Lion and Magic Boy

I gots me some plans, baby!

Yes. It’s true. I’ve been working on some new projects, that is, when I’m not deep in the Black Hole or doing any of the myriad things that seem to come up when there’s three kids and two cats around. (Oh. The vacuum cleaner has been repaired, by the way, and I’m thrilled to report that one rotating power head brush later, it works as well as it did when new and doesn’t make that funny sound anymore. Yay for that!)

1. Project #1. New blog! Yep, I’ve launched a new blog, so go over and have a look! Called Springing Light, it’s a spiritually-based blog that’s closely aligned with the kind of spiritual counselling work I do with people. I’ll be adding a new post there once or twice a week. Go see! (I’ll wait here).

2. Project #2. My website. That’s LightSpring Transformations. Links in pages! Samples of my work! That’s just a small part of what’s new to come, as I’m looking to completely revamp that site, but sometimes small changes add up and hmm, maybe that’s a lesson in impatience? Yes?

P.S. If anybody can tell me how to make the in-post links here at Lion and Magic Boy a solid line instead of a dotted line, I’ve been irked by that forever and would be hugely indebted to whomever could tell me how to make it stop!

3. Project #3. Another new blog! This is co-written with Matthew, except (ahem) he’s been doing most all of the writing on it thus far. But you can look for my stuff there in the future. Loving Awareness, doesn’t that sound wonderful?

And because I love you, not only will I remind you again about sunscreen, but I’ll post this month’s channeled message. Which, frankly, I was quite looking forward to as I was very ready to say goodbye to that last part of September and all that went with it. But look! The sun’s out, it’s a beautiful day! As I hope it is where you live, too.

You have been awaiting further confirmation of what has been transpiring of late, and we wish at this time to show you how you already have access to this information, access to the deep inner recesses of yourself. There is no separation as you perceive. You are always connected to your inner resources, whether or not you have awareness of this. The trick, then, is to expand your awareness so that its sphere includes that which you feel is a separate thing from you.

This past month has been a transformative one for many of you. Both inner and outward changes have resulted from the alterations in perception you have engulfed. For many, this was a painful process; for others, there was more peace in it. There is no right or wrong or judgment attached to either path, though it may be helpful for those who experienced pain to understand that the pain itself was a choice: perhaps to obtain your attention, perhaps to learn from the experience of pain, perhaps for other reasons. But of course you may ALWAYS choose a different path by which to reach the same result.

We wish, then, to give you some tools this day to help you take a different path the next time such a transformative time is at hand.

Stand before a mirror, and look at the reflection of your image you see there. Ponder this: is this image you see your WHOLE self? Does it accurately reflect the ENTIRETY of you? Or is it simply an image in a polished surface? Which is more real, the image or the surface itself? Which can you touch? Raise your hand and caress yourself through the image in the mirror. Really reach through and imagine not only the touch of your face through your fingers, but also the receipt of such touch. Really imagine this. Try to feel warm flesh rather than cold glass.

Oh, you try and try, but still the reality of the cold glass is there, is it not? Yet you are aware that there is more to you, MUCH more, than what you see or can feel before you.

The next time, then, you begin to feel pain as a result of the enormous changes that occur for you AT ALL TIMES, step back and remember how you perceived the greater YOU even though you could only feel the image of you. Remember the difference between the wholeness of YOU and the part. You can then access this whole You AT ANY TIME, and realize that there is ALWAYS something greater than what can be perceived through an image. Always.

This next month we see of course a continuation of the changes wrought in the immediate past. How could there not be? Much energy is afoot here and some of you may be embracing change as a means of moving through some very old patterns. The more you embrace this, the easier it will be to accept these patterns as part of yourself. By accepting these patterns rather than RESISTING them, you connect more with the wholeness of You and therefore can feel more connected to the utter joy that is within you, always there and always present and always accessible to you. It is our wish for each of you to know, if you choose, the joy that comes from connecting to the Love that is each of you.

Happy October, everyone. You are loved!

(Oh, if you liked this message you can read the entire year’s messages over at LightSpring Transformations)

I feel the change in the air; do you?

It’s more than the prospect of school beginning again tomorrow and all the changes that will ensue from moving from the Waldorf school to public schools.

It’s more than the fact that for the past several days, both Nathaniel and Serena have disappeared for hours at a time, running wild in our little neighborhood with a pack of kids, which is a huge change for them considering it wasn’t long ago that I wrote that they had no friends at all.

It’s more than the ever-lowering sun, marching down the horizon a little more each day until meeting itself again on the solstice again in December, to begin a new cycle once more.

It’s more than a suggestion of the crispness in the air that will arrive by month’s end.

It’s more than a reddening and a yellowing of leaves here and there amid the green, the fields of corn turning brown and standing, rustling a little in the late-afternoon breeze amid lengthening shadows, on almost-early-autumn stalks.

Those outward signs of transformation are matched by the inward ones, the ones that arrive with a new certainty and a new knowingness, that arrive too with latent fears here and there that well up at unexpected times, swelling with importance until they burst almost of their own accord and dissipate into the nothingness from whence they came.

Do you feel them, the changes at hand? Do you feel your constant creation, coming ever closer to fruition as the who-you-are emerges, shining, light-filled, and whole?

September’s Monthly Message over at LightSpring Transformations is all about transformation; change is in the air!

Tomorrow morning I get to wake before dawn to make my early-morning flight to Colorado. It’ll be six days in the state I lived in for a year, the state I moved from under duress a year ago, the state I figure no longer feels like home. I can look forward to six days of low humidity, hiking and wonderful connection with nature and the mountains, connecting with other spiritually-minded people, and well, connecting. Connecting.

Except with the internet. Six days without email will be…interesting. Though frankly I doubt I will miss it. No offense.

I’ll see you when I get back.

[tags] travel, flying, Colorado, Michael teachings[/tags]

When I was in junior high or maybe high school I wrote a story called “Darkness Reigns”. I liked the play-on-words aspect of the title, but I’m pretty sure the story sucked.

Why that came to me just now I’m not quite sure. However. I was going to write about last Saturday, a day I pretty much just spent crying. Which is somewhat perplexing to children, which is why I’m glad I just remembered that they weren’t here that day. See? A day spent in a black hole. Fun!

I managed to scribble some thoughts down that day, thoughts that evolved into a sort of conversation, in my beloved Moleskine journal, a gift to myself that begins with its first entry on January 6, 2007: I choose joy. That was a pretty huge thought for me at the time and it was important to write it down so I’d remember it, so used to wallowing in my fears and shortcomings as I was. Choosing joy seemed like a logical, if not unattainable, step, but then something happened: hey, I found it! It was here all the time!

But it’s not like I live there, in joy.

You know, I say that, write it, and immediately I hear a conflicting message (hey, I’m a channel, after all; I have connections, dude):

If you think of Joy, like every other human emotion and every other State of Being, as a spectrum, and embrace the fullness, the totality, of that emotion or state, then yes, you do indeed AT ALL TIMES live in joy. The difference lies ONLY in your perception. if you choose to perceive Joy as a state that only allows goodness, or “positive” aspects, then you are denying a part of that state and in so doing deny a part of yourself. By embracing the totality of every state, you open yourself up for the receipt of its complete energy, and this in turn will provide your life with a richness you do not as yet experience. EVERYTHING has an entirety; it is up to you to find a way to see and embrace that entirety instead of relying on limitations.

So my crisis on Saturday had a lot to do with the template of The Mistress of Self-Deception that I’ve chosen in this life to employ. Actually, its name is Self-Deprecation, but deception surely is also an apt description. When I’m fully in this state, it affects EVERYTHING, like I’ve donned the Special Extra-Dark Glasses of Half-Emptiness with which to view everything. I’ve always alternately fought this and wallowed in it.

But you want to know what I wrote, don’t you? A peek inside my super-secret personal journal? That I’ve never shown to anyone? That until now no one even knew existed? Hell, yes!

Here we go, then: [edited somewhat, sorry]

***********

Impatience plays strongly here, along with self-dep. They frolic together: the unfairness!

Fears of missing out because I am not good enough. Irony? Maybe.

So I am asking for guidance here, asking for help in letting go of my fears. It comes to me as I write this that first I must face them, must walk right into them. Must name them. All right, then. I will.

1. I am afraid that people will look at me and find me lacking.

But I have been told, many times, that when someone looks at me they see perfection, perfection that includes all those fears. Just as I see them.

So what is causing me to doubt this? Why don’t I believe it? What more must I look at here?

Its not about extinguishing self-dep, banning it, but about acknowledging it and embracing it.

OK then.

2. I am afraid that I haven’t got anything of consequence on my own, that I must derive my self-worth through someone else’s eyes. Because I am afraid to find it on my own, afraid that I will look and there will be nothing. It’s easier to rely on someone’s else’s admittedly faulty view of you then to face what you might see, or not see, on your own.

[that was painful to state. many tears.]

I am afraid I can’t live up to my own impossibly high standards. They are set so high I will almost certainly fail, which means I can be afraid to try. Which means I can rely on someone else.

How do I heal this?

Walk through it and embrace it. it is a part of you, and as such it is just as beautiful and perfect as the parts of yourself you present to others.

That way you could relax this ever-present attention you have to who and what you have crafted. Wouldn’t it be nice not to have to remember that all the time?

[more tears here, many of them]

But who am I?

You are everything you have ever thought or dreamed. You are larger than ever you thought possible.

I am afraid people won’t like me.

If you do everything with the thought of doing so to please someone else, you are not being true. And people will notice. And *that* they won’t like.

Be true and people will like you for your trueness.

***********

So I wrote that, channeled parts of it (the italics!), continued to wallow for a few hours, but by nighttime felt lighter. It all makes perfect sense to me, the words that came in response to my fears, but my natural inclination is to then DO something about it. Formulate a Plan! Implement the Plan! But I really don’t know where to go with it.

I’m going to rely instead on a notion I picked up many years ago. I believe that everything, of course, possesses an energy, maybe even a life, of its own. Everything. So you can be affected by the energy of, for instance, words. I came to this when I examined the books I was reading. They seemed to come in waves, themes, each one connected somehow to the one before and the one I read after it. I began to feel as if I was somehow being guided in my book choices, that I was obtaining an education of sorts. I really think I was. Am.

Taking this a step further, I believe, too, that sometimes, simply possessing a book can impart its energy to you. I used to buy all sorts of books on healing when I was on a spiritual quest some years back. I was searching and searching, gathering information and sifting through it, to eventually develop the spiritual beliefs and practice I use now (which is still, of course, an evolving creation). Often I’d read a chapter or two and then feel I was done with the book. I had gotten what I needed, and the rest was simply available through the book’s energy.

Either that or I’m too damned IMPATIENT to read an entire book.

Nah. it’s the other thing.

So, thinking about that, I’m thinking that it’s the energy in the act of writing, the act of reading over the words (and now I have reinforced them yet again by blogging them!) that will have the effect. I can simply relax a bit, then, and allow change to flow to and around and through and within me.

I’ll post an update at the end of the month.

***********

If you find wisdom for yourself in my journey, I’m delighted! Please post a comment here or a link to me, and feel free to share a link to me with anyone you think might benefit from the information. I certainly don’t pretend to have many of the answers, but I welcome anyone who is also searching, and I’m happy to be able to share the elements of my journey with all of you.

Also, as you can see from the conversational aspects of what I posted above, the channeling I do is a form of therapy. If you or anyone you know is interested in healing work, it’s very possible I can help, and I can gear sessions to the recipient (it’s not necessary to know about the spiritual system I work with, but an openness and a sense of self-awareness are very very helpful). LightSpring Transformations.

Well, it’s been quite a month, July. Has it been that way for you too? One moment I’ve totally got a handle on things and in the next it feels like the universe has ripped a hole in the fabric of time and my life is leaking out through it. There was some major intenseness in the month, and all the while I’ve either had myself convinced I was on top of it all, or I knew I was in deep trouble and just rode the dark waves.

So I’m not all that unhappy to see July go, even though I know better than to wish my life away at this point.

However! There’s brightness on the horizon, apparently, and resolution. And meanwhile we are urged to enjoy and play. Well, that sounds good, doesn’t it? And all this advice comes to you from the new monthly message up at LightSpring Transformations. (Oh! And while you’re there, check out my new offering, a personalized, channeled, annual report prepared for you or someone you love! Ooooh! I know you want one!)

So this explains why I was compelled to order some luscious Lush soap today (this is very much fun, by the way!). Yep, I’m right on top of things!

Enjoy! And I’m planning a sensual, allowing August. How about you?

In my years as a channel of the Michael entity, I would say I’ve grown a fair bit. Not only that, but my relationship with Michael has changed somewhat, and in that time (we’re talking 8 years here as a professional channel, with many more before that in training to do so), I’ve noticed some shifting in their energy somewhat. It’s likely from my moving into a more comfortable space with the work and the energy, and especially lately, I’ve noticed a much more loving focus. Some channels receive drier messages than others, but what’s been coming through for me, especially in the past year and especially more so since last April or so, has been loving and playful both.

This month’s message felt designed for some of you specifically. In fact, I think it is for you. Was it?

[tags]Michael teachings, channeling, psychic messages, Love[/tags]

I’m convinced that there’s pretty much a reason for everything. True, some things can be completely random perhaps, but for the most part I find meaning in almost everything that happens. I can drive myself crazy with analyzing past events, replaying the tapes of long-dead conversations to glean the hidden meanings from them.

And whenever I’m feeling stuck in some situation that doesn’t feel good, I figure there’s a lesson in it somewhere. Ooh! Self-flagellation, yay! You’d think I’d look for the lessons in the joyous occasions, wouldn’t you? But no! Learning through PAIN! Isn’t that what life is?

Actually it’s not. Growth through joy is not only possible, but it’s preferable. It’s just that culturally we’re not set up for it at this point. Maybe one day.

At any rate, I’m in the midst of multiple situations, all relationship-oriented (because we do our best learning through interaction with other people, you know—interacting only with self gets old after awhile), that don’t always feel good, so I’m doing my best to find meaning in it all. Maybe you do this too.

So it’s no surprise to me that this month’s Message up over at LightSpring Transformations, where I display some of my many talents, is all about that. Go have a look. And then come back here and commiserate.

[tags]self-flagellation, growth through joy, LightSpring Transformations, channeling[/tags]

When I was about 15, my parents quit their jobs and leaped into the abyss that is multi-level marketing, having drunk the koolaid that convinced them that their fortunes would be made by selling a fuel additive, one quart of Mix-i-Go at a time.

What? You haven’t heard of Mix-i-Go? But it made FORTUNES, dammit, ZILLIONS of dollars!

Just not for my parents, who likely weren’t cut out for a life of ease, just as they clearly weren’t cut out for the whateveritwas that it took to make the ZILLIONS that the few at the top of the pyramid were making.

I did learn some things from all this, however, as impressionable as I was at the time:

1. I know how to shake hands properly.
2. I know pretty much everything in the Dale Carnegie book “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
3. I know that manifestion works.

At 15, I was encouraged to “set goals”, something my parents did by taping bits of paper to their bathroom mirror that read “I WILL BE RICH”, or listening to a homemade tape of wishes that whispered under their pillows at night, “I AM A SUCCESS.” I tried that once and was distracted by the sound of my own voice under my pillow and couldn’t sleep.

So I went the easy way: I made a list of things I really wanted.

And weirdly? I got them. Or, some of them. I was hoping to make the cut on the upcoming audition for the school choir, but not only did I make that one but I also got into the super-duper exclusive Madrigals group that I was hoping to make it into the following year, the one that got me my one and only television appearance. So either I had actual talent, or…the manifestation thing really works.

Or both?

At the same time, I wrote some things down that I hoped I would be in ten years, at 25, which was very long time away in my estimation and one in which I would most certainly be a “grownup”!

Here’s my list:

1. Live in a city (I was thinking New York but wasn’t specific.)
2. Have an “important” job (and presumably wear high-heeled shoes while doing so).
3. Drive a sports car.

(Shallow? Why no, what makes you say that?)

When I was nearing 25 in actuality, something caused me to take stock of my life and compare it to my hopes from 10 years before. I had met every thing on my list:

1. I lived in Phoenix. Which, though not New York, does qualify as a city.
2. I managed an apartment building of 432 units, regarded within the company as the most difficult property in the portfolio. And wore high heels. Every day!
3. I drove a Mazda RX-7 that people were forever confusing with a Porsche.

Of course, my list didn’t address the fact that I also had a 5-year old child and was twice divorced, but let’s not quibble with the details, shall we?

The point is, there really is something to the law of attraction.

Now, I haven’t seen “The Secret”, nor am I likely to. I have a feeling that it omits certain important details and maybe has an emphasis on materialism that I would like to avoid. Still, the idea that’s getting to many people now is that they do indeed have some control of their lives. Learning to master that, of course, can take lifetimes.

In fact, despite my early successes, I’m still learning about this.

I believe, though, that you really have to know what you want, and figuring all that out can take a while. It can lead you down paths that become dead ends. So knowing the absolute kernel inside that sense of “I want” is imperative.

The interesting thing is, it’s the process of figuring out what you really want that really gives you the power to manifest it.

Do I see my future now? I see things all the time. They’ve changed over the years, but yes, I do have a picture of the future, and we’ll see how it all turns out. One thing that’s interesting to note is that often what we manifest comes at a price that’s not what we expected. Or, as someone put it just this evening, it creates a jolt to the perception. In other words, there is some truth to the phrase “be careful what you wish for”. Being specific while knowing at the same time that you are looking to manifest the absolute inside of what you think you want, is important.

I think I’ll make my list now. What’s on your list?
[tags]get rich quick schemes, pyramid schemes, mix-i-go, The Law of Attraction, manifestation, wishing[/tags]

Ahh. I just finished my Thinking Mode (1 Hour Cycling + Ten Minutes Showering = Blog Post) and wanted to share some things with you. So what if my hair is still wet. This can’t wait!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about personal power and about the effect we have upon others. I think a lot of people in the spiritual community believe that it’s best to think only “good” or positive thoughts, and that doing anything else can be harmful to themselves and others.

Wow. Not only is that absolutely untrue, but it also robs you of the opportunity to explore the colorful spectrum of wonderful emotion that is part of the human experience. Having grown up in an environment where overt displays of emotion weren’t (I felt) welcome, I learned to suppress much of what I felt in order to maintain a certain decorum.

I’m beginning to find now that it’s much more fun to play. Walking on eggshells because of someone else’s discomfort with emotion isn’t easy and can lead you down a path of future difficulty. Of course, you can’t walk all over someone either, and honoring their particular perspective while maintaining the sanctity of your own boundaries is usually the best course.

Still, what do you do with negative emotion? What if you interact with someone who you are sure doesn’t like you? What do you do then?

Back ten-ish years ago when I was first attuned to Reiki, I remember people advising that when clearing a space energy-wise to send anything negative out into the universe to be transmuted into “good.” That was always a little nebulous for me, but I decided to take it on faith that such a thing could actually occur. Ooh, turning bad into good! I’m all over it!

Taking this concept a little further, is it possible to use it with the hypothetical person who doesn’t like you? (As if anyone wouldn’t like you! I find that hard to believe!)

Why, yes.

But first you have to consider some other concepts. Do you really think that people can have power over you, can send you “bad” energy and affect you that way? In other words, we’ve all heard of curses; are they real?

My answer: they are only as real as you let them be.

In other words, if you give them power, they will be real. But if you don’t accept the notion, and this has got to be on an intrinsic level, then negative energy sent to you that way will be ineffective. That’s not to say that you still won’t be able to feel emotion from others. People have a wide variety of emotions and you can easily sense them even when they’re not yours. But it’s up to you as to whether you choose to absorb them or simply allow them to flow over and through you.

Ah, but that’s a little scary, isn’t it? I know it is for me. Feeling the force of someone’s anger is uncomfortable. But when you know that all it is is emotion, and that emotions as themselves can’t hurt you, it does become easier.

That’s not to say that I can achieve this all the time, in fact far from it, but I’m learning. It helps when you feel emotion to explore it a little, to ask yourself where it’s coming from. Is it coming from someone else in your life? Or is it yours? If it doesn’t belong to you, you can just let it wash away. This doesn’t take long. If it is yours, try just letting it be there without actually doing anything about it. You don’t even have to identify the reason for it, in fact sometimes doing that can cause it to be retained and then maybe manifest as pain in the body somewhere.

Pain in the body? From emotion? Yes, that’s really common. We all tend to hold emotion in various places in the body for different reasons, usually as something learned in childhood as a defense technique. I can already see Serena, for example, holding emotion in her throat (thus manifesting as sore throats) and we’re working on techniques to release this. Me, it’s the heart. Or maybe my entire body! But headaches, neck pain, back pain, etc. can all often be attributed to holding emotion in those places, and having done so for a long time so it builds up.

So, knowing that negative emotion is just that, simply emotion, and knowing too that emotion can’t hurt you (unless you choose for it to!), let’s go back to that curse idea. Intentional negative emotion cannot hurt you unless you allow it to. Period. But what do you do with it? Here’s what’s coming up lately about that, that came through as a result of some channeling I did recently:

Send love to the person intending you harm. Intend that whatever negative emotion that comes to you be transmuted into love to be returned to the person intending you harm, and that you constantly act as a one-way channel for that love, using the never-ending source of love that is available to you at all times from the Universe.

That’s it. Simple, and perfect. Try it if there are angry people in your life.

Recently in my work as a channel, I had the opportunity to access for several people information about their platforms for the year. A platform is like an underlying theme that a person chooses to examine (mostly subconsciously; we all do this even if we’re unaware of it) for a year or period of years.

It turns out that my platform for the year is Truth.

Hmm, Truth: your area of focus this coming year is about TRUTH. Learning to find and honor the truth that lies inside you has been an area of difficulty. Truth hides in many ways and it has not always been easy to determine what is true and what is not. It is your focus, then, to find it wherever you can.

So since then I’ve been thinking about ways in which this might manifest. (I was actually a little disappointed when this came through, because it certainly wasn’t what I was expecting and I wasn’t sure it actually fit.) I remembered that I’ve been thinking a lot lately about people’s words, how there is often a message behind their words that can in fact belie their words.

Let’s think about that for a moment.

I wouldn’t say that this is outright lying. In fact, I think that those underlying messages are often hidden even from the person giving them. We send out messages all the time that may or may not coincide with our actual words. So it makes being able to use your own intuition, to really trust what you hear and feel, all the more important.

Let’s examine some of the messages, on a single theme, that I have received over the years.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve had body-image issues for a long time. In the 4th grade I remember learning to hold in my stomach on a constant basis, something I have done ever since, relaxing only in pregnancy. Can you imagine? Surely this has affected my ability to take a deep breath.

So that, coupled with mixed messages I received about how I looked, did quite a number on me for years. (It’s getting much better now, by the way.)

Here, then, is a phrase uttered to me by various people, along with the hidden messages behind their words:

1. You are beautiful.
Except you’re not as smart as I am, so it really doesn’t count.

2. You are beautiful.
As long as you don’t get old and gain a lot of weight.

3. You are beautiful.
And I’m not entirely comfortable with it because I have insecurity issues of my own, so eat a lot and don’t talk to other men, okay?
(This was a popular one, shared by several.)

4. You are beautiful.
And I really mean that. You are!

See what I mean?

It’s important to listen not just to people’s words but also the words-behind-the-words. Explore how you feel when someone talks to you. Do you feel really clear about what they say, or is there a feeling of discomfort? Learning to be aware of and explore that feeling of discomfort can be difficult; after all, often these hidden messages come from those we love and “should” be able to trust implicitly.

It’s also important to realize that frequently, a person giving off a hidden message will be unaware of it. They may feel that they are being completely sincere, and may be completely unaware that they have their own issues surrounding those hidden statements. I’ve had little success changing someone’s perspective by pointing out the discrepancy I feel between the actual words and the hidden words, so unless I’m missing something (and I may be; I’m no expert here), this concept is mainly only useful for you yourself.

What hidden messages are you hearing in your life?