Tag: love

Happy Beltaine 2014 a magickal meditation for you.

Erika Ginnis

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Aloha!! It’s Lei day here in Hawaii, May day in many parts of the world, and it is of course Beltaine as well!!

I wanted to post something for Beltaine, and so I am going to include a ritual that you can imagine as you read through it, as well as some basic background for this High Holiday.

As I celebrate it, it is the spring fertility rite, it is the Divine Marriage of the God and the Goddess; and represents our passion and inspiration and conception of our greater yet to be. It is also the festival related to the Celtic God Bel, who is one of the Gods that I personally work with, he is a God of light and the Bel fire.

Here is some background…

Bel’s festival is Beltane, one of two main Celtic fire festivals. Beltane celebrates the return of life and fertility to the world — marking the beginning of Summer and the growing season. Taking place on the night of April 30, or the dawn and remaining day of May 1st, Beltane also is sometimes referred to as “Cetsamhain” which means “opposite Samhain.” The word “Beltaine” literally means “bright” or “brilliant fire,” and refers to the bonfire lit by a presiding Druid in honor of Bile.

The Celts used Beltaine celebration to bless the herds by driving them between two large fires to cleanse them before taking them to the summer pastures. Beltaine begins the season of summer as well as the “summer half” of the year. This High Holy Day was dedicated to adolescent joy, contests, frolicking in the woods, romance and passion. Dancing around the Maypole, games, and feasting are the usual customs.

In old Irish, one of the meanings of “Bel” is “bright” and “Teinne” denotes “fire,” joining to form “Beltaine”

In Celtic mythology, “Aed” refers to “fire” and an early fire deity associated with the Assaroe Falls near Ballyshannon, Ireland. Two better known characters, Lugh and Balor are solar gods who arrived with the Celts. Within the dark of the sidhe mounds lay the brilliantly lit palaces of the fairy folk. The gentry themselves are often described as radiant beings. This underworld of brilliance was later demonized as Christian “hellfire.” Even today, individuals who encounter Otherworldly or deceased spirits describe them as luminous figures.

In Ireland, the central site of the Beltaine festival is the Hill of Uisneach, in County Westmeath. Twin fires lit atop the hill signaled to fires on neighboring hills, forming an enormous bonfire web through which those assembled could see and be seen by the Goddess of the land, Aine. Then as today, ritual contact with the spiraling forces of life restored vitality to the participant and renewed the divine ligature between worlds.

Beltane is traditionally a time when the veil between our world and that of the Fae is thin.

In Ireland, one of the early races of conquerors was known as the Tuatha de Danaan, and they were considered mighty and powerful. It was believed that once the next wave of invaders arrived, the Tuatha went underground. In hiding from the Milesians, the Tuatha evolved into Ireland’s faerie race. Typically, in Celtic legend and lore, the Fae are associated with magical underground caverns and springs — it was believed that a traveler who went too far into one of these places would find himself in the Faerie realm.

Another way to access the world of the Fae was to find a secret entrance. These were typically guarded, but every once in a while an enterprising adventurer would find his way in. Often, he found upon leaving that more time had passed than he expected. In several tales, mortals who spend a day in the fairy realm find that seven years have passed in their own world.

The following is one version of a guided meditation ritual I have used to get in touch with the wonderful energy of this day and season.

Blessed be!

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Ground and center and get settled into your body, start to breath deeply and let yourself relax into that place between waking and sleep where you can ride the waves of your imagination.

Imagine that you are coming into a beautiful open field.

You see an open air Carriage decked with ribbons and bells sparkling jewels and soft white fur, you are thrilled to realize it is waiting for you, so you climb into the soft wide seat. It is being pulled by two beautiful horses with wings, who prance along the path, they know where they are going so you relax as the warm breeze softly playing against your cheek and you ride, the excitement building and you ride onward through beautiful country.

 

As you continue you look around you the trees and air takes on a glowing golden hue, as if the setting sun is warming it all with color and golden sweet honey.

The carriage stops at the end of a meadow, with little multicolored flowers fragrant among the grasses.

 

Stepping out of the carriage you look down at yourself and see that you are dressed in beautiful new clothing, silks and velvets, suede and ribbons, flowers and feathers. There is a bright bon fire in the center of the meadow and people are dancing around the fire there are bright Fey folk among the people adding to the song and festivities.

 

Speak to the Fey, let them greet you. Share secrets and stories during this time where the view between our world and theirs is so very thin. Let them bedeck you with even more finery.

You see a path that leads up to a hillside. On the top of the hill you see an oak tree and under it there are figures standing at the top. Stepping onto the path you walk along it. You follow the path up the hill, you look down and notice that it is lit on both sides with candles that look like glowing small stars.

As you get nearer you begin to see who it is that waits for you. It is Aphrodite and the Horned God of the Forest, smiling with eyes sparking with amusement and enjoyment; they are so very glad that you have joined them here.
You see a little past them a canopy/bower that is decked out in finery and you want to go to it, but you know that you must still wait a while yet.

 

You step first to Aphrodite. She is lovely and shining, hair flowing and skin lit from within. Drink in the attraction and the beauty, sea foam and sensual energy, permission for love. Go to her and receive her embrace, she has something to give you, a gift for your Beltane ritual. You realize that you have a gift for her as well, give it to her and know her enjoyment. Exchange thanks.

 

Next you go to the God of the forest, see him energized and smiling, filled with abundance and the energy of the rite of spring, eyes shining with merriment, embrace him and feel your own life force and vigor, the wild night in him and in you, the birth of desire and manifestation, creation and fulfillment, that he emanates. Again receive from him the gift he has for you, and give him what you find you have to give to him in offering, exchange thanks.

 

You see the next leg of your journey had two paths one goes along the fireside to join in with Bel who is the God of the Beltaine fire and the other dancing celebrants, the other goes towards a flowery bower that holds a beautiful bed made of rose petals and softest down mattresses, with wild furs thrown across it. There are many luscious things hidden in the warm shadows. It calls to you.

 

Realize that at any time that you can connect completely at what every level you wish and can also at any time move from the bed to the fire side to dance with the others. Knowing that each is a wonderful place to be, and if you dance near the fire you can feel the swirl of energy from the bower; and from the bower you are aware that everyone around the fire is lending their energy to your connection with the Divine.

You take a deep breath, and feel the soft ground under your feet.
As you pass the heat of the fire you are aware of your own energy rising, feel it, breath it in, it is warm at first then filling you. Your heart is open and you feel relaxed and secure, wonderfully at home in your body.

You feel yourself to be the God or Goddess, knowing yourself to be exactly that. As you look upon the beautiful soft flower petal bed you see that you are not alone, you are joined by the aspect of the God or Goddess that best compliments you.

You feel yourself glow with energy and life; you know that you are indeed divine and that you are divinity incarnate in living flesh. You feel spring call to you now; you heed the call and fall laughing into the fur and feathers and satin folds. Looking deeply into the eyes of Divinity there, connect at all levels, feeling the energy move through you. Knowing this to be indeed the meeting of the God and the Goddess in sacred marriage and the Great Rite.

As you look into the eyes of your consort, the light changes for a moment. You recognize now that you are also looking into the eyes of your special lover in your waking world, or perhaps it is the eyes of the one that waits for you that you have yet to meet. Know them to be also the God and Goddess in form.

Feel the springtime rising in you, ripe and ready to burst forth with abundance and flower, sweet and succulent nectar. Breathe deeply and feel yourself rising on the energy bursting into the Universe shooting stars fly past with glittering light. Hear the sounds of bells and song, smile and know yourself to be beautiful and beloved of the Gods just exactly as you are. You are decked in beauty and light and sensual pleasure and it is all so very very good.

Know that you are sacred that your union is sacred see it flow out in all directions, bringing spring and flower and new life to everything around you and into all the worlds. Knowing that it brings into your own life the fruition of plans and joyous beginnings made manifest as you will them to be.

 

Breathe and Bask in the golden light of creation and afterglow. Thanking the Goddess and God for their energy and love you receive a shining kiss on your forehead, bringing you back to your self. Energized and buoyant, you rise from the bower and drape flowers and vines around your body and you go to join the others. Revel in the fire and the twilight and see the stars begin to shine above you.

You see your carriage waiting for you and waving to your friends, you climb in. The carriage rolls through the countryside you are watching the purple shadows and silver moonlight flow by you as you travel back to where you began.

As you are driving back you notice that your clothing and festival wear is melting away like morning mist. The carriage stops and you get out. You stand cleansed and new and you notice how at home you feel in your body, you know yourself to be comfortable and strong and that your heart is warm and open.

You begin to allow your awareness to expand, bringing the energy and lightness and creativity with you to the physical plane, clothing yourself in physical reality and clothing that you began with.

Taking a deep relaxing breath and grounding out any excess energy, carrying with you your divinity and the gift from the Gods, you come to this reality awake and aware and refreshed. Wiggling your finger and toes. And open your eyes.

(copywrite Erika Ginnis 2014)

Blessings and Aloha,
Erika

Great Quote about Love.

Erika Ginnis

 

I love my friends who send me so many inspiring things. Here is another one that I have to share, it took me a while to read it (notice a theme here??) finally got around to it and I am loving it.

I do a lot of work with “Unconditional Love” meaning love without conditions on it, and I am a total proponate for the energy of that and using it in healing and meditation. The following quote though, takes a different perspective on the whole thing and it was wonderful to read. I really resonated with it and it was like a breath of fresh clean air full of possibility and promise.

So here I am once again passing on the good stuff to you (whoever you are) my lovely readers.

If I don’t have to post great long posts perhaps I will get more in the habit of posting more often (one of my intentions)..

BTW I have no idea from whom the quote springs, if I did I’d definitely mention it (it reminds me personally of Rob Brezny but I have no idea if he is the author of it). In any case it came to me in this condition and in this condition I send it your way.

Update: I just found out today (the day after Valentines Day) that the author of this lovely quote is author Courtney A. Walsh…thank you Courtney for writing this!

Many many blessings!

 

Subject:Great quote, “dear human…..messy love”

 

“Dear Human: You’ve got it all wrong. You didn’t come here to master unconditional love. That is where you came from and where you’ll return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love. Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling. Demonstrated through the beauty of… messing up. Often. You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And then to rise again into remembering. But unconditional love? Stop telling that story. Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives. It doesn’t require modifiers. It doesn’t require the condition of perfection. It only asks that you show up. And do your best. That you stay present and feel fully. That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU. It’s enough. It’s Plenty.”

Aloha…

Erika

Love letter to my past; what to do with my mother’s house…

Erika Ginnis

 

 

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 however is actually not about my head…oh no dear readers; this is all about my heart

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

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Love is the source code of this reality…Welcome February.

Erika Ginnis

It is that time in the year when our attention in drawn towards love. Hearts and flowers, and perhaps even chocolate; all of which I am a total fan of by the way!

There is a lot of information about the origins of what we speak of as “Valentines day” most of which are interesting, surprising, and valid. None of which I am going to write on today (doncha just love me!!).

I am going to take this at face value and speak about the expressed reason for the upcoming celebration. I am going to look at it from a completely different angle. This comes from something that came to me while working today with 4 different people on four seemingly different things.

It is the reason why this kind of work actually “works” why metaphysics or healing or energetics aren’t just words but call forth actual experience. So put on your goggles and join me in inner and outer space. I am going to speak on Love.

Love is the source code of this reality. It is what everything is built from and built on. It is at the core of every particle, every idea, every thought, and every cell.

It is the fundamental building block of this Universe. It is the single indivisible particle at the heart of all particles, that is itself the entirely in which the particles move in and return to. It is the wave form; the Om; the Alpha and the Omega.

Love is the note that birthed the chorus and still sings in the surrounding harmonics and ringing overtones.

Find it, return to it and you have in your hands the basis for all creation and all manifestation. Reside in it and you will find at once that place that holds the stillness between the undeniable impulse to expand in all directions and all dimensions; and the total fulfillment and richness of the singular moment;  desire without need, enthusiasm without fear.

(100% commitment and 100% nonattachment)

Embrace the triune nature that is created and maintained by Love: The enthusiasm of initiation and forward movement; complete fulfillment and contentment in the perfection of the existent unfolding “now”; and the paradox of momentarily infinite space between these states, within which whole galaxies can reside.

Love calls to itself and it expands because of itself.

It is what we feel and think of as love, in all its many forms; but beyond that as well. The love within us when we find it; feel it; connect to it; is the terminal through which we access the enormity of Life’s expression.

Travel at the speed of Love.

Faster than the speed of light, faster even than the speed of thought. It has no need to traverse distances because it is already at the destination; it is simply a shift of focus and perception. Have your attention on something and perceive it; find yourself shifted by the “addition” of Love and your perception immediately changes.

Suggestion:

1. Think of someone who had been annoying you; someone in your life you are having a hard time loving. This can be someone close to you, or someone in the world at large.

2. Spend some time every day from now until Valentines Day thinking of them in a new way. Imagine them with the kind of deep things that you would want/seek for yourself; imagine them happy and well, understood, accepted, appreciated, surrounded by people who really know them and cherish them, see them as feeling safe, secure and loved, held in the gentlest most caring arms imaginable.

3. Do this daily. Granted you may feel at first that you have to fake it for a few days (sometimes it can help imagining them as a young child…everybody was one at one time) just give it time. Ideally you will do this until they can walk through your mind unharmed 🙂

4. Do not tell them about this, or make a big outward deal about it. You are not actually doing this for them. You are doing it for you. It will change not only your relationship with them, but it will change your relationship to your reality. Trust me. It is worth every minute you spend on it.

Love is the source code of this reality. Get out your code book and start where you can start. Pet your cat, hug your dog, hold your child, cherish the characters in a favorite book whose actions you may not agree with but whose heart you understand. Some author somewhere knew them and placed them in the events; told their story. From within their journey they spoke to you and you came to love them. You understand them because they were written from Love.

Translate that to you.

Aloha and Blessings,

Erika

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