to the top of a mountain crawling through cactus to the top; lived in amazing places and met wonderfully awesome people along the way.

Not an easy path, I would say for some.  One needs to be willing to let go of the safe shore and let the rapid current move you along a sometimes raging river. Some people in your lives will move away or judge your choices. You may encounter a lot of naysayers when you choose the fantastic.  Your family may be less than enthralled with your choices. There are times of being alone for extended periods.  Longevity of relationships will most likely elude you. Yet, what you sacrifice in the ordinary will be much outweighed by the phenomenal.

Whatever is your path of choice, I would encourage to break up your routines from time to time and turn down a street you’re not familiar with.  Get a little lost on occasion.  Keep driving past your designated turn or exit.  Get off the highway.  Disconnect from the electronics.  Invite a little wonder in your experience and receive the rich rewards of moving, just a tad, outside your comfort zone.

I believe that we have within us a dormant dancer awaiting the call to magnificence and fluidity.  Our spirits are larger than the enclosures we may find ourselves trapped in. If we’ve but one life to live, wouldn’t you want to taste the fantastic even for short bursts?

Perhaps you find the routine and ordered life more to your liking.  I totally understand; it has its own rewards of normalcy and constancy.  Yet, I encourage you to every now and again, lift that veil of illusion and allow yourself a glimpse of magic.  It will add a dimension of wonder to your lives much like the glorious fall colors at this time of year do.  And, perhaps, it will give you a window into the true Light at the end of our life tunnels.  That light is brilliant, commanding and comforting.  There is nothing to fear at the end of life when you have lived your days to the fullest.  I have, and I would wish for you a taste of it even in small morsels. 

Start tomorrow.  Take that side street, stop at a little town off the highway with the mystery spot, rejoice at detours, walk in an ancient forest, sit on a beach from sunrise to sunset, find a place to see the milky way. Do that thing you were always going to do and haven’t yet.  At the end of your life, should you choose this path, you will know you are not disappointed to find you lived it for someone else. You were true to yourself and your purpose.  So invite magic and it will come!

“We’ve just to listen and know when and where we are destined to step onto the dance floor of our life purpose and trust the movement.”  We Dance to a Whispered Voice

Feast of Blossoms

By Rev. Amari Magdalena

While it is true that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow on Imbolc and blustery Winter is still upon parts of the nation, Spring is starting to unfold.  As the trees display their blossoms in an array of colors, we are reminded of just what Spring invites us to do: jump, leap, bound, hop, vault!  Time to prepare for the male time of year and gathering energies of the sun.

In seven (7) days we arrive at the Vernal Equinox which is the time of the balance of light and dark. It is also the entry into a more energetic time.  Now we are inspired to clean out the cobwebs of our physical location and connect the more active synapses of the brain towards being outward bound. Time to beautify our surroundings under the Taurus moon.

Another definition of spring, is a resilient device—something that can be pressed or pulled yet springs back into shape.  Time to come out of the cave centers of our minds, lose the winter padding, plant new seeds, and shout, Yes!  Indeed, it is time to shed the heavy clothing of winter physically and metaphorically while re-invigorating ourselves and returning to active life.

As a ceremonialist, I love to embrace this new corridor with ritual.  Twilight is a lovely time to begin your Spring Equinox Ceremony.  Here are some suggestions for your celebration.  Form a circle in or outside.  Have something to represent each of the four cardinal directions.  You may choose from the elements present in your surrounding.  If you are on the West Coast, then Water is the element to have in your West area.  For many in the Northern Hemisphere, heat comes from the South. Place a red candle in the South area.  Next decide on the East and North.  If you’ve mountains to the East, place a solid stone in the East area.  In the North, representing air, place a feather.  In the center of your circle, place objects like a cherry blossom branch to represent the unfolding spring (or daffodils or tulips).

Purchase twelve votive candles to represent the 12 months of the year; or one for each attendee.  Place all candles along the curve of the West area of your circle. Gather any other items, totems, talisman, gemstones, fetishes etc. for your circle. Smudge your circle with a sacred herb or mist it with an essential oil in pure water that is energizing.

Begin a calling in ceremony.  If you’ve no idea how to do that, my book, Blue Moons and Golden Suns give examples.  When you are complete with the 4 cardinal directions (and perhaps above, below and within), have all people move to the West.  Light candles in the West.  In concert, have all people move the candles around to the East area and say: “Until the Fall, I move the Light to the East.”  If able, leave the candles burning all night until the dawn the next day.

From here, choose others way to memorialize this Equinox: readings, meditations, dance, music, a collective creative project etc.  Set intentions for what you’d like to experience under the gathering light. This is the time of beginnings, dream big.  Call on Goddess Ostara for guidance and ask for a personal vision. 

Spring Equinox is a festival of revelation, a message of the Sun, the Song of Songs of the immortal and eternal spirit, which proclaims the divine, the creative universal spirit. In concert with Mother Earth we discover our own resurrection through our passion and surrender to the bursting forth of life.  We ourselves are the blazing bonfires of victorious spirit!

Final Moan of Winter

By Amari Magdalena

Winter vacates slowly

Sighing its last raspy breath

Rallying momentarily

Rage surrendered.

Long her cold blanket

Lay around and about

Freezing out enterprise

Forcing introspection.

Silent nights of cold stars

Glitter above and below

Invitation to cherish

Stillness and frozen moments.

Fireplace flickering

Bundled in layers of cloth

Keeping warm an occupation

Soups and hot cider concocted.

Deep surrender in center

Cave seeded as fertile womb

Pregnant thoughts emerging

Accessing inner muse.

Clinging to light fragments

Gathering luminosity expanding

Silent chants forthcoming

Heralding seasons change.

Storms gathering speed

Blowing through shorter stays

Appreciated for impermanence

Affirming power of change.

Final throws of ravage

Enclose dead branches strewn about

Nature’s pruning evidenced

Siren’s eerie moaning abates. 

Young buds defying

Illusion of final completion

Presenting promise of renewal

Cycles begin, yet again.

Consideration

By Rev. Amari Magdalena

We live in a populous world.  In cities of large to medium size, we are often bumping into one another, crashing at time like the movie Crash depicted.  Were those bumps gentle and warm, perhaps there would be less anger and violence. As it stands today, they are often far from that. This combined with the mentality of personal space and quest for new lands, has had a negative impact on our small planet.

This awareness got me to thinking about consideration.  In the era that I was raised, consideration was taught to us every day.  Manners were instilled in us to always be aware of our behavior and treatment of others.  If we visited family or friends houses for an overnight to more, we were lectured on eating what was in front of us and being respectful to our hosts.  We did not leave our ‘stuff’ all around their home.  Expectation was always trumped by thoughtfulness and consideration of others.  Entitlement, Mon dieu, hardly!!

When we look at the definition of consideration, it is about kindness, and thoughtful regard for others.  The word comes from Latin for “contemplate.”  Hidden in the word is “sid”, the Latin root for “star.” Originally it meant to examine things carefully as if you were staring at the sky in the night contemplating its mystery.

One of the reasons that I became attracted to earth-based spirituality (shamanism) was that consideration was given to all life forms.  There was a deeply inculcated philosophy of honoring Mother Earth and giving thought to all things on the manifest earth.  When one walked “a good red road,” that person was being thoughtful and considerate.

So what happened and why are we observing so little consideration of our fellow beings on the planet today?  I believe this may be, in part, why some people want a return to the 50’s–a perceived time of innocence and order.  That is certainly understandable, given that the 60’s brought in the proverbial “throw the baby out with the bath water” time of upheaval.  What might have happened instead of dissolving cultural milieus, would have been the incorporation of some of the good aspects of the old in concert with the new.

Where does that leave us today?  Capable of changing things, as always.  If each of us commits to upleveling our consideration quotient from this day forward, we’ve a much better chance of creating a peaceful, compassionate, loving world.  If we make simple choices, in all areas of our impact on the manifest world and its energies, we will indeed be co-creators of an evolution for good.  As the Hopi prophesies stated, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for, so time to get up, show up, and wisen up.  Like the unfolding Lotus, let us each see our own consciousness opening layer by layer to the awareness of how our actions impact others.

"If we were to make a conscious and frequent effort of treating others with consideration, the effects on us and our society as a whole would be amazing."  Henry Charles Link.

Our Magical Attention

by Rev. Amari Magdalena

With the many untoward events going on in the world right now, our Attention becomes much more important.  In shamanism we talk a lot about Intention and Attention (thus my emphasis with Capital letters).  Attention is defined as where we place our consciousness and monitor our thoughts and words.  Intention is what we really want to achieve by our actions.  If there was ever a time to contemplate those two concepts it is now.  The addition of ‘magical’ to Attention suggests that our consciousness, thoughts and words can be re-focused out of our ordinary material reality to that extraordinary place of higher mind and heart. 

We might equate Magical Attention with the energies of the Nagual–the East to West axis on the medicine wheel.  When we invoke the spirits and guardians of these cardinal directions we are opening ourselves to connecting beyond the veils of our illusion to upliftment and illumination. The Tonal–North and South, are the axis on the medicine wheel that most of us travel in our material, ordinary world connecting us with more earth-ward wisdom and innocence. In my book, Awaken Your Inner Shields: Transform Your Life, I provide information about this.

At this pivotal time in human history, we’ve been presented with an opportunity to take an evolutionary leap forward.  What you say?  How can that possibly be when SO much destruction is reported in graphic detail daily?  My eyes and ears are pained by all of the needless suffering and violence. And, yes, I do understand how upsetting it can be.

I would answer, if you are absorbing the bad news every day, you are missing what is wonderfully transpiring at deeper levels.  If you awaken in the morning and either check out the news on television, the newspaper, NPR, or your favorite search engine’s news, your Attention is receiving mostly bad news.  Should you need updates at mid-day, even more fear and anxiety is fostered.  Home at 6, more news?  To bed with the bad news?  An appetite of that would surely lead to not only gustatory indigestion but indigestion of your very spirit.

Every single day, on Facebook alone, there is a heartwarming story of human heroism and service to humanity.  Occasionally, these stories make it to our national news.  Ted Talks on the radio often have speakers who are talking about some essential aspect of human evolution from their particular perspective.  Inspirational books have been available long before the New Age, churned them out like butter.  Many, many offerings through citywide Meet-Ups provide opportunity for spiritual succor and tools for learning how to move into your Magical Attention.

I believe another aspect of this change, which I’ve written regularly about on Facebook of late, is comprehending that for new growth, the old growth has to be pruned as Chauncey Gardner told the President in Being There.  We have to empty our mind-cups of less than pleasant thoughts, and begin to fill them with hope and belief in the process. 

As we witness the changing of our four seasons, so is the process we are observing now.  Spring brings the new beginnings; summer the growth, fall the harvest, and winter the fallow time.  We too, as a planet, are going through these vary same stages though perhaps not as timely or consistent. I believe we are in the fallow time; old unworkable forms are dissolving and dying right before our very eyes.  Yet their compost can be the manure to feed what will emerge.

Only faith, can bring us to realize that the spring and new world WILL emerge if we place our Magical Attention on that belief and direct our Intention to contributing to creating it.  Cry no more.  This is as it should be. 

Rise up and start getting involved in the processes and forms that will come forth when our chrysalis sheds it cocoon and the New Bright World emerges.  Perhaps not all of us will witness this.  Yet, we alone can plant the seeds that will bring the Dawn of the Peace as a magnificent monarch.  In my head I am singing an old song, You’ll Never Walk Alone, that was SO impactful in my troubled youth, “When you walk through a storm hold your head up high and don’t be afraid of the dark.  At the end of the storm is a golden sky and the sweet silver song of a lark……” 

Readers, I have actually seen that golden sky once in New Mexico–so awe inspiring that I pulled off the road and wept.  It was, and it is, magnificent beyond our limited imagining.  Believe me. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV5_LQArLa0

[53 Past Blogs are in my book "Shaman Talk" available in softcover and ebook on Amazon.com]

Summer Solstice

Re-entering The Void at Summer Solstice

by Amari Magdalena

Polarities of their nature bespeak irony.  And so it is with our seasonal celebrations.  At the “High Noon” of summer light as we extol the virtues of the maximum hours of daylight, we turn the corner into the void and begin the process of contraction.    From Winter Solstice to Summer Solstice we are in a phase of expansion, seeding and growing our hopes and dreams.  From June 21^st until December 21^st we begin to draw our energies within, ever so slowly to celebrate harvests and then release.

Both our sun and moon express four distinct phases, which parallel one another nicely.  While the moon completes each phase in 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, the sun’s phases are more protracted taking our calendar year to complete.  In earth-based traditions throughout the world sun and moon celebrations served as calendars or markers for the passage of time.

June 21^st decrees the celebration of the North (the polar opposite of the South that we are experiencing).  Along with the summer solstice, it is also near Father’s day marking the maximum influence of the principal we know as masculine.  While our Spring and Fall Equinox represent balance, the solstices symbolize extreme.  Solstices are more “Tonal” (tonal being ordinary reality); equinox’ are “Nagual” (extraordinary with the availability of magic).  The summer solstice then is a time of excessive immersion into the material world (Tonal).

Given the extremes and the irony of our celebration of the North in summer and the South in winter, both celebrations are about light; more of it and less of it.  As we acknowledge the longest day of the year with the highest point of the sun, let us remember to take advantage of all that is revealed in the blazing light. 

Summer Solstice in ancient times was a daylong celebration and observation in northern most climes was 24-hours and 12-hours in the lower latitudes.  In total light a circle was set with many burning candles lit.  A large bonfire was constructed nearby.  Singing, dancing, chanting and/or drumming began.  Vigilance was kept throughout the night until dawn, when the candles and fires were extinguished. 

The summer solstice may then be a time to give oneself permission to totally immerse into the masculine principal yet acknowledging the winter solstice conception that led to this luxurious fertility.  Set your ceremonial circle with objects of light and representation of the golden, orange, red colors of the sun’s brilliance.  Acknowledge fire for its power of transformation.  Strew the altar with seasonal flowers and ripening berries.  Feast and surrender to the fire within.  Engage in fire ceremonies.  Trance dance.  Tone.  Make joyful noises with percussion and flute.  Invoke Archangel Michael or the Celtic god Lugh (pronounced Looch), god of light, warmth and inspiration.  Sing the praises of the sun in all its representations including the sunship of the Christ energies.  And slowly but surely, put out each candle in tribute to the returning darkness and the great mystery of the void.  Honor this phase of growth, trust and love and “Coming Into Being.”

[53 Past Blogs are in my book "Shaman Talk" available in softcover and ebook on Amazon.com]