Posts Tagged ‘musings’
Friday, June 4th, 2010
This is Sand Spirit Insight Card #26. I “drew” it for today by just picking a number and clicking on it without knowing which image would come up. This one has morphed over time. I used to see a woman in it, offering a gift to the heavens. I still can see her today, but more often now I see a face of a male figure who appears to be a wizard. He tells me he can see the invisible, see below the surface. He is warning us about the necessity for humankind to move away from the personal and the ego into the realm of greater consciousness and responsibility to the earth. He is talking about the tragedy of the oil spill as the most recent example. His left eye (his more feminine or intuitive side, connected to his right brain) is his more active eye. His right eye is focused on the heavens. This is his doing side, and he has surrendered to divine guidance for all his decision-making.
This is serious stuff, but how else can we respond to all that is happening now? A volcano erupts in Guatemala, followed by floods and the appearance of a giant sinkhole in the capital. Oil threatens our ocean, our sea animals and a whole way of life on the southern coast. Whatever actions we must take, this looks like the time to begin them.
The card I drew coincides with my finishing Craig Hamilton’s course in integral enlightenment and moving beyond the ego. The shift we must make requires a new kind of effort–one that begins with surrender to forces greater than ourselves. We live within the Great Mystery, and it looks like it’s time to respect it again.
How will we each begin?
Tags: consciousness, living today, managing change, musings, new life, Photography, Sand Spirit Insight Cards, transitions, ups and downs
Posted in authenticity, caring for the earth, conscious evolution, consciousness, death and new life, shifting paradigms | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
Sand Spirit insight card #14 looks like a medicine person to me, an important tribal person wearing a headdress and cloaked in mystery. When I ask this figure what he has to say to me, he says that he is here to remind me that we each have what Angeles Arrien calls our “original medicine.” Whatever cluster of gifts we have is a unique mix. If we don’t offer it to the world, it will be lost forever. What a great motivation to bring out all the potential that lies within you!
What is your unique cluster of gifts? And how do all your life experiences, dreams, longings and “failures” come together to form a package that could help others? You might think, for example, of what has broken your heart about the world. Author and minister Frederick Beuchner urges us to find our calling by matching what breaks our heart with what our deepest longings are. At that intersection, perhaps you can find your “original medicine.”
And how will you bring that out into the world? The Sand Spirit tells me there are a thousand ways, a thousand versions. They are all just like flavors of ice cream. They are all sweet, delicious. Just choose the one that delights you the most, and go for it.
Your comments? I’d love to hear from you!
Tags: bringing out your gifts, calling, living today, musings, perception, Photography, Sand Spirit Insight Cards, Self
Posted in bringing out your gifts, calling, coaching, creative imagination, Guided imagery, Imagination, nature as mirror, Photography, seeing oneself | No Comments »
Friday, April 9th, 2010
What do you look like to others? And how do you try to present yourself?
Each of us deals with the real fact that how we see ourselves may be different that the image others have of us. How do we begin to project a more authentic “look” that reflects who we truly are inside? Or is that even important?
In today’s culture we are so surrounded by invitations to be inauthentic and to conjure an image that is young enough, thin enough, glamorous enough…or just enough…that it can get exhausting. So how can we work on allowing our clothes, our makeup, our choice of hairstyle and the complete way we present ourselves in public to be just a natural celebration of being ourselves?
I love the days when I am going to an event and instead of struggling over “the right thing to wear,” I simply reach for the color that will nourish me, the necklace that will make me feel happy, the shade of lipstick that brings a smile to my face…and walk out the door just glad to be joining a community.
What if women all over the world rose up in protest of fashion tyranny and used fashion in this way: just a celebration of who they are. Certainly I know many women already accustomed to approaching their image in this way. But if we can encourage girls and young women to take a deep breath, maybe they will allow their “image” to reflect the celebration of being themselves, rather than one more thing to try to get right.
What do you think? What is your relationship to fashion and to the concept of your image? How would you like to be a leader in this area?
Tags: beauty, consciousness, Essence, fashion, inner peace, living today, musings, perception, Photography, Self, self image, The Beauty Way, women leaders
Posted in authenticity, conscious evolution, consciousness, feminine leadership, loving ourselves, nourishing ourselves, Photography, returning to essence, seeing oneself, self image, shifting paradigms, The Beauty Path, women's empowerment | No Comments »
Saturday, March 20th, 2010
Ever heard of photographic vision boards? I hadn’t either, so I invented them. Now others may have invented them as well–I don’t know. But I held an experimental vision board class, and here is one of the results: mine!
We went out into the desert together, where we found a lot of water after all the recent rains. We took photos of the things nature does best. Thinks like flowing, regenerating, combining life and death, blooming, bending, growing, holding, creating texture and color, and many other things. Then we met again with our prints and created vision boards about the experiences and feeling states we wish to cultivate in our lives. To see more photos and a longer explanation of our process, go to: http://web.me.com/pamelahale/Through_A_Different_LensGalleries/Photo_Vison_Board_class.html
What do you see in this vision board? Of course it’s different viewing the 20″ x 30″ piece up close, but you can probably see a lot of flow. A lot of presence of the element of water. A lot of texture and shadow. Do you see me seeking beauty in nature? Do you see the heart I unconsciously created in the center? What else to you see?
Now when you go outside wherever you live, you might think about what nature is showing you about yourself, your own longings for what you’d like to manifest, and about your own human potential.
Vision on, and share your observations!
Tags: Essence, inner landscape, inner peace, living today, managing change, musings, new life, perception, photographic vision boards, Photography, The Beauty Way
Posted in conscious evolution, Imagination, inner landscape, managing change, nature as mirror, new life, photographic vision boards, Photography, seeing oneself, shifting paradigms, The Beauty Path | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
In the fall my husband Jon and I flew our Cessna 182 from Tucson to Taos to visit friends who have a wonderful mountain cabin. On the way, we saw fall leaves coming to their peak, almost as quickly as time lapse photography on the Discovery Channel. By the end of the long weekend when we returned, spots of gold like this one had spread, and whole swatches of forest were brilliant gold and orange. Superimposed on it all, I would see a moving shadow of our little plane, projected onto the screen of nature.
Plato saw reality in a way similar to this, as I recall–shadows projected on the back of a cave, like a camera obscura. Is everything we are so attached to a moving set of illusions?
Part of the Flying Lessons process I teach is the notion of seeing that we can move our vantage point around, seeing ourselves and our lives from above when that is helpful, defying the gravity of events on the ground level.
Another flying lesson is about opening our hearts to the beauty and wonder of nature, and to the beauty and wonder of our inner words as well. After all, we are part of the creation, and when we see that we are full of gratitude and a sense of connection to the whole web of life. The stories that fill the “middle world” which we usually inhabit are like this shadow of a small vehicle moving across the canvass of nature.
The key here is that we can observe all this. We are the first species that is conscious of ourselves. We have choices no part of creation has had before. What will we do with this awareness? Where will we travel on our journeys? What will our relationship be to the planet? What will our exclamations be as we observe our interaction with the planet; will they be utterances of wonder or cynicism? Small views or large? How curious are we to see what the extent is of our powers? How will we use them?
Or is the plane shadow just a “plain shadow,” just an illusion, just a passing image that no one saw anyhow?
What do you think? If, like me, you are a “philoser,” as I used to call myself when I was a child, and you too are sipping from a pot of tea, drop in and share your observations.
Tags: afternoon tea, beauty, Flying, Flying metaphor, inner landscape, musings, non-attachment, perception, Photography, relationship, Self, The Beauty Way
Posted in aviation, conscious evolution, consciousness, Flying, Gaia, Guided imagery, Imagination, inner landscape, nature as mirror, Photography, returning to essence, seeing oneself, shifting paradigms, The Beauty Path | No Comments »
Monday, March 8th, 2010
OK, so actually this was taken from our Cessna 182. Which is a balcony of sorts. From the window of the airplane, I look down on the stage of life, where stories are being played out. I wonder who lives in that house? What is the red building and what goes on there? What dramas have been played out in full view of each other, and what has gone on in hiding? What are the interior lives like of the people who live within that fence?
Many times with clients, I have them shift to a lens where they look at their lives as if from a balcony–or maybe a Cessna 182. Looking down on our lives allows us to see the big picture. You might ask yourself questions in the third person as you look down on your life, like:
Who is this person? Where did she come from? Why is she here?
How have his surroundings affected him?
What are her relationships like and where do they seem to be going?
What is his life work and is he doing it?
What needs to change to make her happy? What inner resources does she need to bring out to help her?
What is this person “growing” on the ground of their being? What is their life about?
What do you see from the balcony and how is it different from what you see when you are on the stage, in the middle of the action?
Tags: Flying, Flying metaphor, inner landscape, living today, musings, non-attachment, perception, Photography, seeing oneself, Self, shifting lenses, winter
Posted in Flying, Guided imagery, Imagination, inner landscape, Photography, self-healing | No Comments »
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
I walk out into the desert’s winter, watching for signs.
The blonde brittle grasses part, giving me a glimpse of apple green beneath.
The hard ground softens for ants wakening to build spring mounds.
Black broken trees play dead, but tell me the sap is rising like warm honey in their limbs.
The mountains’ sprinkling of sugar pours down into liquid in the washes.
Wildflowers are plotting from deep within their seeds, imagining their riot.
And I thrill to the feel of my heart widening into the sweet flow of breath within.
The land is remembering me into new life.
Tags: inner landscape, living today, musings, new life, perception, Photography, poetry, spring, The Beauty Way, winter
Posted in centering techniques, conscious evolution, death and new life, Guided imagery, inner landscape, meditation, nature as mirror, new life, Photography, poem, returning to essence, self-healing, spring, The Beauty Path, winter | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Sand Spirit Insight card #4
I’m continuing my experiment of asking a question about a personal issue of mine, and then thinking of a number between 1 and 36, since that’s how many Sand Spirit Insight cards there are in the set. Today I asked about my lingering laryngitis. What do I need to know or do to get completely well?
Two numbers came to mind: 31 and 4. Interesting, since 4 is the sum of 3 and 1—so 4 seems to be up with this issue. The section on numerology and the Sand Spirits in my own workbook lists these words for the number 4: Work, foundation, order, health, service, practicality, application, loyalty, struggle against limtis, steady growth, rigidity and repression. Some words having to do with the light side of me and some referring to the shadow.
The Sand Spirit image looks like a guardian angel to me, and always makes me feel I am surrounded by protection and support. That’s a comfort. So I ask this angelic advisor, what words apply to me now, and what can I do to improve my health and my immune system?
The Sand Spirit points out that there’s a whole back story here about me not wanting to slow down, fighting limitations, not listening to my inner voice, and suffering health issues as a result. But I’ve been working on this. So now what?
“Still more layers,” she answers. “Loyalty…to others or to yourself? You’re still making your way toward equality in this department. Be willing to slow even more. Be very practical. You want to serve, and that is great. But some of your own needs are still being repressed. Look for them in your body…”
“So, would you say this has to do with speaking up for myself, or feeling I have no voice to do that?” I ask.
“Remember the little one at the bottom of the image who is the younger, smaller you?” the Sand Spirit asks. “You need to be her guardian angel and prompt her to speak up for herself. She needs to feel equal to the aspects of yourself you consider more worthy, more together, more of an achiever. When you accept the shadow as equal to the light, all will be well.”
And so, once again, the Sand Spirit has more wisdom that I know how to live out. So I am off to give that a try.
What did you see in this Sand Spirit image? What message does the figure have for you today?
Tags: centering techniques, Essence, inner peace, living today, meditation, musings, Photography, Sand Spirit Insight Cards, Self, spiritual practice, transitions
Posted in centering techniques, coaching, divine feminine, Guided imagery, Imagination, meditation, nature as mirror, Photography, returning to essence, self-healing, spiritual practices, Uncategorized, women's empowerment | No Comments »
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
rainbow carrots
Wow! Have you seen these rainbow carrots? I thought they were so lovely that I decided to buy them no matter what the high-end grocery store was charging. They would be so fun to cut up! I couldn’t wait to see how much they held their color when cooked. And would the purple ones taste any different from the plain ol’ carrots I’ve been eating all my life?
I love it when something fairly simple and completely natural takes my breath away. Somehow it’s proof of persistent innocence. And of the real things that tend to give us the most pleasure.
It occured to me when I roasted these carrots with garlic and good olive oil, rosemary potatoes next to them, that food we consider beautiful probably gives us extra nourishment. All the research being done about the mind/body and about the body’s propensity to open with pleasure and close with fear on all its levels of functioning–well, the facts are a blur. But the impression I have is that when we take time, when we choose foods that are beautiful and pleasurable, our body breaks out into a big purr and is able to use the nutrients in the food to bolster the life force. And life force is what we want.
I had a client the other day who has been through such a major trauma that I feared she might be in a depression too deep for me to handle. I asked her how big she pictured the life force inside her to be. I asked her to picture it in the form of a flame, figuring she might tell me it was the size of a pilot light. She floored me by telling me it was as big as a house. I’m not worried about her now. Sure, I’m empathetic about the grief and the pain she has to go through, but I’m not worried about her in the long run because she has a life force as big as a house. She has rainbow carrots inside her.
Tags: Essence, food, living today, managing change, musings, new life, perception, Photography, Self, sense of humor, spiritual practice, ups and downs
Posted in conscious evolution, humor, Imagination, managing change, meditation, Photography, play, returning to essence, self-healing, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Often I pick a Sand Spirit Insight card at random, trusting that I know which one will tell me what I need to remember for the day.
This is an image I’ve always loved. I see a woman with a heart-shaped face, wearing flowing robes and bedecked with ceremonial scarves and decorations. Her body looks relaxed and she is walking forward gracefully, her right hand over her belly.
This woman is full of love and grace, and she is very earthy. She loves her body and loves and cares for herself in the best sense. She has a sense of humor and loves pleasure. All who come across her feel better just for being in her presence. I feel better just drawing the card with her image on it.
This Sand Spirit has come to remind me that we all–men or women–have this juicy, beautiful, fun and holy feminine energy within us. I think today my message is to bring her out and let her show, let her walk in the world. That ought to make today a magical day.
What do you see in this card? What does the form or figure that pops out for you have to say? And how do you respond?
Tags: centering techniques, Essence, Flying metaphor, inner peace, living today, musings, new life, perception, Photography, relationship, Sand Spirit Insight Cards, Self, sense of humor, spiritual practice
Posted in centering techniques, conscious evolution, divine feminine, Guided imagery, Imagination, nature as mirror, Photography, play, returning to essence, self-healing, spiritual practices, women's empowerment | No Comments »
