Tag: Heart

Crystalline Consciousness

I was so tempted to title this one “Christ Consciousness” but I realized that what I want to share goes beyond that in a way and many folks are turned off by what they immediately assume has a religious correlation because of misaligned beliefs or negative experiences with religious practices. So many have experienced shame around their desires and their body not to mention that many religions have purposefully blamed the feminine and deleted Her from holy language. How interesting, considering we live in a world where no person may exist without the portal of the womb held within the sacred vessel of women. What is not to revere in the mystery of creation and honor in the bodies of both female and male? We are all both masculine and feminine energy inhabited to various degrees that may require balancing and it makes sense that our belief system may feel better supported by spiritual practice that holds both masculine and feminine energy as well as male and female bodies with reverence, however they may express. Please flow with me as I speak about the masculine and feminine in their energetic forms as well as refer to the physical genders while not getting caught in the details of labeling beyond what feels true as your personal mix of energy and your own relationship to religious experience as it pertains to the feminine aspect being honored. Many women (or the feminine energy crying out within a man) feel a loss of the feminine aspect and disconnect from Church or Temple environments if they’ve not totally been conditioned by patriarchy or fear for their lack of acceptance within the herd. (Being rejected by the herd is nothing to belittle. We have a very strong instinct to be accepted and included as a survival response and I’ll tell you as a women who was partnered early in life and became a single mom at 35, the herd will reject you if you’re not playing the game in the way they see as most safe to sustaining their ideas of conformity even if the opt out was not your conscious choice.) But back to that loss of feminine aspect within the Church — there can be a stirring in the heart and defiance in the bones knowing there must be something more, something not spoken in the world of belief their parents handed them — something that isn’t quite right. Of course, that all depends on the parents and what they have to hand over, but in a general sense of a collective religious experience, I have heard this from many people. I’d say they’re right to feel this and if they were inspired to go digging for information, they’d find hidden manuscripts and evidence of altered texts that offer a new understanding and more inclusive truth.

In New Age spirituality, the term Christ consciousness has evolved with growing use that feels so much better in my heart space which is the meter by which I decide on all truth (literally laughing out loud as I type that because it feels so good to choose with your heart). I was prepared by various meditative practices found inside and outside of religion that led me to embody a more curious nature which opened me to a fresh understanding of “Christ”. This form of consciousness refers to a supreme state of unconditional love, of deep compassion for all of creation, and for unity with the divine. A person living from Christ consciousness has cleared the mind, the body, and soul to connect to the grid of reality with pure energy while Spirit can now work through that person with the virtues of righteousness. Crystalline consciousness is even broader than Christ consciousness and what some call a higher-vibrational frequency that transcends duality. It’s said that the grid of reality can become a Crystalline interface for all through the mass awakening of souls stepping into Christ consciousness by practicing a state of unconditional love, of deep compassion, and seeking unity with the divine from within. As these practices become more embodied, they take shape as habit, and then the truth of the person’s presence; they become Crystalline too.

What I find to be most beautiful here, is that all the while we stay human as we work towards embodying Christ consciousness and Crystalline consciousness. That means we can live in a spiral that is inherent to all of creation, moving between states of being and should we find ourselves in the shadowy corners of our humanness then we can work our way back to unconditional love, compassion, and unity while witnessing radical forgiveness as an active choice that shines through our beliefs as the ego is silenced for the most authentic expression of self to be realized. Fear and Doubt may creep in but cannot exist for long periods in the being that has experienced these states of consciousness . The need for Control, other than control of self, falls away. Love and Trust take deep root within. Radiance dances in the eyes. Peace pervades the presence with a healing quality that is palpable to others. Everything becomes lighter from this heavenly place possible to experience as you walk the Earth.

Expansion

Hello Dear Ones,

Today we move with Jupiter, the planet of expansion and luck, into Leo , the fire sign of heart led passion. And what is Leo not passionate about?! When Leo is inhabited in its highest expression, fear fades away and love takes center stage in expansive thinking leading to generous ways of being. There are so many ways to be generous with yourself – with your listening, with your smile, with your fully embodied presence. The places where you used to hold back, are now ready to be held with honest visibility and absolute divine grace shining through.

With this in mind, I ask you to pause today and consider how you may personally move with this lucky heart centered placement over the next year while Jupiter holds this energy.

What in your life is ready to expand?

Where could you use some extra love and luck in your life? What may change in this area by honing in and giving your undivided, trusting focus here?

How can you live more and more each day from your heart to expand beyond the obstacles you perceive today?

What can be held with curiosity over fear? Dearest, what does happen when you trade fear for curiosity?

What pattern is playing in your mind that needs to be thrown in the trash? I’m not good enough. I’m too old. That’s too expensive. Perhaps it’s something else.

You will see clearly what needs to go when you pause to ask your heart for guidance:

1. Heart, as Jupiter moves to Leo to inhabit the generously heart-led energy of the Lion, how can I expand to assume luck and love are mine to experience in every possible form?

2. What script, conscious or unconscious is ready to be released from my field?

Give yourself plenty of space and time with these points of reflection. The answers may come straight away or they may appear to you over time through your own vessel, through others, in songs, in the title of some article, or in nature. Stay open, Sweet Souls to the beautiful ways Spirit may communicate with you.

I’m right here with you asking myself these questions. Everyone has work to do, even when they’ve done so much already. There’s always room to grow.

Let’s grow together. ✨💕

With love and gratitude,

Valerie

Airlie Gardens, Wilmington, NC

We Rise

“Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try to be a little kinder than is necessary?” — J.M. Barrie

“We rise by lifting others” — Robert Ingersol

Have you ever been in a relationship, either platonic or romantic , that required you to be less kind than you would be in your natural expression?

Have you ever felt contained, capped off, or extinguished by proximity or perhaps agreement spoken or not?

What kind of information does this provide you?

Let yourself sit with reflection on those connections that drain versus the ones that create peace as well as the ones that amplify your energy.

How are your relationships feeling when you look at those three categories?

When relationships are loving and supportive —truly based in love without fear, control can soften, and your better aspects based in love can be supported for expression in the world. You may find you can be kind without consequence and loving without reason to those sharing in the relationship as well as those encountered at varying degrees of frequency because your dominant vibration magnetizes the positive aspects of others.

When allowed to rise with love and kindness, every interaction can meet you in that elevated state.

Consent

 “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” — 

Eleanor Roosevelt

This includes you! Check your relationship to self in this regard as well as the possible assumption that Eleanor Roosevelt meant only relationships outside of self. The more you hold loving space for yourself, the less tolerance you will have for scenarios that cannot reflect you accurately.

For example, a comment that doesn’t align with you will roll off as if it weren’t said and the impact will become only a reflection of the person who spoke. If the comment is an internal script, you will begin to notice it as untrue from the point of an observer.

The less sponge like you are for the projections of other people and mistruths you may be conditioned with , the more quickly your interactions will shift to mirror the truth of you.

Call your reality into true resonance by loving and respecting yourself deeply. ✔️✨

A photo from last year when I was first making the change to look at myself with loving kindness in the dressing room no matter how I may be feeling in my body and whether I liked the article of clothing or not. Before this change, I would find all sorts of judgmental faces in that space made at myself I’d never make at someone else. 💕 It was one of many ripples over the last decade that shifted my relationship to self. 💖
Small changes matter. 💫

Work in Progress

I’ve been in my drafts folder the last week or so. Here’s another post written in 2020. I mostly still agree with what I wrote then, especially the last paragraph and as for the rest I suppose the excessive wordiness led to the resolution, so I’ll accept it as necessary to my process. ☺️

Five Years Ago:

When lines become attached across various aspects of our life so that the heart and mind also become intertwined, we can feel conflict between the two.  When the heart and mind are separate from one another, we can instead develop an interest in what causes conflict and resolve response to our interests.  The ability to separate SELF from mind where emotions reside creates room to instead reside in the heart from where purity of right action stems.

Facing conflict can release disguise of avoidance under appropriateness.  What can be learned in staying with a situation that appears to present inappropriateness or conflict of interest if you are willing to abstain from your own interests – to deeply examine those, set them aside, and let something larger than you work in your stead?

The external is a reflection of the internal.  We bring about situations externally to assist us in resolving what is unseen internally.  This is not intentionally manipulated to be so in most cases; it is simply the nature of our world.

If there is no conflict internally, no conflict will show externally.  If a conflict arises in the external, can it merely be a reminder to release the ego or does it need to be cut away externally to appease the internal discomfort created by perceived conflict?  If the ego is released will not conflict fall away on it’s own?

Perhaps there’s no such thing as conflict of interest, only mind that seeks to be in balance, and the choice of working in the external or internal so that one can reflect the other as desired.  Choose the inside work, otherwise the situation will show itself to you time and time again, though the faces and setting may be varied.  Growth in peace with what is, as it is, will allow you to dissolve anything external that challenges your comfort.

– from a Chihuly exhibit at The Biltmore in 2024

(Not a huge fan of the Biltmore but a very big fan of this artist & his team. 💕)

Anonymous

It was the anonymity. He wanted to be unknown, unpossessed by others’ knowledge of him. That was freedom.

— Ling Ma

Quite a while back I was taken by the idea of paying it forward, inspired to choose random folks and random acts of kindness whenever the mood struck me. Typically this would be expressed out and about where crossing paths again if spotted was less likely. As my personal yoga practice grew and my heart space more embodied, I began bringing the giving in closer to home as well — perhaps dropping off something unexpected here or there but staying anonymous. It was fun, there were no expectations, and no one had a person to tie in to the act of receiving so we were all free in the experience.

At one point I had my kids looped in after we first moved to our current sanctuary and we made quite the summer day of shopping for our neighbors, stuffing bags full of whatever snacks and treats a 7 and 10 year old may choose, and then driving around to the 52 mail boxes to leave the shares anonymously. We would drive a little, park, all jump out with bags and scatter, then repeat until it was complete. One or two folks saw us but what unfolded later on the neighborhood list serve was just as fun; no one who posted actually saw us though they described a vehicle and people not like us and they had a bit of entertainment speculating. It was decided we had neighborhood fairies and they were all quite happy with their bags. Over the years people have still mentioned it and just last week (9 years later) a neighbor told me she thought it was us and that she still has the stickers my kids put in the bag.

I still appreciate a sweet pay it forward moment these days and I’ve come to the place of being able to own my sharing now too, but it wasn’t always easy for me when my name was attached because of the complexities that are possible with giving and receiving.

I spoke with my counselor about these shares back when the kids and I made the best of that summer day and she suggested I do this more personally in a way where I was allowed to be seen. It wasn’t comfortable, but I leaned into who in my community may be able to receive with an open heart and set about sharing baked goods or otherwise in various scenarios. With time, this grew into steady cycles in my life of giving and receiving without strings attached. I can give, receive, stay present, and be seen with ease. In a recent instance, I dropped off a share at one home and within twenty minutes someone else from another household had left a share at my home! I really took a long joyful pause that day with how wonderful it can be to step into the flow of giving without expectation; you may not have the freedom of anonymity but you may gain a sense of rightness with life that comes from being seen by others.

Both are good for different reasons.

We Women

I have been blessed with a lens into the most beautiful support from women in the last few years that allows one to hope for a nurturing future of how we connect to one another in community. Honestly, I have been lucky to have a handful of wonderful friendships from a young age with girls who have become lovely women. I know not every woman is so fortunate, however, the choices for women are evolving. I have been part of a group of women who are absolutely dedicated to supporting each other however they show up for the love of sacred feminine energy re-emerging on this planet. That means all judgements and comparisons are dropped and competition is not entertained as necessary or desirable, and not just because a woman has aged out of being perceived as a threat; acceptance is offered with camaraderie simply because you showed up. Wow, yes to more of this!

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We all have our own paths and learn how to be in the world based on our familial exposures and that cannot escape the over culture that creates our conditioning on a larger scale. I grew up in a household of a working mother and my closest friends in elementary as well as middle school had mothers that stayed at home and maybe who decided to work when they were older, some in traditional systems and one as an artist from her own space. My mother focused on work outside the home and with time became the breadwinner of our family. It was a different dynamic than the other households of my friends. I noticed their mothers were more relaxed and perhaps happier in some regards while I knew my own mother was pleased with what she had been able to create in her life after marrying my father while still in high school. I was proud of my mom and felt she was an excellent example of dedication to making the best of your circumstances.

Years down the line, I was surprised when I found myself desiring to stay at home with my children, and I felt it created an assumed point of disappointment with my mother though now I know differently. Before this — my work as an elementary music teacher had already faced the judgement of females who had chosen careers of more influence and power. I found as I moved in the world as an early twenty something that elementary public education was not so valued by many. Parents of students were unbelievably disrespectful and colleges of my at the time husband who was studying medicine on occasion belittled the work calling it “cute” or “adorable” (never his male colleges by the way, only the females) which when I was still living from an immature ego myself, infuriated me. I felt my work was important but also that because it was with children, knew it was perceived as less valuable. This is nonsense, of course, because music works across both hemispheres of the brain to create better coordination and advanced thinking as well as providing an emotional processing platform for youth among other things. Working with children is an incredibly powerful point of shifting the future reality of humanity as we mold the subconscious and nurture belief systems with more ease at that impressionable period of life. If you want to make a change, do it within yourself and then with your children.

With my spiritual work and diligence to changing patterns within the familial line that I knew were not going to be passed on to my children and enough years staying at home to deeply accept my choice, I now no longer care how I am perceived by a woman who has chosen differently. I knew what I had to do once the children were here and I have the good fortunate of being supported in doing so for which I am eternally grateful. I didn’t want the rearing of my children in the hands of paid providers. There’s nothing like being faced with your ingrained patterns as well as those of the other parent day in and out, and work outside of your home can make the perfect escape so that outdated patterns persist. Can you work and make these changes? Yes, absolutely, if you are self aware with a want to improve, you can. Can you stay at home and ignore needed change? Yes, absolutely. Immersion made the way clear here.

These life experiences have created for me a vantage point of total support for other women in whatever they choose so long as their hearts are happy and they have the support they need in however their paths take direction. However, I sometimes still encounter a woman who carries a sharp edge in her tone for the woman who stays at home, maybe she dismisses her as less important than other woman who work or makes defensive comments for her choice. While I don’t care how I am perceived, I do care for the good of women and the connections women are able to form. If the working woman can see that the work of living everyday for every person has its inherent value regardless of the system or the kind of work — it would release her from judgement. If the woman working feels judged as somehow less of a mother or less of a woman, how far from the truth is that? It’s only as true as we give it belief. If the woman choosing to stay at home can be at peace with the work she is offering as just as valid as whatever current societal stories are pitching, we may all be able to claim our womanhood for however it fits each of us best. We are all Goddesses, as far I am concerned and we are all working, children or not.

If we could drop these judgements, how much better would we all be?

Imagine if we replaced all the judging and comparison with lifting each other up. What if we women united and allowed ourselves to be in the energy of fierce love and devotion to one another simply because we can see that’s where real influence and power can thrive for the good of us all?

Whatever You Call God

Jessica, the lovely soul who began this blog with me back in 2016, reached out yesterday to share a video she found of the actor James Van Der Beek speaking on his experience of cancer and being stripped of the roles that defined his worth.

When we were in high school, Jess and I were extras in the pilot of Dawson’s Creek which became his claim to fame in the roll of a small town boy seeking a career in film making. While neither she or I watched the series in full and there was no direct exchange with this man during those days on set, we both felt a little extra jolt around death in midlife. I’m sure many folks in this age range feel the passing of a well known 40something in a certain kind of way for his familial loss and life not lived.

His vision was towards recovery during this recording and his words from the heart:

View Video HERE

Seek Within

O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again. — Shakespeare

So often we look outside ourselves for something to be satiated internally. We want people to love us so that we feel a certain way or we want a thing that will help us embody a particular energy – maybe confidence or desirability. We want someone else to tell us or show us we are good enough. At the root of it all, we are seeking love and quite possibly we look for our divinity everywhere but inside. If someone else sees us in our best light or appreciates something about us, it must mean we are lovable and that can be addictive. You can find yourself chasing illusory love through achievements, big ticket items, grand experiences, or the presence of another reflecting your divine birthright of love —- or you can give that source energy to yourself and be delighted when someone else offers you the same without a sense of longing.

Longing is not in and of itself bad , (it may ultimately lead you to a spiritual path) but it can leave you feeling pretty out of sorts until you see it for what it is: an invitation to seek within, to hold yourself with what you wish to be reflected back, and to know YOU dearest one are love.