The Indigo Gateway (Ajna)

       As I travel through this life, from forest to river, oceans to mountain, I walk with purpose.  I tread toward the end goal of spiritual awakening, the awareness of love and peace, a place of transcendental universal understanding.  We all strive to be closer to Creator, even as we co-create our lives and situations to be in a place of strife or a haven of tranquility.  As we journey through life we exercise the muscles of our body and strengthen them according to how we use them.  Our arms are strengthened as we climb, our legs as we run, and our wisdom as we learn to trust our intuition and perceive truth.  Ajna, our third eye, is the muscle that we use to unify ourselves with all of life.  When we find this gateway we realize that we have always had the ability to stand in its blue and purple light and view the heart and soul of other living beings.  The wisdom that hides behind this door is able to transcend a wisdom beyond speech, a  knowing of truth where we can clearly see how the past effects the present and future, but not just the truths that seem to be, we can understand circumstance and situations for what they truly are.  Mental and emotional clarity act as a balance for our masculine and feminine abilities as well as a rudder that steers us down the spiritual path of what is harmful or helpful to all of humanity.  A swan stands guard at this beautiful portal to remind us that all may enter into the dwelling place of the master, but not all are able.  Ajna is considered to be the master as it is associated with the pituitary gland in the brain.  The pituitary gland controls the hormone function of all other glands in the endocrine system, regulating such hormones as Thyroid Stimulating Hormone, Follicle-Stimulating Hormone, Prolactin, Growth Hormone, Vasopressin, and Oxytocin to name a few.  Symbolically we can see how being able to understand all things for what they truly are in the past, present, and future simultaneously gives us a full body, mind, and soul connection to happiness and neutrality.  Ajna is a point of balance, where there is no positive or negative, love or hate.  The granter of knowledge lives across this gateway, allocating erudition to those fearless few who are able to detach themselves from physical earth and unlink the need for a desired result.  All of the elements, in their purest form, reside in this place to gift those who travel in imagination and super-consciousness with the realization that time and space are not linearly real.  All can be accomplished through penetrating intuition since living in this state of cosmic knowledge takes on personal meaning and purpose.  Swami Kedarnath felt that once he awakened to this Ajna state that he no longer simply knew truth, but he became truth.   This philosophy essentially states that the death of ego is the life of the soul, meaning that once we let our masks fall our real selves can appear.  When we allow our consciousness to relax and focus our minds, we find that we can see beyond the distractions and illusions that stand before us and have greater insight to live and create more deeply in alignment with our highest good.  I will remind myself that I am visceral and I trust my intuition.  I rely on the guidance bestowed upon me through my spiritual gifts, and it is safe for me to follow this direction.  I am my higher truths.  I am clear.  I know my own voice and I have a healthy mind.  My calm and peaceful thoughts have unlimited possibilities.  I can easily hear the voice of my soul as all of the answers are inside of me.  I am my spiritual truth and I am connected to my true path and purpose.  I embrace vision and proudly stand guard at the gateway to the divine.
Which eye are you watching with?

"I have three eyes: two to look and one to see meaning."
- Bellamor

Blinded- Step 4

    In the fourth step of our life changing journey we will make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.  That sounds pretty self-damning when we say it that way.  A lot of us are recovering drug addicts, alcoholics, or may simply be working these steps as a means of emotional support and healing, so what good does it do to beat ourselves up with our own mistakes over and over again?  We must realize that this step of healing is about ripping off the band-aid, and it is the beginning of the deep wading through our murky souls.  Why did we turn to drugs to begin with?  Why do we hurt inside?  Why are we sad on happy days?  Why do we cry when nothing is outwardly wrong?  We've spent our whole lives until this moment blinding ourselves to what hurts our hearts, trying not to feel that pain anymore.  For people who grew up in a rough environment it was a means of survival, for adults who went through trauma it was a way to protect themselves.  Aren't we tired of blindly stumbling through life with our stone walls and high towers?  Yes, they have protected us in the past, but those same walls have also kept us in, kept us from growing into who we were meant to be.  The lack of sunshine beneath our self-made cement prison has stunted our spiritual and emotional growth without allowing us the much needed oxygen and nutrients to actually heal from what hurt us in the first place.  We turn to outside means to make us feel better because we never actually healed; we never moved on even though we ignored and pushed down that pain over and over again.  The only way to truly move on from our secret pain is to admit that our pain is really there and allow ourselves to FEEL it.  This step was critical in my healing process, and "The Pig on My Porch" is based on my journey and inspired by this step.  I began with writing about the first memory that I had deep within my psyche.  I was reminded of childhood play, secret desires, my shortcomings, hidden disappointments, and then as I grew I came to chapters that were a little harder to get through.  I wrote about the death of my mother, my sexual abuse, low self-esteem and mental health, domestic violence, and addiction.  I let one hurtful memory after another build chapter upon chapter until I had written hundreds of pages.  An amazing thing began to happen as I forced myself to recall every outstanding personal experience- by the end of each chapter I was able to look at my memories with clear eyes.  I was able to relive each recollection and feel those feelings in a way that respected my younger self, but with an adults mind and a fresh perspective.  By the end of my book I was finally able to see things the way that they really were, not just for me, but for everyone involved.  By the time I had transcribed all of my thoughts and emotions onto the once blank pages and placed that final period, I was able to do the most miraculous thing: UNDERSTAND and FORGIVE.  I had to look at my deepest secrets, my worst pain, feel it, sit in it, and then let it go.  Maybe a lot of what happened to us in our lives hadn't been our fault, we were the victims, the hurt ones.  But by pushing down our pain and ignoring what our soul is telling us is wrong we somehow become someone that we don't recognize.  We go from the victim to the culprit without realizing it, because we go to extraordinary measures to stop feeling what hurts.  It's time to look directly into that black pool of torment and calm the storm.  It's okay to let ourselves feel the pain that we've been running from, because only then can we transform from the wounded to the liberated.
What are you hiding from?

Sciamachy
   (n.)  A battle against imaginary enemies; fighting your shadow 

Why Women?

       Every now and then I stumble across someone who seems to legitimately not care about women's rights.  I can ALMOST see how an uninformed type male wouldn't understand the struggle and pressures of being born a female (or a male that identifies as female), but what really gets me is when a woman doesn't care.  I understand that feminism is MY passion, but how could any woman truly feel unaffected by the women's movement?  How could any female not feel ecstatically proud of how far we've come?  The only answer I can conceive is that we have done our job.  If a young girl has truly never felt discriminated against, looked down on, treated as lesser or dumber or weaker, then thank the goddesses that all of their hard work has paid off!  For those of you who are unaffected by the sweat, fear, and pain of our sister suffragettes, let me enlighten you.  For those who have never been passed over for a job position or told to return for a business deal when you can bring your husband to assist you, to those who have never been whistled at like cattle in a roundup or been told that their place was in the home, let me fill you in on what's been happening outside of your little bubble.  On August 26, 1920, the 19th amendment was ratified.  This amendment finally gave American women the right to vote after a nearly 100 year long fight.  100 years!  It took an entire century to convince the government that women should have the same rights as a man!  During this time reform groups began multiplying all over the United States- temperance leagues, religious movements, moral-reform societies, anti-slavery organizations- ultimately leading up to the redefinition of the noun "woman".  We get to live a comparatively comfortable life, whether or not we choose to pay homage to a legacy that over seven generations of women toiled to achieve through meetings, petition drives, lobbying, public speaking, and nonviolent resistance.  We no longer have to marry and bear heirs in order to be taken care of; we don't have to be subservient and obedient maids.  We get to vote, work a fulfilling job with the right to equal pay and we get to keep that job legally when we become pregnant.  Our husbands do not own us, get to beat us, or take sex whenever they choose.  WE choose to become doctors, lawyers, ministers, astronauts, to own property, to own a credit card, to fight on the front lines.  WE CHOOSE to have bank accounts, serve on a jury, take birth control, wear practical bathing suits, go to college, breastfeed in public, or run the Boston marathon.  Watching the Olympics was a crime for women, punishable by death (!), for the ancient Greeks.  Women in New York City were banned from smoking cigarettes in public until 1908 because it was considered unbecoming.  English women were disallowed to play in soccer matches until 1971 because the game was declared unsuitable for the female body.  To this day it is supposedly still LEGAL for a man to beat his wife in South Carolina, as long as it takes place on the courthouse steps on a Sunday.  The town of Owensboro, KY has a law that prohibits women from purchasing hats without her husbands consent.  It's still illegal (though unenforced) for women in California to wear a housecoat while driving, and the city of Logan, Utah prohibits women from swearing.  All of these ridiculous grievances aside, women who reside in countries other than our own are still being treated as less valuable than men, and in some cases less valuable than animals.  Saudi women were banned from operating vehicles until June of 2018.  In Yemen women are only considered to be half of a witness when testifying in court, and they aren't allowed to testify at all in cases of adultery or sodomy.  In Morocco if a woman is raped then she faces charges for leaving her home without a male escort, and in this most recent case a sixteen year old girl committed suicide after a judge sentenced her to marry her rapist.  What happened on the planet earth where this sort of gross mistreatment is considered normal?  Where is the disconnect in our brains that makes women seem less important, less worthy, anything less than magical?  We are the strong, the passionate, the indestructible, the indomitable.  We birth this earth.
Any more questions?

“That woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has assigned her.”

- Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions 

 (Photo by Chris Ware/Keystone Features/Getty Images)

"September 1953: Twenty-one year old Alice Penfold, a professional strong woman from Bury, near Pulborough, Sussex, flexes her biceps. She can tear telephone directories in half and lift a 146 lb woman with her teeth."
- Flashbak

Transforming Fire (Manipura)

       Manipura, located in the upper abdomen, is the very core of our feminine mystique.  The fires that burn from our bellies bring forth into the world our mental abilities, intellect, and confidence.  From these flames spit our personal power, identity, and confidence.  A woman who can make decisions, clear judgments, and assert her opinions and beliefs is a woman with a well balanced solar plexus chakra.  It's difficult, especially for a person still healing, to exert bravery and stand up for themselves.  We must learn to tame our inner fires so as not to misuse our power or let our ambition abuse those around us, but we must also learn to fan the flames within us in order to take control of our own lives and feel the independence that we so longingly strive for.
       In Sanskrit this word means "shining gem", which is very becoming considering the way that life's pressures squeeze us until we either turn to diamonds or dust.  To better understand Manipura, we must first look at the element that represents it.  When thinking of fire I think of the weakest, yet most unyielding, of the elements.  Fire is lovely to look at, beautiful, enchanting.  It draws us in and has a mystical allure that can't quite be explained.  Fire brings warmth, color, and even fun as it dances in a way that seems to say, "I can't be tamed."  When out of control a fire can scorch the earth and consume everything in its path, but when stifled the fire can be easily put out by every other element.  Air, water, and earth can all suffocate a hesitant flame with ease, but fire needs and craves all of the other elements in order to exist.  Fire needs the air in order to burn, the earth to contain it, and the water to temper it.  In this same respect, our personalities can display this imbalance as excessive control or helplessness, obsession or irresponsibility, intolerance or overindulgence, insecurity, fear, lack of confidence or low self-esteem.  A balanced Manipura allows us the much needed control over our thoughts and emotions to help us set healthy boundaries.
       Anytime we must fight within ourselves to muster up the courage to conquer a fear, or when we struggle to speak up for ourselves, or whenever we simply have to employ self-control in a situation, we are activating and exercising our solar plexus chakra.  We must learn to utilize this energy force for our own sake, to fulfill our own personal power.  We need to know that we have the means to tap into self-assurance, self-discipline, and to move forward in confidence anytime we get the courage to reach inside of ourselves and let our yellow fire shine through.  Fire has the ability to hurt others, but it also can take other elements and transform them into more than their original selves.  Through the flames water can become air, air can become water, and earth can become glass.  Personal power does not mean that we have the ability to manipulate others, it means that we have the potential to master ourselves, and that vital capability to choose is the softly spoken message of the Manipura.  We can overcome any fear, conquer any demon, and demand the respect that we deserve.  I will not judge or criticize myself any longer, but instead I will choose to seek out and live my life purpose.  I will light Manipura as a torch held high and let its light guide me to love and accept myself, to stand up for myself, and to be strong and courageous.  It will remind me that I am worthy of love, kindness, and respect.  Its blaze will awaken in me the ability to choose what is best for myself and express myself in a powerful way.  Its warmth will keep strong the ambition to direct my own life and my power to choose.  I am free in any situation.  I feel my own power, and I am at peace within myself.
What burns within you?

"Until you've found the fire inside yourself you won't reach the spring of life."
- Rumi

In My Shadow- A Short Story

       I walked through my life with my head down, just trying to get through.  I finally stumbled upon a cobblestone path where I was forced to look up and observe the scenery.  I quite suddenly realized that I had not been paying attention to the people in my life, and things were somehow different than before.  I found a shaded spot beneath a willow tree and decided to stay for a while.  I had journeyed far, and had visited many places.  Some places I came to had been beautiful and lovely, leaving an imprint on my heart forever.  Other places were dark and frightening, leaving a scar in the place of the untouched map of skin that once was there.  As I sat, I pondered my journeys and allowed them to change my thoughts.  I welcomed the sorrow and the joy alike, but couldn't help but wonder why I had been so absorbed with my own journey that I had forgotten to ask you how yours had been.  You've been on a journey also, as we all are, and we both ended up back on the same cobblestone street.  You on one side, and me on the other.  I sit beneath the willow branches and absorb the suns heat from the brown dirt beneath my legs, and you lay on feathers across the way anxiously awaiting.  For what?  I don't know.  I ask you about your travels, and you seem unimpressed with them as you shrug a shoulder and try to close your eyes to the chaos in your mind.  I can see it now.  The beautiful storm that surrounds your brain swirls endlessly with needs.  The storm needs attention, and you are tired from the weight.  I rise from my dirt patch and tread closer to your bed of feathers, squinting through the wind of your storm to see if I can retrace your footprints.  I follow them back down the cobblestone street, one small foot after another, until they turn down a dark and shadowy path.  The trees here are dense and familiar.  Owls query and ravens cry with each step that I take.  I press on because I need to know where you have been; I must understand this storm that surrounds you in your beautiful bed of feathers and gold.  The forest air chills, sending goosebumps up my arms and down my spine.  I hold myself for warmth and shrug further on.  Deeper and deeper into the trees I go, and just when I am beginning to think that I may never make it through, I see rays of sunlight stretching their arms towards me.  I hasten nearer to the iridescent fingers of warmth and step out into a meadow of red dirt and  kudzu.  Catfish swim through the clouds, gulping down birds along their way to the waterfalls of vines.  Stray dogs and broken bottles litter the earth where abandoned teepees stand torn.  I hear a growl behind me that sends me into a hard run.  I push my legs to run faster and not give out as my breath comes in ragged gasps and the skin of my feet is torn by the jagged edges of hundred year old arrowheads.  I can hear the heavy fall of the beasts paws as they strike the ground directly behind my heels, the snarling teeth never letting up, spittle splashing against my hurried calves.  My sides ache and my eyes blur with fearful tears.  My toes hit something hard in the clay, causing my body to tumble forward.  As I fall, time seems to suspend itself and I can see the scenery begin to change.  The rabid dog drifts farther away, the sun lowers across the horizon, and stars pop from the fishes mustached mouths.  A giant ocean wave rises up as high as the horizon and crashes down before me, slowly creeping its way up to lick at my fingers as I hold my upper body up from the sand.  Exhausted, I let my face fall to the damp beach as I pant to catch my still gone breath.  As I begin to relax, I open my eyes and see another footprint directly beneath the spotlight of the moon.  Pulling myself up from the beach, I dust off my legs and slowly make my way to examine the etching in the shoreline.  A soft song eerily drifts up from the surf, beckoning me to try the footprint on for size.  Unsure, I lift my foot and place it directly into the outline that lay in the sand.  Tears spring to my eyes as I realize that I had been following my own footprints the whole time.  I bend over from the weight of my heart, the salt falling from my cheeks to mix with the tresses of the ocean.  The water pools inside of my footprint in an odd way, much like a tide pool within a tide pool.  I lean in and look closely to discern that there is another, smaller, footprint within my own.  Full of shock, I turn and race back up the dunes towards the red dirt.  I gulp in the thick air as I run once more from the monsters that chase me.  Past the snarling dog, dodging the broken glass, leaping from the swooping crows, and stumbling back up the cobblestone path towards your familiar form.  "Why did you follow me?" I cried breathlessly.  I had never seen our paths cross while you grew and I went out on my own journey, because you had stepped in each footprint that I had left along the way.  You look up sleepily from your golden feather bed and whisper, "You are my duality and my mirror."  Your eyes immediately flutter back to close and I can hear your rhythmic breath falling softly upon the ground.  Feeling heavy and defeated, I drag my feet across the street and sit once more beneath my willow tree.  Hot tears continue to fall, making mud beneath my legs.  All this time I thought that I had left you in a safe place while I cast shadows and fought monsters.  But you had been behind me the whole time, treading on my shadow, blindly following me and having to fight the beasts of my journey as your own.  Unsure where we will go from here, I drop my head and whisper, "I could never judge you; I know you.  But taming this storm will be the hardest thing you've ever done, and the greatest achievement of your life."
Who's walking in your footsteps?

"Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us."
- Samuel Smiles

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

Surrender- Step 3

       I'm stubborn, that's obvious, and I'll admit that fact freely.  I've never been one to wave my white flag or give up easily, so when I'm told that the only way to truly heal is to surrender my life, my mind goes wild.  My chest immediately fills with pride and I feel the protective stone walls of my ego building higher and higher to block out the advice that I don't want to hear.  Yield, relent, back down, cave in, concede, acquiesce, fall, resign... these are words that I naturally fight against on a daily basis.  These are also the very verbs that I need to learn from in order to take the next step forward.  The third step is to make the decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understand Him.  It took me four years to work past this step, but the funny thing is that I never even knew that I was stuck on this part until after I was finally able to work it.  I remember the first time that my rehab counselor looked at the group and explained that in step three we would have to rely on our Higher Power, the God of our understanding.  Upon hearing those words I immediately stopped listening, thinking that step wasn't for me.  I live in the bible belt; I've gone to church three times a week for my entire life.  I thought to myself, "I already know who God is; I don't need to work this step."  But years later when I still struggled with my guilt complex and realized that I was still wrestling with the same old crap, I suddenly knew that I NEVER actually knew who God was.  I had never worked that step because I had no idea what it meant to trust the God OF MY UNDERSTANDING.  I had been missing those key words the entire time.  I thought that the God that my preacher had told me about was actually my God, but hell fire and the threat of eternal damnation hadn't helped my addiction or depression or self-esteem.  What I really needed was to find MY God, the way that I understood Him, in the way that made ME feel loved.  There is no way that any one person can teach about their God, how they perceive Him (or Her), and expect it to be true for EVERYONE listening.  As a child I was told a lot of stories that didn't seem to make sense, and they didn't particularly make me feel safe the way they were intended to.  But now that I am older I can decide what I believe and which parts are true to me.  Religion is NOT what my God is about, it in fact has absolutely nothing to do with my Higher Power.  Spirituality is everything.  The God of my understanding is in me and around me and flows through every living thing on this planet.  THAT is something that I can relax into and maybe decide to surrender to.  I don't have to be perfect (in the way that religious leaders think perfection to be), but I know that I am perfectly made in the balance of nature and energy.  I don't need an all-knowing being to judge every mistake I make and require me to throw myself into penance hoping for forgiveness and a fresh start.  What I need is the God who knows that when I decide to ask for forgiveness for something that I need only to ask myself, because my God never did stop loving me for that awful thing that happened, I did.  I am not interested in rules, requirements, or commands, but I desperately seek the approval of the one spiritual being who never loses respect for me, for I am everything that I was created to be.  Once I am able to search within myself and find how I TRULY feel loved and who I feel humbled to worship, then I feel comfortable in surrendering myself.  It's an honor to bow my head in reverence to the spiritual being that I DO understand, that DOES love me, and that I KNOW I can trust.  And really, that's all this step truly requires.
What are you surrendering to?

"The 12 Steps and Goddess Spirituality"
- Kelly Palmer