Wednesday, October 31, 2012

All Hallows' Eve

Ever since I was a child, I have loved Halloween. A lot of times people look at you funny when you say that Halloween is your favorite holiday, but I have never cared. My favoritism is split evenly between Halloween and Christmas. They both have been brutalized by the media and by the capitalist consumer driven society that we live in, but they are still pagan and beautiful at their heart.
It's that heart that I love.
Closing my eyes on Halloween night, I have always been able to tune into the otherworldliness that this night lends itself to. Since I began meditating, I can perceive an odd thrum the closer we get to this day each year. A thrum just noticeable enough for me to be sure it isn't my I overactive imagination running away with itself.
Beyond the candy and the costumes and the orchestrated blood and gore (I could go on and on about the media, but that is a different blog), Halloween is about honoring the people and things in your life that have made their exit into their next.
Samhain is an ancient pre Christian Celtic festival of the dead. It was believed that this night was when the dead walked freely and when the night was over, these spirits made their final exit into the other world.
On this night in ancient times, the celts would leave offerings and burn fires to appease the spirits and protect the living.
Halloween, as we know it, is the product of the Christian church attempting to eradicate pagan holidays.
Most people aren't aware of the fact that when their kids go trick or treating, they are continuing a tradition that symbolizes a belief that is older than the church.
The ancient celts believed that when a spirit wasn't appeased with an offering (a treat) that they would wreak havoc and cause problems for their family (a trick).
Funny how things evolve, get watered down and accepted as mainstream in a different way, don't you think?

All that aside, I love Halloween and am glad that the tradition has been preserved in some way, shape or form.
Although I could do without all the blood and senseless gore that people tend to like in these modern times.
Everyone be safe.
Happy Halloween!!!

Sunday, October 28, 2012

C.R.A.F.T.S. Class (Creative Re Attunement For The Soul)

I'm not gonna lie.
I was blessed by the universe today. I feel as if I am beginning to find the real reason I am here.
About six months ago (it seems like a lot longer) I realized a few patterns in my life. I was in one of my yoga teacher training classes, in a meditation, and it just hit me. The realization that while almost every door I have tried to step through in the art world has slammed in my face ( I received my art degree in 2008 and have been struggling to use it ever since, not uncommon, I am aware, but frustrating nonetheless) while every door that I knock on in the world of metaphysics seems to open right up and lo and behold, there is usually a red carpet rolled out for me on the other side.
So, this day in yoga, I was guided to my answer and it was such a strong one that it literally almost knocked me off my mat.
I had to find a way to engage both sides of my life. A chimera of sorts, a melding of the two. This was the only way I would ever truly be happy. Marrying my two great loves together and using them both in a distinctive way to help people anyway that I possibly could.
Phase one was the products from my company, The GreenMan Studios.
I started with japa meditation malas for use in mantra meditation. They were practical, helpful and beautiful. I then moved on to include products made from stones and crystals, candles, bath soaps, bath salts, herbal sachets and easy "spell" kits.
Phase one was well received and continues to be sought after. I show my product at fairs and have it in several shops. I love the fact that it is kitchen witchery and I channel a lot if my creativity into it.
Today I enacted phase two.
I came up with the idea a few months ago. I wanted to teach a workshop on how to channel your creativity. Eloy helped me come up with the creative reattunement title, I talked to my dear friends at Miracles of Joy and we decided on a date.
I have spent the last month trying to define my creative process and what I have realized is that through my life in all my years of making art, I channel more of it than I ever even considered possible. I close my eyes and the images and crazy colors and ideas are just there in technicolor on the back of my eyelids running around like crazy dervishes or dust devils, burning roman candles just begging to be set free.
It comes so natural to me that I didn't even really realize my process until I sat down to analyze it.
I have a constant connection to this source of info. I realized this through talking with my reiki master about meditation when I was twenty nine years old. Until then I had thought that everyones thought processes tan like mine. It took me some effort to change my perspective and realize that I had a gift.
That realization set the stage for my wanting to share it with everyone who was willing to listen.
My class today sold out.
Ten wonderful people came to me and let me guide them through a chakra clearing meditation where we focused on the fifth chakra or throat chakra. In the meditation, I had them fill their bodies with a white light, connect to the core energy of the earth and come up through their root chakra, spinning it counterclockwise to clear out any negativity. We then proceeded through each chakra until we got to the throat where we infused a golden divine light into the normal blue of the energy center. We then moved up to the radiant white light of the soul star six inches above the crown of the head and made our connection with the divine, asking them to give us the key to our creativity. Then we went back down, zipping up all the chakras as we went, disengaged from Mother Earth, put away the white light and opened our eyes.
Then I had them high tail it to the craft table where we started painting immediately to preserve that connection and see if we could get it down on paper.
And we did. Everyone in the class created at least two pieces. The first was inevitably the better due to the immediacy of the meditative connection.
It was truly amazing and fun for me to walk around changing bowls of water and moving paints and brushes around the tables.
It was interesting to see the colors that people were drawn to and what kind of brushstroke a they used. It was very telling of their emotional state.
The work that was produced was if an exceptionally high caliber given they were mostly beginner students.
I was thoroughly impressed and it seemed as if they all were too.
They left happy and I feel like they would all do it again.
I have already received the go ahead to do another class soon at miracles of joy.
Next month on the 17th I am teaching the workshop at a massage clinic in Arlington.

Another thing I forgot to mention was that while I was talking them through the meditation, Eloy and I were walking around behind them doing reiki/energy work on them. He enjoyed himself and so did I. Unbeknownst to me, my mother had arrived at the class ( she surprised me by taking the workshop- a pleasant surprise) with severe neck pain. While I was working on her energy, I saw grey tendrils of wispy smoke like materials around her head and shoulders, so I removed them from her aura.
She was pain free after the meditation.

I love what I do.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Spirit can be a bit dramatic...

So I have been wanting a new job- a career- for quite some time, but to be truthful with myself, I haven't really started actively looking until just recently. Something has recently shifted and I don't know what it is, but now I can actually visualize myself working in a different type of environment.
That being said, I had my first interview this past Monday.
It was for a staffing coordinator position at Cornerstone Staffing. A friend of mine works there and she had given my resume a little push.
I went in and I aced the interview. We laughed, we talked, I was completely honest and it felt really great. I felt like I had the job. There was no nervousness and everything seemed like it went incredibly well.

Imagine my surprise when I got the email this morning saying that they thought I was wonderful but they were going to be screening "additional candidates."
Then I got a text message from my friend that worked there and she informed me that the only reason that they weren't going forward with me was because I had not given notice before I left my job at World Market three years ago. While I think this is a ridiculous rule, it is what it is and while I was a bit disappointed, my main reaction was to ask WHY?
Why did this happen?
Why was my situation with World Market keeping me from advancing now?
That was over three years ago and I do not regret walking out of that job. The Manager there was terrible and I had to leave. It was a matter of doing what was best for me at the time, so why was it slapping me in the face now?
Instead of being frustrated and depressed, I got up and went to a yoga class. I was sitting there barely into a meditation when the answer hit me like a brick.
I had to make amends.
I had thought of this before. I had almost messaged my old manager a few times. I have been doing a lot of clearing work on myself since I started this path a few years ago and I knew that this was something that was definitely blocking me. Every time I thought about the way it all went down back then, I would get seriously angry.
So this was obviously something that I needed to clear and let go.

As soon as I got out of my yoga class, I got on my iphone and sent her a message on facebook. We have nine other people from World Market as mutual friends so she was not hard to find. I told her that I had recently realized two things.
1. That I still harbored a lot of anger toward her for the way that she treated her supervisors when she managed the store and that I needed to let it go. I told her that I forgave her for that.
and
2. I told her that I apologized for being so unprofessional in my manner of leaving. ( I went on vacation and couldn't make myself go back to that horrible situation so I texted her and told her I was out.)

I also told her that I didn't need a response, that I just needed her to know these things.

And the clincher to this- and how I know that I was really being told by spirit to do all this- is that I had a reply to my message within half an hour.
Apparently she had almost messaged me several times as well. She apologized for her behavior and I could tell she was sincere. She has totally turned her life around and is working on some stuff that really seems to be where her life path is supposed to be going.
I am very happy for her. We messaged back and forth several times through the day.

My only regret is that I should have done it sooner- back when I first thought about it. Then I might have a good job right now.

I was talking to my spirit guides earlier and I told them that I think this was a bit dramatic, but Eloy (my partner) made the point that with the way I am with my stubborn personality, this is probably the only way that I would have ever broke down and messaged her.
He's right, as usual.

So, that's clear. Where do I go now, Universe?
I am definitely listening.