metaquizzical

Redwood Medicine: My New Year's Totem

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:10:08 +0100

    I am very attracted to Shamanic means of connecting with nature. When we connect with a plant, animal, stone, landscape, etc. in a shamanic way, I believe there is a mutual exchange of healing and sharing of wisdom. Today, as I have been contemplating both who I want to be in this newest of years and what I want out of life from this moment forward, the image and wisdom of Redwood presented itself to me. Totems need not only come in the form of animals. There are totem plants as well.

    A totem may present itself to me personally in a variety of ways--I usually just have a strong gut reaction to an animal or plant or stone that presents itself to me in some way, most often through a physical encounter but also sometimes from just a sudden thought of that totem. Today as I thought about building strength from the wisdom of my years (my foundation) and creating new life and pushing forward with momentum from that foundation, the image of the Redwood tree came to me.

    The image of the Redwood is an intriguing one, and hard to capture. If you search for photos of Redwood trees, you'll never see a photo that captures an entire Redwood tree. If you have the luck to stand next to a Redwood (I have not been so lucky so far in my life, but here's hoping!) you would also not be able to take in the full view of the Redwood at once.

    Since I have never been in the presence of a real Redwood, I appreciate photographs which can help me to understand the wisdom of the Redwood. From the base of the tree looking upward into its branches (which is the perspective of most Redwood photos), you get the sense of safety that the energy of the roots provide (what a dense and deep network of support!) while also connecting strongly with the inspiring view of the branches reaching unceasingly upward, still in the slow but steady process of achieving further growth.

    One major lesson I get from the Redwood is that the new, the novel, and the adventurous can be embraced while still maintaining proper rootedness. And in fact, without the tremendous root support the tree has created for itself, it would need be able to reach so high toward the sky. On a consciousness-raisinging spiritual path, I find that I must be firmly rooted. I cannot neglect the health of my root system any more than I can neglect my eternal urge to stretch further into the sky of expanded awareness.

The Healing Process and Owning Up to the World I'm Creating

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:38:07 +0100

    In some ways it would be easier if I did not recognize that my thoughts create my reality. Because then I could continue to live from a victim mentality, from a blame-someone-else mentality, and not have to own up to the world that I have created for myself. I could say, "these are the horrible circumstances that have been laid upon my head, and woe to me, there is nothing I can do about them."

    But the more I awaken, the more I am aware that I do have to own my perceptions and my attitudes. If I view someone as being "out to get me," then that is exactly what I will experience. I'm not perfect, and sometimes a person's behavior can feel so hurtful that it's easy for me to go back to a place of negatively labeling that person as threatening, mean, and intentionally hurtful.
    All that is really being threatened is my ego, and I am the only one who is allowing the ego to be threatened by making EGO so huge, allowing it to be such a big target. I personally am finding it very hard to let go of ego. And it is a difficult process. It is a healing process, and healing doesn't always feel great, but it's still healing, and I am never not thankful for it.
    Some days I feel like a spiritual basket case. I want so much to be at peace, to be centered, and at times I can achieve days and even weeks of it, but in time I always come back around to stress and doubt and seeming crisis. I think this happens because when I am feeling peaceful, even then, I have not reached true peacefulness. I certainly have not reached true healing. Life makes me confront myself honestly: "look here, you need to fix this still, and until you truly fix it it will keep you from your peacefulness."

I Set My Orange Flowers in a Boat and Send Them Off to Heaven

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 22:40:10 +0100

I set my orange flowers in a boat and send them off to heaven.
I feel heaven raining down in drops of orange-scented love.
--Gabby Turner

This song is meant to be sung with the first line repeating 8 times, followed by 8 repetitions of the second line. That form is inspired by the singing I've been doing at the Kirtan and Meditation I go to twice a month. Devotional singing/chanting does not need variety, so much as devotion! The meaning is not lost through repetition, it is transcended, so that the true meaning can be reached, the meaning beyond the words, or the sounds. I would post an .mp3 file of me singing this for you (so you could hear the melody) but I feel you readers have earned the right to transcend my broken singing voice. The melody you are imagining is surely just as good or better than what came through me. :) Love to you all.

Dream Life: Bleeding Heart

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:36:57 +0100

    Last night I dreamt that I was on some school campus, and was a part of some larger campus community. There was a girl who had just committed suicide, and perhaps I was nearby when it happened and I was hit with a stray piece of bullet, but I had a chest wound in this dream. I don't remember actually seeing the suicide though, so maybe it was just the general irrational work of dreaming that caused me to have this bleeding wound in my upper chest. I kept walking around, holding my shirt up to the wound to collect the blood, not really worried about myself physically but worried that other people might think I looked sloppy, what with blood staining my shirt and all.
    People were talking about the suicide, going on about how they didn't really see it coming. People were wondering why they hadn't noticed something had been amiss with her. Meanwhile I was walking around talking about this girl, and other things, with J.D., a real life unrequited love of mine (the complications of which triggered a major depression for me in 2006). In the dream, he was just a well-meaning friend. It was a really nice, easy friendship. Maybe the kind of friendship I wish we had been able to manage in real life.
    Later I was doing homework. A younger cousin of mine and a friend of hers were at the same table. I had asked my cousin if she would share some paper with me. She took two sheets of paper, folded them up, took scissors and cut them in half and tried to offer me one of the pieces. I took the other piece, and when I unfolded it it was a nice big piece of paper. The other piece of paper was very tiny. She had other paper, too, so I didn't understand why she was being so petty. She got upset at me for getting a piece of paper large enough for me to actually work with and she stomped off. I was very upset with her in the dream... and vented my frustrations at the friend who remained, and then there were other people around as well, and I explained to them that lately she had been really hateful to me. I told them as kids there was also still an awkwardness between the two of us, but not the hatefulness that there was now.
    Later I was standing around with some other girls. One in particular was talking to me. We hadn't seen each other in a long time, but we both had a good affinity for each other. The kind of friendship where you enjoy the times when you happen to be around each other, but there aren't many expectations other than that. She asked me if I "smoked," meaning smoked pot. I said yeah, but that I was trying not to do it that often lately. Then I understood that she meant she had some and was offering to smoke with me, so I said yes I would love to smoke some with her. It was a nice autumn day and the sun was shining. I felt safe and warm in my warm clothes, and felt relaxed about the promise of the marijuana. The dream ended there.

How a Taurus "Makes Love to You"

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:56:01 +0100

"Let's go slow, I ain't got nowhere to go...
I'll make you love to you, like you want me to."

Venus Progressing into Capricorn

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 22:20:03 +0100

Then you say go slow
I fall behind
The second hand unwinds

     I urge you not to expect much from this entry, were you to expect anything at all. I really just want to ruminate on the fact that my progressed Venus will enter Capricorn next year. I look forward to this transit in the same way I looked forward to my Saturn Return, which I realize is not the usual way to feel about Saturn Returns, but I'm a pretty Saturnine lady and I was so ready to be responsible for myself and my life. My Saturn Return was direct only two months before my 30th birthday, and I was for sure ready to leave behind what felt to me like the superficiality of the twenties. I have natal Moon and Mars in Capricorn with Mercury tightly conjunct the Mid-heaven. To view life as a mountain or series of mountains to climb is comforting to me. There is no rush. The mountain isn't going anywhere.
     I don't know exactly what to expect from progressed Venus in Capricorn, but with the feeling that I could either harden my heart or strengthen it with endurance, I'll choose the latter. Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" captures for me the Kronos-like clockwork of the Venus in Capricorn approach to love and relationship.

The Difficulty and Beauty of Vesta in Love

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:57:43 +0100

"[Vesta] is an elemental force that must be tended, within and without, and tending that flame becomes one of the closest things to an organic religion in existence." --Eric Francis

     When our Vesta nature is bruised from love (which may happen when she is activated by synastry contacts with a lover or potential lover or by transits or progressions) we can find ourselves turning away from romantic love toward some inner devotion to real spiritual love. Vesta makes us learn about how to love with devotion. Devotion to loving someone from a place of purity does not involve mundane sexuality, or marriage for the sake of it, or mindlessly loading the kids into the minivan. I personally find it very difficult to accept that particular nature of Vesta. After all, we're living on Earth, with earthly goals, needs and desires. But a practical way of loving someone does not allow much in the way of a Vestal manner of loving, because Vesta needs to hold spiritual space. She does not have time for the rest of it, unless she can combine a romantic love with the work of her inner spiritual devotion. Accepting Vesta love is, in many ways, about accepting platonic love for what it can and cannot offer, and that it won't likely satisfy at the earthly level.
     The promise of real devotion in love, of a pure love that does not involve drama, co-dependence and manipulation is like the promise of a rainbow, the end of which cannot be found. And if it is found, it likely won't be in the kind of everyday physical intimacy and lovemaking that we find so satisfying on the earthly plane. If you want to have both Vestal love for someone and "Earthly" love for them as well, it will be a hard row to hoe and Vesta (yours or theirs or both) will likely turn away, back toward the inner flame, many times during the process. Vesta does not compromise her spiritual values, and if she allows you to get her into a compromise without an accompanying devotion to what she holds sacred, she will turn her back to you (maybe forever).
     Here are links to some great online writing about Vesta in astrology. Following the links, please listen to "No Man's Woman" by Sinead O'Connor.

-Vesta Speaks at Astrology Expressed, by Neeti Ray
-Driven Toward the Sacred: Vesta at The Inner Wheel, by Dawn Bodrogi
-Vesta Astrology at Planet Waves, by Eric Francis

     I think the following song from Sinead O'Connor accurately sums up how Vesta reacts to perceived rejection of (or misunderstanding of) her values and devotional nature. "I have other work to do," she says. She will keep the flame, it does not burn her, and it never leaves her. It is holy, it is God. God will never reject or suspect her devotion or purity of intention. God will never cease to be devoted in return.



(Note the "vestal" flames on O'Connor's album cover as well).

No Man's Woman, Sinead O'Connor

I don't wanna be no man's woman
It don't make me happy this man-trolling
thing that you got for me so I become
no man's woman

I don't wanna be no man's woman
I've other work I want to get done
I haven't traveled this far to become
no man's woman
no man's woman

Cuz I'm tired of it
and I'm so scared of it
that I'll never trust again
cuz a man can fake you
take your soul and make you
miserable in so much pain

My friends think I'm alone but I've got secrets
I don't tell everything about the love I get
I got a lovin' man but he's a spirit

He never does me harm never treats me bad
He'd never takes away all the love he has
and I'm forgiven oh a million times

I'm never tired of it
and I'm not scared of it
cause it doesn't cause me pain
Like a man can fake you
take your soul and make you
never be yourself again

I never wanna be no man's woman
I only wanna be my own woman
I haven't traveled this far to become

The Power of the Sun: Connecting to the Divine

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 03:03:17 +0100

When we want to feel aligned with the Divine, the easiet way to achieve that from an astrological standpoint would be to concentrate on expressing your divinity through the energies of your Sun sign. Aspects and house positions of the Sun are also important, but you might want to concentrate first on the sign that your Sun is in. What is the divine Capricorn? Or the divine Libra? What does it feel like to truly express the warmth and heart-centered intensity of the Sun in your sign? Training yourself to express Sun energy will help to strengthen and expand the Heart Chakra

"Without the sun none of us could see, without God the blind would lead the blind."

Awakening and Clearing the Foot Chakra: Personal Experience and Resource Information

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 04:06:59 +0100

    I've been experiencing an opening up of my foot chakra lately, and if you experience tingling/heat/sparking sensations in your own feet, you may be doing the same! Until recently, I was barely aware that I even had a thing called a foot chakra. This changed a little over two months ago when I took my first Shamballa Multidimensional Healing class. Shamballa is a form of energy healing that is similar in some ways to traditional Usui Reiki and that shares some of the same principles and tools, but is also more open-ended and intuitive in practice. Anyway, when you take a Shamballa class, as with any Reiki class, you undergo what is called an "attunement," during which the teacher/practitioner heals your auric field so that you can be brought up to the next level in your spiritual development and be better able to use the Shamballa healing energies. It's sort of an energy tune-up. (Read more after the image).

    During my Level II class last Satuurday I felt the chakras in my feet get VERY hot, almost uncomfortably so. Sometimes healing energy can feel warm (if, for instance, the healer is concentrating on healing your 3rd Eye Chakra, you may feel warmth in your forehead), but this was beyond warm. It was H-O-T. In the end though, I sort of dismissed it. "Oh, I guess my foot chakras were just opening up more! So that's good." But today as I followed a Qigong DVD by Lee Holden for the first time, after much work on the energy meridiens in the legs I also felt heat and pain in my feet. I am prone to foot pain after standing for a long time, so I thought that might be the case here (although I'd only been standing for about 20 minutes at this point). I thought perhaps something about my stance had worn out my foot muscles, and so I sat down and as he began to work on energy meridiens in the arms, I followed along from my sitting position. But as I did so, my feet, still sore and hot, started having a very intense tingling sensation. It was almost a sparking sensation, like points of electricity. I have had a similar sensation before after having a hand or foot "fall asleep," but this was more intense and, of course, my feet had not been asleep.
    Thinking there must be something going on with my foot chakras, I finally did some googling, and based on what I've read the heat in my feet just indicate a presence of a lot of energy. The tingling/sparking sensation indicates an opening/clearing of the foot chakras. And that, it turns out is a very good thing! According to Hermes Trismegistus:

"Now, the foot chakra is an important center in that it is here that divine energy returns back to the Source. It is the last point at which the energy is a part of you."

Also according to Hermes, people with healthy, open foot chakras "can pass quickly out of the body's energy system and take most of the built-up negativity out of the system before it has a chance to do any harm and possibly manifest as an illness."

Before I took my first Shamballa class, I wasn't even aware their were chakras other than the 7 most commonly mentioned ones. But of course, for energy workers the hand chakras will be especially important, and it's necessary in doing energy work to know that they exist! The foot chakra is also extremely important, because we need to have them open and in good working order so that we can release negativity and allow energy to circulate out of our bodies to be recycled and renewed. Energy needs to circulate in order to be healthy.

Based on Hermes' following description of a person with blockages in their foot chakra, I think I may have had chronically blocked foot chakras all my life. This would explain my chronic low-energy and the difficulty I have in "letting go" of negative energy and situations. Hermes writes:

"On the other hand, a closed foot chakra, where a great deal of swirling is going on, shows a person that is in a blocked-up state. The energy has no place to go, so it backs up and leaks out of the other (higher) centers and into the surrounding aura and atmosphere, where it is then absorbed by the Earth Plane. This leaking is very undesirable because energy that does not pass through the foot chakra and exits through the other centers can not be used by the individual. This kind of leaking also carries away much positive energy and, as such, these people will often be tired, irritable, and unreasonable."

Hermes suggests placing a clear glass of water and sea salt between the feet to allow blocked energy to be released from the foot chakras. You can also read his full article: The Foot Chakra. He has excellent information on other chakras as well.

I've also found this website to be extremely helpful. It's a little wordy and even a little arrogant (!) in some places, but the visualizations and esoteric information are very helpful. Even as I was reading I began again to feel sparkling/tingling sensations in my feet. You'll be almost halfway down the website's scroll before you really get to the most helpful information (in my opinion), but it's worth wading through.

If you have blockages in your own foot chakras, or if you're just generally interested in a healthier auric field, I hope you find this information useful! :)

How Qigong Gave Me a Better, Longer Orgasm: a PG-Rated Story of Holistic Fitness

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 04:56:03 +0100

        I'm not above using sensationalism to get people to read my blog entries. :) I say PG because this account is far from pornographic, though I do use the word "orgasm" many times, so if that bothers you you may not want to read further. :)
        In late 2006 I entered a deep depression that changed my life in many ways, one of which was that it dampened my orgasms so that I was not able to experience the catharsis that I had used to feel with them. It was a depression that I feel like I probably needed to experience, and it served to guide me toward the spiritual journey that I am on today. As far as orgasm is concerned, everything came full circle a few weeks ago when I went to a Qigong workshop for the first time. My libido and my experience of sexual release had definitely already healed to a certain degree from the time when I had been in the darkest place of my depression, but for a few weeks before the Qigong workshop I had been lamenting the fact that I still could not have the kind of orgasms I had in my youth (teens to early twenties), which had been long and drawn-out--punctuated with crecendoes and valleys of pleasure--and honestly, very satisfying and cathartic. In contrast, my orgasms had become sort of one-note endings. No fan-fare. Where had these former orgasms gone? At the age of 30, and post-depression, were they gone forever?
        The Qigong workshop in itself was pleasantly sexual, but not orgasmic or anything like that. It simply felt safe to be a sexual being in the room: there was a lot of focus on breathwork, and in Qigong (at least as it was taught from this particular instructor) the aim was to draw in breathe (and thus chi energy) in through the nose for a count of 4, hold the chi/breathe in the sexual chakra center (the orange chakra) for a count of 4, and then release in a count of 8, visualizing the sexual chakra center distributing the energy throughout the body. Every movement then brings energy and healing to, and through, the sexual chakra. This chakra is and should be an energy powerhouse, a center for the distrubution of life-force energy, and since I have been energy deficient for pretty much my whole life it was a nice part of my auric self to get acquainted with in a very safe, nurturing, and healthy way.
        And yes, the next orgasm I had (on my own time! with privacy, of course) was the kind of orgasm I haven't had for at least 5 years, probably longer. It was an unexpected bonus on top of the relaxing/energizing experience of the Qigong routine itself. The last time I remember this kind of orgasm was when I was a teenager. It was great side effect! Beyond that, Qigong brings more energy and vitality to me in general. Waking up in the mornings following that first workshop was easier than it had been before. I felt more fully awake during the times that I was awake, and more in love with life. Though I hadn't done much with Qigong since then, for lack of the $funds to pay for this instructor's excellent classes, I have decided to strike out on my own--to do Qigong by myself in my own home. And there are plenty of great resources available for that.
        If you are reading this and are interested in trying Qigong for yourself, I've found an excellent video that guides you through a series of movement called "8 Pieces of Silk Brocade." There are many variations on this series, and these are not all the same movements or in the same order as what I encountered at my Qigong workshop, but that isn't what really matters. I have not been able to find a video that explains the sort of Sexual-Chakra breathing technique that I was taught either, but hopefully my explanation above will serve well enough. Four counts on the inward breathe, visualizing the chi going in through the nose, up through the head and then down into the Orange (or Sexual) Chakra, hold the breathe in for a count of 4, then release for a count of 8. The movements should follow your breathing. The goal is to eventually be able to marry the movement, the breathe, and the visualization. But it is a process. You shouldn't expect yourself to be perfect. My instructor took his breathes painstakingly slowly, and the movements were slowed down in time with his breathe. It was impossible for me to breathe as slowly or as deeply as he did--but I assume he didn't start there either. :)
        Another thing they don't talk about in this video is that when you lock a joint, such as the wrists, the point is to lock in the chi, and then when the movement is released the chi is also released. The movements are all aimed, in various ways, at controlling the movement of chi through the body. So in the "drawing the bow" movement in the following series, when the bow is drawn that moment of tension is also a time when chi is drawn and collected. When the bow is released, the chi is released to flow through the body.
        If you have your own thoughts about Qigong, this blog entry, or the following video, let me know! :)

Note: Although this video is called "8 Qigong Pt 1," it is still the complete video. The ones labelled Part 2 and Part 3 are still this very same video, just broken into 2 smaller parts. The complete series then is completed in this 27 minute video. Have fun!