“Crow is a symbol of solitude, spiritual strength, and the secret magic of the creative life. Black is the colour of creation, the dark womb out of which the new is born. The three crows were the messengers, reminding me of my intuitive, creative nature, waiting to emerge. Three crows, three sisters, three fates, three witches. They are the triple goddess in her dark, shadowy form.
The Dark Goddess reigns in the space without borders or boundaries. She is the dark side of the moon. She is the creative space, the womb space, the feminine blood mysteries. She is guardian of the life/death/re-birth cycles, and the mistress of transformation and change.
She is Pele, destroying everything that is not useful on our path; she is Lilith, reminding us of our deepest yearning and sexual desires; she is Kali, slaying the demons of our past; she is Sekhmet, showing us how to unlock our anger and our rage. She is the shadow side of our personality – what we try to hide, what we are ashamed of, what we fear within ourselves, what we have been told to lock away.”
~Kristen Roderick
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As the nights lengthen
Dark Goddess whispers in the stillness,
waiting to initiate us into
a time of deep dreaming and seeing.
she pulls away the veils, and we are ushered into
a sacred dark space where we can remember, release, and recharge.
In this season of change and letting go
Meditate or call on the archetypal energies of
The Dark Goddess
Learn to release all that is complete, all that longer serves you.
On a hike last year in the mountains, I walked out of pine forest into a clearing and found myself suddenly surrounded by flowers. The sight was so stunning that I can still picture it now months later. There were flowers, so many flowers everywhere! White, pink, violet, yellow blooms all around me; small whispers of color, large flagrant displays and every size and shape in between. Flowers were trumpeting the joy of life from every corner.
No two flowers in that clearing were exactly alike, yet all were similar. And seeing all those flower patterns reminded me of fractals; Scientists claim that every object in the Universe is created from sacred geometric fractal patterns. The same basic fractal patterns repeat again and again to form the foundation of every single object in our Universe.
Patterns within Patterns
I believe that these fractal patterns describe what human Souls are really like – our Souls express infinite variations of shape and hue that reflect patterns of the divine energy in unique and wonderful way; we are different and the same all at once. We are fractals in a field overflowing with fractals.
Spiritual teachers from every tradition have written and spoken about this field of sacred fractal patterns. This sacred field is known as the Akasha, a Sanskrit word that actually means “space”. Many of the world’s ancient spiritual traditions (Taoists, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Mayans, Druids, etc.) claim that this field is where energies that log all of your Soul’s experiences from every lifetime since the beginning of the World are held.
“A substructure underpins the universe that is essentially a recording medium of everything, providing a means for everything to communicate with everything else. People are indivisible from their environment.” ~Lynne McTaggart
This field is also known as the Void – although, in my experience, it is far from empty. It holds all of the vibrational patterns of YOU in lifetime after lifetime. Sacred texts tell us that Akashic records are held in a vibrational form in this field. The Akasha hold the patterns of your actions and reactions while in human form; your beliefs, and your choices as well as the rippling impact (AKA karma) of each choice.
Web of Life
Akasha represent the “glue” of Spirit; the energetic relationships that weave and hold our Universe together. In many Native American tribes a legend is told of grandmother spider creating the Universe by weaving it all together with invisible threads. And modern quantum physicists speak of “gluon”, the invisible force that binds subatomic particles together. Other scientists write about the Zero Point Field or Quantum Field; an invisible field of constantly oscillating energies that create the foundational structure of our entire Universe.
The Tao, gluon, web of life, Akasha, quantum field, zero point field… choose whatever name fits for you. Just know that you are connected and interrelated to every other part of the Universe through this magical web. The energy of the Tao or Akasha flows all around us in each moment. And it also flows within each of us; it is the energy of Soul and it animates and organizes our human form. It is the field of creation where everything is possible.
We are waves of Spirit,
We are born; we rise and flow on the ocean of consciousness
Before falling once more into the silent depths of the Tao.
∞
Soul Space Meditation
There is a space where true healing resides. This space is infinitesimally small, yet expansive beyond all reason. It lies at the edge of the Great Unknown. Step inside this space and you will know the healing power of boundless love. The divine essence of life is here and all is well.
How do you find this tiny space from which healing beckons? There are many paths; prayer, time in Nature, communing with children, conscious breathwork, dance… the list of ways is as endless as the stars.
Here is one simple way:
Sit. Your back is upright, your shoulders relaxed, your belly soft and your chin parallel to the floor. Just Sit.
Now, close your eyes and breathe. Just breathe. Feel your breath move in and out of your chest; In and out, in and out. Once, twice, a hundred times, just breathe. It is so simple yet hard. Just breathe and your mind kicks into overdrive. Your thoughts will try to get in your way.
But you are not your thoughts. There is far more to you than thought. You are Soul. You are endless and eternal. You can step out of the way of your thoughts and watch them dance by. You can witness the flow of your own mind. Yes you can. Again and again, step out of your thoughts.
Again and again, breath in and watch, breathe out and watch. Step out of your thoughts, Observe the incessant chatter of your “monkey mind”, always restless, always grasping. Notice how feeling arise within you and then fade away.
Step out of your thoughts again and again. And come back to the breath. Feel the rise and fall. Air rolls in to your body and air rolls out. This is the universal wave of life force. Explore each wave as it rolls in and out of you.
Try to find the pause between two breaths. Sit in the pause, explore the pause, that razor sharp edge between the out- breath and the in. Explore that edge and feel it expand.
Again and again, step out of your thoughts. Ride the wave of breath. And find the space between. Breathe and explore the space that flows with the essence of you.
Each of us was born from the Tao. And we return to it when we leave here. Consciously connecting to this flow is transformative; it will help you “wake up” to your Soul’s purpose and remember why you are here. It will clarify and solidify your priorities and become an inner true north that guides your life.
I have sorrow surfacing this morning. This sorrow bubbled up after I heard about the break-up of two people I love. Like the tender little flowering vine above, this sorrow winds itself around my heart. And it tightens its grip when I read about some people’s reactions to Bowe Bergdahl’s release from years of captivity in Afghanistan. Most of the press about Berdahl is so mean and cruel; he went from being a victim we heroically rescued from the Taliban to an evil deserter perp in record time. And now his parents are getting death threats. I am so sad when I hear about how cruel we can be to each other. I just don’t see how arguing about who is the real victim and who is the baddest person of all helps anyone.
I am sad from watching people push hurt and pain onto someone else while insisting that it is the right or moral thing to do. We humans excel at off-loading our grief and hurt, don’t we? Instead of sitting with hurt or sorrow and allowing ourselves to feel it, own it and then honestly express it, we spew our pain all over someone else. I get the sense that this pain passing round robin is why we keep repeating the same mistakes again and again, re enacting the same wars, crimes and petty nastiness against each other generation after generation. We lob our yucky dissonant feelings (what Eckhart Tolle calls the pain body) on to another person like a hot potato. We may feel better temporarily, but we’ve simply passed the pain on to someone else and nothing ever gets resolved.
In all the years that I had a private healing practice, I spent most of each session teaching clients how to get in touch with their pent up emotions and then express them than in way that didn’t hurt anyone else. Expressing the difficult emotions is such a key part of being able to heal and move on. But instead of feeling and healing, we continue to spew and blame others for every pain.
Humans have clubbed each other over the head with their pain and their hurt for millennia. Only now, we have raised pain passing to fine art; we employ hate radio jocks like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh to help lob our pain “out there” – onto some evil person who “deserves it.” Or we post and tweet hateful things about people we don’t even know and call it entertainment. It’s easy to lob our pain onto a stranger and walk away.
I am sad about what I heard today. It hurts to be sad, I do NOT like this feeling. But I’ve learned that the only way to move beyond sadness or grief without lobbing it on someone else is to acknowledge what I am feeling right now; I need to sit with it. Sit quietly and breathe deeply. So I will sit and breathe and focus on whatever sensations come up in my body. I will honor this feeling and the big open hearted part of me that cares so deeply and feels so sad. I may weep. I may feel like my heart will break. But I will sit with this sad and honor it with my attention. And slowly, like a summer storm blowing through, this sad will pass.
☾ ☽
Transmuting Sorrow
Sit in a safe, quiet place
Slow down your breathing; count to 3 with each in breath, then 4 or 5 or 6.
Breathe slow and deep. Notice whatever you’re feeling right now.
Lengthen your exhale. Make your exhale longer than your inhale.
Imagine that you can breathe out difficult feelings and sensations. No need to ignore or push them away; just breathe them out.
Just breathe and notice whatever bubbles up from within you; body aches, emotion, difficult thoughts. Just notice whatever comes up and breathe it out.
Breathe it all out without judging it harshly. Breathe it out with as much compassion and self-love as you can muster.
If tears or rage come, breathe that out too. Try to open your heart to each feeling, each sensation. This is your inner weather – this storm will pass.
Just notice and breathe. Notice and breathe and open your heart.
