Priestess in Blue Jeans

This Summer, Reclaim Your Feminine Mojo

M O J O = Your Unique Essence & Creative Power.

Your Inner Goddess Expressing Herself.

"This gathering together of all the possibilities

lies at the core of the goddess energy."

~ Marion Woodman, Dancing in the Flames

Do you feel frustrated, angry, or powerless as you look at the news of environmental disaster unfolding at the Gulf of Mexico, or the continuing scandals and inhumanity flowing forth from sociopathic Corporations, and similar activities that show that the way things have been done are no longer working because  something vital has been left out of the equation?

Do you yearn to express your Feminine voice, leadership, and creative power, and help co-create greater possibilities for yourself and the world, from wherever you are and in your own authentic way?

It is a Summer of powerful and intensifying energies -- a full moon and lunar eclipse, followed by a total eclipse of the Sun, and potent astrological set-up signifies that much is shifting. Many of us are already experiencing this.

So it's the perfect time to reclaim and strengthen your Feminine Mojo.

Read on for the juicy details (and the early bird registration ends July 3rd!)

* Image: The Goddess Circe, by Wright Barker, English Painter [1864-1941]

Energy Practices Support Unfolding Vision

Isn't it a wonderful feeling when we're gifted with a new vision -- an image, energetic imprint, yearning, or idea that really beckons us into co-creation? At such times, it seems that anything is possible.

And then we often experience a co-arising of resistance: that within us which is perfectly comfortable with the status quo and doesn't want to risk that seeming comfort and familiarity.

That part of us certainly doesn't want to court failure and whatever we associate with it. "Eeek," it screams, "Back away, don't go there...besides, it's not such a great idea, anyway."

We might suddenly find ourselves thinking of a myriad of reasons why the vision isn't possible, or why we should wait; we might even experience resistance from those around us with whom we share the vision-seed. Sound familiar? To most of us, it is.

Thankfully, there are a whole variety of energy or spiritual practices that really support us in our ability to move forward into a new cycle of creativity and experience.

I've shared several practices and rituals in previous blog posts here or at Sophia's Children, and will share several in this post that can be particularly helpful in supporting your emerging vision and cultivating a new momentum.

Einstellen & Heilstrom - from the work of Bruno Groening

Bruno Groening was a German healer with an immense natural gift for healing, with many 'miracle healings' attributed to his presence and his teachings. Given the times in which he lived in Germany (1906-1959), his gifts and the attention they drew weren't always appreciated by the authorities!

Mr. Groening emphasized that each person has an innate connection to this healing capacity, and encouraged people to tune into the Divine energy or life force to restore health and harmony, and keep themselves on the path of the soul. The Circle organization was created by those close to him, many of whom experienced profound healing and revelation themselves.

The core of what Mr. Groening taught was that illness and unfortunate circumstances were not a natural state; one had to be ready and willing to release any identification with the illness or circumstance; and that by tuning into the healing stream of Divine energy -- einstellen and heilstrom, in German -- one could receive the energy that helps restore the  natural state of health and harmony. His teachings are very similar to the tenets of many other traditions.

The practice of einstellen -- 'tuning in' -- to the heilstrom or 'healing stream' of life force of Divine energy is a restorative meditation which many experience as healing, calming, centering, and heart-opening. Such Divine Love or Divine energy meditations also help us to allow the Mystery to move through us, as the Choktaw Elder, Sequoyah Trueblood, has said.

Emotional Freedom Technique - EFT

EFT is one of the acupuncture/acupressure-meridian-based energy modalities, in which you work with -- and in this case lightly tap on -- particular meridian points to clear energy blocks and the patterns or traumatic memories that are held in the body (and thus energy field). EFT was founded by Gary Craig in 1993, based on the Thought Field Therapy modality created by Dr. Roger Callahan in 1981.

A wide variety of people -- 'EFT masters' -- have explored, expanded upon, and adapted EFT for an array of applications. Two practitioners whose style I've appreciated, are Carol Look and Dr. Patricia Carrington.

Ms. Look has a conversational approach to EFT that can be both amusing and effective -- good combo! She focuses much of her EFT work on abundance, since it seems to open up the Motherlode of issues that are unhelpfully limiting or problem-causing.

Dr. Carrington is known for her 'Choices Method', including one application that brings forward a recollection of positive experiences and states of mind/energy and anchors them in the body and energy field.

If you're a believer that what you're predominantly thinking, feeling, and ruminating about has an effect on what you experience -- or even if you'd just like to feel more relaxed, centered, intuitive, and resourceful, practices like the ones I've shared here can be powerful and easy to use allies as you live into a new vision and cycle of creative expression and experience.

Blessings from your Vision Priestess,

Jamie

The Most Powerful 'Goal'

When I was writing my book, Big Vision, Small Business, at the start of the new millennium, I was intrigued (and a bit shocked) to find that several of the exemplary, successful business owners that I featured didn't set 'goals' or define mission statements. Beyond that, they didn't 'subscribe to a 'normal' business routine, nor did they believe that they had to 'work hard' to be successful.

One executive said he spent much of his morning in prayer and meditation, and asked, "How can I be of service today?" Then he went into his office and did the work of the day in alignment with what he described as 'conscious principles' of right-service and right-relationship.

Another prominent business owner said he got up, meditated and had a couple of cups of coffee, and then went back to sleep until noon. After that, he spent time in visualization and opening to vision, which informed his work for the rest of the day when he went into his office.

Several others said they aligned with Spirit through prayer and meditation, opened to vision and guidance, followed their 'yearning to be of service', and acted upon the guidance they received. One woman said, "When I'm devoted to being of service, I know that I'll have everything I need, including  whatever I need to meet material and financial commitments."

And, year after year, she did. She, and the others, noted that when they'd focused only on quantitative goals and bringing in revenues, they found themselves struggling in cycles of gain and loss, which lead them to explore 'a better, more inspired way'.

In the standard approach to business, this is still something akin to blasphemy. Yet here were several people who were not only successful in their businesses, but also happy and having a very positive effect on others.

Dr. Wayne Dyer -- whom most people would describe as phenomenally successful -- told an interviewer for a retail-industry magazine the same thing: He didn't set goals, including financial or other quantitative goals. Instead, he focused on how he could be of service each day, and followed the inspiration, letting it guide his action and knowing that it would unfold perfectly. He used his imagination to really feel the inspired ideas as 'already done'.

Needless to say, this is a radically different way of approaching livelihood and business in a Puritan-influenced culture where Type A, workaholic, and very quantitatively focused approaches are considered 'absolutes' for success. And yet there are a growing number of people who defy this assumption and live another way.

For them, the most powerful element is the desire to be of service, in alignment with Spirit (all were from different faith or spiritual traditions), and then valuing vision, using some aligned intentions, and acting on inspiration in alignment with deeply held values (which leads back to service).

In current times, when so many of approaches that we took as gospel are not working well (quantitatively or qualitatively), we're invited to explore 'better ways', even when those ways radically contradict long-held assumptions and fears about how things 'have to be done'. We have to face the survival fears that keep us locked into ways of living and working that are not just less and less effective, but are actually harmful.

We can experiment with it, asking at the start of each day, "How can I be of service today?" And there are many practices that help us to cultivate the required 'change of mind' and 'change of heart' -- and the alignment with Spirit and inspiration -- that guide us into inspired new ways of living and working that benefit many (and maybe even all).

The intention to be of service may be one of the most powerful 'success goals' of all. Pretty wild, eh?

Joyful Blessings,

Jamie

* Photo Credit: Thanks to Public Domain Photo for this beautiful zen-pond photo!

Our 'Imagination Lab' & Visions of Healing

Over the past year, and over the past few weeks, several themes have repeated themselves, putting themselves in front of me so I'd be sure to see them.

This is how it seems to work: We ask for guidance, and a flurry of 'responses' or clues arise around us. For many of us, including me, it takes some practice figure out how Life speaks to us, so we can learn to see and interpret the hieroglyphs placed on our path.

Early last year, as I was in the shower (a Top Ten 'aha moment' locale), I realized (with some horror) that I was adeptly rehearsing some worst-case-scenarios in my mind. The visual was there, the soundtrack was there, and the feeling was there. My own little creative laboratory, in which I was energizing the least desirable outcomes. Yikes (which is what I think I said then, along with a couple of other colorful words!).

And double-yikes when I realized I had a much easier time, at that particular moment in my life, 'rehearsing' the least desirable scenarios than desirable ones. I knew that it stemmed not only from being well-trained in 'contingency planning', but also from walking a deeply challenging path for several years -- a real Dark Night of the Soul that left me bracing for the next impact and dreading the next loss. I also knew that using my imagination that way was, how shall I say it, not helpful. At all.

So I vowed right there and then to shift that pattern.

Since then, the big themes that keep arising for me are: the Divine Feminine, presence, Divine Love, and the more conscious, deliberate use of our gifts of imagination (including thought, feeling, and word). In the past few weeks, these themes have been reverberating like a quickening drum beat.

In the ancient Mystery Schools, as with many Indigenous wisdom traditions, the imagination or 'the dreaming' were considered powerful Divine gifts. We envision, and then enliven that vision or dream with words, thoughts, and feelings. In this way, we co-create our experience, individually and collectively.

What we experience individually reflects our predominant imagining or dream theme, tinged by the collective dream, which is what we notice around us, as culture, as what's in the news.

The Mystery School adepts and teachers knew how important it was that we vision, dream, and imagine from a place of Divine Love, rather than fear, because we're powerfully creating from one or the other.

Though it has been many centuries since the Mystery Schools were nearly exterminated, with the surviving teachers and teachings going 'underground', each of us uses these Divine gifts every day. We may think or say that we don't have time to vision, or daydream, or imagine, but what we're really saying is that we don't allow the time to do them consciously. The default programs, usually fueled by fear, are constantly running behind the scenes, and we notice them when we begin to pay attention. Just like I noticed in the shower that day last year.

Now, those Mystery and wisdom teachings are resurfacing, prompting us to take another look -- to get more conscious with our co-creating habits. We may see or hear these messages coming from new interpretations of Jesus's teachings, or the many translations of the Tao te Ching or Rumi's poetry. The messages might arise in emails or a conversation about Abraham-Hicks teachings, horizon-walking physicists, or the resurfacing of the 'New Thought' teachers from the mid-20th century. Or they might arise in our own dreams or consciousness, as themes or words or phrases.

Regardless, we're being asked to remember, and to create and co-create more consciously, more joyfully, in alignment with Love rather than fear. We're being asked to envision and imagine more desirable scenarios, knowing that what we experience begins in the imagination (and even what we imagine ripples outward, energetically, into the collective energy field).

So as I reflected last week in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, with the photos of destruction and mayhem and suffering, I was reminded not just how important it is that we notice and acknowledge the suffering, but that we go from there to holding a vision of healing, thriving, and wholeness. Holding and energizing an active-vision of healing and love is a powerful gift and a service we can offer from a distance.

The same holds true for all of our imaginings, whether they apply to aspects of our personal lives (including work, and how we work); the circumstances of a friend of family member; or as our imaginings apply to the local and global community. Align with Divine Love, and imagine well.

Blessings on the Way,

Jamie

* Photo Credit: Thank you to "Extasis-Pintrodefuego" for the Creative Commons use of this beautifully imagined and created image!

Earth, Connection & Holding the Paradox

Today is one of those days when it's a challenge to hold all that's coming in energetically, psychically, and via the media.

After two very restless nights, and hearing from other women that they've experienced the same, I'm reminded of just how connected we are with what's going on with the planet -- particularly how our bodies, energy fields, and psyches pick up on major Earth events. I remember resonating deeply with this idea when I heard and read Llewelyn Vaughn-Lee speak to the deep feeling-connection women in particular have with the planet.

Many of us experienced sleepless nights and energetic agitation just before, during, and after the devastating earthquake that struck in Haiti, with the heart-wrenching loss and upheaval being experienced there now by the people of that country. A recent report expects more than 100-thousand people are feared dead. The AP news story on the tragedy -- in a bizarre clue as to where the Western mind is -- included this sentence: "Even relatively wealthy neighborhoods were devastated."

With assistance, aid, and waves of prayer for love and healing coming in to Haiti from around the world, both the horror and the deep beauty of Life reveals itself. It also reverberates the message that we are all connected -- what happens in one part of the web of Life affects us all.

And right next to that article on the news sites was "Bank CEOs say they're sorry, but defend bonuses." What a juxtaposition! In the article, Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, said, "I do think the behavior is improper. We regret the consequence that people have lost money in it." Then, the article continued, "he defended the firm's actions as "exercises in risk management."

Oops, sorry that we caused a lot of people harm and loss. Sorry that we reneged on good-faith agreements and executed usury to cash in on people going through the longest recession since the Great Depression even though we could have chosen differently. Sorry that we indulge our own greed and 'risk-and-power addictions' to the detriment of the common good. But hey, ching ching, we're doing well. It's just a 'risk management exercise.'

One of the interesting things about these stories appearing simultaneously is the contrast they reveal -- one, an outpouring of compassion and humanity in response to people experiencing devastation, suffering, and loss; a unified focus on the common good, of being of comfort and service. The other, an example of Western Mind Disease* (that the acronym is WMD is telling), caught up in greed, lacking empathy, and a marked disregard for common good.

So what about all of this, so it's just not all waily-waily indignation?

One of my teachers, Andrew Harvey, asked: "What breaks your heart? What makes you angry?" This, he said, guided you to heartful sacred activism. I took it a step further and asked, "What do these things have in common, and based on that, what am I willing to stand for?"

And another 'inspiration mentor', Caroline Casey, asks, "And so what is the reciprocal blessing you'd give for those who make you angry?"

The devastation in Haiti breaks my heart.

The largely avoidable losses suffered by so many people in the wake of financial-industry malfeasance breaks my heart.

The arrogant misuse of power and casual disregard for people's dignity modeled by the Big Bank CEOs makes me angry, because they could have elected to create humane, common-good-centered policies that would have helped avert many of the losses and much of the suffering, and they didn't. Instead, they gambled not just with the peoples' money, but with peoples' lives (lost homes, businesses, livelihoods, wellness, and some who committed suicide over their losses). 'Oops, sorry' doesn't cut it.

And what am I willing to stand for, based on that? Embodying and supporting the shift in consciousness that inspires right use of power -- power with, not power over -- and a sense of humanity, of connection, of heartfulness and wisdom, of the dignity and sacredness of all life (and all beings, including human beings), and of our taking back our own power and sense of value as the Divine expressions that we are, and expressing that in creative ways that benefit all.

The reciprocal blessing? May the Big-Bank CEOs and their colleagues find themselves blessed with a renewed sense of their connection with all beings, and may they be filled with a deep remembrance of the sacredness of Life and the dignity of all people, and all beings.

How about you?

Blessings on the Way,

Jamie

* Thanks to Phil Rogacki for the 'Western Mind Disease (WMD)' phrase and insight!

* Photo Credit: Thanks to Fdecomite for the Creative Commons fantasy land fractal.