Dance, My Soul

      Silence is a phenomenon that does not truly exist.  When we are alone, quiet, at rest, we can feel that void as a heavy cloud weighing and pressing down on us.  But the reality is that we are never alone and the earth is never silent.  When the chaos of the day turns into a cool night, and the chatter of the humans we share this planet with subsides, that is when the earth is able to reach out and beckon our ears to the place where the music truly lingers.  The song of the wind calls us to hearken as the leaves and branches of the trees it blows invite us to come sit and listen for a while.  In the starlight the cicadas and crickets charm us into a dance of sacred steps that can only be known to the dancer who reaches deep within to remember the soul movement that was understood exclusively by those who once resided among awareness.  There is an emotional untethering, a mental and even physical release that gushes from deep in our hearts when we close our eyes and recall that ancient music that lives within us all.  It is a song of primordial consciousness, a freedom that exists only when we forget our mortal bodies and weave a tale too complex to be spoken with language.  It is a legend too powerful to be seen with human eyes and too essential to be understood by physical senses.  The song that we feel inside of our hearts, the dance that we release from the bottom of our souls, is a force that can't be written, spoken, or rationalized.  There is a reason that music makes a party, that love is expressed lyrically, worship is sung into the heavens, that we meditate and journey to the rhythm of the drum.  Ideas much too deep and important to be told plainly are crooned and strummed into earthly existence, flowing from our inner worlds of spiritual depths.  Emotions are expressed in a way that only song can convey and only dance can appease.  Music is a therapy, an urge, a desperate longing, a sacred calling, a means of transformation for the hybrid divine.  The oldest instrument known to man is the flute.  Made from bird bones and mammoth ivory, the flute was played at night while tribes sang and danced round a fire of heat and passion.  Alone, or surrounded by like-hearted kindred, let the music connect you with the earth and all that is in realms that cannot be seen.  The drum is the intoxicating heartbeat and our voices rise to mingle with the neural pathways of the heavens.  As we let our limbs twist and wind through the celestial ether, blood pounding in time with natures pulse, our feet drumming the earth and sending shoots of roots into the under-realms of space, we can clearly see why we smile.  Our hearts quicken and our ears prick up to the sound of a tune we can grasp onto and our faces smile when we realize that the song in you is the song in me, because it is the joy of the earth and the secrets of God.
What is your soul dancing to?

"Dance Of The Moonlight..." painted by bohomaz13

Music by Sarah Howle & Wyatt Garey

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."

- Victor Hugo

Ode To Mittens

       My cat is missing.  She has been gone now for quite some time, but I still find myself calling her name at the back door before bed each night.  I still catch my son walking to the shed after school each afternoon to check if any of her food has been eaten.  It seems silly maybe, to care so much about a missing cat when there's so much hatred and foul play in the world.  But I can't help it, she was mine.  A neighbor of mine found her as a small kitten wandering the woods behind their house.  She was no more than two pounds, her white and calico fur matted to her tiny body, her tail crooked halfway down from a break that healed incorrectly.  My neighbor brought her to me because she feared that her dogs would kill the poor little thing before she'd had a chance to grow into the cat that she was to become.  My son took to her instantly, carrying her around the house like a baby.  He fashioned a tiny bed for the kitten using his stuffed dog's toy bed and a blanket, and pushed it up against his own bed where he could reach his slight hand down at night and feel her warm fur.  Much to my amusement, he named the miniature cat Mittens, even though all of her legs and paws were white, much like she was NOT wearing mittens.  She slept in his room for the first few weeks, never having to use her own legs because he would carry her up and down the stairs to bed.  He fed her, played with her, and snuggled into her thick fur like she was his best friend in the whole world.  And she loved him too, playfully chasing his heels while he got ready for school and sharing his pillow when she tired of her own bed.  One early morning my son came running into my bedroom, panting and frantic, terror-filled tears dropping down his normally serene cheeks.  When I calmed him enough to make out his words I discovered that the kittens tail had fallen off at the point where it had been broken before.  A laugh suddenly burst from my chest at the thought of my dear son thinking that he had pulled his cats tail off.  I explained to my puppy-eyed boy that her tail would have fallen off anyways and that he had done nothing wrong.  He seemed to feel better, but I noticed that he moved her bed a little closer to the closet that night.  After a few surgeries on her tail she was as good as new, and she became quite bobcat-like as she aged.  Her belly and hips rounded out, her nails grew long and sharp, and her piercing green eyes seemed wise and knowing.  Three months ago I could count seven cats that happily chose us to care for them and give them homes.  Mittens was the only female, which worried me slightly at first, but I quickly noticed how the male cats seemed to take a wide berth to avoid her.  She had grown to be the sassiest and strongest cat in the yard.  A slap to the face was an expected occurrence for any poor male who got a little too close to Mittens' perfectly groomed coat.  She didn't worry herself with people very often, ignoring me when I called for her and coyly walking away with a sway of her nubbed tail.  But when my son bellowed for her she would react like a little kitten again.  I could see her cheeky facade drop away as she mewed to him and raced to reach her food bowl before he could get there to fill it.  Yes, Mittens was more than a cat.  She was a family member, a friend, a being with feelings and a soul, a memory.  The last time I remember seeing her was on a Thursday night.  I came into the kitchen after laying the baby down and looked through the window while I rinsed out his bottle.  Mittens was sitting primly, with her front paws perfectly together, beneath a beam of moonlight.  She seemed to be staring straight at me from across the yard.  I immediately felt a stabbing pain of sadness.  I was unsure of why, maybe I felt guilty that I did not invite her inside so late at night, or maybe something inside me knew that would be the last time I would ever look upon her sapient face.  I turned my gaze away from her ghostly form and continued with my nighttime routine, pushing her image from my brain.  By morning she was gone.  I have searched the woods behind the house, calling her name for hours and even braving the neighbors to ask if they'd seen her.  I still half expect to find her sleeping beneath a bush somewhere, ignoring my call like usual.  But the haunting fear that I could stumble upon her hurt or dead little body keeps me searching invariably and disturbs my sleep at night.  I need to know she's safe somewhere, not in pain or afraid.  Maybe this is the way of the world, but I can't help but feel that a part of my family is missing.  Mittens, I will keep vigil for your return, or await the day when I will meet your bodiless soul in the meadow where we will cross the Rainbow Bridge together.
Who are you missing?

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened."
- Anatole France

"How to Tell If You Are a Natural Healer" with guest blogger Tina Kinney Clarke

       Are there problems in your family that get passed from generation to generation?  Did it stop with you?  Then you were born to heal your family.

       I had another aha moment yesterday, I've been getting a lot of those lately.  What has been working for me is talking with like-minded friends about life and it's leading me to a lot of these aha moments.  So I was inspired to write this blog post, I hope it helps you understand how many of you are healers...just by being who you are!

       I realized something about myself and many members of my family, even friends, today.  Many people alive today were born to break a cycle within their families.  Talk about being born healers!  I am not talking about just this lifetime but I am talking about ancestral healing.  Healing that transcends generations.

       What am I talking about?  When I conduct a healing session with a client, I approach it multi-dimensionally.  I understand that you are a soul in a human body and that time is just a construct on Earth.  Only on Earth do we have a past, present and future.  The reality is that everything is happening RIGHT NOW.  So when I receive past life information it’s really “another life” happening right now.  It’s not happening in the past.  Same thing applies to a “future” life that is happening right now.

       How can we do all of this?  Imagine your soul as being humongous.  One day your soul says, "I want to experience something different.  I want to live apart from the Creator.  Everything I learn will be downloaded back to the Creator so he knows what I am experiencing.  In fact, I don’t want just one experience, I want thousands at once.”
       And then your soul splits into thousands of pieces into thousands of lives on this planet and many others.
       And you, right now?  You only have a piece of your soul within you.  Knowing this, I understand that there are many lives affecting you right now.  When I conduct a healing session, these lives come up for healing or knowing.
       Now let’s talk about our physical bodies.  We have DNA that we have inherited from our ancestors.  Within this DNA are all of the lessons, experiences and unresolved issues from our ancestors.  What does this mean?  If a lesson was not learned, if healing was not experienced, we carry it down the line generation after generation.
       A few years ago, I had an opportunity to heal something in my ancestral line.  I got a chronic sore throat that wouldn’t go away.  After a month of normal medical tests and no relief, I knew that the cause was not a physical one.  It was a symptom of energy blockage, which can stem from another life (“past” life), the current past or your childhood, or a cause related to Spirit.  I saw a healer who told me that one of my ancestors had a “block” put on any descendant who attempted to practice psychic and mediumship healing abilities.  The healer said it wasn’t done malevolently but as a form of protection…because the ancestor had the same abilities and was kicked out of her family for it.  The healer removed the blockage and my sore throat was healed and I continued with my work to this day.
       Are you still with me?  I hope so, because this is not easy to explain but the story is so rewarding!  I and every single one of you carry the DNA of our ancestors and whatever does not heal gets carried down from generation to generation.  Here some examples…
       My mother grew up very poor in the Philippines.  She broke this cycle by not getting married young and not having many children (like her older sisters did), moved to the USA and earned her bachelor’s degree.  She broke that cycle of poverty.  Not only that, she helped most of her brothers and sisters get here too!
       My father grew up in New England, but also poor.  In addition, his father, my grandfather, was an alcoholic (who knows how many generations back that goes).  My father broke that cycle.  Another cycle he broke was the many generations of ancestors who lived their lives in New England going back to 1600s.  He moved to New York City and married a Filipino woman.  I mean, how shocking!
       My friend had a mentally ill mother.  Although emotionally and physically abused as a child, my friend became a very different mother.  She’s nurturing, kind and loving.  She broke the cycle of mental illness and abuse in her family.
       Another friend has a father with severe hoarding tendencies.  Her home is neat and uncluttered.  She broke that cycle.
       You see what I mean?  Have you broken the cycle in your family?  Are there multi-generational problems in your family that stops with you?
       YOU ARE A HEALER.  You might not realize it but we are playing roles.  Perhaps your mother brought all the worst family traits into her life right now so that you could be born with the ability to heal THEM ALL.  Amazing right?  You are a healer and you broke the cycle!
       -Tina Kinney Clarke
What cycle are you breaking?

Photo by Ed Clarke

"Tina lives in North Charleston with her husband, 2 daughters and Timothy her familiar aka cat.  She is a Usui Reiki Master teacher, Theta Healer and Shaman. To learn more about her visit www.stargazingangel.com."
- Tina Kinney Clarke