Tag: Presence

Misconception

“There isn’t time—so brief is life—for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving—and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”

– Mark Twain

Time is much more fluid than we are conditioned to experience. So while this quote may read one way on first glance, I ask you to look again considering there is no backwards or forwards. Consider for a moment that your life has happened in a flash and the idea of progressing forward is nothing but an illusion. Perhaps your life is a spiral folding into itself with the overarching energy you inhabit creating the defining factor.

We are multidimensional and time is multidirectional. Should you find yourself backtracking or wishing to go back, address the nature of how you go back to uplift the action of retracing with a new energy and a fresh momentum. It is natural to replay patterns, but how you do it each time determines whether or not you are going back or going forward. If you run a piece of music you’ve played a hundred times with a different emotion underpinning the score, the piece is felt in an entirely new way. If you’re smoothing a vase on the potter’s wheel and you change the angle of your hands against the clay as it spins around landing against your form in a different way to mirror a changed form in the vase, then the old piece has become something different and may be felt as new.

You may see that we too are constantly invited to the same patterns with the opportunity to interact with the material in a new way. Going back to a project or an artistic expression with fresh energy is absolutely acceptable and not backwards at all. The same is true of every life experience, if you can perceive it all as art. If you, as a base material, have changed, then there’s no way to go backwards — the components are different and will interact differently. As far as I can see from my current vantage point, everything is always changing, so there truly is no way to exactly repeat anything.

What you bring in awareness to the equation is what determines your experience of time and change, backwards and forwards, and this now moment holding you.

Belonging

A generous heart is always open, always ready to receive our going and coming. In the midst of such love we need never fear abandonment. This is the most precious gift true love offers – the experience of knowing we always belong.

— Bell Hooks

You will always have yourself, Beautiful Soul.

Grow the sense of belonging from within.

It’s difficult not to outsource this need but worth it to work on creating a strong sense of belonging with yourself. If ever you should find a loved one walking away from you and possibly repeatedly, this is invaluable work.

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

Wilde

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” — Oscar Wilde

There is beauty in recognizing the ways we are like others and also that no one else will ever hold our unique energy.

We are each here in our human experience like so many and within that, we are exquisitely singular. The way we grow into our fullness, choose how we lean into the light, and how we hold our shadows defines us in a particular way that creates a sort of splendor. It’s too exhausting to try to be anything other than what you are, dear one. Let yourself be at ease in your own energy so that others in resonance with that can find you more easily.

Love you ✨🌸 – V

Hawk

Tamer and Hawk

By Thom Gunn

I thought I was so tough,

But gentled at your hands,

Cannot be quick enough

To fly for you and show

That when I go I go

At your commands.

Even in flight above

I am no longer free:

You seeled me with your love,

I am blind to other birds—

The habit of your words

Has hooded me.

As formerly, I wheel

I hover and I twist,

But only want the feel,

In my possessive thought,

Of catcher and of caught

Upon your wrist.

You but half civilize,

Taming me in this way.

Through having only eyes

For you I fear to lose,

I lose to keep, and choose

Tamer as prey.

I had the incredible fortune of crossing paths with a hawk today that called to me just before I crossed a creek it was sitting above. My mind was running laps on something I wanted to resolve and I was out in the woods to quiet myself. Getting quiet is often the key to seeing more clearly and then resolutions appear with less effort. I was looking down and the sounds from the bird above caused me to stop dead in my tracks; the hawk was so loud and close. I couldn’t believe what I was missing lost in my thoughts when I looked up. Wow. Just wow.

Once I looked up and met the eyes of this amazing friend, I was overwhelmed by being so close and the bird not budging. I see hawks frequently here but not this close, not with eye contact, and not with an invitation to visit. I could see the hawk was defining some sort of boundary and stepped back a little. After complimenting the bird on the magnificence of its being and taking some photos, I sat down on a larger rock next to the creek just to marvel at the wonder of nature to be appreciated before me. I continued on with the hawk for some time just sitting together until it caught sight of prey and went through its hunting ritual. Once the hawk was off on its way, I took back to my path with the quiet mind I had been intending to cultivate sooner.

I was so beautifully reminded of the importance to speak up for yourself, hold space with grace, and take your time in stillness so that movement is made with focused intention.

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.