perspective

An Appreciation Rut – Day 257

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Hummingbird Moth on Monarda – Photo: L. Weikel

An Appreciation Rut                                                           

Who’d have thought such a thing could be possible?

I’ll admit, it’s not something I’ve thought much about. However, a couple experiences I’ve had over the past two days have proved to me that it is indeed possible to discover – often unexpectedly – that as grateful as you may be with the many delights in your life, a change in perspective can lead to the experience of even more joy.

As you know if you’ve been reading my latest posts, I’ve become smitten with my Fish Crows. I’ve been trying to get closer to them (to take a couple photos) as the parents mentor their fledges, mostly in the branches of our maple tree and sometimes in the middle of our crushed stone driveway, where they teach them how to crack open peanuts. In spite of the fact that I’m the one that keeps the peanut coil filled, they still get spooked when I try to edge closer. This was the best I could get today:

Fish Crow snagging peanuts – Photo: L. Weikel

Magic!

I happened to be out and about this morning and got the urge to pay a visit to the hostel where I’ve held many Listening Retreats, as well as the retreats for the entire two year Merkabah Medicine Program. There are a lot of wonderful memories associated with that place and the Spirits of that Land.

Just being at this energetically rich place, I encountered magic. Butterflies of many colors languidly feasting on the nectar of a massive butterfly bush. Six, seven, eight hummingbird moths hovering over the Monarda and drinking deeply from its many blossoms.

Hummingbird moth – Photo: L. Weikel

I had to wonder if some of the creatures were gathering so abundantly precisely because there’s far fewer humans hanging around on a regular basis. They feel safer now to drink from the blossoms slowly and deeply.

This brief visit helped me appreciate the current situation involving that land with a shifted attitude.

Photo: L. Weikel

An even greater example of ‘appreciation rut’ and how it impacts my life was brought home when Karl let me know he was going to be home much later than he expected last night.

In a dual bid to both outrun the impending rise in temperatures that’s going to visit our area starting tomorrow, as well as just give Karl a pleasant surprise after a long week, I decided to mow all the lawn while he was away. Normally, he does ‘the back’ (behind our small barn) and I do the ‘front’ – which is what you often see in the photos I share, especially of our birds.

A Land of Faerie

Well, I always seem to forget the utter faerie-like quality of nature’s expression back behind our barn. There are so many places for all sorts of animals and other creatures to flitter, roam, play, nest, and nestle. It is an exquisite oasis of sacred nature: An Lar Naofa, as our dear friends from Sli an Crois, Karen Ward and John Cantwell, dubbed our land.

As I looked up from my path and eased up my intensity (born from a desire to complete the task before Karl returned, weary, from a road trip), I saw our property from almost the exact opposite perspective, literally, from what I see when I sit on our porch. At that moment, I peered through willow leaves and brilliant purple wildflowers to see our barn basking in the deep golden orange of the setting sun.

It was in that moment that I realized that, as much as I love, appreciate, and celebrate the abundance of beauty that I enjoy from the perspective of my porch – an entirely different flavor of natural beauty had been patiently awaiting my awareness and celebration.

Photo: L. Weikel

(T-854)

Finding Safety & Security – Day 169

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Box Turtle – Photo: L.Weikel

Question and Answer

I recently received an email from someone who’s been reading my posts. They asked me a question, and since I feel the question could be something lots of people might wonder, I thought I would share my answer.

Reader’s Question:

“Hi Lisa, I’ve been reading your posts and website, and it seems that we have many common pet peeves. I was wondering how you deal with them and where you find the strength. In general, I just feel that life is filled with torment. Where do you find safety and security?”

– JF (edited only slightly to remove possible identifying details)

My Answer:

“Dear JF,

First off, thanks so much for taking the time to read my posts and website.

Interesting question you pose. Where do I find safety and security. I guess my first response would be “in my connection with Mother Earth.”

As I’ve cultivated my ability to listen (and yes, there really is something to the sentience of all beings, including those that humans consider ‘just animals’ or even ‘inanimate’ – and they really are willing to communicate with us), I realize and know, deep down, that I’m not alone. And not only comfort but guidance is available to us.

We just need to learn how to ask for connection and cultivate our ability to See and Hear in new ways.

As we raise our energy and awareness, we really do start to see things in a new way. All of this may sound like a bunch of b.s., but I’m living it. And I’m doing my best to share the magic with others who are ready to shift their awareness.

Have you read my book yet? The experiences I had in that book were back in the early 90s. I’d never even taken a shamanic journey during the slice of my life that I describe in that book. So basically, Owl Medicine describes me at the beginning of this life-long journey.

If I did not have the world (and beyond-world) perspective that I cultivated over the past 30 years or so, I doubt I would have come through the experience of the death of my son in the way I have. Of course, it’s a process. And I still have my moments. But there is so much more beyond what we accept as reality. And I know that because I’ve experienced it directly.

As you can tell from reading my blog, though – I still get really freaked out and pissed off at the unconsciousness of so many. But wallowing in that for too long only brings me down. My task, as I understand it, is to raise my own energy up and trust that those who are ready to raise theirs will respond to my message, and my “Work,” and join me.

We can’t change the world, but we can shift our own selves and perspectives and then everything and everyone around us has to shift too (or fall away).

Don’t know if this makes sense, but…

I’m really glad you wrote!”

__________________________________________________________________

I just want to mention that I chose the Torment card (which corresponds to the Devil card in traditional tarot decks) from the Vision Quest Tarot two days in a row, yesterday and today, as Karl and I walked. And I chose Turtle (Mother Earth) – with Beaver (Builder – or ‘doer’) underneath this morning. Given that the word ‘torment’ was used in this question – and my answer was directly related to Mother Earth – it seemed like Beaver was urging me to share this interchange.

___________________________________________________________________

If you enjoyed this glimpse into the way I think (which, let’s face it, you subject yourselves to just by reading my posts anyway), please feel free to help me mix up the format!

Email me a question you may be pondering and I’ll do my best to give you my perspective, which may or may not be predictable, controversial, laughable, or even relatable. I’m not promising I’ll answer every question I receive, but if it’s sincere, I’ll do my best to give it a shot.

I just want all of you reading my words to know yet again how much I appreciate that you take the time to do so. And please: if you read something you enjoy or find interesting or helpful, feel free to share. If I’m going to be dedicating myself to this endeavor for the next 942 days (or more), I might as well seek to be read by as many as possible!

I know I have a core of you who have been sticking with me for 169 days so far. Wow! That’s just so cool. I hope you feel my gratitude.

Photo: recinet.ca

(T-942)

Perspective – Day 168

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Icy Perspective – Photo: L. Weikel

Perspective

We just finished watching the most recent Game of Thrones episode: the battle scene with the Undead in the final season. (Just in case this ever gets read at a time when they have no clue which episode I’m talking about!)

First of all, I need to confess that I’m a latecomer to GoT. Karl and I were so turned off by the first episode that it took us seven years to come around to giving the series another chance. That’s because we tried again maybe three years in and got turned off again within an episode or two by all the violence and gratuitous sex.

I’m far from a prude. But yowza, it took some fortitude to stick with it long enough to get hooked on the characters.

But third time was a charm, and we ended up watching all seven seasons last year. We started in, committing to “sticking with it this time,” months ahead of the release of Season 7, so we could slide right into it.

It was immensely satisfying. And yes, we were hooked.

After watching tonight’s episode, as well as the ‘after-program’ in which the show’s creators describe some of their thought processes in writing and filming it, Karl and I commented on how we might actually enjoy watching the entire series over again.

Not a Fan of Reruns or Reading Books Twice

That’s not something I would expect of myself – I’m not one to watch reruns nowadays (unlike when I was growing up and ‘reruns’ were the only game in town), just as I am loathe to re-read a book. There’s too much fresh content, too many new books being written (and older ones I’ve never read) to reread one I’ve read already.

But there was a lot of detail in all those episodes, and it is easy to see how I may have missed some things that later would become surprisingly relevant. I could actually see how watching it a second time could actually reveal enough nuances to make the entire journey enjoyable again.

And that’s when it occurred to me why I treasure my journals and appreciate the discipline of keeping one as consistently as I’ve (mostly) been able to do throughout my life.

When I go back and read my entries, I not only ‘see’ things from the perspective of that part of myself who wrote it. And that perspective is actually quite easy to recapture, as I was routinely highly descriptive. I’ve always made a point of being raw and honest in my journal writing. Otherwise, what’s the point? I never could see the purpose behind sugar-coating anything, but especially something you are writing for yourself.

And truth be told, as I’ve engaged in research to begin writing the sequel to Owl Medicine by going back and re-reading my journal entries, I’ve been fascinated at times with the things I thought and believed at the time. To read those entries with the knowledge of how things actually played out adds a dimension that can change the dynamic of your entire perception of how life has worked out.

Perspective.

It colors everything. Yet it is so incredibly easy to lose sight of precisely how important it is to understanding our feelings as well as our beliefs about the nature of everything – at least certainly the nature of our reality.

Just How Accurate Are Our Perceptions?

Knowing what we know today, how accurate do our beliefs or judgments as recorded years ago measure up? Would we interpret certain feelings or experiences the same way now, knowing how we once did? And perhaps more importantly, how we acted in reliance upon those interpretations?

I love the task of honing my awareness and ability to read persons, places, and circumstances.

And sometimes I think there is both great value and opportunity provided by watching reruns or allowing reruns to play in our mind by rereading old journals. Opportunity to learn about ourselves and others, which to me is what life is all about.

Who’d a thought I’d come to that realization from finally succumbing to the allure of GoT?

(T-943)

No Days Off – Day 153

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Waxing Moon; Photo – L.Weikel

No Days Off

I was thinking about my 1111 Devotion project today as I was taking a sunset walk with Karl. I was grateful that there was enough time left in the day for us to walk, so I could at least get in two miles, our ‘usual’ walk with the dogs.

There’s a part of me that’s bummed that I only managed two miles today. And I find that fascinating – how much my perspective has changed in just the past two weeks. My original perspective, or at least the one I held most recently before the one I hold today, would have given myself internal high fives simply for walking at all today. Period.

But my recent walking expansion is a subject for another day, I think.

My thought today was wondering how I’m going to handle being away from my natural habitat. For instance, when I’m in North Carolina for Listening to Spirit, the workshop retreat I’ll be giving with Wendy Warner, M.D., on the benefits of conventional medical providers working in tandem with shamanic practitioners (LAST CALL to register!), will I have the wherewithal to post every evening?

I wonder.

I hope so.

Will ‘Canned’ Posts Suffice?

And then I thought, well, I could always write up a couple of ‘pinch-hitting’ posts ahead of time. You know, a couple of emergency posts I could keep ‘in the can,’ so to speak, for use when time gets away from me or I’m too exhausted to type my own name much less write a coherent sentence.

I’ve flirted with that idea before. So far, as you can tell if you’ve been sticking with me (and thank you if you have!), every post has been one that was written right before I hit <<send>>. Some have nearly been stream-of-consciousness. Some have actually been reflective. And some have been a bit random, I’ll admit.

But not a single one of them has been generic. Canned. Pre-writ. Yet.

When I’m in North Carolina (or, optimistically, in Peru or Siberia, or maybe Iceland or some as yet unnamed nations on a couple other continents I want to experience perhaps within the next three years), I’m going to be challenged.

I don’t think about it all that often, but I take for granted that I’ll have some quiet time late each night when I can sit with my little MacBook Air and peck out a post. But when I get with my tribe in person, when we’re talking late into the night about encounters we’ve had that day in this world or others, I may easily lose track of time.

What About the Wilderness?

I’m also starting to ponder what might happen if I go off on a retreat in the wilderness. And I mean literal wilderness. No laptop. No cellphone. No means of communicating with any of you.

The thought of that gives me pause.

I may bitch and moan to myself (and OK, to Karl sometimes) that it’s really hard to think of something to write about every single day. But after 152 days in a row (and that figure there just boggles my mind right out of the box), I’m seriously invested.

This Is Deep – and Getting Deeper

This 1111 Devotion is a commitment that grows deeper and more meaningful to me with each passing day, with each notch on the wall that says, “I showed up.” Because the rest of that sentence is, “I showed up and I did it for Karl.”

So I find pondering these two possible scenarios a bit anxiety producing; I feel my heart quicken a bit when I think about finding myself in a situation in which posting might be either extremely difficult or physically impossible.

I guess I’m still trying to figure out the value of this exercise, beyond it simply being my own personal dedication to my son.

I’m assuming my perspective will evolve. Out of necessity, eventually, I will probably need to compromise to an extent my current expectations of purity.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue to set and pursue my purist goals. Fresh thoughts each night. Even if they’re random.

(T-958)

Perspective – Day Seventy Nine

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Photo: L. Weikel

Perspective   

I’ll admit it; I got lost in the rabbit hole that is my photos again this evening.

But I did find one photo that I’d like to share. I was glad to see that I’d taken it, since another photo I’ve already used in a couple of posts is indeed great, but it does not give anywhere near the sense of perspective that this newer photo provides.

As you can see, it is the photo of the Chinggis Khan statue that overlooks a massive plateau on the outskirts of Ulaan Baatar, the capital of Mongolia.

The photo I’ve used before is taken from just below it. You can tell it’s no ordinary civil war statue, if you know what I mean. But this other photo helps give perspective.

It’s interesting to contemplate perspective. It is, as they say, ‘everything.’ Everywhere we look (or feel, or ‘find ourselves’) lately, we’re being bombarded with circumstances or experiences that are seriously challenging our understanding of perspective.

It’s Chilly Out There

Just off the top of my head, I’m thinking about the nearly mind-numbing arctic conditions swooping into the upper mid-west and slowly making its way east. I’ll admit; I’m having a hard time comprehending potential wind chills of negative 60 degree Farenheit. I think I saw Chicago is supposed to have a ‘high’ of negative 14 degrees. Straight up. No wind chill taken into account.

That’s frigid. That’s Siberia cold. And while I’ve never been in Siberia in the winter, I do have a little bit of perspective – we lived in Buffalo for three years back in the early ‘80s. But even having Buffalo for perspective, this ‘polar vortex’ being experienced in our country now is virtually unprecedented and simply lethal.

Shout out to my friends and family who are in the midst of this weather: please stay safe and warm, snug inside your homes.

Something Seems Awry

Another example of perspective that comes to mind this evening has to do with the daily outrageous revelations that erupt from Washington D.C. If we’ve been paying attention at all, we know that this presidency is unlike any other in the history of our country.

(I will admit here to having written several paragraphs on the revelation this evening about additional meetings that have been held between D.T and V. P., notes and transcripts of the conversations between the two securely – and most importantly SOLELY – in the hands of our adversary. But I have deleted all of those paragraphs and will sate myself with simply making this brief mention here and asking – no, entreating  –  you to please consider putting the egregiousness of this flaunting of our right to know what is being said in these meetings into perspective. And by ‘our’ I mean those who are tasked with protecting us, the American people: our intelligence agencies and other governmental experts and advisors.)

Perspective in this situation is critical to perceiving the enormity of the unprecedented ‘kompromat’ taking place right before our very eyes. And all of us have a gut feeling about it, even if we adamantly do not want to believe it could be true.

What happens when we lose perspective?

Because so much takes place every day, because so many scandals smack us in the face like a relentless battering of waves after we’ve fallen on the beach, keeping us from even being able to catch our breath, we are in danger of losing our perspective.

We cannot allow this to happen. (I say that, knowing full well we already have. And yet…) The stakes are too high to simply look the other way. We must do our best to seek and maintain perspective.

So perhaps a mnemonic might assist. The statue of Chinggis Khan looks pretty big as it is. But wow – when we step a few paces back and look at it in context to everything and everyone around it – you can feel it in your bones. It’s massive.

We can and must apply that same exercise in perspective to our government, and specifically, those in the Executive Branch. I think if we take a few steps back and look at it from that perspective, we just might get that weak-kneed, watery-insides feeling that tells us: this is massive; we need to pay attention.

(T-1032)

Photo: L. Weikel

I Got Nothin’ – Day Fifty Nine

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I Got Nothin’

I’ve shown up every night for 59 days, trusting I would have something to write about. But tonight? I got nothing’. I know I said at the very beginning of this 1111 Devotion journey that there might be days when I would write one sentence and that would have to suffice.

But I hoped it wouldn’t actually come to that.

And I guess it hasn’t literally come to that today, either, since I’ve obviously written more than one sentence. (Umm, yea for me?)

Get Out Of Jail Free Card

So I’m in the clear. I’ve saved myself from using my Get Out Of Jail Free card tonight.

Which makes me wonder: How many GOOJF cards do I get in the 1111 Devotion? Since I’m making up the rules as I go along, I’d say 111 seems fair. Ten percent. What do you think?

In the grand scheme of things, that might appear reasonable (10%). But wow. Looking at it from the perspective that 10% would give me 111 whole, actual, days of only writing one sentence seems crazily over the top. That’s just shy of four months if I strung them all together.

Funny how perspective can shift everything, isn’t it?

That’s the cool thing about shamanic work, actually. (Bet you didn’t see that correlation coming out of left field, did you?)

Perception and Perspective

But it’s true. So much of what we experience in our day-to-day lives and in our world in general is rooted in our perceptions. And as we learn and grow more adept at shifting our perception, we actually gain the ability to begin shifting our reality in ways we might never have imagined.

And part of how we perceive anything is the perspective from which we look at it. But obviously, before we can shift our perspective, we have to realize what our present one is. How are we looking at something? Is it from a place of fear? Of feeling magnanimous and abundant? Is it from a place of feeling centered and at peace?

There are those varying perspectives we can consider, and then there are different levels of perception we can employ to shift our reality. But again, we first have to train ourselves to become aware of the different levels so we can identify what one we are looking at or perceiving from at any given moment.

So here I am, starting a conversation on how important both perspective and differing levels of perception can completely influence our experience of ‘reality.’ And I’m also suggesting that shamanic work can result in dramatic shifts in not only our perceptions, and perspectives, but also our realities.

That’s some pretty heady stuff to be contemplating right around midnight. Or the crack of dawn, if that’s when you’re reading this.

Checking Our Perspective – Occasionally

Just think about it. If you were told you had only one more month to live, would you look at anything the same way as you are in this present moment? That’s a radical question to ask any of us to contemplate, even if it might be some people’s actual reality. And we might be inclined to judge it as just a dumb intellectual exercise, since it can feel like we are bullshitting ourselves if we really try to imagine looking at ourselves from the perspective of knowing we only have one more month (or week, or day) to live.

But I do think it is helpful, sometimes, to take a personal re-set. To really sit down and think about how we are choosing to perceive our life, our circumstances, our relationships, and even our world, at any given time. Are we looking at these things from the default perspective that ‘things will never change?’ That, it seems to me, is an even greater bullshitting of ourselves than the former.

Ha ha – maybe I should’ve stopped at that one sentence and let things be.

Naaah. I still have 111 in my back pocket. Or do I?

(T-1052)

Never Too Late – Day Fifty Two

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Never Too Late

As we’re only drawing to a close the 2ndday of January (or for many of you, just beginning the 3rd), I’m trusting that the lustre of choosing to bring something nurturing or stimulating or creative into your life, as I encouraged in my New Year’s Eve post, has not yet worn off. And remember: it’s never too late to begin.

I find the thought of ‘bringing in’ new experiences or activities to our lives, and hopefully making them habit-worthy, simply tantalizing. I can’t wait to see and hear about how your new devotions play out in your perception and appreciation of your lives.

Discovering Doors to Our Future

It’s as if we’re opening a door to our future that we’ve barely even allowed ourselves to see before now. When we’ve looked in that direction other times, all we’ve seen is a wall because we needed to make ourselves perfect before giving ourselves permission to indulge in an urge to create something uniquely ours or engage in something that simply brings us joy.

And yes, even bringing in the opportunity to read more books is a creative endeavor. Because reading inspires us to live in so many more worlds than we realize could exist if we simply view our own experiences in our own finite bodies to be the limit of what is available to us.

The opportunity, though, to indulge in exploring an activity that has called to us, perhaps in a whisper for the first few years, but which has probably grown louder and more persistent as the years ticked by, can lead us places we might never, ever expect. And while the point of this new perspective is, essentially, to give ourselves permission to listen to our hearts, it can also lead to people outside of ourselves clamoring for more. Or to our passion saving the world. Or maybe even changing the course of history.

Early Choices Shouldn’t Define Us

In our youth-obsessed world, we often tell ourselves that we have to decide what we want to ‘be’ or ‘do’ with our lives by the time we’re 18. Some people are given leeway and permitted to explore who they are and what they want to ‘do’ in the world by taking a variety of courses in college.

I don’t know about you, but that was a myth for me (and I went to college a long damn time ago). You pretty much had to pick the area you wanted to get your degree in and were lucky if you got the chance to take a couple of electives in completely unrelated fields during your entire four (or so) years. Which makes me suspect that it’s even much more rare for young people attending college now to actually explore in that mythical, idealistic portrait painted of college life. It costs too much to lollygag around taking courses you will almost certainly see no tangible monetary benefit from taking.

I bring this up because I feel the vast majority of people walking around today were thrust far too early into making choices that influence everything about the rest of their lives. And they’re left wondering – even if only fleetingly, and ever so quietly to themselves – what it would feel like to immerse their fingers in paint and try to capture the beauty of that bluebird they saw perched on a fencepost along their walk.

As a result, we just deny, deny, deny. “I’m too old.” “It’s too late.” “I don’t know how.” “I have no time.” Oh, the excuses we mouth, each one of them killing our spirit a little bit more with each utterance.

Late Bloomers Are Real

Well, I want to hook you up to a very cool website that just might inspire you to keep up with whatever activity you decided to invite into your life this year.

The website is Later Bloomer, and is created by a friend of mine, Debra Eve. We met way back in 2014 at a writers’ conference in Taos, New Mexico.

I will let you explore her site and perhaps sign up to receive her weekly emails which always have something fascinating to teach me about the possibilities open to us simply by choosing to say yes to our passions instead of making excuses. Or feeling as if we missed the boat when we made life choices at 18 or 22. Or 30. Or…

Indeed, just today I received notification from Debra of a wonderful calendar she’s created for 2019 around the concept of ‘red letter days.’ Check it out.

This year is going to be different, you guys. I know it.

(T-1059)

Sacred Space – Day Forty Six

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Sacred Space

Wow.

When I woke up this morning, I was not, shall we say, “rarin’ to go.” I even asked Karl to take my temperature, as I felt like a furnace and thought my bedclothes might spontaneously combust. We’ll never know, since we don’t actually own a regular, old-fashioned thermometer anymore. We only have one of those stupid electronic ones that take a watch battery or something, which of course was clearly not operating correctly, since I’m pretty sure I’m not 94.6 degrees.

I had to rally, though. I had an appointment with a client, from whom I’d sensed some trepidation in the weeks beforehand as we’d exchanged emails setting it up. I could feel that the client was both eager to have the session, yet at the same time was feeling some anxiety as the appointment approached. And I’d sensed, just ‘from afar,’ that she might be second-guessing herself over the past couple of days.

I know that feeling well. It almost always precedes a breakthrough or an opportunity to let go of a way of being or thinking that has in many ways defined us for a long period of time. It’s natural – a part of human nature. Of course I’ve witnessed it in clients many times. But I’ve also felt it personally. I’m no stranger to jumping off cliffs myself.

So unless I was literally unable to function, I was determined to get to my office. (I should hasten to assure you that, had I felt I would somehow be contagious or a danger to my client, I definitely would have stayed home). But basically, I just felt crappy. I could see it in my eyes when I peered at myself in the bathroom mirror. They were gray, and a bit dull.

To Cancel or Not to Cancel

Karl suggested maybe I should cancel.

“No,” I countered, popping two Advil and a Sudafed. “I’m going to give it a try.”

Deep down, I was confident I had an ace in the hole. The truth is, I’d experienced the miraculous effects of this secret ally before, but at the same time, I did not want to assume it would happen this time – and make an affirmative statement about it. I’m leery of making assumptions, probably because they feel disrespectful. So I left with an attitude of “I will show up for my client, and hope Spirit shows up for me.”

My secret ally is Sacred Space. It is the nearly indescribable but unquestionably palpable shift in energy that occurs when I call in my allies, guardians, and guides, as well as the archetypal energies associated with the cardinal directions, Mother Earth, and All That Is (Above).

Creating Sacred Space is probably the most amazing thing I ‘do,’ and yet it has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with the unseen, creative, magnificent forces that watch over and guide all of us. It is the healing space where miracles occur spontaneously and easily. It is the safest and most comforting place to simply be. And I knew if I could get myself to the office and create this Sacred Space, not only would I feel better, but my client, too, would discover the peace that comes from simply experiencing and being within it.

Sacred Space Saved the Day

I trusted what I know about Sacred Space. And the only way I know is through experience.

Our session was long. Our work went deep. My client has lived a life of challenges and heartache. But we prevailed.

I forgot about how crappy I’d felt when I awakened this morning. Indeed, when I texted Karl after completing the session, his first question was to ask how I felt. “I’m a little tired, I guess,” was my response.

I’d completely forgotten my morning malaise. Sacred Space had shifted and transmuted everything – for both my client and myself. We’d both broken through.

(T-1065)

Astrology and the New Moon – Day Twenty Four

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Esoteric Means of Understanding Ourselves Better

As you’re all discovering day-by-day and post by post (thank you for hanging with me), I’m fascinated by a wide range of esoteric means we humans have developed to help us understand our place in the Universe. I’ve been on the quest to understand myself better since my earliest memories. And of course, the admonition 28 years ago by the Taos Pueblo elder to “know” myself, as I describe in my book Owl Medicine , only clinched that early urge to soul search and gave me permission to translate it into a life-long passion.

Numerology

There’s numerology, which, as I’ve only tangentially touched upon, uses numbers based on a Pythagorean system of 9 to set forth a roadmap of our lives and the various gifts and challenges that our souls have come into this particular lifetime to experience and hopefully learn from and use to evolve.

Astrology

Another system is astrology. I’ve been fascinated for decades by this means of cultivating self-awareness, which is incredibly complicated and is far and away so much more in-depth and rich than the trite paragraph we used to read in the newspaper about our ‘sun sign’ when I was a kid.

At its most basic, astrology takes into account your ‘natal’ chart, which is the exact position of a wide range of heavenly bodies at the minute of your birth, from the perspective of where your mother was at the moment you were born. From this snapshot of the solar system, you do indeed know your ‘sun sign’ – which is the sign of the zodiac in which the sun was located at the minute of your birth.

Discovering Your Rising Sign or “Ascendant”

What many people don’t realize is that, while one’s sun sign can be a somewhat prominent indicator of traits that you carry in this lifetime, an actually more intimate and accurate indicator of who you are is what’s called your ‘rising’ sign – or the sign that was ‘on the ascendant’ at the minute of your birth. So, if you have a chance, I strongly urge you to research and discover your ascendant or rising sign.

One way to do this is to access the free website Astrodienst. (There are many others. I just happen to use this one.) You can either set up an account (again, for free) or just log on as a guest. Either way (under the ‘Free horoscopes’ tab, go to the far right and click on ‘natal chart, ascendant’ under the heading ‘Drawings and Calculations’) you can input your birth information. You’ll need the date of your birth (obviously), as well as the time (and this is important, as some important shifts can take place within minutes), but you can always input a default time until you can secure your specific birth time from your mom (wink) or on the ‘long form’ of your birth certificate. You’ll also need to know your birthplace (city, state, country). All of this information will add up to giving you a much richer, deeper picture of the heavens at the moment you arrived.

The three easiest and most basic aspects for you to discover are (a) your sun sign, which you probably know already unless you live under a rock; (b) your ascendant or ‘rising’ sign; and (c) your moon sign. Just knowing and delving into those three aspects of your personal astrological makeup can bring you an incredible amount of insight into yourself and how you ‘tick.’

What I find fascinating is how every form of roadmap that our souls have created for us to discover and work with, if we choose, matches up. In other words, when Alison Baughman gave me a comprehensive numerological reading years ago, it dovetailed in truly eerie and profound ways with every astrological reading I’ve received. (All told, I think I’ve had three or four separate astrologers read my natal chart for me, cultivating decades-long relationships with two of them, which means I would go back to them periodically to have them read my ‘transits.’)

I’ll talk about transits another day.

Roadmaps of Our Souls

My point, though, is that no matter what roadmap you look at, they all pretty obviously chart the same unique challenges and gifts. So it is as if we (as souls) leave cosmic magical breadcrumbs for our ego-selves to discover, in order to help us understand our strengths, weaknesses, and potential destinies, should we have the desire to discover them.

I started this post intending to discuss the fact that we will be experiencing a ‘new moon’ tomorrow and what that might mean for each of us. And then I got sidetracked into writing what I wrote.

But! The good news (for me) is that I just now realized that the new moon actually won’t ‘arrive’ until 2:20 a.m. EST on Friday, December 7th.

So maybe I’ll save what I was going to say tonight until tomorrow!

(T-1087)

Day Twenty Two (T-1089) – Housekeeping

Posted on by Lisa Weikel 2 Comments

 

Housekeeping

Nope, I’m not going to be writing about my vacuuming, dusting, smudging, or laundry habits, which are vast and impressive, I hasten to assure you. (Right.)

When I put ‘Housekeeping’ in the title to this post, I’m actually referring to this blog. To this Endeavor of Dedication, this Act of Power.

It’s funny. On the one hand, I’m sitting here writing my 22nd consecutive daily blog post; something I would never have imagined myself actually doing: writing and posting every single day for 22 straight days.

On the other hand, though – there are the remaining 1089 consecutive days staring me in the face. When I look at things from that perspective, I’m just a baby. Really. To invoke a Carpenters’ ear-worm for those of you of a certain age, “We’ve only just begun…!” (You’re welcome.)

To that end, though, I must admit to being a total neophyte when it comes to pretty much all things blog. For instance, it seems kind of stupid to keep naming each post by its simple “Day number” (and the number of days remaining for me to complete my 1111 Devotion). But it does keep me on track and my eyes on the prize. Or rather, the destination. The prize is the doing; I do know that.

But I’m wondering if this then just looks like a bunch of gobbledygook to someone happening upon my blog. What would compel them to click on any of my posts, when they are all just titled with a generic day/count? I’m also compelled to think about indexing. What if some day I want to refer back to the post I wrote about ice cream, for instance? Or de-cluttering my bookshelves?

Last night I at least put “Books” behind the day/countdown.

I don’t know. This is probably a ridiculous thing for me to be writing about tonight. But it’s on my mind; and I’d like to set up my titles in an interesting, if not compelling (that seems too high a bar to shoot for in a blog title) manner that is consistent, but informative, and maybe even ‘searchable?’ And that’s where the relevance of the remaining number of posts comes in: I’ve barely scratched the surface at 22. So, now is the time for me to be figuring this out, since I don’t want to have to go back after a couple of hundred to re-title them (if that’s even possible).

And yeah, I guess I could’ve just kept this to myself and not dredged this mundane aspect of blogging into your lives. But heck – we’re in this for the long haul (please, I hope so), and maybe some of you will even be inspired to engage in a similar effort. So you can learn from my mistakes!

(Here I would like to note that I am noticing some posts on FB by a couple of you who read this, which also seem to be a daily devotion… YEA for you! They are lovely – joyful! – and thoughtful.)

So, you will see how this shakes out over the next few days. We’ll see if I stick to the format I’ve used since Day Two (T-1109), incorporate it into a new format, or change it all together. I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seats.

I don’t know. I have to wonder if something ‘big’ is going to happen this week. I feel this sense of edginess, almost like I don’t want to get into anything too deeply. I didn’t intend this post to be so mundane. But for whatever reason, this is what it felt right to write about tonight.

What I was going to write about was ‘Timing’ and/or ‘Trusting’ when we should or shouldn’t say something. Guess I’ll save one of those for tomorrow.

Thank you for sticking with me.