Priestess in Blue Jeans

Dreaming Feng Shui & the Wealth Within Us

A little over a week ago, I noticed that I was dreaming feng shui. The feng shui dreaming continued throughout the week that followed -- dreaming pale green stones, like jade, amazonite, chrysoprase, and aventurine; dreaming pink stones of rose quartz and rhodachrosite; dreaming of moving things around in the house.

As I went through each day, I started getting feng shui 'instructions' or validation -- putting the zen fountain where I'd placed it was perfect to support a specific intention; moving the mirror in the bedroom would be a good idea to shift energy of an annoying issue; shifting other little things from here to there.

I felt amazed, again, at the wealth that's within us.

Dreaming feng shui is an example of the wealth within us. I knew a little bit about design feng shui from exploring it 5 or 6 years ago, but it's not something that became a regular practice. If anything, I was amazed at what we do intuitively, if we're open and noticing.

So I followed my dream and waking-insight guidance, and moved the mirror, placed my beautiful qigong jade disk where I can see it as I work at the laptop, and so on; a simple, elegant sacred ritual, and feeling the subtle shifts in the energy -- and my own mind.

I've been filled with a renewed sense of Life as a creative adventure, a delightful, often magical, dance between what's within us, what comes through us, and how we interact with what (or who) is around us.

There is, truly, a wealth within us. It's taken me years and more than a few tears and challenges to not only remember this, but begin to honor it, and that feels pretty amazing in itself.

FeMojo Blessings,

Jamie

If you'd like to explore and feed the Wealth Within You, join me in the creative adventure of the Feminine Mojo Mystery School, launching on October 7th and evolving (and creating) from there!

Image Credits: Green Aventuring photo from GVStones; Circe's Palace by Maxfield Parrish (1907).

Candlemas, Venus Year & Diamonds in the Dark

"The more powerful the vision,

the more powerful the work that results."

Roderick MacIver (Heron Dance 335)

Each year, I write about the Candlemas cross-quarter celebration, called by different names in various traditions. You'll find previous entries at my Sophia's Children blog.

Candlemas, or Imbolc, 2010 offers unique, rich opportunities for clearing, visioning, and setting or empowering our intentions. Why? Because it follows a powerful lunar and solar eclipse cycle, and occurs in what Steve Nelson, author of Mythic Times, calls a 'Venus Year' -- a time in which "all things Venusian prosper."

Let's look at the symbolism, in which we can ground ourselves for rich inspiration as we look into this Venus Year, 2010.

Candlemas is a cross-quarter time -- midway between the Solstice and Equinox, or vice versa. Traditionally celebrated in the first several days of February, it's 'exact' when the Sun reaches the mid-point of Aquarius. So in 2010, Candlemas is February 1-4.

Candlemas symbolizes the beginning of the new cycle, the 'diamonds' of light that we birth in the darkness of inner Wisdom and externalize in new expression and inspired action. The seeds of Spring have already begun their journey upward through the frozen soil of Winter, ending the season of fallowness with new life ready to bloom.

Candlemas has also been a traditional time of purification -- releasing that which no longer serves, including old thought-forms, patterns, habits and beliefs -- and planting those 'vision seeds' that will grow in the new cycle that follows.

Traditionally, Candlemas rituals include those elements: water for purification, an intention to release what no longer serves, fire (candles) for inspiration and transformation, and those vision-seeds that come as diamonds from within, ready to illuminate your path forward and shine through new expression.

That Candlemas in 2010 follows a powerful eclipse cycle is considered to magnify the potentials and energies. Steve Nelson calls eclipses 'Mother Nature's re-set button' because, energetically and psychically, 'the old' is eclipsed, and we get a re-boot to allow for something new to take root, or take shape.

Nelson writes, "When an eclipse occurs there is much greater possibility for eliminating patterns of thought and behavior that have troubled the world. This is an opportune time to clear away what stands in way of our dreams being realized. The more old patterns are eliminated, the more energy is freed for a new creation."

Add to this the idea of 2010 being a Venus Year (sign on to Steve Nelson's newsletter for more on this in coming weeks), and we have a Motherlode of inspiration and beautiful potential with which to fortify our vision-seeds.

Venus, in addition to being related to the Great Goddess and a symbol for the Feminine, also stands for -- as fiercely as it takes -- beauty,  harmony, prosperity, love. Wonderful characteristics and energies to weave through your intentions and visions.

Astrologer Kelley Hunter, in her early January musing, reminded us that Venus, like Pandora and other Feminine images, is often shown with a mirror, along with other symbols of beauty, wisdom, and abundance.

Traditionally, through a Patriarchal lens that has misunderstood, feared (or envied), and thus exiled the Feminine, the mirror has been thought to symbolize vanity. And perhaps this is one perspective -- the dangers of allowing ourselves to be guided by our shallower ego-mind.

Yet when I reflected on this, what arose within me was another possible perspective: That Venus with her mirror is signaling to us that all that we see is but a reflection of what's within us. We look around and see in that 'mirror' a reflection of ourselves, our own Divine essence, our thoughts and projections. With this wise reflection, we're able to make inner-adjustments, so that what we're projecting and experiencing is more beautiful, harmonious, loving, and abundant.

As within, so without. These are the inner Mysteries of the Feminine which nourish, inspire, and wisely guide the conscious Masculine -- wise, inspired 'doing' begins within.

Grounding ourselves in these celebrations throughout the year allows us to center ourselves as time and events around us seem to accelerate and magnify themselves. If we ground ourselves in 'clock time' and to-do lists, in the context of news headlines, we can easily find ourselves overwhelmed.

The antidote to that more myopic view and its understandable overwhelm is an expanded vision, and rooting ourselves in -- or devoting ourselves to -- something greater than ourselves, greater than any detail or circumstance. Then our more detailed manifestations and 'doings' reflect those greater, deeper values of love, harmony, consciousness, beauty, and abundance.

Happy Candlemas. Happy Venus Year. Happy Venusian Visioning!

Jamie

* Photo/Image Credit - Eclipse January 15, 2010 - Randity.com

The perfect time for power-intentions.

If you're feeling a little bit behind in setting your intentions and resolutions for 2010, you can relax. Not only can you cut yourself a little slack because of 'accelerating time' (which means, blink, ten days have passed), but also because later this week opens a several-week period considered to be an ideal time to focus in on your new year intentions.

While I truly believe that any time is a great time to set or revisit intentions, vision, and resolutions (which I prefer to call 'dedications', as in 'what am I willing to dedicate myself to'), I also believe that there are particular times or 'portals' in which the macro-energies are especially supportive.

The upcoming power-portal begins on January 14-15 -- a new moon (always a great time for intention-planting), a solar eclipse (magnifies the other energies), and a few other juicy happenings in the macro-speres of influence that reverberate for weeks or even months into 2010.

Since these 'power times' are powerful, and have an effective on us whether we're consciously working with them or not, we may as well work with them consciously, with a greater focus on intentions, thoughts, and a vision that feel energizing and positive to us. The alternative is to default to old habit, old beliefs, and old 'culture think' that feeds off of fear and scarcity belief, and we can read the headlines or feel the knot in our guts to see where that's gotten us.

Said another way: Later this week is actually a particularly great time for consciously tuning into and refining intentions and dedications for the coming year! (I'm in a bit of a swirling space with the shifting energies right about now - can you tell? My power-intentions are getting shaken and stirred in the cauldron of creative potential. Yee ha!).

Given that now offers a great opportunity, let's stop clinging to the side of the pool, climb up to the high diving board, walk together towards the very edge, and prepare to take the most beautiful, elegant dive into new and wonderful possibilities for 2010.

What gets you there? Intentions, vision, aligned thought and focus, which flow into inspired, graceful action (and get you through those few gnarly, growling twists and turns).

Make some space on your calendar for Thursday and Friday (I'll be doing it, too!), and open to the intentions that really want to live in and through you in the coming months -- that come from your very heart and soul, not just old thought-forms from the memory bank of yesterday and yesteryear. Write them and imagine those intentions taking shape, until you've got them worded and envisioned in a way that stirs your heart and passion and energy in the best of ways.

And then let them evolve into (or from) a full-fledged, whole-bodied vision that pulls you forward, that invites the mighty forces to come to your aid, and that gives you a new, fresh sense of commitment and resolve. Something that feels really, really delicious.

Happy power-intentioning! Want some extra guidance and inspiration? See the link below.

Jamie

Photo credit: Thanks to Carlitosway85 for the Creative Commons fiery fractal image!

Don't feel like going it alone? Send along an email to schedule a session or series (see the special new-year offer!), or register for the upcoming Vision & Manifestation tele-series and good-juju manifestation tele-circle, to focus and empower your new year's power-intentioning and visioning!

Rituals for a new year & new decade

Happy 2010 and happy new decade!

We ushered in the new year and new decade with a powerful full "blue moon" and a lunar eclipse. Did you feel it? Pretty powerful energies, and the timing makes these events a sort of "power portal" as well.

And that means an even better time than usual for powerful rituals that really help us to 'let go of the old' and open to new and wonderful possibilities and perspectives. Rituals can be powerful both personally, and for our group or business as well.

Not all that long ago, I would have told you that I wasn't the ritual type. Yet this very decade that we've just ended gave me the gift of recognizing and experiencing how powerful conscious ritual can be. And fun, joyful, magical and satisfying, too. As I bridged the old year and decade with the new, rituals were an important feature.

The Double-Oh Decade - 2000-2009

I don't know about you, but as I looked back at the last decade -- 2000 through 2009 -- I was pretty amazed at all that took place, both for me personally and also collectively. And that 'look back' was part of -- and inspiration for -- several powerful rituals. I'll share a bit about them, in case they're helpful as you release the old and open to the new.

Time Magazine called the 00s The Decade from Hell, recounting a historical blend of global and national events that affected many people around the world. Pretty dramatic, and they give their reasons.

For me, the 00s decade was a blend of heaven and hell, amazing grace and blessings woven in with some of the steepest challenges of my life. The last decade started off with my own 'near death experience' -- coming face to face with my own mortality and the resulting shockwaves that rippled  through the following years, unhinging my ideas about myself, what had motivated me up until then, and my sense of connection to my vision, inspiration, motivation, and the Divine. That's the short list. There I was, bobbing along in 2000, and suddenly got sucked into the abyss -- the Inanna Journey.

Like Inanna, the journey strips all layers of 'worldly identity'; she dies to her former sense of self and is born anew. Hence, the 'hell' part of it.

'Hell' tends to stick with us mentally, energetically, emotionally, and physically. That's where the 'clear, release, and let go' rituals are vital as we begin new cycles of experience and expression.

Inanna's Journey, and  my own, also featured the ascent from the Underworld, stumbling back above the surface with parts of your psyche wiped clear, and finding your way in the "three-dimensional world" with a completely different worldview ... that hasn't fully taken shape or become conscious.

So my walk through the mid-to-late part of the recent decade included just that: an ascent from the depths, and literal re-membering, and then learning to walk in the world with an emerging new perspective. In the more recent years, and this past year in particular, I've slowly been able to see more of the journey with the blessing of hindsight, even as I continue to emerge.

That hindsight perspective also highlights the grace, the blessings, and the many ways that Underworld journey reshaped me, carving new valleys and opening new facets of my being that had been long protected or locked away.

The rituals I did before and following the 'blue moon eclipse' new year featured both -- a recounting of all of it, a releasing and letting go; noticing what I appreciated, what I gained, and how I grew; and also noticing what habits of thought, energy, and behavior were no longer serving me.

New Year Rituals - Emerge & Take Flight

Letting go:

In many spiritual, energy, and shamanic traditions, you have to 'empty' before your cup can be filled anew. To try to move forward without releasing what's no longer needed, is like trying to walk forward with cement blocks tied to your feet. You can do it, but you never quite get the momentum you're really needing. I learned this the hard way!

So one ritual, or one part of your ritual, might begin with releasing and letting go, to prepare the 'container of You' to receive something new and even more wonderful, and that which is more appropriate for you at this stage of your journey. This can be specific, or more general, or include both.

All three of the rituals that I did between New Year's Eve and yesterday included some facet of letting go to make space. One ritual addressed it specifically: I wrote down the radically abridged version of 'my story of the last decade' and then burned it. As the last bits burned to ash, I literally felt a heavier energy lifting out of me. No joke; it was palpable. Try it (remembering to burn it carefully!). You could also dissolve it in water or bury it in the earth for a slightly slower metamorphosis.

Coming present:

This is straight-forward, if very counter to where most of us spend our time (in the past, in the future). Coming present is coming into your body, into the present moment and life as it exists, and releasing all judgment or resistance to what is. This puts you present, with a sense of allowance. Eckhardt Tolle's work is a good guide on this if you need some inspiration.

Why is this important? Again, I learned the hard way, so can just share what I've experienced. You've no doubt heard the saying, "What you resist, persists"? Very true. See above for 'cement blocks' reference; resistance wastes energy, wears you out, and as the Borg on Star Trek NG say, is pretty much futile.

In ritual, you can do your release, and then come present by proclaiming, "I embrace my current reality as it is, releasing all judgment and resistance, and coming fully into the present."

Looking forward:

Once you've cleared space and come present, you're ready to open to new vision and manifestation intentions that aren't bogged down by old stuff. We know the importance of intentions and vision -- we can manifest only what we can conceive of and envision. Our thoughts, words and actions flow from this wellspring.

The delicate part of visioning and manifesting is having a balance of the specific and having a sense of releasing expectations and outcomes. And every teacher I've ever had -- for good reason (again learned through trial and error!) -- reminds us to always include "this or something better, for the benefit of all, and under Grace."

Making it Yours:

If it calls to you, shape a ritual or series of rituals that really allow you to release the old, come present, and open into a beautiful new cycle of experience and manifestation.

And if you'd like some help with that -- individually or for your work or business -- I'd be delighted to help you craft something or even lead you through a visualization or two.

Blessings for a wonderful, blessed, joyful 2010. May this be the start of the Decade of Heaven on Earth, and may it begin with each of us.

Jamie

The Song of Goddess

Yesterday, as part of my 'morning reading', I pulled Ernest Holmes' 365 Science of Mind book from my shelf, and randomly opened the book to this passage:

"I turn my thought to Joy, which I know is vibrating through all Life. Through my own being, in my innermost mind and heart, I reach deep into Infinite Being, and hear the Song of Gladness that sings through all manifestations of Life. I know that It also sings in me as I give It expression." (p/ 132, May1)

The thing is, I initially read it as saying "...and hear the Song of Goddess that sings through all manifestations of Life."

When I realized that I'd morphed Goddess with Gladness, I felt a buzz of some deep recognition that really did feel like gladness and joy. To the Ancients, Goddess was the Lifeforce, Love, or Beauty that rippled through, enlivened, and connected all things.

I decided to make that my mantra yesterday: "I allow the Song of Goddess to sing through me into perfect and joyful expression."

Isn't that a beautiful intention? To allow the Song of Goddess, or Gladness, or the Divine, to sing through you into expression, through your being into all that you do?

As I sat with that beautiful intention (and the energy that came with it), I recognized that it's one of the things I'm most devoted to, and that brings me the most joy - reconnecting with and expressing that Goddess-Divine Song, and guiding others so that they might express, and bless the world with, their Song as well.

Blessings,

Jamie

* Thanks to Reinante El Pintor de Fuego for this beautiful image, Extasis, from Creative Commons.

The Beautiful Power of Blessing

Common wisdom, both contemporary and ancient, is that our vibration has a magnetic resonance that unfolds a sort of 'magnetic attraction' of whatever is aligned with our particular vibration. Most of us need to look no further than our experience to see that this is true.

Spiritual practices have, at their core, encouraged us to release 'low vibration' habits and cultivate higher-vibration by aligning with such high-vibe states as gratitude, appreciation, kindness, and love. In our world, with low-vibe stalking us at every turn, it's a daily practice to cultivate something different.

The practice of blessing is a beautiful way to shift your vibration and cultivate those higher-vibe states, sending a beautiful ripple all around you.

Many of us have heard of blessing our food, or saying a blessing before we eat a meal. This is just one of the powerful ways to practice blessing.

Another way to practice blessing is to bestow blessing, including, or particularly, on those people or circumstances or things that vex us. For example, we might say, "May he be well. May things unfold gracefully for him. May his heart be healed...". Or for a circumstance or event, "May it go well. May all involved speak from the wisdom of their hearts and find inspired common ground. May unexpected grace arise."

The visionary activist, radio host, and inspired myth-and-symbolist, Caroline Casey, shares another way to practice blessing.

When we're feeling 'snarky' -- not particularly positive towards someone or something -- we turn it into a 'reciprocal blessing'. One example of this is when we read the headlines or a news story, and change the headline into a more blessed, positive or desirable one, e.g. "Congressional leaders set party and personal interests aside in a historical collaboration on behalf of common good."

You can even bless yourself and the day ahead as you start your morning, using an essential oil and/or lighting a candle for a short blessing before getting started on the day's routine.

Play with it; you might find unexpected fun and humor as well as you raise your vibration. It's powerful magic in these times.

Blessings,

Jamie

* Thanks to Gilbert SantaRosa for the beautiful, creative-commons spiral fractal image.

Meditations on Wealth

I had the great fortune of speaking to several good friends in the last 24 hours; those friends whose presence in your life gives you a sense of true wealth.

The original meaning of the word 'wealth' -- welthe, in the Middle English -- was abundance and prosperity of that which allowed an individual or community to experience wellbeing. It's related to the 'weal', meaning prosperity, happiness, the general good of the individual and community.

As so many struggle with and stress about money and all related to it these days, it can be easy to become overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, lack, scarcity, and fear ... the true root of 'all evils'.

And so it can be nourishing and enriching -- really valuable -- to allow time for reflection, meditation, and ritual around 'welthe', that abundance and prosperity that allows us to experience wellbeing.

We know the old edicts that form follows thought-plus-emotion -- energy in 'the Unseen' that becomes condensed or manifested in the 'Seen'. So any practices that help us to stay connected to our innate sense of joy, wellbeing, inspiration, and good fortune becomes in itself an example of our wealth.

I know, so well, what a practice this is. We've been so conditioned to 'fight or flight', to fear, to negative expectancy or 'bracing for the worst' that we can go there without much thought or effort at all. Sadly, it's become an easy default. Even many 'Law of Attraction' practices instill fear in people -- the fear that if they have a negative thought or a bad day, it'll bring on suffering and misfortune. Been there, done that!

So I know from experience that making the time for, and making a commitment to your own 'welthe' and wellbeing by, engaging in practices that awaken the higher-vibrations of love, joy, and wellbeing are so worthwhile.

Priestess Practices for Connecting to Your 'Welthe'

• Make a list of the things, people, etc. that contribute right now -- where you are, as things are -- to a sense of wellbeing for you. For me, this might include my circle of amazing friends, my partner's love and support, the wonderful pot of soup I made and the kitchen and stove to make it with; my joyful, feisty cat, Luna; the warm cup of tea I have nearby, the fact that I'm warm and dry even while it's chilly and rainy outside, and the phone call I just got telling me that I'd won a drawing at a local bead store (and need to pick up the lovely bracelet I won)...the list could easily go on.

• Think of one thing or person in particular that has made or makes you feel a real sense of joy and wellbeing in the moment. Notice how you feel, and let that feeling-energy expand, grow, and fill you up until you're smiling inside and out. Breathe it in; let it expand and fill you.

• Use bright, vibrant essential oils like orange, lemon, lavender and rose, that combine for an uplifting, calming mood. Our sense of smell is very powerful in stirring up recollections deep within us, and also working vibrationally with our energy fields. Put a few drops of the oils in your palm and rub your hands together, inhale deeply a few times, and waft your hands around your energy field. And you can put a few drops of oils in a diffuser -- a little bowl with a tealight candle beneath it, or with boiled water, so that the fragrance wafts into the air around you.

• Work with images like Lakshmi, the beautiful and bountiful Hindu Goddess of Abundance, and ask your Higher Wisdom to connect you with that quality and essence within you. You can also say that prayer before you go to bed, asking to be connected with your innate wellbeing and 'welthe', that it might be drawn into your awareness and experience as you go through the following day.

• Cook a meal and before you eat it, bless it and give thanks; take a few minutes to think of all that had to happen, and all who were involved, that got the food to your table. Truly enjoy each bite with this miracle in mind, being aware that the energy of blessing, nourishment, and miracle becomes part of you with each mouthful.

• Use practices like journaling, journeying (shamanic), visualization, etc. to call up the Magical Child within you. This is the deep, archetypal part of you that still believes in magic, faeries, angels, and who sees with unedited imagination and vision 'all things possible'. Call the Magical Child forth within you and let the energy of her/him infuse you. Notice what comes up and jot it down.

There are quite a few other energy and spiritual practices that are available to you, as well, to support a shift into gratitude, 'welthe', and joy so that this is what's feeding your perspective, coloring the lens through which you look and experience ... and co-create.

Love and Magical Blessings,

Jamie

Vessels of the Divine

One key teaching of many spiritual traditions is that we are, each of us, creations, expressions, and vessels of the Divine, by whatever name we call it: God, Goddess, Spirit, Life, Creator, or Infinite Intelligence. Most of what we see, hear, and experience during the daily course of life might tell us something quite different.

Many of us have been on the path of reclaiming that sacred connection to All that Is, and many more are awakening to that call in these times of great change. In fact, it seems that all of the energies and forces of the Universe are conspiring for just that, asking us to remember, deeply, who we truly are, so we can bring that juicy, joyful, beautiful fullness into the world.

This is the true path of recovering and finding what has heart and meaning for us, what aligns with what I call our heart's joy and soul's song. It's from this path of discovery, this great adventure, that we find a sense of deep purpose that transcends at yet infuses every specific role we play - parent, partner, sister, brother, employee, entrepreneur, and so on.

We 'show up' radiating our particular brand of Divine juju, and it's compelling and contagious, like a delicious energetic elixir.

The path of the priestess, or priest, often includes a forgetting of this sacred path and our Divine nature and essence, followed at some point by a deep initiation -- often brought about by one or a series of life-and-perspective altering events or experiences -- and then,finally, a gnosis, or deep experiential knowing, and recovery of connection with the sacred along with a repertoire of practices that we use in our own daily life and share with others who are in the midst of initiation or ascent from the depths of self-remembering.

Like the Mystery initiates, teachers, priestesses and priests, shaman-Queens and shaman-Kings of ancient times -- before our collective forgetting -- those of us who are called (or hauled) into the  initiation journey ultimately feel compelled to share what we've learned, lighting lanterns along the path of remembering, and sharing the practices and tools that have been so helpful. It's the ultimate Divine gift that keeps on giving.

In a culture that has long separated itself from its ancient history of these Mysteries, of initiation and the ways and paths of remembering and awakening to our nature as Vessels of the Divine, Life itself -- God/dess, Spirit -- is our great Mystery Teacher, our initiator. And if we're fortunate, we'll increasingly find initiated guides along our way.

In knowing that our deepest purpose is to be a Vessel for the Divine, a conduit for Divine inspiration, compassion, creativity, and the Big Love, we can find those practices, rituals, and resources that keep us centered in that knowing, and help us to embody those deepest of values and bring them into all that we do - our relationships, our work, our interactions, our very way of Being.

What does this Divine-Essence embodiment and expression look like? Sacred relationship, deeply respectful interactions, a sense of deepened heart and meaning, joy, inspiration, inspired work, a deeper sense of confidence and purpose...the list goes on.

Blessings on the Way,

Jamie

* To schedule a consultation, tele-session, workshop, talk, or tele-class on these and related topics, email Jamie, your Priestess in Bluejeans (and long-time conscious enterpriser), or visit Ivy Sea Online.

** The beautiful image above came from Crystal Links Mary Magdalene page, with no artist attribution. A web searched revealed various uses of the same image, but didn't turn up the artist of this beautiful piece. If that's you, email me, so I can attribute proper credit.