Reflections and Affirmations

Reflections and Affirmations

by | Energetics, Psycho-Spiritual

As the warmth of summer begins to wane, and the daylight hours get shorter,we are reminded that the Equinox is not far away. A day of equal day and equal night. Being curious, I looked at how several traditions viewed this time of year. Let me share some of these with you.

In the Greek tradition, this Equinox is the sign of Autumn. It is when the Goddess Persephone leaves our world and her mother Demeter, to return to the Underworld and her husband, Hades. Persephone is both the Maiden and the Queen, depending who she is with: her mother or husband. Her lessons relate to personal power, birth, death and rebirth. This is a good time to enact rituals for protection and security. It is also a good time to reflect upon successes and failures from the previous months.

The Buddhist celebration of Higan (or Higan-e) celebrates the spiritual move from the world of suffering to the world of enlightenment. The word “Higan” means “other shore” and refers to spirits of the dead reaching Nirvana after crossing the River of Existence. It is a time of year to remember and honor the dead.

Pagans celebrate Mabon, one of eight Sabbats. It celebrates the second harvest and beginning of winter preparations. It is considered a time to respect the impending dark while giving thanks to the sunlight.

Over time, Christians replaced the Pagan Equinox with more Christianized observances. Michaelmas, which is the Festival of Michael and All Angels, falls on September 29th. This was thought close enough to the Equinox to be the chosen celebration. Another name for this celebration is “Festival of Strong Wills”. It makes you wonder who or what they really meant by this name!

Although not held on the Equinox, but rather on the Full Moon, the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival celebrates the abundance of summer’s harvest. The main food is called Moon Cake, which is filled with lotus, sesame seeds, duck egg or dried fruit. This food originated from the tradition of making offerings to the Sun in the Spring and the Moon in the Autumn.

These are but a few of the ways the end of summer has been celebrated. Create your own tradition to honor the changing of the seasons.

A Meaningful Life

A Meaningful Life

by | Life Reflections, Psycho-Spiritual

People want to have a life of meaning – of purpose – yet how does one accomplish this?  Not from an egoic place, but from a humanistic vantage point. A recent article in the magazine, Mindfulness: Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, offered some suggestions on how to accomplish this. Here are a few of the ideas to try.

#1 – Set an Intention
According to Parneet Pal of Wisdom Labs, “Intention can help you align your conscious thinking  with your primal emotional drive … like reward, connection, purpose, self-identity and core values”.  Before starting out on your day, take a moment to think of what you are going to do, who you will be dealing with and how you might interact for the highest good. During the day, it is good to revisit the intentions to see how you are doing and how they are influencing your way of being in the world.  With daily practice, you will begin to notice subtle, yet significant, changes towards being meaningful and purposeful.

#2 Pick a Pillar
Psychologist and author of The Power of Meaning, Emily Esfahani Smith describes “four pillars” which support a quest for greater meaning in anyone’s life. Even if you strengthen only one of these pillars, you will notice positive changes. The four pillars of a meaningful life are:

Belonging – relationships in which we feel valued for who we are and in which we value others. We can choose to strengthen relationships in this way.

Purpose –  the key to purpose is using our strengths to serve others;  this offers us something worthwhile to do.  When we have a sense of worth, it strengthens our sense of purpose and our life’s meaning .

Transcendence – those moments when we rise above the daily routines and activities of life and feel connected to a higher reality.  These moments have the power to change us and how we operate in this world.

Storytelling – everyone has a life story which helps them understand who they are.  If the story is not helping you realize the purpose and meaningfulness in your life, why not change how you are telling the story?  Perhaps a change towards retelling with more  emphasis on your positive actions, thoughts and relations will help steer you towards having more of the same.  Change the language of the story and you may change the course and focus of your future.

#3 What’s Life Asking of You
Advice from Chip Conley, the author of Emotional Equation: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness and Success and founder and former CEO of Joie de Vivre hotels: “Instead of worrying about the meaning of life, craft a life that has meaning to you right where you are.”  He goes on to say, “Lots of people are so distracted by searching for the light at the end of the tunnel that they cannot see clearly what is right next to them. Creating an abstract idea of meaning can just become another distraction.  What is life asking of you RIGHT NOW?  Can you light a figurative candle in your hand to illuminate this moment so that you and those around you can make a difference today?”   His challenge is for us to be present in our life and use this to “build it” into something meaningful.  The meaning of life is, in his view, “a DIY job”.

These are just a few of the ways in which we can create a more meaningful life.  You don’t need to tackle every suggestion at once.  Just start with one thing and see how it helps you find meaning and purpose every day.  Over time, add more activities and see how the miracle of You unfolds.  Enjoy the adventure!

That 11:11 Thing

That 11:11 Thing

by | Energetics, Psycho-Spiritual

The subject of numerology can be quite intriguing.  There are those who maintain that numbers do have meaning and influence in our lives. There are others who are not convinced of any relationship with numbers. The generally “superstitious” numbers, such as thirteen and triple six are given an ominous meaning, while numbers such as three, seven and eight are considered quite lucky.  It is all in the interpretation and the context – or is it?

Much of our spiritual and scientific understanding of numbers comes from Pythagoras (582-495 BC.), the Father of Mathematics.  Although quoted mostly for his scientific work on numbers and their relationships,  he was primarily a mystic and philosopher. His fascination and understanding of numbers led him to discover that the numbers 1 through 9  on a macro level stand for universal principles.  On a micro level, they stand for characteristics, abilities and events.  Pythagoras saw in number patterns and geometrical ratios the explanations of all natural phenomena, musical harmony and tonal qualities.  He knew that the stars and planets as vibrating bodies produced sound which became known as the “music of the spheres”.  

As an aside, Dr. Jeffrey Thompson of the Center for Neuroacoustic Research in California, was given permission by NASA to have special recording equipment placed on-board some of its space missions to record these sounds.  They do indeed exist!  Just like Pythagoras stated.  ( BTW: You can get downloads of the different planetary and lunar sounds from Dr. Thompson’s website).  The idea of planetary music also was the inspiration behind Mike Oldfield’s 2007 release, “Music of the Spheres”.  But what would you expect from the musician who, in 1973, gave us “Tubular Bells“?

Pythagoras established a school of the mysteries in southern Italy. One of his most famous students was Plato. Prerequisites for his students included sound foundational knowledge of the four sciences:  arithmetic, music, astronomy and geometry.  From this foundation, he taught that numbers represented qualities, while figures represented quantities.  Numbers operated on the spiritual plane while figures were for measuring things on the material plane. He believed that everything in the universe was subject to predictable progressive cycles;  his means of measuring these cycles were the numbers one through nine.

The term esoteric numerology is attributed to his teachings. Esoteric numerology is the art and science of understanding the spiritual significance and orderly progression of all manifestation.  Every word or name vibrates to a number and every number has an inner meaning.  The letter and the number code, when rightly understood and applied,bring us in direct and close relationship with the underlying intelligence of the universe.

There are many books available on the subject of numerology.  Most will show you how to do basic calculations for determining your Birth Number, Life Path Number, Career Number and Soul Number.  Different schools of thought offer similar but slightly different interpretations as to what these numbers mean.  One phenomenon that is not always discussed is the significance of double numbers, also known as Master Numbers.  These are 11, 22, 33, and so on.  For example,  in some schools, they are listed as 11/2  which is the Master Number 11 reduced to its one digit number 2. In other schools, the Master Number is always left intact. There are differences between the Master number and its reduction – it is up to the individual to decide which form resonates with them.

The psychic medium, Colette Baron-Reid explains attributes to the Master Numbers this way:

Number 11 – is sometimes known as the Master Psychic.  It generally denotes someone who is here for a greater spiritual purpose or who will be concerned with spiritual or theological pursuits. It also relates to someone involved in music.

Number 22 – is known as the Master Builder. These people are highly sensitive to their physical and emotional surroundings. They are masters of detail and capable of bringing the inspiration of the 11 vibration into the material world.

Number 33 – is known as the Master Giver.  Selfless humanitarians, these are the people on the forefront of caring for others.  They are motivated by compassion and fairness. They have a capacity for deep spiritual wisdom.

Number 44 – is known as the Master Healer.  This number is about the commitment to heal and help solve problems for others.  It is about leadership, strength of conviction and inner strength.

Colette states that these four Master Numbers are the most common for birth dates and names.

From Pythagoras to Mike Oldfield’s music, accounting to construction,  planetary movement to garden’s new growth,  there springs forth a sense of wonderment.  And because of Pythagoras and his followers, there is a number, mathematical ratio or geometrical design just waiting to explain it!

The Positive Gifts of Failure

The Positive Gifts of Failure

by | Life Reflections

The headline in the Sunday Province paper read:  Failure isn’t such a bad thing, study reveals  (Linda Blair, January 28, 2018 p.B6).  Really?  Isn’t failure damaging to your self-esteem and sense of self-worth?  Isn’t it something that can damage you for life?  It seems that researchers have discovered that this isn’t necessarily so. Our failures can help us succeed – if we approach them with a certain attitude.

Research out of Turkey, Belgium and Germany has offered some interesting things to ponder.  It seems that in work and educational settings, people seem to be more cautious, more risk-adverse and more careful not to fail  The emphasis is more often on achieving results rather than on learning and becoming wiser. Students afraid to fail were more cautious, more likely to set goals that allowed them to feel better about themselves (easy to achieve), rather than pursue new interests or enhance personal development.

Sim Sitkin at Duke University looked at a number of businesses, some with repeated success and others with failures.  He concluded that in business, continual success is associated with growing complacency, decreased attentiveness and less interest in inventing new strategies.  Failure, on the other hand, is associated with increased attention, a search for better and more innovative strategies and as a result, a wider palette of solutions for solving relevant problems.

A friend reminded me today of a story attributed to Thomas Edison.
The short version of this story: Someone asked Edison why it took him 10,000 failures before he perfected the light bulb.  Edison replied that it took him 9,999 times to improve on his design til perfected!

As long as we can learn from our failure, we have the capacity to create a better, more successful path for ourselves.  Failure helps us to learn about resiliency – that quality which helps us rise above our current situation to attain new heights and insights. From this learning, we can create a new way of doing and being that improves upon the present.

By failing, we have a chance to improve and strengthen our resolve for what really matters.  We don’t give up on ourselves, but we might give up on the path we have taken. It wasn’t necessarily you as a person who failed, but it was your approach that didn’t work. Figure out what was wrong with the approach and you are on your way towards solving it. Failure helps us be clear, creative and active – not passive – with our situation and choices.  Failure gives us a reason to design, re-design and try another approach. And Learn!

As long as we continue to learn from our mistakes, we improve our chances for future competency and success. When failure presents itself, we come to learn more about ourselves, our abilities, our knowledge and our limitations. We can evolve and expand. This is something we can build upon.  It puts control for our future in our hands – not those of someone else.

Yes, change demands a degree of risk.  But by not risking a change in our beliefs, attitudes or actions, we increase our chances of failing again.  Why would we want to do that to ourselves?

Past, Present and Future

Past, Present and Future

by | Life Reflections, Psycho-Spiritual

January is named after the Roman god Janus. The story is told that Janus has two faces and looks into the past and the future at the same time. Quite fitting for the month that begins our New Year!  While the Winter Solstice in December asks us to “go within” to review our lives and seek our answers, it is fitting that Janus in January helps us look both backwards at our history and ahead to our future as we set our course in the New Year.  Use the information we learned from our introspection and go forth with renewed hope, energy and knowledge to create our future.

The acts of introspection, self-exploration and self-evaluation are necessary if we are to understand our purpose and direction in life.  Without these actions, we are not fully aware of ourselves.  Some people take a whole lifetime to figure out their inner workings. Why so long?  Perhaps they are afraid of what they might discover – it’s the “what we don’t know can’t hurt us”, philosophy.  Perhaps they think it will be too hard to change anything, so “let’s just leave things alone”.  And others are not interested in setting plans or goals, as they are just “here for the ride”.  No one can ever “make” you look inwards at your thoughts, feelings, reactions, priorities, attitudes or personality traits.  But for those who do take an interest in learning more about themselves and how they “tick”,  the actions of introspection, self-exploration and self-evaluation are amazing gifts to yourself.

One does not need to wait for the perfect moment to be introspective, self-aware or self-evaluative.  Chances are if you are waiting for the perfect moment, it will likely never arrive!  But there are moments throughout the day in which we can be mindful, noticing our thoughts, feelings, or reactions in a non-judgemental way.  As we notice, we learn something about ourselves and how we live in this world.  If we like it, we can continue on.  If we don’t like it, we can make meaningful changes so it is closer to what we do like.

Of course, if you have the time and space to observe yourself daily, you could become truly fascinated with what you discover!  A daily meditative practice, whether it be a staying still or movement style meditation, can open up a calm mindspace for self-exploration and evaluation to occur. Most people associate meditation with sitting still, toning, breath work or silence. These are all wonderful, but there can be other ways to meditate. This quiet mindspace is sometimes found while listening to music we enjoy, walking in a forest, a garden or on the beach.  Soaking in a hot tub, washing the dishes, playing the piano, doing yoga or tai-chi or driving on a country road can also help with getting in touch with one’s inner workings.

How can we truly set a meaningful course for the future we wish, if we don’t know anything about ourselves?  Just guessing at who we are and what we want can waste time and set us up for sadness, anxiety and failure.  How many people get “stuck” in  relationships, jobs or living situations that give them no joy, no positive sense of self and no hope for positive change?  Had they figured out who they really were, what they truly were about and what mattered most to them, they may not have made such sad choices for themselves.

The Roman god Janus has the ability to look back and forward and asks us to do the same.  By not denying our history or the part it has played in shaping ourselves, we can truly appreciate the work we’ve done to arrive at the present.  And this work is what helps us set a positive course for our future.  It is important to our future selves that we create the best present time we can.  As the saying goes, ” We are presently creating memories for our future selves’”.  So do you want to look back on negative or positive memories of this time?  It is always your choice.

January is the beginning of the New Year.  Are you on course to fulfill your purpose, direction and passions?  It’s never too late to make changes – but check in with your Self first!  You will be amazed with what you can do.