It is one thing to be spiritual and remain at peace within oneself, it is quite another to withdraw into anonymity with the hopes that whatever is happening to others “out there” won’t happen to ourselves. Spiritual teachings the world over have spoken of the Oneness of existence, and that whatever befalls our neighbors befalls us as well. For we are each a part of Creation, and the same measure of the loving and the suffering in life reverberates throughout all of us. This has never been so real since the 24/7 news cycle began. The news journalist’s job is to light our hair on fire and mine is smokin’. The internet has drawn us in even closer still, and there seems to be no respite from the constant barrage of human carnage and pain. A direct result from the woes of humanity intensifying is how the Earth and her creatures are suffering from the ensuing ripple effects. The tornadoes whipping across the Midwest right now are but one example of the results of climate change that humanity created. And from my perspective, it was created out of paid for or enforced silence and sheer greed. Greed, one of the seven deadly sins in Christianity and to which 30 pieces of silver will attest, is a juicy topic to explore along with its role in the price of silence and betrayal in all levels of human society. Personally, I would add Power Misused as the eighth deadly sin, since a powerful Pope Gregory I neglected to include it on the list.

Instinctual fear has an important place in life for us humans and for all living beings. It is a sort of inner guidance system that tells us whether to stay and fight or to run like hell in the other direction. On its most primal of levels, it indicates whether someone or something “out there” in the world is friend or foe or if it is going to eat us or not. It is an important survival mechanism that serves as a radar that instinctively determines the level of safety that exists in our environment from one moment to the next. Physically, it resides inside the limbic brain that is located in the medulla oblongata at the base of our brains. Energetically, it resides in our solar plexus inside of our third chakra. That anxious gut feeling is an energetic, inner warning system about our potential for survival. Our will to live also exists inside this third chakra, and it steers us away from or even through dangerous situations if we would only listen to what our gut is telling us.

Spirit has given me the word, discernment, to write about today. Discernment is an important word that is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “The ability to judge people and things well.” The casual word they offer for discernment is “savvy”, another equally delicious word for your vocabulary consumption. And for your discernment, wellbeing, and safety, I am going to be a bit more direct in this blog. Spirituality can also be about speaking truth to power, so buckle up and read on.

Now, let’s talk social media, cellphones, computers, tablets, gaming, landline telephones, apps, and convenience devices like Alexa. Just like television, these are all electronic devices and software that reach into our homes, our hands, and our minds. In a sense, they are actual points of connections to and from each of us to the outside world. What powerful tools these are for so many good uses, and for many dark uses that we may not be fully aware of and need to learn about before bringing them into our homes and using them. I don’t know about you, but it creeps me out when my phone sends me ads from sites I have visited or talked about near my phone. I spoke to the guy at iPhone and he said that it was the apps I had on my phone that were doing that not the phone itself. Tik Tok and Alexa have never been nor will ever be a part of my life, so I am still trying to figure that one out….

….”If you are feeling more ungrounded, worried, anxious, depressed, or argumentative, it may well be because the tension right now. This energy is so thick for sensitives and intuitives like me and my friends, that we are pulling back to protect ourselves from its sturm und drang (storm and stress).  Since we are feeling this chaos as it washes all around and unbalances us, I thought I would share some of our ways of coping with all of you. Depending on how sensitive you are, the chaos may affect you differently. If you are being swept under and are not coping, please read through my earlier blog on mental health on my website www.evolvingspirit.com. There is some helpful information for self-care in that one to read through, for sure.”

So, it boils down to you, to me and to our society as a whole and our individual and collective integrity. It’s up to the choices we make and accepting the ensuing consequences for our actions. The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary defines Integrity as 1: a firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values: Incorruptibility 2: an unimpaired condition: Soundness 3: the quality or state of being complete or undivided: Completeness

Loss comes in so many forms, large and small, it is simply impossible to enumerate them all. Losses can happen by our own intentional or unintentional actions and inactions and the intentional or unintentional actions and inactions of others. Some losses are caused by natural disasters like fires and floods. Some losses are material, like a favorite ring, or even a home from a fire. Some losses are emotional like our favorite team not making the finals or, way worse, a tragic accident taking the life of a loved one. Forgetting an appointment is a loss to both parties, losing a job can be a major loss to a family. As I said, losses come in many forms, and we all have to somehow learn to cope with them. There is no way to candy coat a loss, especially the really tough ones, but any loss can be used as grist for the mill that is the human heart, where it can be gently explored, transformed, and then used for growth.

How are you handling the changes that are happening in our world right now? If you are fine with them, then you probably will find this an unnecessary read. Just pass it by and live your life. If you are struggling, keep reading this blog as it is meant for you. First of all, let’s start with a self- evaluation.  Take this time to go inward and pay attention to your body/mind state and how you are coping. Are you ok? Have you taken any time to go inside yourself and evaluate how you are feeling physically or are you running on empty? Are you eating well or too much or too little? Are you drinking too much alcohol, smoking too much cannabis, or taking so called “recreational” drugs to calm yourself? Are you sleeping well? Is your mind racing and unable to find a moment’s peace? Or has your mind shut down and you feel exhausted all the time? Are you going about your routine normally or are you cutting back on your normal activities? Are you isolating yourself or visiting with friends? How are your moods? Are they steady or are they see-sawing between anxiety, rage, and grief? How does your heart feel inside your chest? Does it ache like an open wound? Is it pounding or does it feel ok? What is your breathing like? Is it tense and shallow or is it deep and relaxed? Is your diaphragm constricted in self- defense, like you have taken a body blow? Where are you holding tension inside your body? Do you notice any changes in your stress levels? Do you feel grounded or is your energy living somewhere above your shoulders? Please reread this and make some notes of your self-evaluation of all of the above and anything else you may think of for yourself, and let’s think about what your needs might be at this time. I am going to offer the process that I personally go through when I am overwhelmed or in crisis physically or emotionally. There are some helpful skill sets for self-care that I am offering to you in the form of suggestions below. I leave it to you to decide what fits for you and to disregard the rest.

There is a very interesting body of research done and many books written by a Japanese research scientist, Dr. Masaru Emoto. In his very first study recorded in his book, The Message From Water, he studied water he bottled and then taped words like love, hate, forgiveness, resentment, and gratitude and an absolutely fascinating thing happened. When frozen, the crystals or snowflakes formed into various, distinct matrixes as a direct result of the words that were taped onto the bottled water. Beautiful crystals of exquisite forms were grown from the water when the words were loving, gentle, and positive. Distorted, broken and ill-formed crystals were grown from words that were angry, hateful, and negative. And the experiments were repeatable, verifiable results. It sounds miraculous and to think that water can be affected by the energy that we instill within it. He went on to use the human voice, and then sound waves. Music was also used creating gorgeous snowflakes of delicate compositions. D. Emoto has written to date ten volumes of study on water each deepening the marriage of science and spirituality with each exploration.

As far as the human condition is concerned, mental health has to be one of the most important issues of our times. We read about it every day in the news regarding our schools and horrible gun violence, and in our government with some crazy politicians. And we are dealing with it, or rather not dealing with it, collectively on the Internet with bots that intentionally, cruelly stir up chaos in our collective unconscious and in our lives. It is now critical that we each pay attention to our personal mental health and wellbeing, and to nurture ourselves whenever we are feeling depressed or stressed. It’s truly important to seek treatment from a qualified professional if we are unable to break out of a difficult mental health pattern ourselves, regardless of its origin.

From living through many interactions and struggles in relationships with family members and friends, I have concluded that the most important way we can interact with one another is with kindness. In fact, for me it is my bottom line for how I want to treat people and be treated by people, most especially with those who matter most to me. In today’s blog, we’ll look at kindness, what it is, what it grows out of, and its potential for healing us all in large and small ways.

... I would like to give you an idea of how concentrated essential oils are, so you have a way to think about their potency when you are using them at home. From the latest information that I have,  it takes between 15 to 20 pounds of lavender flowers and twigs to produce 5 ml of essential oils. (show the bottle) To produce 1 drop of Rose Essential oil it takes 10,000 rose petals - which is why this one in particular is soooo expensive.

You remember the old adage that “when life gives you lemon make lemonade”?  If we stop and think about this one, it seems pretty Pollyanna, meaning finding the good side of every situation with added sugar. Sometimes this seems like a whole lot of nonsense in the face of all that we have gone through in the past decade of our collective history. We have lived through a major, traumatic pandemic that was raging across the entire world.

 As I sit down to type this on my laptop, images of cellphones, computers, iPads, earbuds, and gaming handsets are passing through my mind. All of these devices have a part to play in making connections to one another, but from what I personally have experienced, more in ways of isolating us from each other. Just like the bookworm of yesteryear, we now have a cellphone and headsets to hide behind if we are shy or unskilled with people. Kids hide from their parents and peers with electronic devices rather than doing the daily work of learning how to connect with and to respond to another human being.

So, then, what is intimacy? I believe that intimacy is a heart deep connection that can occur on the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual levels between family, friends, lovers, and life partners. It is a kind of an energetic blending of two or more people that speaks of trust, understanding, admiration, mutual respect, kindness, love, and loyalty. It can be a wordless connection, but it truly needs to be spoken aloud and reinforced for human beings, even if we feel vulnerable saying the words. Vulnerable is a difficult word to say, feel, and to remain in a state of being with for many of us. I have learned that being vulnerable and close with another human being is one of the richest experiences we will ever have of real intimacy on this planet. Intimacy is worthy of our focus and attention and needs to be nurtured on a regular basis.

"September 5 was chosen in order to commemorate the anniversary of the passing away of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace."  - Wikipedia August 20, 2024

You Do You, Boo.

When I asked my Guardian Angels and Guides what to write about today for this week’s blog, this was what I heard. So, let’s talk what it means to be our true selves and not some facsimile, some illusion of ourselves.

Did you have a chance to note down what makes you feel good about you, empowers you, and makes your heart sing as mentioned in Part 1? Let’s think about how to incorporate one or two of those things into your daily life. Knowing that you will be nurturing yourself on a regular basis is food for the soul and especially for your inner child. Intentionally planning and giving yourself positive experiences to look forward to are mentally and emotionally telling yourself that you value your own happiness and your wellbeing. This is a sign of good mental health maintenance, and this maintenance will sustain and support you through the rougher times in your life. When you practice good self-care, you know that are in your own corner coaching and empowering yourself.

Perhaps the most important thing you can do for yourself is to maintain your wellbeing. When you feel physically well and fit, you have as many choices as to how you want to live your life as you can possibly imagine. When your mind and emotions are healthy, relatively neutral and or happy, life is good. Your find that your relationships with your friends are satisfying and close. And those with your family are mostly pretty easy, (except when they annoy you from time to time).

So, how’s your spiritual homework coming along? This week, let’s take a look at our less than helpful behavior patterns that we may be repeating and ignoring, and that grows into bigger and bigger life problems as a result. These are the tougher issues that we came here to resolve, believe it or not. And if we don’t resolve them, they will escalate until we cannot ignore them. We can choose not to face into them, but then we have more and more serious consequences to deal with. In order to understand this concept better, we’ll look at a life lesson and follow it as if we were ignoring it and see how it can snowball.