The Soul of the World

Soul of St. Vrain River

This is What You Are For

What you stir
lovingly in your depths,
what you fiercely imagine,
will break through like a storm,
like a rapture,
simplifying,
revivifying?
This is what you are for.

To imagine the impossible is deeply human.
To muster the heart
to stretch for what beckons you
is your birthright.
Stretch.
Tear.
Explode
your heart.
This is what you are for.

Your cellular capacity to imagine
is a subversive technology.
It alters
every thing
through an evolutionary,
kaleidoscopic spin,
juicy with
elemental creativity.
Dangerous.
This is what you are for.

When you imagine with all your heart’s
brilliance
and meaty courage,
you will be claimed
by darkly-feathered hands
of unchained
angels who come to take you
hard, down into the deep caves
of what flushes your delicate skin,
dampens your palms.
Wakes you like a raging
dream
come to carry you by shimmering
forces
unknown.
Here, you will know
you have no choice.
Finally.
You are free.
This is what you are for.

If you’re ready
enough,
let this Trouble
take you
to your knees.
With your sweaty full attention,
imagine how you’d
kiss
the plump, pink lips
of your tender
soul.
But wait. Re-member:
This is not about you.
You are being used
by Every Thing.
This is what you are for.

Once re-membered,
you will draw into
your being
the throb
you came here to taste.
The one way of belonging
that is yours to make matter.
This is what you are for.

The broken-hearted,
glistening hum of
your taught, tangled
body will give
off a fragrant, unruly
intelligence beyond the Machine’s measure
of right, wrong, reason.
This is what you are for.

Have you come here to make Trouble
for Comfort and Security? For Greed and Convention?
For Routine and Predictability?
Good.
Those are the Killers of
what you are for.

The planet is very uncomfortable.
She is writhing in pain.
Feel her suffering in your blood, and
you will know what you are for.
Taste compassion for the slaughtered, and
you will love like the Milky Way.

Shatter your old ways, and
show me how your soul blushes
alive
with arousal.
This is what you are for.

Be an unpopular
harbinger,
a tender, sprouted
sentinel of
the rhizome of archaic revival.

Do not take a seat.
She is ready for you.
The soul of the world
will see you now.
What have you come to give her?

~Melissa La Flamme 
Shamanic Soulwork

Synchronicity Above and Below

Ring of Fire Sequence by Jia Hao
Ring of Fire Sequence photographed by Jia Hao

In the heavens above us, a full lunar eclipse and a solar eclipse occurred this month. I share Jia Hao’s images of this week’s solar eclipse above  (link to more eclipse info). What a bizarre and amazing sight to see our sun temporarily snuffed out by the shadow of our moon!

My astrologer friends tell me that eclipses intensify and stir up whatever is going on in our lives here on planet Earth. Some believe that eclipses bring up our subconscious shadow selves to be healed. But the Cardinal Grand Cross that formed in our sky a week ago is even more unusual than an eclipse. This huge planetary cross was created by Jupiter, Pluto, Mars and Uranus; 4 planets actually lined up in a perfect cross formation in our sky this month. You can bet that I sat up and paid attention when I heard that this cross was slowly forming in our skies and would be perfectly aligned on April 23, my birthday. Yikes!

I don’t know about you, but it has definitely been a month of shakeup and shifts for me and my entire family; we moved into a new home, lived through huge job shifts, a delay in the release of my book, and weird illnesses with odd body symptoms that hang on and on… There have been so many unusual events happening in my neck of the woods that I can’t help but shake my head in wonder. And the world around me seems all stirred up too. I have been engulfed and surrounded by chaos and shakeup all month.

I can’t help but wonder what wisdom is held within this crazy, chaotic Grand Cross time for us? Shamanic astrologer Tami Brunk shares this on her web site,  Astrology for Earth Renewal:

“This Cardinal Grand Cross is about a cataclysmic transformation of human culture. At its center is the heart–of our shared humanity, and each of us as individuals. The heart of Retrograde Mars in Libra on an inward journey asking the question–how do I care for both others and myself? Jupiter in Cancer asking–how can I find a home in my own heart, and nurture my family, my tribe? Pluto in Capricorn asking–how can I break down the structures and fortresses and walls that have been constructed between each human being, between masculine and feminine, between humanity and the Earth? The heart of Uranus in Aries asking–how can I awaken humanity to a New Beginning, a radical new path forward,  filled with Spirit, with consciousness?” 

~Tami Brunk 

It seems funny now that I never paid much attention to astrology (or astronomy) when I was in my 20’s and 30’s. Back then I would read my horoscope for laughs, but the movements of the planets just didn’t seem that important to me. But over time, I’ve come to realize that the workings of the sun, moon and planets actually do have an effect on my life; I’ve experienced so many instances of shifts in my life lining up with shifts in the heavens that defied the odds of chance.  And as I watch the heavens this month, the synchronicity between my life and the cyclic movements in the sky above me just gets more and more obvious.

My Celtic ancestors would laugh at how long it has taken me to accept the idea that I might actually be affected by what’s happening in the heavens. The Celts believed in the spiritual principle of “as above, so below”; what happens in the heavens is synchronized with what happens on planet Earth. The Celts actually studied how the movements in their sky affected and interacted with events on Earth. They used the synchronicity between heaven and Earth to inform and guide their lives.

I wonder why this synchrony between heaven and Earth is such a strange and foreign idea for us today? When did we lose this knowing and why? 

Quantum physicists have shown that just the act of observing the inner workings of atomic particles changes the behavior of those particles. Maybe it’s not so weird and far fetched to believe that the movements of huge planets around our sun actually affect and interact with all life on Earth. Maybe, just maybe my Celtic ancestors were onto something important.

I look at everything that’s happened recently in my life and I can’t help but nod and affirm what my ancestors knew so long ago, as above, so below…

“Not just beautiful, though–the stars are like the trees in the forest,
alive and breathing. And they’re watching me.”

~Haruku Murakami 

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Nature is my Religion

Snowy Wonderland

When people question what my religion is, I want to say that I believe in Taoism mixed with a large serving of gnostic Christianity and a side of Tibetan Buddhism thrown in for meditative measure. Or perhaps I could offer a brief lecture on the common threads in all religions….

Maybe it’s more honest to just say that nature is my true religion. And share this beautiful poem by J.L. Stanley as a way of explaining:

Catechism for a Witch’s Child

When they ask to see your gods
your book of prayers
show them lines
drawn delicately with veins
on the underside of a bird’s wing
tell them you believe
in giant sycamores mottled
and stark against a winter sky
and in nights so frozen
stars crack open spilling
streams of molten ice to earth
and tell them how you drink
a holy wine of honeysuckle
on a warm spring day
and of the softness
of your mother who never taught you
death was life’s reward
but who believed in the earth
and the sun
and a million, million light years
of being.

Flooded

Flooded
Flooded St. Vrain

One broken day
When old hurts break free
From my deepest dark
Held silent too long.
 
Watery flow
A thousand tiny teardrops
Flood from every pore  
Pain long hidden.
 
This deluge
blots out sun and moon
Leaving only darkness
In its wake.
 
I wander
Stumbling over the bones
Of old memory
Dreaming of peace.
 
And slowly
The cloudy waters subside
I surface to find
A fresh, beautiful space.
 
I am new
A raw space of possibility
Old sorrows washed clean
Ready to receive.
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A Blessing of Solitude

Winter Morning
Winter Morning

May you recognize in your life, the presence, power and light of your soul.
May you realize that you are never alone,
That your soul in its brightness and belonging
connects you intimately with the rhythm of the universe.
May you have respect for your own individuality and difference.
May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique,
that you have a special destiny here,
That behind the facade of your life
there is something beautiful, good, and eternal happening.
May you learn to see yourself with the same delight, pride,
and expectation with which God sees you in every moment.

~John O’Donohue
Anam Cara

Snowy Blessings

Winter Blessings
My Two Guides in Winter

May you awaken to the mystery of being here and
enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.
May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
May you respond to the call of your gift and find the courage to follow its path.
May the flame of anger free you from falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame
and may anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
May you be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.

~ John O’Donohue ~

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