The Phoenix is Rising

The Phoenix is Rising

by | Life Reflections, Psycho-Spiritual

It seems everywhere I look these days, I’m reminded in some way of the story of the Phoenix. In native cultures, the Phoenix is also known as the Thunderbird.  Looking back over the historical significance of this image, it is interesting to see how this image is coming to life in the life journeys of many folks right now.  Perhaps it is similar for you, too.

We can thank Harry Potter for bringing the Phoenix back to our attention.  Anyone who has seen the movies or read the books understands what happens when the Phoenix rises, falls, then rises again.  Each time the Phoenix falls, it rebuilds and reorganizes itself  from its ashes, bringing with it new insights, skills and personal power. This powerful symbol of birth, death and rebirth can be found in some form or another in many cultures around the world.  The cycle can refer to physical, emotional, spiritual changes, challenges and aspects of our life – or all of them at once!

According to Sun Bear and Wabun in their book, The Medicine Wheel: Earth Astrology,  they describe Thunderbird as follows:

” In Native American tradition, those associated with the Thunderbird Clan are always actively glowing with the radiant energy of the sun. They have the capacity to purify themselves and those they touch by reducing matter or spirit to its basic components and then rebuilding with what proves to be real.  Their energy is constantly burning within them and usually shining through to those around them.  They have the power to bring change, but this change comes from contact with the power that is at their core.  They must for a time bring things within their light in order to change them. 

Thunderbird people are doers, looking for new things in which to be active.  They always seem to be involved in beginning new projects .. in making new trails for others to follow.  They keep turning to their inner fire to find the proper path for them to take.  They have strong intuitive energy and know enough to use it for guidance.”

The process of self-reflection, inner child work and gaining insights into our thoughts, feelings and behaviours is a bit like the flight of the Phoenix.  When we dismantle all the old patterns that really don’t serve our health and happiness and replace these with real truths about ourselves and our world,  we can build upon a stronger personal foundation.  From this place, we can assert our personal power more effectively. With this comes a new understanding of the need for self-acceptance,  kindness and love.   By transforming our thoughts, feelings and beliefs we begin the transformation of our relationship with ourselves.  And as this evolves, so does our outer world.

Over time, we come to understand that in our life there are certain times and challenges that can only be resolved by completely surrendering to the transformative process.   This requires courage, strength and faith that, as the Phoenix and Thunderbird show us, this process is for our higher good.  If we can learn the lessons, if we can be receptive to the new ways of thinking, feeling and being, if we can love who we are unconditionally, we will be well on our way to developing Wisdom.

Wisdom is something you can’t learn from a book.  It is something we get from living life, asking and answering the tough questions, and ultimately using these experiences to evolve.  And it is never over!  As the saying goes,  “Life is a journey, not a destination!”  Enjoy the flight.

Healing Through ACOA

Healing Through ACOA

by | Life Reflections

The mind has time to wander and wonder while walking along a beautiful beach.  Connections and realizations seem to occur more easily when Nature is your companion. Here is how my mind “wandered and wondered” while on a recent vacation.

What do Antigua, Eliot Ness and Rutgers University have in common?  What about Eric Clapton, Al Capone and Dr. Janet Woititz?  The connections will become evident shortly!

While on vacation in Antigua, my husband read a biography on Eliot Ness (yes, he really did exist and he really went after gangsters and the organized crime syndicate).  The book revealed it was estimated that in the late 1890’s and early 1900’s, the average consumption of alcohol was 90 gallons per year, per person. If a gallon is approximately 4 litres, then each person consumed approximately 360 litres per year.  That’s almost 1 litre of alcohol a day!  The devastation this level of consumption played on the family and community was highlighted, in part, by the efforts of the Temperance Society.  Their action was one of the factors that led to the Prohibition Era.

During Prohibition, Al Capone made a lot of money bootlegging and smuggling alcohol throughout the States. So although no one was supposed to drink alcohol, a lot of people could still get their booze through illegal sources.  The consumption rate went down slightly, but never actually stopped.  So all the issues associated with alcohol use, abuse and addiction continued on.  And although Eliot Ness got Al Capone in the end, the bootlegging and smuggling never stopped.

Fast forward to this month. While walking on an Antiguan beach, I recalled that many years ago, Eric Clapton gifted the island of Antigua with an addictions recovery facility called Crossroads.  It is a place where anyone can go to get clean and sober and set a healthier course for their life.  Anyone from outside the island must pay for their treatment program, but Mr. Clapton has ensured that any Antiguan wanting to detox and recover can do so, free of charge. It occurred to me that the cycle of alcohol abuse and addiction in North America has lasted more than 130 years.  We would be hard-pressed to find anyone who has not been affected in some way by someone addicted to alcohol.  How has this affected families from generation to generation?

In her 1976 Doctoral Dissertation at Rutgers University, Janet Woititz explored “Self-Esteem in Children of Alcoholics”.  This then led to further investigations into how the self-perceptions of these children change as they move into adulthood.  Without interventions to help these adults change their self-perceptions to something more positive and empowering, they continue to exhibit low self-esteem, feel discouraged or depressed, believe themselves to be unlovable and unloved and have a sense of isolation from others.  They also have difficulty expressing their feelings and can be so preoccupied with anxiety that they truly can’t connect honestly or comfortably with others.

In her 1983 book, Adult Children of Alcoholics, Dr. Woititz describes the adult child of an alcoholic as being affected and has reacted in ways that those who are not adult children of alcoholics may not have. She found there are certain generalizations that can describe these adult children.  Here are some of her original findings:

  • Adult children of alcoholics (ACOA) guess at what normal behaviour is
  • ACOA have difficulty following a project through from beginning to end
  • ACOA judge themselves without mercy
  • ACOA have difficulty having fun
  • ACOA take themselves very seriously
  • ACOA over-react to changes over which they have no control
  • ACOA constantly seek approval and affirmation
  • ACOA are super responsible or super irresponsible
  • ACOA are extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved

From her work, a network of support groups has sprung up around the world.  The current support programs help people achieve “emotional sobriety” – a way of functioning that helps them get their needs met in healthy, helpful ways.  It also helps them reprogram those low self-esteem issues and negative self-perceptions that they have held from childhood onward.  It is as if they are detoxing generations of emotional pain and suffering so that they can lead happier healthier lives now.  And so can their children.

The current ACOA programs are actually open to ANYONE who grew up in a dysfunctional home.  It was found that many of the issues, emotional traumas and relationship difficulties of ACOA were also true for those who grew up in households where there was gambling, drug abuse, over-eating, chronic illness, profound religious attitudes, were adopted, lived in foster care or in other potentially dysfunctional systems.  There is help and hope for these folks and their families, too, through the ACOA support groups and programs.

And all this came to mind because of a book, a beach, a guitar hero, a gangster and a university doctoral student who asked the right questions at the right time.

Ancient April Celebrations and Holidays

Ancient April Celebrations and Holidays

by | Energetics, Psycho-Spiritual

The rites of Spring are rooted in the old ways of the world.  Through mythology and god/goddess stories, Spring was celebrated as a time of renewal, rebirth and passion.  The earth was now waking up from its winter slumber. Excitement and anticipation were tangible!

Here is a sampling of some of the ancient holidays celebrated in April, as taken from Zsuzsanna Budapest’s book, The Grandmother of Time.

April 1st  Veneralia (Roman)
This is the holiday of Venus  (Aphrodite to the Greeks), the Goddess of love and death, of orchards and sexuality, of the waters of the world. This holiday appears to be a practice for women, hoping for her help with good fortune, happy love, birth and joy in their lives. This goddess reminds us of love’s rule over logic. It was a time to ask your lovers to do senseless tasks and errands to prove their love and devotion.  This is where the idea of our April Fool’s Day pranks originated.

April 3rd and 4th   Megalisa  (Phrygian and Roman)
Megalisa is a celebration of Cybele as the Great Mother. Worship of Cybele was passionate and sexual.  Men who wanted to be her priests castrated themselves in her honour, to be more like the goddess. For women, this is another mother’s day, devoted to the Great Mother, Magra Mater, the creator of all things, gods and people.  This is the sexual mother whose urge called forth life.  She is celebrated with dance, games, rituals and feasts.

April 5th   Festival of Kwan Yin  (Chinese and Japanese)
The Goddess of Tolerance and Mercy, Kwan Yin, (known in Japan as Kwannon) is celebrated as the Great Mother of China with offerings of incense and visits to her shrines. Also known as, “The Lady Who Brings Children”, Kwan Yin embodies all that is female in the universe. She is the magnificent spirit that brings us the future, by means of happy, healthy children.

April 13th  Ceralia  (Roman)
The Goddess of the Crops was called Ceres. Her name is still in our breakfast cereal; she gave us the first foods, developed the acorn, and taught us the art of agriculture.  Ceralia was celebrated by the simple folk.  Farmers walked or danced around their fields with torches in honour of Ceres. An old custom of pagan men who blessed the fields of wheat by leaping around them was the inspiration for male ballet dancers who now do the “stag leap” across the stage.

April 22nd  Festival of Ishtar  (Babylonian)
Ishtar is the Babylonian great goddess, “The Star”, a derivation of Inanna – the Sumerian Goddess of Heaven.  She was a sexual deity whose very fecundity was the life of her people.  She appears in the Bible as Ashtoreth and Asherah.  She was the major divinity before any patriarchal gods appeared.  Ishtar was the soul of her people, the very essence of their power to live and love. It is interesting to note that we now celebrate Earth Day on this date.

April 27th  Floralia  (Central and Eastern European)
Floralia is the Goddess of Flowers and Flora.  The ancients prayed to her for fruits that come from blooms. It used to be a 6 day celebration when men bedecked themselves with flowers and women dressed extra gaily. Men’s clothes were embroidered with flowers, bouquets and other natural motifs while women’s clothing had roses, wheat and morning glories.  The woman’s headress was usually the parta, a crescent decorated with pearls and shiny beads, with long streaming red ribbons cascading down the back. Look to the current folk costumes of Eastern European folks for an idea of the fashions from ancient times.

April 30th  Beltane  (Celtic)
This festival of witches has a lot of tradition.  Known as Beltane or Beltain (Celtic), May Eve  (Central European) or Walpurgisnacht (Germany), this is a celebration of the power and sacredness of sexuality.  The followers of the Old Religion met on mountaintops and danced the spiral dance.  Men and women mated in the open fields – “enjoying” each other was expected!  Babies that resulted from these celebrations were called sons and daughters of Pan, or Cernunnos, since all men represented him.  The ancients believed that the Good Earth appreciated the sexual energy expended in her fields and that this stimulated the fertility of the crops and animals as well as the vitality of the community.

These holidays were but a few of the ways our ancestors explained and expressed their understanding and appreciation for the promises of Spring. This also helps to explain why our experience of “Spring Fever” can be so intense. Restless, excited and ready to take on the world.  It must be in our genes!

Meditation with Movement

Meditation with Movement

by | Uncategorized

More people are using meditation as a way of calming, centering and focusing their minds.  For most, getting to a place of peacefulness is easy.  The place of quiet mind is a retreat and a refueling station. For others, the mind is too busy, the body is too restless and it seems more frustrating than anything else when they try to “calm down”.  This often becomes their reason for not trying to do it at all.

But meditations need not be done only in the quiet of a retreat setting.  Getting the body-mind-spirit to flow is possible with some of the most ordinary activities.  Ordinary activities done with a different attitude and perspective, that is!   Here are some suggestions from The Meditation Bible, by Madonna Gauding.

Weeding Meditation
Visualization has a powerful effect upon your mind. If you want to make positive changes in your life, visualization can turbo-charge the process.  In this meditation, you use weeds to symbolize any negative habits that you want to drop.

  • Benefits include:
    elevates gardening to a spiritual activity
    helps reduce negative emotions
    promotes positive growth (for you and the garden!)

1.  Sit quietly under a tree.  Bring to mind any negative habits you may have (eg. bad temper, procrastination, controlling). Think of as many as you like. Visualize the weeds in the garden patch as your negative habits.

2.  Get up from under the tree and approach the area you are planning to weed.  See that whole area as your mind. See the flowers and plants as your positive traits and the weeds as those negative traits that you would like to eliminate.

3.  As you begin to weed, try to stay very focused and mindful. When you pull out a weed by its roots, think that you are pulling out your own negative habit by the roots.  Continue this way until all the weeds are gone.

4.  Finish by cultivating, feeding and watering the plants and flowers.  Think of them as your positive traits that you would like to nurture.

5.  Give thanks to the weeds, flowers and plants for the opportunity to clear away negativity and promote positivity.

Clean Sweep
Transform when you sweep the floor into a moving meditation for clearing negative thinking, emotions and states of mind. Sweeping is one of the more satisfying house-cleaning activities, as it is physical and you can see results immediately.

  • Benefits include:
    transforms ordinary house-cleaning into spiritual practice
    provides powerful visualization for clearing negativity
    strengthens spiritual resolve

Think of any past negativity you would like to purify or any mental debris you would like to clear. Then proceed as follows:

1.  Pick up your broom and stand in the area you plan to sweep (inside or outside your home).

2.  Examine the floor for dust and dirt;  may be quite noticeable or quite subtle. See that dirt and dust as negativity residing in your own mind and heart.   The negativity could be in your thoughts, emotions, attitudes or behaviours. Imagine that as you sweep, the negativity will be swept away with the dirt.

3. Start sweeping.  Focus only on the dirt/dust, the broom and the floor.  As you sweep, see and feel your negativity leaving your mind and heart.  You can sweep away your potential to commit negative acts in the future and your fears and doubts in the present. Get creative and sweep away whatever is bothering you!

4.  End your meditation by sweeping the dirt into a bin and throwing it away.  See your negativity going with it.

Some people find they can do this “clean sweep” when they vacuum, polish, scrub the floors and bathroom.  Others find ironing, washing dishes or their vehicles is meditative. The idea is to be mindful while one is engaged in the activity.

Some other daily activities that can be used to help promote a meditative state of mind include: running, swimming, hiking, beach walking, dancing, listening to music, knitting, colouring, painting, soaking in a bath or hot tub (alone!), long-distance driving – in fact, practically anything that you do on your own, so that you can be completely focused on your activity, mind, body and spirit.

Another movement meditation that has proven itself over thousands of years is that of Walking the Labyrinth.  As you walk meditatively along the Labyrinth, the paths cross, curve and cut back and forth. Eventually, you arrive in the centre.  By walking the Labyrinth, you help connect your left and right brain hemispheres, which can encourage creative thought and problem solving. You may gain more insight into your life or a problem you are trying to solve.  Such is the gift of the Labyrinth.   If you can’t find a Labyrinth to walk, you can meditate by placing your finger on a printed labyrinth and mindfully tracing the pattern to the centre.

As you gain experience with moving meditations, you may find the confidence and calmness to try a sitting meditation.  You just might surprise yourself!

Goal Setting and Creativity

by | Uncategorized

As the New Year begins, it is common for folks to start setting new intentions and goals for themselves. New beginnings, new you, new life!  Most people make New Year’s Resolutions, then flounder or fail to follow through on them.  Perhaps taking a look at what makes goal setting work, might prove to be helpful and afford a chance for success.

In its most basic definition, a goal is a behavioural accomplishment that contributes to managing a problem or situation or some part of it.  Many people, even after they have clarified a problem situation, still don’t know what they can do to manage it. There are three phases to note.  Firstly, one must set one’s intention on wanting to do something to handle the problem.  This is the first step in committing to the whole process.  Then, one must begin talking of what he or she would like to do to handle the problem. Make the list long, so reasonable choices can be found. Once the list has been whittled down and a possible solution found, a person can move into the last phase of goal-setting.  This is where one define and refine the goals necessary to manage the problem situation.

Goals, themselves, need to be refined and focused so that they have these characteristics:
clear and specific

  • measurable or verifiable
  • realistic in terms of the person’s resources, environmental conditions, ability to control and cost
  • adequate – they contribute in some substantial way to managing the problem
  • in keeping with the person’s values
  • are set in a reasonable time frame

It has been shown that to get the best solutions and outcomes, one needs to be creative in approaching problems and setting appropriate goals.  But when in trouble or faced with problematic situations, most people often lose or fail to use whatever creative resources they have.  The time they need their creativity most, is when they can’t access it!

What are some of the characteristics of a creative person?

According to psychology researchers, Robertshaw, Mecca and Rerick, a creative person has the following characteristics:

  • optimism and confidence
  • acceptance of ambiguity and uncertainty
  • a wide range of interests
  • flexibility 
  • tolerance of complexity 
  • verbal fluency
  • curiosity
  • drive and persistence
  • independence
  • nonconformity or reasonable risk-taking

Utilizing one’s creativity leads to innovative ideas for handling situations.  The more possibilities one can come up with, the less overwhelming and more empowering it can be.  With a long list of possible solutions, there are bound to be some that can really help improve the situation!  And that can lead to successful goal-setting.

But what hinders creativity?  What is it that blocks the creative flow so that we can’t find our own answers or set our own goals?  There are many possibilities, but these are the most common blocks:

  • fear and anxiety;  frozen in the moment
  • fixed habits such as self-defeating habits or behaviours
  • dependence on others, especially authorities, for the “right answers”;  not trusting your own wisdom
  • perfectionism;  if it isn’t 100% correct, then I won’t try

There are times when life and its problems are overwhelming, even for the most creative person. Having someone or some way to help get back on track is extremely important. It’s okay to ask for help when you need to find “your way home”.  Some helpful suggestions include:

  • Turn down the inner critic – don’t be critical of your ideas. Make a list of as many possible suggestions as you can without saying, “yes/but” to any of them; have fun exploring possible solutions.
  • Reduce anxiety and fear – how can you be free to dream up infinite possibilities and solutions when you are stuck in your emotions? Use healthy stress reduction techniques daily.
  • Replace the self-defeating with self-appreciating habits – if you don’t give yourself credit and allow good things into your life, then how are the good things in life supposed to find their way to help you?  Refuse to be a victim.
  • And tell the Perfectionist that it is okay not get something right on the first or third or tenth time!  Hold off on Judgements. Practice makes better, not perfect!  And that is enough! And so are you!  Celebrate this every day!

Here’s to setting your personal New Year’s intentions, goals and actions for more of what you really want in your life.  Keep your focus on the goal – and don’t give up!  You are truly worth the effort.