Spiritual Evolution on a personal level
Heading to Imbolc
I am fresh and sweet and ripe
I am grapes and peaches
my skin is stretched tight
cool to the touch and wet with rain
I am crisp and filled with juice and pulp and seeds
I am the abundance of nature
Oh yes and this, this is
cause for celebration.
I AM
1-14-13
Erika Ginnis
Happy Solstice!
I wanted to make sure and get this post out before the world ended… Oh wait just kidding. I don’t actually believe the world will end 12/21/2012, but I do know that there are a lot of people who are entertaining the idea that it just might. I also know that the energy has been intense enough that it’s really very obvious that something IS actually going on.
This is the time in the northern hemisphere where the days are short and the nights are long. It is the darkest night, from which the light of the New is born. It is a time of cycles beginning and ending. It is a time of power and wonder, and wisdom and promise. It is also a time that calls for a deep faith and trust; trust that the light will return and that it will not all be endless night. These are the things our ancestors confronted at this time of year, and it is to a great degree what we are still asking ourselves; especially this year.
Let me address the idea of the world ending, just because it ends up being the “elephant in the room” when dealing with spiritual matters in the later part of 2012, especially in December. I believe that our worlds begin and end several times each day, and most certainly when we go to sleep for the evening and wake again each morning.
The fact that we wake to anything like the semblance of what has gone before, is a testament to our tenacious power of focus and our ability to hold energy in place through belief. This can be a really good thing! It helps to know that when you wake up from a particularly disturbing dream that you will arrive safely in your bed once you open your eyes. ( I must say however, that I am not quite as pleased when I wake from a dream of winning the lottery…ahem…but it’s all part of that belief system, and having a dream of something pleasant says to me that at the very least I am entertaining the idea of it energetically.)
But I digress. In any case it’s nice to know that gravity is basically going to work more or less when you step onto the floor. Our lives are a series of events each moving on to the next and each one changing the world as we know it and creating a new world. It’s why free will is such a powerful idea and experience. And even though there are things that happen that if you were to ask me directly I would say a resounding “No way” to, they do sometimes take place; and even if I do not always know the answer to the question of “why?” in the moment; I am still left with my ability to exercise my free will in the area of “where am I going to place my focus now?”.
So I ask you the question. Where are you focused? And how does that affect you in your new ever-ending ever-beginning world? Is this the darkness from which the New light will be born?
Are you noticing that we are in a world of shifting sands and so are focusing on your grounding and meditation so you can breathe more freely? Are you in an ocean of turbulent seas desperately treading water hoping the waves don’t get any higher? Are you grieving a loss? Are you celebrating a new life? Are you avoiding all media in general in order to mitigate the onslaught of information and imagery that continues to be distributed? Are you secretly hoping that the world does end on the 21st so that you don’t have to finish your Christmas shopping? 🙂
Where is your attention? Is it serving you? Is it serving the world? What would you change if you knew that your focus strongly effected the mix of what was happening in your life, on an emotional, mental, physical and spiritual level? Perhaps you already know that and still find yourself focused in ways that seem less than ideal.
If that is so, welcome to the club, and welcome also to the continuing opportunity to gradually but consistently choose to steer your own personal course in the direction of strengthening the kind of world in which you would like to live. What if 12/21/12 was the end of the world, what “world” would you have end, what would you leave behind; and more importantly what “world” would you create in its place?
We are in the middle of an influx of energy; it is tangible and sometimes hard to navigate. It is effecting all of us on the planet in different ways. No it’s not just your imagination, or maybe it is so perhaps it’s time to start paying attention to where your imagination gets to play.
I had a yoga teacher that had a practice of suggesting that we say to ourselves every evening before bed “I am going to wake up tomorrow and know that in the night miraculous things will have happened and I am waking up in a world more full of grace than the one I am going to sleep in this evening; and that these new miracles will be revealed to me all through the day.”
Sounds like a good plan to me. 🙂
Happy Solstice! Welcome the Light, in all its forms. So mote it be, and So it is.
Aloha and Blessings,
Erika
Hmmmm…well the end of last year just flew by! I just noticed that I hadn’t posted since November!
How did you spend the last day(s) of 2011? How has 2012 been going for you so far?
My experience of this recent year change was different and while quiet by most standards was also pretty interesting. I have often had a love/hate relationship with New Year’s eve. I always want it to be big and flashy and fun and exciting; this however often means going out and finding that perfect party or event to attend; more often than not over the years I have found myself more in the place of yearning than of satisfaction. I am not sure where I picked up this concept of how perfect this night was supposed to be; but it certainly has followed me on and off for quite some time.
I spent years running after this ideal, giddy with champagne but feeling like there was a better party somewhere else and then that sense of longing would return. I think I recall one really good NYE when I was quite a bit younger that I spent in the arms of a person I had had a huge crush on for many months prior; I hadn’t expected to be with him that evening but it worked out regardless and I was surprised but pretty happy with the outcome.
I could say that the grand evening was a result of getting something unexpectedly nice, but with reflection I think it had more to do with the “un”-expected-ness of the evening. I have a real sense that if I had had any opportunity to plan out the event that I would have actually had less fun!
I think there are expectations and hopes (and fears) for the future that weigh heavily on this time of year. I also think that the transition from 2011 into 2012 is even more fraught with these than normal. I mean this is 2012 (hmm I wish I could find a way to have a voice boom that from a loud speaker and have the numbers flash)…
I have to say that there were a lot of good things about 2011; and there were also some really amazing challenges as well, at least for me personally. With each increase in vibration (and yes indeed the vibrations are increasing) I saw people around me (and myself included) dealing with grief and loss and a deep shifting, at a core level. Last year looked to be a year of addressing the issues that most needed to be healed and were often also the issues/ideas that were most firmly entrenched.
2011 was what I would call a “character building” year; and I mean that with a little humor and memory of my best friend in college and our shared phrase that meant OMFG life has gotten way too life-like, and that was “ah I guess we are building character”. I also mean it with some truth, because I think the phrase is surprisingly accurate. We have been building; or to say it even more accurately “unearthing character” or essence, from within ourselves.
OK so back to NYE. I had some options of places to go and people to see. I felt like I should do some of them just because it was That Night and all…but I have a new-to-me dog and she is pretty young and hadn’t been through the mass of fireworks with is NYE on the east side of the Big Island of Hawaii (people seriously like their fireworks here). She was an excellent excuse..er hmmm reason to perhaps stay home. Having just made it through Christmas more or less alone (ah the process of divorce is it’s own thing) and juggling a lot of plates in the air over the last couple of months; I really kinda looked forward to just staying home and hanging with my animals.
It’s funny though because even though it really was what I wanted to do; I almost left the house anyway because of the siren call of the illusive “really fun NYE experience”; and even some guilt about not meeting up with people I know. As it turned out I asked myself point blank “so what is your actual motive?” and when I realized it was just doing something because the “imaginary” action judging police might take offense. I promptly put on my jammies and found my snugly chair and blanket; pulled up a cat 🙂 and watched me some Netflix, while periodically making random comments on Facebook to my friends in other time zones.
(one of which was to make sure there was still a world there on the east coast after the year changed over..since I figured I would want to make sure and eat my chocolate here in HST before the “end of the world” got to me. Alas everyone was still alive and functioning after 12:01 EST so my chocolate was saved).
As the actual changing of the guard came closer to Hawaii I decided to turn off the TV and start meditating. I have no idea why this had not occurred to me to in recent years; but it seemed natural this year. I got into a reading trance and also incorporated Theta. It was a lovely place to be in for the shift of 2011 to 2012.
I hadn’t done this before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I know I have often felt the year shift, but normally that happens at a party or in front of a string of crackling fireworks. Being in stillness and attentiveness was such a different perspective. The shift when it happened was both simple and profound.
Imagine if you will, a stage with lights washing over it in some color. The director signals the lighting cue and the lighting technician flips a switch and the gel changes over the light can. Immediately the entire stage is awash with a different color…This is what I what I saw as I watched 2011 move into 2012. It was as if on cue the gel was changed for this reality and the lighting shifted. Everything moved from one color into a new color. I don’t have a name for the color, but it was lighter than the previous one and it was everywhere. Nothing changed but everything changed; all in an instant.
It was really amazing, and very cool. I have no idea if this is normally how a “year change” would look, but it was how it looked to me this year. There was a definite shift in the baseline vibration of everything, and it was a really beautiful one. I felt calm and good as I observed all this; I stayed up and watched for another half hour then I completed my meditation and got ready for bed.
I didn’t wish anyone a Happy New Year, or kiss anyone at midnight. I did however (since I was generating a lot of energy) send a lot of unconditional love around the world and into the grid that surrounds us. I sent well wishes to all of us on this spinning globe.
It was one of the most silent NYE’s I have ever had but refreshingly it was also one of the most fulfilling. I hadn’t been chasing an experience this year; I had listened to my intuition and I had followed my heart. I felt at ease and at peace. I felt optimistic and interested in seeing what that new color would bring.
Aloha and Blessings, and welcome to 2012
Erika
It’s my mother’s house (even though she gave it to me years ago and in truth we are both on the title). That is the issue, that is the question, that is the thing that sits at the back of my mind and pokes at me from time to time…what to do with my mother’s house?
I moved out of it more than two and ½ years ago, my mother two years or more before that. I have been saying I was going to sell it and I have had every intention to do so…except that… I haven’t. I haven’t sold it. I haven’t even listed it.
She looks at it rationally
Now part of that is because the housing market has totally tanked and it’s worth half of what it was 5 years ago. If the market was where it was back then, I am not sure I would even be having this constant internal dialog with myself about this house. Yet at the same time I am not 100% certain; and I believe that is the crux of all of this. If I talk to anyone else it seems a simple thing and as soon as I walk away I find myself unable or unwilling or distracted and the house continues not to sell (not being on the market and all). It also has fallen in value over and over again, making any of this far less appealing.
Let’s add to this that I am renting the house to someone. I had fully intended on selling it the summer after I moved out and bought the home I am currently living in 3000 miles away. This came on the heels of renting to someone my then partner swore by and who never actually paid me rent and left the house sad and unkempt. I was “done with renters” and I wanted to sell. But then what actually happened was that the woman who was helping clean out the house really wanted to rent it for her and her son, and since I didn’t have to do anything to rent it other than say yes and accept some rent which I needed badly, the house never made it on the market.
There are pros and cons to renting to a friend/acquaintance. One of which is that the person who used to be glad to see you or hear from you will stop answering calls and emails and basically cease to exist other than sending rent each month. This has been problematic both emotionally and logistically.
There had been talk twice in as many years about this person buying the house, and yet nothing has come of it. Now as I look at it, it almost doesn’t make sense to sell the home because I would be losing money given the market. This of course brings me to the next item of issue…property taxes. Ah yes these are the things that when you are really broke, fall by the way side and become overdue then delinquent and thus adding hundreds of dollars to the already unpaid bill.
This is what is staring me in the face currently; that and the fact I have been told by my tax person that if I wait until after this year to sell I will be paying a lot of taxes on anything I get for the house even if it goes lower than it’s current value…so as I write this perhaps I should list it and just see what happens. Provided the renter will even show up to show the house (part of the problem when the person really doesn’t want you to sell it).
This comes down to what I started writing about; the house itself.
If I had a lot of money (this is the sentence that I use to find out how I really feel about something separate from my issues around the money involved) would I sell this house?
If money wasn’t an issue would I sell this house?
This is the house I spent time in toddling around with my parents and grandparents. The house with the 80 year old wisteria, honeysuckle and camellia tree; the house with the garage that my grandfather built; the house with a history that always started with “this house began as a chicken coop when this whole area was a large farm and the farm house was that house way over there on the corner” to which there would be a pointing finger attached and I would dutifully follow the finger down the block to the largish home that housed one of my childhood schoolmates.
This is the house that has a well on the property that no longer is used or accessible but I always remembered it and thought that if the world fell apart at least I would be able to find water…This well had been filled in by my grandfather long before I was born. He used many things to accomplish this feat; including dumping a claw foot bathtub down the shaft; at least this is the mythology that I was taught at an early age when hearing the history of the house.
This is the house that I moved to when I was 14 after my grandfather passed away. The house that held me through all my psychedelic wanderings and coming out on many levels; saw me through High School and learning to drive and reading about UFO’s, reading countless Sci-Fi novels, listening to David Bowie and hitchhiking to Seattle on the Friday nights. This is where I wrote my college essay to get into the vegetarian co-op that was housing for the alternative school that I eventually was accepted into and moved out of the house in order to attend.
This was the house that I would come home to visit on breaks and the occasional weekend; the one that I would visit my mother in after my father passed away, the one that I came more often down to, to visit her as she became farther away mentally and that I had to eventually move her out of when the dementia became too difficult.
This is the house that I moved back into in order to be closer to her and in order to make ends meet financially and as a result became very depressed about being back in Tacoma.
And yet even moved through that over time and found a new place and contentment with being in my old home town which had grown up even more than I had. I came to love Tacoma for the first time. I lived here with my partner and actually had some really nice times together in that house, planned our move to Hawaii, planned and had our wedding while living in that house. Watched fences get built and plants planted and renovations planned.
This is the house where I created so many dreams. Some which came true and some which sadly did not; such as the dream of the marriage that had barely more than a few breaths into life before it started to pass away into something else.
This house represented family and history and possibility; it also represented my adolescence and the baggage and old pain of things perhaps better left in the past. It has also come to be connected in my heart with my mother; who still lives in the same city at a lovely care facility that is thankfully more like a 4 star hotel; and which is only a 10 minute drive, but light-years away from the life once lived in this house.
It’s no wonder that I avoid these issues. There are so many layers here; one on the next and on the next and on the next. In my fantasies I keep the house and rebuild it, add an apartment above the garage where I come to stay when I am in town. I move my soon to be ex-husband into the home for some kind of more than fair rent and we have b-b-ques when I am in town, he with his partner(s) and I with mine (who ever those people are to be) and in my dreams it feels good and connected and family like…maybe I eventually sell it and maybe I don’t.
I ask myself am I just keeping some kind of connection to the mainland; one that I don’t even know why I have since I rarely ever want to leave the island on which I now live? Do I envision that some day I will want to have the kind of jet set life where I would like to have an apartment 30 miles outside of a huge metropolitan city?
Perhaps it’s not about that at all but just the idea of a feeling that I have had about this little piece of land. A little piece of my history; a tree we planted for my mother; an idea of what is still yet to be; connections to many people I love through an address I have to fly for 6 hours just to visit.
And of course where the money comes from in this fantasy I am at a loss to know, but that is the same question as where the money is to come from for the taxes. And yes of course being me I have to say that ultimately it all comes from the Universe; and while that is absolutely true and reveals itself even in the writing of all this; I also know this post is about something small I hold in my hands, something personal and delicate like a empty tiny blue egg shell that has been left in the grass, in the spring, under a tree; someone’s former home.
Do I have to make these decisions now? Well not today it’s a holiday weekend, but it feels like soon. Perhaps I am just not willing to let this go until my mother has passed from this world; perhaps I am not yet ready to let go of all of this history; but then again maybe I am. We’ll just have to see.
Aloha and Blessings,
Erika
My simple Earth Day suggestion; if you haven’t already thought of it.
This just occurred to me today.
Put a small/medium Tupperware-like container in your bag and take it with you when you go out to dinner and use it for your “doggy bag”; meaning take your leftovers home in it rather than the Styrofoam containers that many restaurants use 🙂
Less stuff in the landfill and less steps between your leftovers and your fridge. Win – win.
The trick is remembering!
Blessings,
Erika