Episodes

  • Thanksgiving: The Real History of the Misunderstood Holiday of Gratitude

    Thanksgiving: The Real History of the Misunderstood Holiday of Gratitude
    Nov 11 2024
    I personally love Thanksgiving - if you’ve ever read my blog, Paprika Angel you will see my love of food and travel but also the time and energy I have spent preparing this meal for friends and loved ones and sometimes strangers for years. With minor exception I pull together 10 or more people to feast extravagantly every year, even if my funds are short. I always have found a way because I love to prepare and feed and make offerings at this time of year from a place of love. At one of my in person legal educational events last year, my door prize included a Turkey Day kit and the who won it said. “Oh, I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.” and was offended by my gift. I stopped in my tracks, not to apologize, but for my naivety and surprise - as some still believe and or are wholly ignorant of what Thanksgiving as a National Holiday is about. So we are going to go down a little gobbler day history less here to reclaim any misconceptions of Thanksgiving back into the light. There were no docile aboriginals showing up at some saintly puritan pilgrims' feet offering them maize and turkeys. Our mythological buckled hat pilgrims straight off the Mayflower likely did not sit down at any table anywhere, let alone with the natives of the region we now call New England. There is however a 1st hand account in a letter form from around that time of the first English settlements of Prospectors (not religious pilgrims but gold hunters seeking riches in the new lands) that a “harvest festival” of sorts occurred over the course of weeks involving the hunting of wild game (deer, wild turkeys, bear) and the sharing of cranberries, gourds and tubers by the local native friendlies. Likely, the “settlers” were starving to death on their own with no knowledge of what was edible in the inhospitable places they chose to set up camp, and having no supplies from England left over, the aboriginals may have felt sorry for some of them and shown them what to do. Or for the sake of trading for weapons to gain strength over another nation, they brought the prospectors food. The original table is a myth taught to school children. Just as the belief that the original settlors came in the name of religious freedom and that Columbus discovered America. The actual first settlements in what is now the United States America were all about gold and riches. The actual first settlement in the United States in St. Augustine - and that was under the guise of saving souls by the Catholic church but it really was about the protection of Spanish gold from South America. But if there was truly to be a first North American Thanksgiving it would be the priests and Spanish military landing at what is now called St. Augustine and meeting The Timucuans, a truly kind and docile native people of Northeastern Florida, who took immediately to the prayers and symbols of the Catholic priests, and all of them celebrated together the mass and feast of St. Mary at El Nombre Dias (there is still in a cross in the ground today where this happened). They all prayed together, Timucuan, Spanish sailors and soldiers, Catholic priests - and they offered thanks and praise to god and the great mother, and they shared in a feast of shellfish provided to them by the friendly natives. But as England and Spain were rivals in the prospecting of North America for gold and riches, this story of a true first Thanksgiving (coming together in gratitude and prayer to the universal force that loves and protects us) is not in the common mythology of the United States. In fact it is buried in the annuls of Florida history as Florida did not become a state released from Spain until just before the US Civil War. So, let’s move forward in time a bit to when we have a thriving New England after the Revolutionary war when we are an independent nation open to those seeking freedom of religion, opportunity to farm, and asylum from persecution. It was during these times that we have huge influxes of Puritans who had Thanksgiving as a time of prayer. Entire days devoted only to giving thanks to God for everything in creation. For a long time this day of prayer and observance was the equivalent of our modern day Christmas celebrations because in puritanical christian practice the giving of gifts and worshiping saints like the Catholics and Lutherans was looked down upon. Puritans were very austere and labeled any festivals as negative, wasteful, and involving satanic invitations. So instead they prayed and gave thanks and this holy time generally occurred around the beginning of November - the early parts of winter and the late stages of Autumn when it was important to count your blessings and prepare for the meager months ahead by working hard to fill your stores. Pigs and Poultry would be slaughtered and salted and prepped for winter storage. So there would be a time of feasting as things that couldn’t be stored had to be ...
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    13 mins
  • Forgiveness is FOR YOU - Let Go of the Hurt and Start Living Your Life

    Forgiveness is FOR YOU - Let Go of the Hurt and Start Living Your Life
    Oct 25 2024
    Forgiveness - the big F word. It sounds so simple but is the most difficult. Why is it so important to forgive? And how do we actually forgive? To forgive is to release the hold a hurt or injury has on your physical and metaphysical self. The release cuts the cord to the negative energy that is binding you to an old self and way of being. If you can let go of the attachment to the pain and lower frequency emotion, you will allow space in your heart to heal. And by healing from the heart you increase your capacity to love yourself and others. You raise your frequency to a higher vibrational state and attract more positive things and people to yourself. This is why forgiveness isn’t for the person you forgive. It is FOR YOU. Forgiving ourselves and others is absolutely necessary for us to be able to grow, shift and evolve. And evolution/evolving is essential to living your highest life. If we trap ourselves in a box and refuse to change and grow, we lose access to so much abundance. . Our energy is instead occupied and used to hold on to the past. And then we get physically or mentally sick. We become sick and tired and then we get angry because we are sick and tired of being sick and tired and then we start to blame everything outside ourselves for the illness taking over our lives. When the perpetrator of all of it is the person in the mirror. Our refusal to evolve. Our fear of change. Our attachments to the status quo. Our inability to forgive ourselves for our mistakes are all chains. If we choose forgiveness we can liberate ourselves. . Flush it down the proverbial toilet and free up all that energy to actually live our life. And living life is worth more than the need to hold on to the hurt. But how? That is the big question. As this is not an act we can think ourselves into. Overthinking exacerbates the challenge, it roots the pattern of regret and resentment, anger or feeling wronged, and triggering thoughts that “something is wrong with me,I’m broken, and unlovable” Thoughts create our reality. As within so without. So an intercessor of sorts is needed - our will, our heart that is connected to source - and our surrender to just that. Sweet surrender! By enacting the will to release it to God/Jesus/source - (whatever you name your universal power) and ask it to carry this hurt away from you. Surrender and activate the strength of your positive ego and the collective consciousness of the masters of light behind you to make it happen. We can call in Gods and Goddesses of forgiveness to help us, like Quan Yin, Jesus Christ, Holy Mother Mary, Buddha. So how do you forgive? Invite help from your source, activate the light from within you and your divine masters, surrender, radically accept that you cannot change the past but only the future, and then release! A year ago my brand new car was stolen. I meditated with Buddha and Jesus to reach the place of nonattachment. To forgive the thieves who took my car, as well as, some irreplaceable items near to my heart. I prayed for forgiveness for the thieves. “I forgive you,” I would pray. And then I would say to myself, I forgive youfor leaving all the things I left in the car that disappeared with it. In the end it was stuff, but much of it was irreplaceable tools from my healing practice. This took focus, but in the end, it was easier to forgive than to accept the injury INTO my life. I held gratitude for the car and renters insurance to compensate me for what was lost and moved on. I let it go, and it gave myself new space and energy to focus on. I focused on what was going right in my life and forgave what wasn’t. The example of losing material stuff is an easy one. Emotional forgiveness is much harder. A knife into the heart from someone you trust is one of the hardest wounds to heal and forgive. But it is also possible and when you reach that place you will stop the pattern from moving forward in your life. I speak from a place of great experience. I have been devastatingly betrayed at least 5 timesby past romantic partners The first time it happened I thought I had healed and moved on but I hadn’t and it stunted my growth from age 22 to 45 years old. I played it safe (or so I thought) during those 23 years of life. I built walls so high around myself that I never thought I would be hurt again I cautiously entered relationships with men who didn't require me to be vulnerable. And I wasn’t vulnerable. . I did not ever want to trust again because I never healed the first wound in my heart.. So, I settled for being in a guarded castle. And as a result, I invited in people to be romantic partners that felt no responsibility towards my heart and then replayed the same betrayal again and again. It was not until I took full personal responsibility for my choices and forgave myself that that specific knife in my heart could...
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    11 mins
  • Why Gratitude? The Foundation of an Abundant Life

    Why Gratitude? The Foundation of an Abundant Life
    Sep 27 2024
    Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude. What really is gratitude? I speak about it all the time. I share with students, clients, and colleagues - gratitude is the foundation of an Abundance Mindset and living a joyful life. But why? What is really happening with a gratitude grounded life? Simply put, gratitude is the practice of appreciating what one has. On the next level it is the practice of appreciation for what one has, what one is given, and what one has lost. But it is more than that. It is a practice in being aware. To appreciate what one has - one must be first aware of what they have. To appreciate what one is given, one must be aware that they are being given things. And to appreciate and hold gratitude for what has been taken away or lost - one must have an even greater awareness of cause & effect and other subtle hermetic universal principles at work - so you can see the quote, unquote “loss” for what it truly is. So if one is actually grateful, and truly holds appreciation for everything in their life (even the unpleasant stuff), then you are in a place of high vibrational awareness, clarity and discernment. Holding true sight and acknowledgement of what is going on around you and the ability to access wisdom and discern what is actually happening at any given time. So, in short, gratitude = awareness. Awareness = discernment. Discernment = wisdom. Wisdom = Discernment. Discernment = Awareness. Awareness = gratitude. And thus, we have a positive thought cycle occurring which allows us to live a joyful abundant life in flow with the universe even if our circumstances are filled with opportunity and challenge. In fact, we are more likely to seek opportunities and challenges because we have awareness, because we know that those difficult things we face are the fertilizer for the joy we grow. A joyful life is not one without difficulties or sorrow. We all experience loss and grief in life because life ends. We lose loved ones to death. This is the only certainty in life. That this physical life ends. And along the way in our life we have people we love, and they grow old and die, or they are young and die from illness or tragedy. These are huge losses. But we continue. And those of us who learn in life how to continue and thrive are those who realize and are aware that this cycle in the physical body is not about learning how to survive - because that is the one impossible task. None of us get out alive. This experience in the physical body is about learning how to live and to see the glory that is everything we are given, everything we have, and everything we experience—even the losses. Jesus said to his disciples when you can truly SEE, then you will enter the kingdom of heaven. He was talking about discernment and gratitude. True awareness. When you can truly see what life offers you are capable of gratitude, and when you have awareness, gratitude and discernment - you enter the kingdom of heaven—a joyful life. What is more heavenly than to be able to look at a shit storm in your life and say Thank You Universe for this opportunity. I am so grateful I had this experience. I’ve been reflecting on gratitude all month. At the end of August I had the opportunity to be faculty for an attorney retreat and intensive where we engaged in some serious learning about different life insurance vehicles and annuities interspersed with meditation, personal development, and fun outdoor activities.We pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones in order to learn and shift ourselves and our practices for the sake of being better advisors to our clients. For me, I was also there holding a container for everyone to meditate and grow within, while keeping the focus on gratitude. Because with gratitude we can learn better, we can accept change better, we can live better. It is an essential element to anyone’s life but especially for times of change, growth, and obstacles. And in order to change how one does something, or accept and adapt to a forced change we have to expend energy - we have to move out of the groove we have been in to shift into a new one. No more autopilot. Time to expend effort little by little every day until we get to the new phase of our becoming. Gratitude helps us with this because when we start with awareness and recognition of everything we have in our environment to support us (even if it is just out own wits), and we see just how good it is, then we do not have to expend energy worrying about the lack and attracting more lack, we aren’t running away from anything, we are moving towards something. And if that which we focus on expands it continues in the positive manifestation zone and we manifest that which we desire to bring about, versus that which we are trying to leave behind. As an attorney, I find it exceptionally important to always be finding ways to hold gratitude and create containers for my clients that allow them to ...
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    11 mins
  • Are You Stuck? Feeling Trapped? Shake it off, Time to Get Back Into Flow!

    Are You Stuck? Feeling Trapped? Shake it off, Time to Get Back Into Flow!
    Aug 22 2024
    “Do as I do, be as I am. “ Jesus Christ “When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” Paulo Coelho (author of The Alchemist) Sometimes we forget who we are. Sometimes we think, is this all there is? And if that is true, what is the point of all of this? We all can feel stuck. Trapped even. Unable to get out of the web of the choices we made to get to this point. And then when you are so wrapped in that silky meshy mess, panicking that the gross scary spider is going to come and get you that you lose sight of everything but the panic! The fear! The NEED to get OUT before the monster gets you! Then before you know it, this is what your life is - survival and fear. Trapped in a web and trying to get out. No longer are you actually going anywhere. You are just GETTING OUT. But “getting out” is not a destination. And OUT! Is driven by fear which has us thrashing around so much that we just wrap the web even thigh around ourselves so it is now even harder to achieve. It is like one of those Chinese finger traps,you played with as a kid - the harder you pull against it, the tighter it binds you. But if we stop thrashing and fighting and fearing The Monster (the unknown). If we breathe and take a moment and ask ourselves. Where am I? Who am I? Where am I going? What do I actually want? Where do I want to go? What do I WANT to be doing right now? (in the positive, the answer can’t be ESCAPING or ESCAPISM behavior). If all options are on the table, what would I actually choose to be doing to spend my time if I wasn’t so scared and spending all my energy beating back the tides of change, fear, and all the things I don’t want? If you could articulate in the positive a destination. I want to be writing a book. I want to go to the gym twice a week. I want a job that fulfills me. I want to have a conversation with my partner. I want an abundant family. I want to laugh. Do you see where I am going with this? What can you articulate in the positive? What do you aspire for yourself? And yeah maybe your mind will say it's a pipe dream. But you know what? It is YOUR pipe dream. And if it brings you joy and light - why is it silly to aspire for that, and to do that, instead of just surviving? instead of just “getting away from THIS.” Because running away is not a destination. Getting away is not a goal. It is running from the monster. Running away from the monster is not running to something at all - it is getting you lost deeper in the woods and going right into the belly of the beast. If you feel trapped and depressed or scared of what is to come. What if you were not spending all of your time on surviving, on beating back the fear, or trying to get away? If you hate your job and every night you come home and drink a bottle of wine - what is that doing? That is just numbing the pain from the job you hate. Is it getting you a new job that is fulfilling? Is it raising your vibration to a place where you can see a new alternative? Is it giving you anything but escape? Yeah you are surviving the pain. But is that a life? Surviving and enslaved to something you hate? Our negative ego is a real motherfucker. It makes us believe that running away is a solution. It says STAY SAFE! Don’t leave this box. HIDE! Outside this box is failure - is the inability to pay your bills. Outside, is the eternal question, are you dying alone? Because it says you are not good enough. You don’t deserve nice things. You are not capable. No one likes you. That is for other people. Other people write books, other people take fabulous vacations, other people get graduate degrees and careers they actually enjoy. It is an insidious record that keeps playing over and over again - that keeps you thrashing in the spider web you spun yourself. Keeps you making choices that keep you trapped in a cycle of fear and miserable-ness and not progressing toward something that will actually bring you satisfaction and joy. And here is the secret. It is not in some new age book from the early 2000s called, The Secret or even just positive thinking, or in that next social media influencers webinar about the 10 steps to financial freedom and happiness. It is none of those things. It is in the most simple (but hard to practice) axiom of Know Thyself. Know thyself as God. Know thy own needs and wants. Your thoughts create your reality. Hermetic Principle #1 - All is Mind. 99% of your success in creating a change in your life comes from how you feel about the situation because every feeling creates a thought, and every thought is acted upon. So if we feel good about where we are going, and are actually consciously choosing where we are going, and know in your heart of hearts that where you are going is what you actually want to do - then you will follow that gratitude filled feeling, into a gratitude...
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    20 mins
  • True Freedom: Surrender and Choice

    True Freedom: Surrender and Choice
    Jul 30 2024
    “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” Maya Angelou It is the day after Independence Day. I’m watching the street sweeper brush up the remnants of yesterday’s fireworks shells on the neighborhood streets of Jacksonville Beach, Florida. The detritus of the party is all that is left after America’s red, white and blue holiday. Last night thousands of people poured past the front of my house to go to the beach to watch the fireworks and celebrate freedom and independence. Thousands of explosions small and large rocked the beach and I was in the middle of it. A far cry from the remote shores of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where I have spent the last 10 years celebrating the holiday with my sister and family. But nothing is at all like the past for me this year and it has me examining my attachments really closely and getting super clear on what truly is conscious choice and surrender. Because somewhere in between that lies True Freedom in this lifetime. True freedom isn’t surrendering to the current and going with the flow that others set for us. A lot of people think that is an easy life - just let go! Don’t choose, let life take you as it may - everything happens for a reason etc…That’s just floating. Delegating your personal responsibility for your life to others so you have the excuse “I was just going with the flow!” or “I had no choice!” You did though. You chose not to choose in that situation because something in your programming, that artificial intelligence of your negative ego, has you so afraid to do so. whether you believe you can’t have nice things, or you are so afraid to fail, or who knows what your damage is, but if you never examine the baggage you carry, you will never know. On the other side, is someone like me. Controlling every single aspect of everything in your life with an exacting plan that everything must go according to, or else. Achieving the objective of the moment. Because achievement of the next thing is the highest good. Except sometimes, er, well, a lot of the time, my objective is misinformed because it comes from my subconscious programming and I am not aware of that, until it's too late. If you try to control every little thing you are so busy controlling you can’t see or hear the signs that there is something better or that a higher path could open up, paved in opportunities. Except in these situations I honestly believe I am acting from conscious choice when I double down in stubborn determinism and radical self reliance “to make it work!” to “achieve the gold star!” to “take care of the problem!” But as my recent move from St. Augustine to my partner's house in Jax Beach proves - NO, I’m not always aware of how my thoughts are creating my reality. And I made a lot of things harder on myself by just assuming I had to do it all myself because that is the way it has always been. Meanwhile my partner is left wondering why I didn’t trust him enough to ask for help. And I realized I didn’t because I assumed I couldn’t and I was afraid of retribution for asking at all. So yeah - I didn’t trust. So here I am - surrendering to the change and the shift - all beautiful things coming from being in partnership with another but I was completely unwilling to look at how I approached a situation with him on my team, or even being on a team period. Huh. Was that conscious choice from my higher self? I couldn’t let go of control and my subconscious programming for two seconds, I reacted and went right into “do it all yourself” mode. But I won’t do that specific thing again. Now that I see it and can be willing to let it go. I can learn from it and be aware in the future and not do it that way again. No shame, no blame or guilt. Yes I was emotional when the situation was brought up for me to look at it. But most of it was from the release of all that stored shit in my subconscious and it wasn’t directed at anybody, as much as it was messy. Literally my suitcase of unexpressed emotion was strewn all over my partner's living room. And luckily he’s very patient and held space to let me work it through. So how do we know if we are surrendering our attachments and living and choosing from the collective consciousness of the higher selves and ascended masters i.e. the positive ego, free of the negative ego and shadow self? We can’t sit there and analyze every action. Or can we? No, we can’t - that analysis paralysis would be using our lower self to attempt to solve the problem that got us there in the first place. We have to use discernment. And this is where training comes in and the invocation of the Adept Initiate. “It is by will alone that I set my mind in motion.” Every human being, myself very much included, is far from perfect but the path to know thyself allows us to get clearer and ...
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    9 mins
  • The Sun

    The Sun
    Jul 12 2024
    “Love God and then do whatever you wish.” St. Augustine This is the quote for the spiritual experience of the sun tarot card in my ultimate guide to the Raider Waite Tarot book. I had to laugh as I read it this morning sitting down to write this podcast. I decided to write about the sun card because it is the solstice, and the sun symbolizes rebirth and daily renewal. And surprise! This month and for the rest of this year I am in a process of change and renewal yet again. I’m currently writing this on my deck in St. Augustine, Florida. Inside my little house in the woods surrounded by magick and elemental beings are boxes ready to be packed and put into storage. I’m moving. Again. I just put the last of my Seattle life into a storage locker at my good friend’s condo and now I am putting my St. Augustine things into storage until November when I hopefully move into my new house that is currently being built. “Birth is not a momentary event, but a permanent process. Our aim in life is to become completely born…living means being born every minute.” Erich Fromm. The process of rebirth for me has been going on for years. But more intensely these last 2 since I was called to step up in my spiritual practice and make this move to St. Augustine. I keep laughing because it really seems to keep getting more intense when silly me thought it would chill out by now. But relocating your life and business across the country is a process. All good things - meeting the love of one's life, co-creating a new home together, establishing a foothold in a new city, building a new community, taking yet another bar exam (I could do without this step but it's a right of passage in my profession) - these are all major things. As is exiting a place (Seattle) where you built a life for the past 20 years. What I’m learning in part is surrender. Allowing the will of God to flow through me. Allowing the highest good to flow through me. And not being an obstacle to my own birthing process. Not being an obstacle to my own greatness and purpose. I will, thy will, I say. Let my greatest desire be that I fulfill my contract with God. The purpose I made for myself when I was spirit before I had amnesia caused by this physical density. So, I am attempting to understand with my higher self my needs and wants. Then holding the vision for them to be met. And thus arranging my priorities to ensure that energetically, and then physically. Versus clinging to my past self and fighting the process. I surrender to the process of rebirthing. So I shared the quote that I read and laughed out loud when looking at The Sun card. There are no coincidences that St. Augustine himself is speaking to me today. Love God i.e. love yourself and all beings and allow the will of god to flow through you. Then do what you want. Well, when the will of god flows through you - you become an agent for the best and highest good. December of 2023 marked one year of my leap of faith to move to St. Augustine. And although it was a month of upheaval and unmet expectations for myself and others it was actually really great - because I put my house in order. I had to sit down with myself and decide the priorities for Angel’s life. What was it that I really desired and wanted in my life? Yes, I want to do God’s will but I’m not a robot. I’m a human being with needs and wants and one of our 4 basic needs is love. I decided that the most important thing to me in my life was to find my life partner. Someone I could spend my life with who would love me for me, and I would love them for them in return - and we could be a team. Team us. I also decided that I was going to fully let go of Seattle. That I was going to ground my light here in St. Augustine. I was going to plant my energy in this soil and build my life here instead of traversing the country every other week or month and running myself ragged in the process. The result of this decision? Within 2 months I was registered for the Florida Bar Exam, I found a location for my light center at the Center for Spiritual Living, and I was in a relationship with a person that I love and who loves me in return, who actually wants to spend their life with me as a team. Not someone in it for some sense of immediate gratification but actual loyalty and commitment to building a relationship and all the co-creation that goes with that. And as a result of all of that, here I am. Moving and rebirthing myself again. But not chaotically. I’m executing (with assistance) the vision of grounding myself here in St. Augustine and the universe is supporting me because it's in alignment with my purpose. How do I know? Because I trust my higher self, I trust the tools of my spiritual practice and the law of the universe I am watching at play around me. I’m far from perfect, or a perfect situation but I’m ...
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    10 mins
  • To Everything There is a Season

    To Everything There is a Season
    May 29 2024
    My partner asked me the other day, “Do you ever envy other people?” and I had to think about it for a second. His health has been a significant challenge recently and our relationship is strong but new - so I’ve been in a place of “well fuck, universe, thanks for sending me the love of my life and threatening to take him away just as quickly.” It's been a real practice in gratitude to stay in ACTUAL gratitude for the time I have with him - because I am here watching him suffer from severe pain & distress as his organs rebel for some unknown reason and his body fills with fluid. So, in some ways the answer to his question is yes. In fact, hell yeah! I currently envy all those people who take their health and their partnerships for granted. I envy his ex’s who used, abused, and didn’t covet every minute they had with him while he was healthy but instead threw the time away. As here I am picking up the pieces of their heartbreak mess as I stand beside one of the strongest, bravest men I’ve ever met. But at the same time - even though I am jealous of his ghosts, I’m not envious of them. I’d never want to be in those past women’s shoes (i.e. not self aware, actually taking for granted such a gem of a man in their life). I know that it would be nice to have been in their time and place - adventuring, dancing, living an active life - but would I have been ready then? Would he have been ready for me then? Would we have been ready then? It's best we are here right now, the people we are right now, facing this now with the strengths we both have together. In this now. I know many people who are doing really well and I’m honestly happy for them. I hold no envy or yearning to be in a different place than I am, with a different person, with a different life. I hold gratitude that I finally met this man that I can share space & time with, and just be me with, and feel safe with and give my loyalty to. Someone I can create even more love in this world with. Someone I can be a better person with, and dedicate myself to doing just that. We both share this desire to help others, making the world a better place because we were here. And I just want to enjoy our life together no matter how much time we have left. So no - I don’t envy anyone else. I do not want to be anyone else. I am very satisfied and happy in my life and I am extremely capable of experiencing and generating more joy even in the face of knowing the one who I am most attached to could leave me alone in this physical life sooner than later. Every single day is precious. We just do not have the luxury of taking it for granted anymore. There is a poem I read when teaching to empower thyself that I shall paraphrase right now - essentially it says that God is not “I was” because you cannot find any joy living in the past. And God is not “I will” because you cannot find any joy worrying about the future. God is only “I AM” because you can find all possibilities in the present. All ability to create, live, love and enjoy is here right now. So that is where you will find joy. (Sing) “I close my eyes only for a moment and the moments are gone. All my dreams pass before my eyes a curiosity. Dust in the wind. All they are is dust in the wind. Don’t hang on,nothing forever but the earth and sky. It slips away and all your dollars won’t buy another minute. Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind…” (read) “Where for I perceive there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be better after him?” Ecclesiastes 3-22. I’m writing this podcast on May 1st, Beltane, May Day, the 1st day of summer in the ancient Celtic and pre-Celt calendars. Beltane is a day of celebration for creation, passion, fertility because here in Spring - is the TIME to start the creation process because the divine masculine and divine feminine energies are at their peak. Father Sky and the sun are perfect to send their rays and mature our plants & endeavors and mover earth’s womb is ready to grow them. She as divine feminine will gestate the seed in her fertile womb so that in a few months a harvest shall come. Two things are going on here. The earth is ripe & ready and the sun's rays are about to peak into crescendo. And the hermetic principle of gender - the universal rule that masculine and feminine energy is needed in a relationship to create (otherwise known as divine union). The holy marriage of opposites results in the perfect harmony necessary to spark and nurture creation. And now is the time for this creation. We are made in God's image - The Elohim. Elo & Eloha - divine masculine & feminine in divine union creator gods. And this is why when we are in balance both within and without we are more effective in creation. Also, now in the wheel of the year we have this peak moment to invest our ...
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    13 mins
  • Nurturing Seeds with the Power of Intention

    Nurturing Seeds with the Power of Intention
    Apr 23 2024
    “When your determination changes, everything will begin to move in the direction you desire. The moment you resolve to be victorious, every nerve and fiber in your being will immediately orient itself toward your success. On the other hand if you think “this will never work out,” then at that instant every cell in your being will be deflated and give up the fight. Everything then will move in the direction of failure. I want you to understand the subtle workings of the mind. How you orient your mind, the kind of attitude you have, greatly influences both yourself and your environment.” This quote is from Daisaku Ikeda, former president of Soka Gakkai International, the largest and most diverse lay organization of Buddhist practitioners in the world. And it has been on or by my desk for at least 10 years. And I’m pretty sure that I first scribbled it down over 20 years ago when I first moved to Seattle, Washington in 2005. Now after 13 years of studying esoterics and metaphysics it still rings true it just has so many additional levels of meaning and truth. Forbes Magazine recently stated that - “intention is a critical factor in achieving success…It provides a purposeful and strategic approach to navigating life's complexities and a guiding force propelling you toward a future of purpose, genuineness and success.” the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy shares that Intention is “mental directedness towards objects, as if the mind were construed as a mental bow whose arrows could be properly aimed at different targets.” The key here that unlocks the Power of Intention is the alignment and purposeful direction of your thoughts and actions toward a desire that you really want to achieve in your life. A prerequisite then for this alignment is you must know for yourself what you desire. What do you really want for your life? Where do your passions lie? What gives you a sense of true fulfillment? If you do not know what you want and desire in the heart of your hearts then it is really going to be hard to align your thoughts and actions to make that desire happen. And you never unlock the true power of intention. The definition of intentional according to Webster's dictionary is “Done on purpose; deliberate.” Synonyms include “Conscious, Willed and Purposeful.” In my esoteric and Kabbalistic training we are taught that the Magickian or Alchemist uses their imagination to clearly identify and describe their specific desire, and then they must set their intention, concentration and will upon the appropriate object. None of this saying "Walk around your life like a zombie doing whatever everyone else says you should do.” In fact, it is specifically the opposite. Intention is “thinking ahead and making choices based on personal beliefs, values, and goals.” Not acting on impulse, but planning ahead to choose things that create a positive impact for your life and the things you value. Okay, okay, Angel, you might be saying. Great, be more positive. Be more intentional. Those are great buzzwords but how do I do that? But that's just it. I’m not telling you to BE MORE positive, or BE MORE Intentional. That would be me “shoulding” on you. Instead I’m giving you an equation that if you choose to follow it for yourself - your thoughts and actions will be the cause that results in the effect of an intentional life. And that intentional life of thinking and doing on purpose with purpose will result in you achieving more of what you actually want, desire and desire, which will result in you feeling more fulfillment and joy and gratitude for what you have and have been able to accomplish. Which will fuel more gratitude, and more ability to to be intentional. It is a positive cycle of cause and effect which will in turn result in you becoming positive and living a more joyful life. No shoulding needed. Because you will be doing it. And that is the most important thing. So let’s review the equation that allows you to unlock the Power of Intentional creation in your life. Step one and the foundational piece is that you need to get clear on what it is you want and desire in your life. What do you really want for you? All studies and literature on this point to you identifying for you what brings you joy and passion. (not simply what brings you momentary pleasure) But what are your values, what gives you a sense of fulfillment? What feels purposeful? Now if you are at this step (step one) and already stuck, don’t worry. Start small. Identify a very short term clear achievable thing you would like in your life that you personally would feel good about if you accomplished. This can be very selfish (or may feel selfish and that is ok, we have to start somewhere). So this could be taking a weekend trip to a place you want to see. Or paying off a credit card. Balancing your budget. Cleaning your garage. Going to ...
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    15 mins