The moment of change is here

There is a quiet energy in the air…

The temperature is neither cold, nor warm

It is neither light, nor dark

A breeze touches the trees softly…

People are going about their business

Yet the market square seems larger as they cross it

The path through the forest is longer than anyone remembered

As the wind clears out the last leaves on the ground…

The roads and pathways have an emptiness about them…

As if everything that used to occupy them has left

And everyone is waiting in quiet anticipation

While the wind picks up, and whispers: “Change…”

The space we live in is ready to receive all that is new

The soil is awaiting new trees to be planted

The air is fresh, and breathing is easy

As we are invited to step into this opening in space and time

To discover new things about ourselves

To express our newly recognized selves in new ways

To bring out the best we can be…

To build a world from Love, and Light, and Peace

The earth is cleansed, and ready to support us

To listen to our wishes and desires, our voices

Singing ancient songs that have never been heard before

That are carried on the whispers of the wind…

So fill this quiet energy with life, and dance, and song

There is no need to wait for permission

How you live the expression of your unique self

Is ultimately just your decision…

Return of the light

It is that time of year again when the light returns.

Whether we look at it from the physical, seasonal perspective of the Winter Solstice or from the perspective of the celebration of Christmas — these last days of the year are marked by the return of the light. Or Light as the case may be.

With that, it starts a time of new beginnings. The most obvious one the beginning of the New Year. And that often spills over into our lives when we start the year with our New Year’s Resolutions; our decisions to make the New Year even better than the old one has been. To set out to become an even better person than we have been up to now in our lives…

With the physical return of the light on the Winter Solstice, our vital energy starts building again, enabling a greater focus on everything we want to accomplish over the next year. At the same time the days are growing longer again, literally shedding more light on just about anything we focus at so that we can see it with more clarity.

With the return of the Light as we celebrate Christmas, the inspirational Light returns. This is the Light that guides us — and while some may see this Light as outside of themselves, others will experience it as the inner connection to the highest counterpart of themselves. As this Light returns, it brings us closer to the (higher) wisdom we need to make the best, the wisest decisions in order to move ahead on our personal paths.

It means that just over a couple of days, both the physical light as well as the inspirational Light come into our lives to give us that opportunity to set our goals for the New Year — whether these goals are personal or even global. Independent from our drive to come up with the best New Year’s Resolutions, or whether we have given up on those entirely (as we tend to forget about them, sometimes as early as January 2nd when ‘real life’ begins again), we are pushed to look ahead, to make plans and set goals.

The timing gives us all the tools to see clearly what we want to do, and why. It gives us the light and clarity to envision the structure through which we will achieve the goals we set out to achieve…

This makes this time of year — on top of all of the celebrations — a truly productive time of year as well. Even if you just use it to create a little list of the ideas and plans that come up so you can revisit them later.

First published 12/25/2016

Song Lines

Although I have never been to Australia, Song Lines are an intriguing concept to me.

Let’s start with a description of Song Lines…

For the Aboriginals all land is sacred and alive. Their ancestors gave it life in singing, and gave them life through song, and dwell in the land still. Therefore songs must be continually sung to keep the land "alive". In singing, they preserve the land, the story, and the dreaming of their ancestors, and in doing so recreate it in their oneness of past, present, and future.

For me this ties in with my shamanic path, as well as with the understanding that we are the creators of our own lives.

But how many of us actually create all things in our lives with purpose, in such a way that a oneness with past, present, and future is (re)created with every step we take?

Looking at myself, I tend to look at something — one thing — I want to create or manifest in my life. And depending on whether I just desire to have this thing, or whether I really need it in my life, the manifestation of it happens faster, or in some cases, not at all.

In my efforts, I turn all of my focus to this one manifestation. And in doing so, I let my Self, and the rest of my life, ‘roll with the punches’.

Through Song Lines, the Aboriginals recreate all that is with every step they take on the path of life. They not just recreate their Selves, they recreate nature and the path they are walking through nature. And in doing so, they remember the age-old pathways, the wisdom of those lines, and they acknowledge the sacredness of the land and nature.

I have often wondered what would happen if I would do the same thing. I would need to do it in a manner that fits our culture and that suits my life...

I might not actually sing it — although making up the songs would be a great deal of fun — but my singing is not that good (and this is just the first of a bunch of reasons not to sing these things out loud). 

But what if I started acknowledging all the parts in life that are good to me, that are working for me — all the things that enrich my life? They would include people, and that which provides my income. They would also include parts of me that I have ‘inherited’, like a family history, or values that are part of the culture I have grown up in…

However, I think I would start with acknowledging my Self.

Singing the song of how my body as the perfectly healthy temple of my soul. The song of how my mind is strong, and can give direction to my path. The song of how all my experiences are precious for what they have taught me...

I would start with singing “I am”…

First published April 23, 2009

The Best Possible Outcome

Whenever we are working on something, we are working toward ‘the best possible outcome’. What the best possible outcome actually is, depends on the project at hand — and very often on our definition of success. If our definition of success involves a monetary perspective, chances are that in our ‘best possible outcome’ money is involved. On the other hand, if our definition of success has more to do with following our heart’s desires, what we envision as the ‘best possible outcome’ may not have a monetary aspect at all.

From a spiritual, or even universal perspective the ‘best possible outcome’ more often than not has to do with our personal growth. With the lessons learned. With experiences we have as we move forward along our personal paths.

As such, the spiritual perspective on the ‘best possible outcome’ may be vastly different from what we have dreamed up in our own conscious, logical minds as the ‘best possible outcome’. After all, we really love to have happy endings...

But what if your personal path takes you into serious illness? From our human perspective that is about the worst that could happen to us. However, from a personal-growth perspective it may well be an experience that will allow us to move forward on our paths with leaps and bounds!

It seems that perhaps the biggest difference between our logical perspective and the personal-growth perspective are our emotions. As opposed to the spiritual world, our emotions allow us to learn our lessons in the earth plane. From the spiritual perspective we are cheered on with every step we take on our personal path of growth — whether that involves pain and suffering, or winning the multi-million dollar lottery.

That being said, the energy of this point in time does allow us more than ever before to adapt and change our ways mid-stream. And as soon as we figure out how to bring our logical perspective and the spiritual, personal-growth perspective on ‘the best possible outcome’ together — our rewards can be greater than we ever dreamed possible!

And this seems to include financial and health issues just as well as smaller, or more subtle, ‘best possible outcomes’.

It does require for us to be courageous enough to be willing to look at all the aspects of what is happening in our lives. The good, the bad, and the ugly. All without judging ourselves because of it.

Just observing what is at play, how we feel about it, what it has to tell us, and what we feel we are learning from it.

The ultimate outcome may still not be what we feel is a good or desired outcome, let alone what we perceive as the ‘best possible outcome’. Yet chances are it has permitted us to learn and experience invaluable lessons on our path of personal growth.

First published March 8, 2013

Unexpected Change of Circumstances

It is funny how the circumstances we may find ourselves in can either give us a jumpstart, or stop us in our tracks. We tend to look at a change in our circumstances as a negative. Something that is throwing off our routine; that takes away the structure in our lives — in other words, something that makes our lives harder than it needs to be, as it takes away the organization we have imposed on our lives. It stops the plans we have made in their tracks, and suddenly we need to adapt to a place — and energy— that we are not that familiar with. 

This seems quite obvious with the big events in life — like relationships (whether they start or end; they do change the circumstances), moving house (for whatever the reason), losing or finding a job… All of those things change our circumstances to such extend that we are forced to adapt.

While there are also much smaller things we can find on our path, that change our circumstances in such a way that they become ‘life altering events’. With the recent pandemic as another major circumstance that can affect our lives and cause us to change direction on our individual life paths, is our health. Or more precisely, our perception of our health and wellbeing.

Suddenly it seems like we have become much more aware of how fragile our health and wellbeing are — or can be. Where only a couple of years ago we may have thought that being healthy was our “normal” state of being, now it is almost like we have to take overate action to maintain that level of wellbeing that we are comfortable with.

Just living a healthy life — with healthy food, enough sleep, and plenty of exercise — no longer seems to get us the same results it always did…

It amounts to an unexpected change in circumstances that demands us to look at the way we live our lives differently.

On one hand we may find that the stress we have always experienced as a “normal” part of life can have a greater impact on our sense of wellbeing than it ever did before. But then again, this greater awareness of our (perceived) physical fragility may also allow for physical anomalies to come to the surface unexpectedly.

It can be as simple as twisting an ankle because we stepped on a loose tile on the sidewalk, or as complex as an illness we find ourselves dealing with out of the blue.

These type of unexpected circumstances ask for a drastic reduction of whatever stress we are experiencing in our lives. On top of that it becomes extremely important to prioritize — to determine what is most important to us as we are living our lives, rather than to continuously adapt to (what we perhaps are thinking) other people around us are expecting of us.

And when we take back our ability to make our ow decisions, walk our own path, and live our own lives in a way that makes us happy — we may well find that our sense of wellbeing grows, as well as the perception that we are stronger — healthier — than we think we are.

Expressing Ourselves

Perhaps one of the more dramatic changes in energy at this point in time is found in the way we are expressing ourselves. We may have grown up with the understanding that the way we should express ourselves was “task-oriented”, and seen from a perspective of things that had to be done in order to move forward in our lives. Yet in this point in time this is shifting to expressing who we are. In other words, the way we express ourselves is shifting from “what we should do”, into an expressing of the individual uniqueness that we are.

While this doesn’t mean that we quit our jobs, or any drastic measures such as that, it does mean that it is becoming increasingly more important to pay attention to the unique energy, perspectives, or actions we have to offer to the world — on our own terms.

It requires that, as an individual, we embark on a journey of discovery.

We may have a fairly good idea as to who we are and what we have to offer to the world around us, yet chances are that there is still a lot left to be discovered — perhaps not in the least about how we can productively express the distinctive qualities that make us uniquely who we are.

At first, this may seem to be somewhat of a detour on our paths. After all, things are working well the way they always have, right?

On the other hand, if ever we have had that little whisper in the back of our minds that what we would really like to do is … … … — usually something that we may not feel is productive, useful, or even feasible — this is the time to explore what it would take to at least satisfy your curiosity… We may even find that expressing this newly discovered side of ourselves turns out to be highly productive, extremely satisfying, and therefore an activity that brings great fulfillment into our lives.

Whether this leads to a totally different way we do our jobs — or even a different job — and things that just need to be done, or just something that we keep doing “on the side” is not as important as is seems at first glance. 

The fact that we move along with the shift in energy of this point in time is the important thing. 

Expressing the unique qualities that make us who we are more and more has a tendency to make us feel better about ourselves and our lives. And it places us in a position where it becomes ever easier to make the changes that may have been lingering — perhaps because we didn’t exactly know how to go about it…

So, as we express our unique selves more and more, chances are we become happier, healthier, relaxed, and more productive people…

Vacation

Whether we go on a long trip, or only have a brief sojourn - all vacations have one thing in common… we step away from our day to day activities in order to have some fun, to take a rest, and in a way to recharge ourselves.

Yet the word in itself has a lot to say about what vacation is all about, It seems to have a lot to do with the verb ‘to vacate’ - meaning to leave or to make empty.

The question then becomes what we are leaving behind; what are we making ourselves empty of.

When you see some spring break video’s on YouTube, it seems that in some instances what some vacationers leave behind is their good old common sense...

Something else most leave behind while vacationing is our day to day schedules - the times we wake up, the routine to get to work, coming home, doing chores. All those things we leave behind as they are part of our ‘regular lives’ rather than our vacation.

And finally, the thing every vacationer really really wants to leave behind, or even vacate themselves from, is stress. At least the stress that is associated with our busy day to day lives, as research suggests that vacation in itself can be a source of stress all its own.

In a sense, looking at the word vacation form its most literal perspective, taking some time to ‘vacate ourselves’ from those things that burden us is a good thing. It allows us to take a step back, to see what is really happening in our lives, to decide what is truly important to us. And then, what we take back from vacation is the knowing of exactly that: what is and what isn’t important to us. Coming home to our regular lives we then have a choice to act upon that knowledge.

Another benefit from stepping out of our every day environments in order to vacate ourselves - to release the things we no longer need - is that this in and of itself not only relieves us from our burdens, it also creates a new space. And this space, all new and clear, provides us with openings to start doing new things. To explore new avenues. Embark upon new adventures - not just during our vacations, but perhaps especially in our day to day lives...

And it is these new avenues and adventures that can bring a sparkle into our lives even long after we came home from our vacation…

First published 6/8/2013