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The Wonders Of Synesthesia: A Unique Neurological Event

The Mind Is Complex! A Shutterstock licensed image.

At first glance, “Synesthesia” appears to be a melodic word, promising something of an adventure. In many ways, this idea holds true. If scientific innovations for the brain, like neurofeedback and ACT, have shown us anything, it’s that there’s so much we still don’t fully understand.

Synesthesia is a unique neurological event that occurs when a combination of our 5 senses intermingle and produce fascinating results. People with synesthesia might taste words or see colors when they hear music. The wonders of this neurological phenomenon certainly point to the complexities of the human mind and sensory systems.

For some, these are the types of things that happen when taking acid or tripping on mushrooms. You might have this experience when ingesting pure MDMA. Meanwhile, some of the more spiritually devout folks out there might have Synesthesic experiences during meditation or an overwhelming spiritual activity, like being hugged by Amma, The Hugging Saint.

We can learn wonderful things about ourselves from Synesthesia. For science, this is relatively uncharted territory, but it’s gaining recognition and popularity. Since many people might never have been able to connect the dots about their condition, they might never realize that are having Synesthetic experiences.

What Does It Mean To Have Synesthesia?

The word “synesthesia” comes from the Greek word: “synthes.” The  Greek translation of the word means unity. Specific senses or stimuli most often trigger Synesthetic experiences. This usually revolves around things related to or involving sound, smell, color, shapes, and touch. 

The most common form of synesthesia is called grapheme. Grapheme-color Synesthesia occurs when individual letters or numbers trigger an automatic association with a particular color. 

Here’s an example for easier understanding: when I type my name on my keyboard, I automatically associate each letter with its corresponding color:

P = red, A = blue, U = green, and L = yellow

Synesthesia always has a core commonality which they all share. The common shared point is that synesthesia fuses two different sensory perceptions together that are not experienced by the majority of all other people. This is what makes each Synesthesia event so unique and fascinating. 

These are seriously wonderful!

Synesthesia is not caused by any disease and it does not harm the nervous system in any way. It’s part of the chemical and neural-magic that’s built into humanity and the experience of being human.

What’s Unique About The People Who Experience Synesthesia?

Synesthesia is a rare condition, and even more perplexing is that those who have it often do not know how or when they began to experience it. People who experience synesthetic perceptions often report they’ve had these sensations their whole lives. Many are more intrigued than bothered by it. Some feel it’s a super-hero skill. 

Interestingly, some professional musicians speak of having the condition because they report they “see” music in color. Or they taste textures like round or pointy. 2%–4% of the population have Synesthesia, yet most of us don’t know anything about it.

There is one thing that is both specific and varied amongst those with synesthesia: whatever color is evoked remains pretty constant over time within the person’s lifetime.  Yet, the color evoked changes and varies from person-to-person depending on their backgrounds or interests.

Synesthesia has been associated with various conceptual and perceptual benefits, suggesting that the genes involved may be selected for their hidden agenda. But no one can agree on the hidden agenda or why it needs to have a clear-cut agenda at all.

Do Animals Experience Synesthesia?

Researchers have found evidence that chimps, like humans, experience some form of Synesthesia. Synesthesia was found in some primates who experience a rare condition known as “synthetic color.”  Primates were able to see different colors for letters or numbers than other objects.book-live-intuitive-reading-with-paul-wagner

We already know the human brain has an incredible ability to negotiate between all our senses when we are sight-impaired. For example, many people associate certain musical notes with specific sounds, such as high Cs sounding like PPP! Yet others taste shapes, and still others hear drawings coming out of their mouths when singing.

Are You a Synesthete?

Have you ever wondered if some of your senses may be overlapping? For example, Synesthetes have unique experiences whereby certain colors, numbers, and letters seem to have an emotional significance. Those who experience this phenomenon will often take part in Synesthesia tests that help provide clarity for their life journeys.

A Synesthesia experience gives some people insights into ranges and depths of what they subjectively perceive through different parts of their brains. Of course, Synesthesia tests have their pros and cons, so don’t take them as 100% accurate diagnostics. Rather, see them as learning tools involving others who experience sounds as colors or shapes. When taking these tests, you might discover what it feels like to experience these sensations.

Several tests can help people with this neurological condition find clarity in their perceptions. Scientists and researchers say that Synesthete tests provide some of the most reliable ways through which we can explore our minds, learn new things, or even wrap our minds around the meanings of our perceptions.  

It is only through understanding of how they relate back together and related to other aspects that can gain value from them. While the testing tools aren’t perfect, they always yield fascinating results.

How Does The Test Work?

An example of a test is as follows:

      • Pick colors from letters of various sizes, numbers on coins, or days off work 
      • If you can correctly identify what these items look like, you may have some type of ‘Synesthesia.’

The next aspect that’s tested is reaction time. You’ll be asked whether or not your color matches any given letter before it’s revealed. If you can complete both tasks quickly without making errors at either the reaction or selection stage – you’ve passed!

The Wondrous World of Living With Synesthesia

The composer Olivier Messiaen, speaking of the union between color and tone in his music, explained to an interviewer: “When I hear music, it is not imagination nor psychic phenomenon. It’s within myself.”

Imagine you were able to meld or blend one sense until it becomes mixed with another? You might wonder if you are able to perceive visually through hearing colors while hearing palate tastes audibly. If every time you touched a texture, and heard a sound that resonated through your body, how much more creative could you be?

If you have this unique condition in which the stimulation of one sense causes you to experience another simultaneous sensation, imagine how different everything in your life would be. There’s a growing body of evidence supporting the idea that Synesthesia is more than just an imaginative or creative use of metaphors.

Amid a Synesthesia event, it seems the boundaries between the senses to bend or break down. Apparently, our senses exist within us but also go beyond what we typically think about as our physical containment and existence.

What Worlds Would You Want to Open if You Could Have Synesthesia for a Day?

The variety of colors and shapes in the world are more beautiful than we might be able to communicate. What if you were given a chance to experience a whole other level of the rich perception of color, shapes, and sounds? Wouldn’t it inspire an inner peace and feeling of supernatural beauty? Every plastic cup can hold sparkling ice with lemon-colored sounds covered with sugar that emits a sigh that only you hear. The possibilities are endless!

The month of December can make most of us shiver and think of decaying branches and hard-packed snow. Imagine, if instead of feeling cold when you read the word December, you see the word in beautiful, lush blue? Try to wonder if instead of shivering in forlorn thoughts, you hear music that lights up your heart and soul with wonderful memories.

Try to Live Your Life Every Day By Opening Up Your Senses to Possibilities

Colors have always danced with sounds, even if you have never noticed them before. You can often listen to music, and if you turn it loud enough, you will register the vibrations. If you try to live your life every day by taking flight into another realm where time stops but eternity lives, what could or would you find?

There’s no right or wrong answer. There are just possibilities. What’s even better is that they are your possibilities because it is your life, your memories, and with only your essence that gives you power every day. Use that power to experience the wonders of opening doors by experiencing some of our unknowns, like synesthesia. 

All of us should experience things we’ve never thought we would try. If we don’t try, we may never know what could have been. 

 

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Mercury Retrograde: How To Handle This Wonderful Phenomenon

 

Shutterstock licensed photo.

If you travel in new-age styled circles, you’ve heard of Mercury Retrograde. If you listen to most of the folks preaching about this unique cycle, you might think these are dangerous and horrible events. They’re not. Mercury Retrogrades tend to be wonderful for pausing, reflecting, writing, depending ourselves, and expanding our most creative projects.

What is a Mercury Retrograde?

As science tells us, all of the planets in our solar system orbit the Sun at various speeds and unique distances. Mercury Retrograde is when the planet Mercury appears to shift directions as it orbits the Sun. This is only an optical illusion because of the position Mercury in relation to our position on Earth.

It’s not really changing direction. It never changes direction or goes in reverse. It just appears that way.

As planets rotate around the sun, they are all at unique distances from the Sun and each other. When one planet is nearer to the Sun than a second planet, it might appear to pass the second planet in its rotation. This is what creates the illusion, possibly appearing that the second planet is going backward. This Retrograde concept is how the ancients saw this phenomenon.

Mercury goes retrograde 3-4 times every year, going into this phase more than any other planet. Every Mercury Retrograde lasts roughly a month, yet we will also want to consider the “shadow periods,” which run about 1 week prior and 1 week following the retrograde. These shadow periods are when the energies are either forming or dissolving.

A Mercury Retrograde, or any planetary dynamic is how The Eternal Consciousness rejuvenates, regenerates, and re-stimulates the energies throughout the cosmos. We are, after all, made of stardust. It would make sense that we would feel the shift as planets move around the Sun.

What’s Challenging About Mercury Retrograde?

Many feel confused and even dizzy during a Mercury Retrograde. Some feel like a completely different person living a completely different life. You might feel like you’re personality has changed some or you might feel like you’ve somehow become a Super-Intuitive Psychic  and Super-Healing Superhero! You might also feel somehow defeated during the shadow periods or during the majority of the retrograde. It all depends on how deeply tuned you are to your true nature.

Retrogrades can cause a lot of problems in relationships, even between soulmates, because somehow communication becomes a little more emotional or less specific. This creates the confusion that many might feel during these times. The confusion is generated by the disparity between who you truly are and you are pretending to be.

Most of make decisions and live our lives from a temporary self-identity – one that we contrived in order to sustain our ego-related goals and satisfy our temporary desires. When we’re confronted with a shift in universal dynamics with the planetary system we live within, we are basically confronted with our true nature.

Within that experience, we might run from what we created during our pre-retrograde lives or run head-first into experiences that are born from a whole other set of contrivances – ones based on our warped sense of creativity, our inner-feminine aspects, or our secret, unprocessed desires.

We are complex to say the least.

Things to temper:

      • Signing contracts
      • Having sex with new people
      • Making long-term plans
      • Signing a lease
      • Starting a business (although it’s a great time to explore ways to expand a business already in progress)
      • Playing with technology
      • Being angry
      • Being sad
      • Beating yourself up

I tell all of my coaching clients that Mercury Retrogrades are the perfect time to clean house, cry, write, and move beyond the desire to become “something” in this world. They are the perfect times to get over ourselves and go within.

What’s Awesome About Mercury Retrograde?

I LOVE Mercury Retrogrades. They’re wonderful for getting back in touch with aspects of yourself that either fell by the wayside or that you neglected for one reason or another. The downside of retrogrades are often overplayed and over-exaggerated. This is because the new-age scene loves to crank out hilariously insane content that tends to create more fear than anything else.

Btw, the new-age movement is a weak, spineless ego-realized collective that over-accentuates the feminine and devalues the masculine. It’s a warped scene.  The new-age encourages people to build narcissistic self-identities instead of promoting spiritual discipline. It’s all about how you look and feel – and who you pretend to be – instead of knowing yourself, loving yourself, being authentic, and going within. New-agers love selfies while donning Prana pants and faux-light makeup. And they love talking about how spiritually evolved they are. It’s so sad!

It’s the perfect time to:

      • Write
      • Be creative
      • Express your feelings
      • Pray
      • Start new and deeper spiritual disciplines
      • Reflect on prior experiences
      • Unearth old emotions and finally release them
      • Forgive others
      • Set boundaries
      • Heal & evolve broken aspects of yourself
      • Heal relationships
      • Release relationships
      • Release aspects of your life and nature
      • Meet new people

But wait, aren’t we all connected to the Divine? Aren’t we able to surpass all the limits a retrograde might present? Yes, but even Superman had issues with kryptonite.

In all things: Be Happy. Be Peaceful. Encourage the same in others. You are truly an infinite Being. Live according to this idea and life will flow accordingly.

 

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The Year of the Ox: The History, Meaning & Power

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The Year of the Ox: The History, Meaning & Power

Every 12 years, we experience a Year of the Ox in the Chinese Zodiac. Most recently, we rode the rollercoaster of the year 2021, and the next time we see the Ox will be in 2033. You might have heard about years marked by animals in the past, but what does it all mean?

Coming to understand the history, symbolism, and ultimate power of the animals that stretch across the 12-year cycle of the Chinese Zodiac can help you come to understand yourself and the Universe so much better. Armed with this new tool and information, you can better delve into self-reflection, spiritual development, and rebirth!

The Origin Of The Chinese Zodiac

As early as the 14th century, the Chinese used a celestial calendar and celebrated the New Year. The Chinese lunar calendar is the oldest structured example of the zodiac animals used in conjunction with years passing. However, the Chinese Zodiac itself is so ancient that we can’t pinpoint its origin exactly!

However, there is a legend of the Great Race, which tells the story of the Chinese Zodiac’s beginnings. The Jade Emperor commanded all the animals to race across a river in the story.

The first 12 animals to make it to the other side would have years named after them, and they would appear in the order that they placed in the race. According to the legend, the Ox would have been first if it weren’t for the cunning of the Rat, which hid in the Ox’s ear and jumped out across the finish line as soon as the Ox made it to the other side.

When it comes to archeological evidence, signs of the 12 animals in the zodiac first appeared around the 5th century B.C. during the Zhan Guo period. It wasn’t until the Han Dynasty between 206 B.C. and 9 A.D. that the zodiac was officially identified. It was not until the late 500s A.D. that the animals were used to identify people born in their corresponding years. The North Zhou Dynasty was officially in power when the zodiac animals became popular!

We now know that Chinese Zodiac uses animals and elements to mark time passing. Partnered with the lunar calendar, the Zodiac uses animals to mark years, days, and hours in 12 segments each.

Overall, the Zodiac spans 60-year cycles with different combinations of animals and elements to uniquely identify them.

Why An Ox?

The Chinese Zodiac consists of animals significant to China’s culture and history. Each animal was chosen intentionally as being helpful, majestic, and powerful in the people’s eyes.

The animals are always cycled through in the same order, starting with the Rat. Following are the Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and finally, the Pig.

As a result, if your birth year lands within the second year of the Chinese lunar calendar cycle, you are marked by the Ox.

So why did the Chinese choose to honor the Ox so highly? Oxen have been an essential part of the Chinese’s ability to farm, transport go

ods, and build a powerful military throughout history. For farming, they are strong, sturdy animals that can move heavy materials, graze and provide milk.

They are low-maintenance, providing great help without needing rewards or anything in return.

On the back of the Ox, Chinese agricultural success and history stand tall. As a result, the Ox is highly revered and often used to compliment others, such as “You are very like an Ox!”

What Happens in the Year of the Ox?

Many predictions are told by seers using the elements and animals, including the year ahead, the people born in those years, and guidance such as for relationships and financial success. Though highly revering each animal in their zodiac calendar, the Chinese have never denied the existence of negative forces and flaws.

Each animal in the zodiac has positive and negative traits that help those born in their years better understand themselves and what awaits them.

One might guess being an Ox in the current year of the Ox (also known as your natal year) is a great thing, but it’s quite the opposite! Chinese astrology says that Tai Sui, otherwise known as the “God of the Year,” works to make the natal year of that person unlucky for them.

Tai Sui can be found as a constellation connected in opposition with the planet Jupiter and draws on the unstable energy of the planet.

Using the knowledge of Tai Sui and the characteristics of the Ox, fortune tellers have formulated horoscopes. For those born an Ox, seers have predicted turmoil and strain in love and finances during natal years. Each year has exceptions, however.

In 2021, for example, those marked by the Ox might find some good fortune in their career even if the overall situation was still mainly negative. Which element is combined with the animal during that year can help bring insights to the nuances of those lucky and unlucky events.

If you are born in the Year of the Ox and are entering your natal year, fortune tellers warn that attempts at success beyond self-development are risky. Rejection in love and missteps in your career can lead to turmoil for you. Instead, focus on your wellbeing and take steps to balance your inner self.

What Are The Chinese Zodiac Elements?

Each year, the animals also cycle through five elements. The Chinese Zodiac includes water, metal, earth, fire, and wood. In 2021, the Year of the Ox was also metal, giving the personality of the Ox nuances of popularity among friends and hardworking, active work ethics.

If you are Wood Ox, you’re probably restless and headstrong. If you’re a Fire Ox, you might be practical but narrow-minded.

If you’re an Earth Ox, you could be honest and responsible. If you’re a Water Ox, you might be ambitious and have excellent observational skills.

Using both your animal and water signs, you can begin to explore yourself further and better respond to relationships and situations in the future!

What Does It Mean to Be Born in the Year of the Ox?

Born in the Year of the Ox? A few set things according to the Chinese Zodiac are good and bad luck for you. Your lucky numbers, for example, are 1 and 4, and your lucky colors are white, yellow, and green. You can also have particular affinities to tulips and peach blossoms and to north and south directions.

You also have compatible and incompatible signs! You should stick close to people with Rat, Snake, and Rooster signs, as they are most likely to work well with you.

Lesser compatible signs are the Tiger, Horse, Goat, and Monkey, so you might want to proceed with caution when entering relationships with these signs.

Like the Ox, those with the Ox sign usually enjoy a long and healthy life. They are also best suited for hard work requiring close attention to detail, like agriculture, engineering, carpentry, or politics.

The Chinese recommend wearing red throughout your natal year to avoid some of the bad luck that might come!

REMEMBER!

In all things astrological, please realize that these aspects are only suggestions to help you better delve into self-reflection and ease some stress. You are far more powerful than you realize.

The blueprints that astrology suggests are not hard and fast rules. It might also be that you have other influences in your life that might greatly enhance your ability to receive what you desire.

To improve your vibration, luck, and happiness, spend time chanting Sanskrit mantras and love-filled sutras.

Pray for others and the Universe prays for you.

If you’re looking for more tools to delve into self-reflection, you can try out my personality cards or look into my FREE YOURSELF course. It’s wonderful.

YOU ARE LOVE!

You are a beautiful Living Being filled with light and love, born from stardust. You are unlimited potential in every direction. With a focus on discipline, virtue, and your own goodness, you can become as expanded and liberated as you desire. 

BLESSINGS TO YOU!

There is no “Other.” There is only you experiencing yourself.

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The Nature Of Spirits: What Are They And How Do They Function?

Spirits are everywhere in the world around us

Spirits are everywhere in the world around us

 

SPIRITS ARE EVERYWHERE! YAY!

Maybe you’ve been visited by a spirit from another realm. It might be that you feel there is an entity attaching to you somehow. Or maybe you’re just curious as to the nature of spirits: what they do, why they appear, where do they reside, and how can they be in both the spirit world and this physical reality?

The veils between here and there are thin. While our lives might appear to be one solid experience with clearly defined forms and boundaries, the truth is far more complex and bizarre.

As we relate with people in our daily lives, we must remember that they comprise a tiny subset of a much larger group of relationships with whom we relate on a regular basis.

When we awake in the morning, we might feel as though we are alone. We might even love our solitude. The reality is that we are never 100% alone. There are always spirits wandering about. They might not be sitting on our beds as we sip our morning java, but you can be certain that some are hovering or meandering somewhere near your home.

Spirits are everywhere. They come and go within this realm and on this planet, and throughout many others. Spacetime is not limited in any way. And neither are spirits.

Spirits Pop In And Out

Like you and me, each spirit has its own electromagnetic signature and vibration. This means it will magnetize aspects of itself – to itself – just like you and I would attract situations, relationships, and learning in our physical lives here on planet earth.

Whether they know it or not, spirits can dematerialize and reappear at will. They might not even know when they are appearing and disappearing. Their electromagnetic signatures have a life of their own.

Most spirits aren’t fully conscious of their skills or the nature of their form. Most often, they behave like children playing Hide-n-Go-Seek or lost puppies who lost track of how to get home.

We are each a collection of particles continuously moving from one reality to another. It’s the same with spirits and it’s the same with every physical object in our lives – the chair, the computer, the couch. Everything is moving within itself and outside itself without any limiting boundaries. The only limiting boundaries are form, assumption, intention, and vibration – all of which are changeable.

And now the super complex part….

What Is Infused In A Spirit’s Vibration?

While you, me, and any spirit might appear to be a very specific thing, there’s a lot going on under the hood. It might look like an old fucked-up truck, but it may have been built in a way to make you think it’s got no teeth. It might appear to be a GMC Pacer or Toyota Prius in the picture, but once you get a look at the engine,  you’ll know the nature of the beast.

Each of us has lived thousands of lives. We live, we get excited, we do stuff, then we die. At the moment of our death, we imagine where we are headed, and since we don’t usually clean our palettes at death, we don’t die very well. We leave our bodies, feel confused, get a sense that we have some unfinished business and juicy desires, choose another mom or dad, then, within 6 months of Earth-time, we end up birthing into a similar form doing similar things.

YAY! REINCARNATION! WOOHOOO!

No thanks.

The idea here would be to meditate, pray, have boundaries, learn lessons, and inch toward the simultaneous death of our egos and bodies. Since our egos carry the agendas, if we diminish them over time (reducing our vasanas,  desires, etc), we can die and exit our bodies and truly complete.

If we don’t achieve enlightenment in this lifetime, through a great deal of effort, we can certainly achieve a higher level of consciousness. That said, if we’re not careful while we are dying and exiting this body, we could easily trick ourselves (or be tricked) into doing all the same crap all over again.

Yeah, let’s not do that.

When we are born, built into our fabrics, deeply infused into our natures, is the unfinished business of prior lives. Ahh! There’s the rub! Yes. We are not necessarily what we appear to be. This is why when you date someone and it feels all warm-fuzzy and then all of a sudden, it’s holy-moly, this person is NUTZO, it’s because they are working through their stuff – just like you – which is why you attracted them in the first place.

There you are all pretty and wonderful, but you know that something else is going on. You have anger, struggles, concerns, confusion, and more. You might be continuously attracting knuckleheads into your life and losing limbs at every turn. You might be happy on one particular day and then feeling like death on another.

This is all because we have unresolved desires (vasanas), each of which takes quite a bit of effort to dissolve. Each vasana has been with us for many lifetimes. We might dissolve one and then grow another – until we stop growing desires and refuse them all. That’s called LIBERATION.

We might not even know the half of what we’re carrying in terms of karma and vasanas. Our cute little lives might not be able to handle all of them. We birth, have vasanas, and work through as much as possible. What mostly happens though is that we enter this life excited and we continue to be excited about all of it, including the vasanas. We tend to forget that we were mostly in pain during our life. We forget that the pain can be avoided by releasing the vasanas. Therein lies the challenge: we love the emotional roller coasters of karma. We love to own and achieve, even though neither what we own or what we achieve can be carried forward from life to life. Yup, we’re not that bright.

This is why I highly recommend having spiritual masters and gurus in this life. They can help us expedite the burning of karma and vasanas.  As a devotee of Amma (Amma.com), The Hugging Saint, I am continuously uplifted. In many ways, I feel Amma has my back. If not Amma, there’s Jesus, Yogananda, Mother Meera, or a host of other loving, enlightened Beings who are either living or recently lived here on Earth.

Keep reading, but enjoy this other article I wrote about what happens when we die. JUICY!

…

How Do We Burn Through Karma

The more we pray, the more we love, the more we meditate, the more we can release the negative aspects of ourselves, including the twisty, tenacious twirls of karma. We can also do rituals, pujas, and ceremonies that help us forgive ourselves, forgive others, and dissolve the attachments and burdens that inhibit us. It’s all about forgiveness. It’s all about letting go.

Remember, this is all an illusion.

I subscribe to and pay Amma’s temple to do pujas for each aspect of my soul and life. Meanwhile, I do rituals that I’ve learned from Native American and other teachers. These rituals are powerful. They’ll change your life. I also pray, chant mantras, chant sutras, and do lots of giveaways. All of these things help me enrich my soul and connect with higher vibrations.

Why Is This Spirit Following Me?

This is one my favorite questions.

One of the more probable answers is that the spirit is someone you knew from this life or a prior life. This spirit might feel unresolved about prior life interactions with you or they’ve come to tell you they love you. This might even just want to hang out with you. Why? They might be bored or they might need to watch you for a while so they can learn something specific from you.

The spirit might also be someone who wants to know you, but hasn’t met you within a physical life experience yet.

And yes, some spirits just want to cuddle. I know that sounds a bit scary, but it’s really no big deal. It’s like when a puppy nuzzles up to you. Just relax and ask them to follow the light and go elsewhere.

While some people like me tend to sensationalize this idea of detached spirits and all the dangers – that’s so rare, it’s not even worth mentioning. They are as open boundaries and a nudge to leave as all the positive and peaceful spirits. They just might need a little more love for a moment. You can also just chant your mantra or a sutra and hold the intention that they find the light.

From a spiritual-lesson perspective, here’s another answer: If you attracted it, it’s you! You are the Universe. You are everything! No matter what is in front of you or within you, you must deal with it as if it were an aspect of YOU. Because it is. You are what you seek. You are what you see. You are what you attract. You are what you project. You are what you experience. Own it all, forgive it all, and release it all. In truth, it’s all nothing.

When we have negative energies and spirits attaching to us, it’s a really GOOD SIGN. It’s a wake-up call. Just like in real life when a crazy person tries to hurt you in some way, it’s God saying, “Hey, you might want to look at this part of yourself.”

I see spirits all time time. Some of them scare the heck out of me. Others are so sweet that I can barely handle it. Here’s the thing – all of these spirits are the same. They are a little lost and they need love. For each spirit who engages me, I might scream at first LOL, but then I immediately tell them I love them. I say things like:

“You are so beautiful and so loved. I am with you and I want you to be happy. God loves you. The light is waiting for you. Follow the light, follow your heart, and seek your highest Self. You are love, my dear. Go toward love and become it! Follow that light and you’ll feel better. I LOVE YOU!”

 

If you attracted them, they are either interested in your Lightbody or they recognize their shadows as being the same ones within you. It doesn’t really matter why or how they appeared. What matters is that you love them and you want them to be happy. Doing so, you might also see and feel things within yourself that require forgiving.

Look at every aspect of yourself and your life and forgive it all. Go piece by piece, person by person, circumstance by circumstance, and forgive everything about everything, forever backward and forward.

 

Dissolving it all, we can Be Here Now.

Loving it all, We Can Be Without Fear.

 

Fear is good because it reminds us of the unprotected parts of our lives. We can then improve those parts. Soon, most fears can become little friends who continue to remind us to protect ourselves.

Fear can also be a nasty sore. The idea here would be to look honestly at your fears and look for ways to either uplevel them into love or dissolve them into history.

The Past Does Not Exist. It Is A Canceled Check. Let It Go.

 

After doing rituals and forgiving, it’s important that we get back to the present moment. That’s because we only have the present moment. Everything else is a result of our minds and spirits seeking attachments and control.

All we can do is love.

If we know how to love, we can serve others.

If we have fear, we can meditate on love.

If we have spirits attaching to us, we can meditate on love, and we can pray for those spirits. When we pray for others, the Universe prays for us. We can also pray for ourselves. My gosh, pray for yourself as often as possible! PRAYER WORKS!

If something is bothering you or if someone is attacking you, you can set boundaries. You are powerful. We are resourceful. You are a Light-Being wrapped in light and love, born from stardust.

I already know that I love you, even if you have blocks and even if I don’t see you perfectly as you believe yourself to be. I know that I want to love you. I know that love works. It can dissolve all burdens.

Jesus was love. Jesus is love.

Buddha is nothingness wrapped in love.

You are the same. You are all of it.

 

Remember yourself. Remember how lovely and wonderful you are.

Be love. You got this!

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Thor, Oden, Freya & Loki: Powerful Viking Gods

 

If you’ve fallen in love with Viking ideology, I can relate! After watching the show “Vikings,” I am even more in love with how this culture most likely connected with nature, each other, and the Gods. While not perfectly historically accurate, the series awakened an ancient part of me, one that connects with my Norwegian roots. I am deeply grateful for the spirit of The Vikings within me – which is found throughout creation.

Prayers to the viking gods are more akin to prose and poem than prayer. They also require action, in the forms of rituals. This is why I suggest so many rituals on my website – these are powerful ways to transform ourselves. When we perform rituals with the purest of intentions, we create protected, high-vibration portals that connect us with all positive aspects and trajectories within our spacetime arenea. Doing so, we invite all Goodness throughout all spacetime to join us in our endeavor.

When Vikings reached to the Gods, it was to pay homage and commune, rather than what Christians came to create – worship. As a pagan, you will only rarely worship something. Moreso, as a pagan, you recognize you are connected to everything, and every aspect is a brother, sister, or partner Light-Being on your quest to merge with and celebrate all of creation.

As a Viking, you would want to inspire the Viking Gods to hear you and see you – and eventually take a specific action in your life. By chanting their names and declaring your hopes, you awaken the Gods to come to your aid and fulfill your dreams and ambitions.

It’s true – when we call good forces to our aid, they are loyal and they will remain with us to the end of each particular pursuit.

BE BRAVE! Call out to the Viking Gods and make your humble request. They are listening!

When reading these, you can almost feel the desires, yearnings, and pains in their hearts.  By feeling these aspects, we empathize with all of creation. Doing so, we are invited to step into these ancient days when magic and myth were the orders of the day.

Here are some beautiful Viking God poems found on a lovely and informative pagan website. These samples were written by Diana L. Paxson in this article.

Hail to thee Day, hail, ye Day’s sons;
hail Night and daughter of Night,
with blithe eyes look on both of us,
and grant to those sitting here victory!
Hail Aesir, hail Asynjur!
Hail Earth that givest to all!
Goodly spells and speech bespeak we from you,
and healing hands in this life!

(Sigdrifumál:2-3)

Phol and Wuodan rode to the wood;
then Balder’s horse sprained its leg.
Then Siðgunt sang over it and Sunna her sister,
then Frija sang over it and Volla her sister,
then Wuodan sang over it, as he well knew how,
over this bone-sprain, this blood-sprain, this limb-sprain:
bone to bone,
blood to blood,
limb to limb,
such as they belong together.

(trans. Storm, p. 109)

Calling to the Viking Gods is our right. After all, they somehow earned their status among us. Having lived human lives merged with their divine skills, they know what it feels like to love and bleed. Calling them into our lives can enhance our sense of power and help us bring to life our desires.

Whatever You Name Them, Own Your Connection To The Divine!

Odin (also known as Wōden, Wuodan, Wuotan, and Wuotan) is the lord of frenzy, knowledge, death, royalty, war, victory, sorcery, and poetry. A powerful God, one of the oldest and most primary, is also known as the husband to the goddess Frigg. What a POWER-COUPLE!

Thor, the mighty Viking God warrior, was (is) so powerful, he was able to bring to life his divine tool, the hammer known as Mjollnir (or Lightning). He used this hammer to protect his Asgard from the giants.

Freya, the Viking goddess of the birds, used her falcon feathers to shape a falcon to help her protect her people.

Loki, the shape-shifter could quickly surprise and outwit the many rodents who came to unseat the Gods and their people. Thrym, the chief of the giants didn’t stand a chance against these divine Beings. Thor’s goat-drawn chariot would also serve them well.

You are an abundant servant to the light. Step into your role as a giver and lover of grace and goodness. You are lovely in every way. Own it!

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What Happens When We Die

 

Everyone is fascinated by imagining what happens when we die. We’re entranced when we see it in movies, we anticipate it when thinking of our elders, and we wonder what might become of us, upon our demise. 

When I learned to consciously exit my body long ago, I remember feeling a subtle death upon every exit. Perhaps this was my body and soul remembering what souls do – they enter, interact for a time, and eventually leave. 

Exiting my body and moving through walls, wandering into other rooms, or jetting across the city, I would be conscious of the living, physical body that I had left behind. While in the midst of these out-of-body journeys, I would often crave my body and wonder if it was safe from harm. 

I eventually came to realize that our souls are incredibly pure and they love our bodies. After some experiences with other out-of-body spirits, I would understand that our bodies can easily be inhabited and controlled by other spirits. Our job is to protect our souls AND our bodies.

After sensing shadowy souls in my midst, I chose to stop exiting my body for sport and came to respect this life as a miracle. After many exits and journeys, I choose to never exit my body again. 

Going forward and through to today, I am fascinated by the notion of a physical form (my body) and a spirit (my soul) coming together, merging, and having experiences together. This is absolutely amazing to me. When putting these experiences into the hopper labeled Death, I am even more entranced by the notion. 

 

“The soul is unborn and eternal, everlasting and primeval. It is not slain by the slaying of the body.”

— Bhagavad Gita 2.20

 

While some of us think about what happens when we die all the time (heck, I certainly do!), others wait until their physical bodies are failing them or moments prior to their final breath. 

You might be devoted to a specific religion because you fear death or hope your deity will protect you when you are thrust from your physical body. You might see death as a joke or a new beginning. You might view the life-death event as something that concludes when we die or you might imagine the life-death cycle to continue ad Infinitum. 

Regardless of how you might imagine death or contemplate the temporary nature of your current, physical existence, passing beyond this life is inevitable. In some cases, it might even be enviable. And while death has a mystique that appears evasive and elusive, it is certainly something you can come to understand. 

Every major religion makes attempts at defining the course of activities and realities we’ll experience upon our deaths, but Hinduism seems to approximate death better than all other religions and ideologies. With no inherent judgment in the lingo or proposed persecution, like we might find in the world’s other most popular religions, and delivered in such a matter-of-fact manner, much of these writings appear more plausible and based on real-world experience. I love that about Hinduism. 

What Is Brahman?

Hindu scriptures teach us that Brahman is the ultimate and sole reality. It is the singular, undivided, living consciousness, embodying all aspects within and without, above and beyond, physical and non-physical, material and non-material, breathing and non-breathing, and throughout all realities and realms, inclusive of and far beyond spacetime. There is no “other,” there is only Brahman. 

The Journey Of Jivas.

A jiva is a soul, like you and me, and the embodiment of a distinct aspect within the eternal nature of Brahman. Brahman is pure and unchanging. Jivas diverge upon every birth. They are cloaked in Maya or earthly desires, and their derivatives, which means they are ignorant, or varying degrees thereof. 

The state of a Jiva or soul is such that each is generally unable to recognize its oneness with the All-That-Is or Brahman, yet they act within their realities like chaotic particles in three-dimensional space. Brahman is foundational to reality, as it IS reality. Jivas most often experience Brahman as a sideshow, an idea, rather than the ultimate expansiveness inherent within them. 

While liberated souls like Amma and other enlightened Beings will merge with All-Consciousness upon passing from this life, the rest of us will most likely have a different path. That said, anything is possible!

Amma, The Hugging Saint, found at Amma.org, says this about death: “There is a very subtle sheath covering our gross, physical bodies. All of our thoughts are imprinted in this layer. Like a tape recorder, this covering records all acts which we do mentally, verbally, and physically while we are alive. This forms a covering of thoughts.”

This cloak is durable and it’s energetically magnetized to our spirit, soul, or jiva. When we exit our bodies, this Maya or layer comes with us. As we rise out of our bodies and into the non-physical eternal planes of existence, we are still connected to and can interact with the physical planes. This means that, upon our deaths, we can choose to become traveling ghosts, off to seek adventures throughout the realms! I can imagine flying through the skies across eternity!

This might sound more positive than it is. If we’re wandering around like ghosts, we’re probably missing a well-formed, congruent, or elevated intention. Without this type of intention, we might continue to wander aimlessly and indefinitely. The same can be said for our real-world lives in this three-dimensional reality, here on Earth. This is why the Hindu and Buddhist texts encourage deep contemplation and spiritual exercises near to and just prior to our deaths. 

When we die to this physical body, rather than wandering, we might rise to a particular plane of existence that is akin to our actions during our lifetimes or in line with the vibration of our focus at the moment of our deaths. Wherever we might arrive in the other realms and planes, the soul, or jiva has no physical form. It is not recognizable to having recently lived a life in a physical body. While the outer layers of thought and Maya might appear in human-shaped forms, these forms are temporary and do not represent the nature of the jiva or soul. 

As a jiva, and regardless of whether or not we are cloaked in memorable forms, we still might feel thirst and hunger. This is due to the tendencies of our most recent lives. These can dissipate over time. 

“Perhaps the deepest reason why we are afraid of death is because we do not know who we are. We believe in a personal, unique, and separate identity — but if we dare to examine it, we find that this identity depends entirely on an endless collection of things to prop it up: our name, our “biography,” our partners, family, home, job, friends, credit cards… 

It is on their fragile and transient support that we rely for our security. So when they are all taken away, will we have any idea of who we really are?

Without our familiar props, we are faced with just ourselves, a person we do not know, an unnerving stranger with whom we have been living all the time but we never really wanted to meet. Isn’t that why we have tried to fill every moment of time with noise and activity, however boring or trivial, to ensure that we are never left in silence with this stranger on our own?”

― Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying 

If we have lived a spiritually-focused life and released many of our desires prior to our deaths, we might rise to beautiful realms where other souls equal to or more expanded than our natures might exist. 

In most cases though, when we are traversing from this life to the next, we tend to carry some of our unfulfilled desires with us. Since desires are imaginary and born from mind and ego (both temporary structures), the magnetic natures of our desires will attract and pull emptiness into our spheres. 

This emptiness will feel like a mid-ocean, where nothing feels real or possible. It’s in this space that we might feel direction- and purposeless. Given our spiritual tendencies from prior lives, we can move beyond these oceans. If we have been devotional to a master or guru, we will have better chances at evolving our souls when existing within or visiting the mid-oceans.

These jivas or souls are not innocents. They might even carry intentions and demands akin to our noisy neighbors and imagined enemies. To appease and exercise their desires and attitudes, they might attack other living Beings and people. They do this by moving within the breath of other individuals and life-forms. 

As the living Being breathes, the jiva-entities can move into and throughout soul’s that physical body or the soul itself. By doing so, disembodied jivas have the ability to destroy a weak-minded jiva’s consciousness. They might even push them to eat and act according to their wills. This type of attack is only possible when the living Being has no boundaries, awareness, or mental ability to protect themselves. 

“Two birds sitting in the tree (the body). One bird, the jiva is enjoying the fruits of the tree and the other the Paramatma is watching the jiva.” 

— Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (4.7)

The Soul’s Options When We Die

Jivas (you and me when we die) have options when we are living in the other realms and planes. Soon after our physical deaths, we might immediately choose another body to enter, thereby starting a brand new life. Upon entry into the new life form, we will adopt unique and new layers of thoughts, intentions, attitudes, and personalities. As we are born into and experience the cultural aspects of that body’s existence, our minds, hearts, and identities morph to appease the attributes of those cultural, societal, religious, and family-story projections.

Jivas do not often enter the bodies while the physical forms (babies) are within the womb. It is most often just prior to birth that the soul (jiva) infuses itself into the meat of the body. The jiva does this through the baby’s breath or the child’s first meals. 

In all, a jiva’s post-death journey, spiritual up-leveling, and new-birth potential will be dependent upon the karma they have yet to resolve during all of their prior lifetimes. A soul will continue birthing and rebirthing until all desires and energetic, karmic attachments are dissolved or eliminated. This notion should inspire us to live according to dharmic ideologies, whereby we remain unattached and unimpeded by life’s conditions. 

When we die, we can be uplifted, and our jivas can be healed through the rituals and prayers of those we left behind. By chanting certain mantras throughout our lifetimes and with the help of others chanting mantras after our deaths, we can receive higher levels of birth and more expanded planes of existence. Mostly, rituals, mantras, and prayers will help our jivas to stop their wandering – in this life and in the afterlife. 

“If the tip of the hair were to be divided into one hundred parts and each part was divided into 100 more parts, that would be the dimension of the Jiva (soul)”. 

— Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (5.9)

Catholicism & Christianity On Death

In Catholicism and many factions of Christianity, it’s less about the laws of nature and spirit, and more about judgment. Since consciousness is pervasive and comprises God (and all eternal Beings), the idea of judgment is obsolete. Nevertheless, many Catholics believe they are judged upon their death, all according to how they lived. Based on a life’s merit, a soul is then sent to either Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. 

When souls live according to “God’s plan” or the “bible,” then they go to Heaven. If they were dark and lived antithetical to God’s law, then they will go to Hell. Anybody sitting in the middle of the spectrum will be awarded Purgatory, a place where they can go so prayers and their own revised intentions can help them up-level or downlevel. 

While these teachings have remnants of the organic truths of spirit, they define God and Consciousness as predominantly judgmental, rather than loving. That said, even Hinduism notes that our actions and intentions will result in various forms of karma, all of which must be dissolved to achieve higher states of consciousness. 

Osho, Chogyam Trungpa, Yogi Bhajan, and today’s Amma all encourage people to express themselves through art and creativity. The reason they do this is twofold: to bring more bliss into the world and to express desires so they will eventually dissolve. It is absolutely true that all desires eventually dissolve. 

Unfortunately, there are so many desires to accrue, we might never work through all of them. This is why the goal is to reach beyond desire and into the bosom of the Divine. This is where we will experience our most expanded and liberated natures. 

“Neither fire, nor wind, birth, or death can erase our good deeds.”

— The Buddha

How Do Thoughts Form Layers That Surround Our Jivas (Souls)?

Every thought, intention, and action that we allow ourselves to participate in has an energetic footprint. This footprint is magnetic in nature and it actually carries some weight. Yes, it has mass. This mass is something that we birth each time we conjure a thought and every time we engage in an action. 

We’re all young wizards and witches trying to embody brews that lean toward positive vibrations. We can be sneaky and egoistic. Most of us, even amid our prayers are hopeful that the recent dirty deed we performed had gone unnoticed. We love to ‘get away with it’ or get our way with things. It’s a lovely dream, but it’s an illusion. 

We can’t get away with anything. The challenge is that our minds are so adept at creating confusion, projections, selfish desires, and a variety of sugary, soul-numbing sweets, we might continue like this for generations, if not, eons. 

The trick is to be mindful of every thought and then release it. Watch the thoughts bubble upward and then disappear. We need not take action on every little fart that homesteads in our tired, narcissistic noggins. We can just allow our minds to create and allow our spirits to watch these creations dissolve into nothingness. 

After all, we are nothing. We are conjured little movies that reside nowhere. While the Akashic Records can record details, once they occur, they no longer exist. Yet, while the past is like a canceled check, the remnants of our past, if mired in karma, will be seated at our dinner tables for lifetimes to come. 

What Can We Do To Continually And Lovingly Clear Our Souls In Preparation For  Spiritual Life & Eventual Conscious Death?

While we are here on earth to participate in activities and exhaust our desires, we are also here to have a little bit of fun. The challenge is to embody bliss and love while also never hurting ourselves or others throughout the process. 

Through the courses of human interactions, it becomes quite probable that you’ll fuck up. You might mess up so badly that you can’t imagine clearing that from your “permanent record.” 

Luckily, it’s all purgeable. Every thought, intention, action, relationships, and projection is extinguishable through prayer, meditation, devotion to the divine, and conscious action. All of these things will offset your bad deeds. 

You might say something horrible to someone, burn a bridge in technicolor, or perseverate on vengeance throughout multiple lifetimes. 

While living our wonderful lives, we might prepare for when we die in subtle and spiritual ways. We have many options when it comes to modalities that lead to liberation.  

     — Meditate for 10 minutes in the morning and evening

     — Pray for others. When we do this, the universe prays for us.

     — Invite Light-Beings & Masters to help you with your evolution.

     — Choose a living Master, a guru, to help you evolve during this lifetime. 

     — Do Kundalini Yoga, alone at home, and with focused attention.

     — Forgive everything as quickly as possible. 

     — Pray for your soul and ask others to do the same.

     — Remember God in everything you do. 

I know this list is a tall order, but it’s a lovely set of activities to invite into your life. Even a little effort will spark God’s reach to penetrate your heart and life with divine light. Allow Her/Him/Them to merge with you in your every thought and action. 

You Are A Limitless And Expanded Soul!

Once you realize your limitlessness, you can formulate the correct levels of hope. From there, you can create game-plans to up-level your jiva’s vibration. With every positive deed and intention comes an improved set of magnets. 

Reach to the divine, be devotional in every way, and afford yourself the forgiveness  you deserve. Afford the same forgiveness to others and release the details of events gone by. If you can move more fluidly throughout your reality, your life will become more effortless and your karma will dissolve according to that lovely, lightness of Being. 

 

God Bless You! Be Strong! Be Wild! Find Clarity! And Enjoy This Life With Love!

 

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When Love Is Difficult To Find

Love Is Difficult to Find Until We Open Our Eyes

We are always looking for experiences outside ourselves. We use these experiences to help us decide whether or not to be happy in any given moment. We continuously seek relationships, with the hope that each one will give us a missing part of ourselves. We buy cars, take trips, cut our hair, and work out. We run from place to place, hoping for at least one moment on this day, we will have a moment of unfettered joy. We might not even care about the joy at this point in our lives. We might simply be yearning for flashes of feeling free. 

Why are these moments of feeling joy and freedom so rare? Why does love and freedom escape us? Why can’t we find love and freedom – right now, right here? What is wrong with me?

First of all, there is nothing wrong with you. Love is the most difficult action we can take in this world. The problem is that we believe love to be a feeling. It’s not. Love is an action. Some of us believe love to involve romance. It doesn’t. There is nothing loving about romance. Romance is a projection that does not involve the other person. It involves what you are projecting onto the other person. It also requires that the other person give you something very specific. When this specific gift is no longer available, neither is the romance. Love is not romance. Romance is not love.

Romance involves neediness, demands, projection, desire, enabling, and passive aggression. Love is simply an action whereby we choose to serve and honor another person. Love is not demanding, needy, or hurtful. And while it’s never complicated, we often complicate it. Instead of looking for love within ourselves, we expect to only experience love from others. We might become so unreasonable that we’ll shame the other person into becoming the exact image of our unreasonable and unconscious idea of love. 

We prefer to objectify our lovers, manipulating them into servitude, rather than educating them by becoming an example of love. As we imprison others, we become imprisoned. 

So, where is all the love that’s available to me? 

Love is difficult to find only when we don’t realize that it’s exclusively available from the source. You are connected to the source. Once you become love, you’ll basque in it, which in turn will reflect onto the other people in your life. They still might not meet your secret expectations, but those expectations will pale in comparison to your embodiment of love. As you live in love, you’ll want to serve others – and all the details will fade away. You’ll obsess less, project less, and demand less. You’ll live in the moment more and more, and you’ll be satisfied. When you seek love from within, you achieve a durable, lasting love. It’s a river of love that continues to give – if you allow it. No matter who comes and goes in your life, this love can never be taken away from you. 

Some people believe that God is love. I believe that God is love. I believe that the whole Universe, and all the realms and Universes throughout our ever-expanding creation are one Being, all born from love. We were love long before our physical birth in this life. Some of us might bring former life memories and attitudes into this life, and potentially corrupt it. We might learn bad habits in this life and disconnect from love. Regardless, we can always return to our birthright – LOVE. It’s a choice in every moment of every day. 

When love is difficult to find, free yourself! Check out the Free Yourself Mini Audio Course to get a taste of what it’s like to find freedom and embrace love everywhere.

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