Category: A New Earth

The Upside of Hate #towertarot #thetower #tarot #thechariot #thestar #thedevil #themagician #thelovers

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Reflections, Warriors of LightLeave a comment

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I got discouraged for a moment. Perhaps it was a long moment, but I didn’t count the seconds.  Fear resided inside the words I read, and festering with that fear was hatred. It has become easy to hate these days in a world that appears to be ripping into shreds of immorality. That’s what we’re shown on the surface where we linger with sensationalism. The media prefers to grasp the hand of the monster that lives both inside and outside of us, holding it like it never wants to let go.

I had been scrolling through Facebook, that skewed version of reality where the darker side of humanity is allowed to run amuck with gleeful abandon. A friend was bemoaning a poll forecasting possible results for the next presidential election here in the U.S. The screen was awash with red. I could have pulled myself into her fear, but I decided I’d be better served to let go the hand that would hold me into the netherworld.

I believe there’s an upside to hatred, if we choose to find it. At the core of hatred is an insidious fear that thrives in its deoxygenated environment. It’s a terrible existence. This choosing to “live” in hatred. The fear of the “other,” and the “unknown,” deprives us of life and the soul withers inside its troubled shell. But hatred tells a story, as does the fear behind it. It tells the story of a history that is ours, but one we don’t have to hold onto.

Hatred is a ruse to lure us backwards into the spiral of the abyss. We can stay stuck there, or we can dig through the ruins and discover why the tower keeps collapsing upon itself.  It is a vulnerable journey, which is why we often choose to linger with the discomfort of fear. It yells a power that has no basis in truth, yet we listen to its words thinking that if we heed them we will survive, forgetting about the countless others that will perish. Forgetting that we too will starve for want of light.

But if we listen, really listen past fear to its origins, we get ever-closer to the true self. The self that wants to be healed. The self that wants to be held. The self that desires love. And, our tower begins to crumble its mighty fortress. The walls that would contain collapse. Smoke billows and the fires rage, until the flames abate. It may take a long time to put them out, but herein lies the beauty of creation. The alchemy of self exists inside ourselves. Collectively and individually.

Beneath the angry red screen that tried predict more hatred across the land, I felt the pulse of the vein of life. Life searching to be reborn. It’s been a long time. A really, really long time, since we’ve known how to live in harmony with the life around us, and that inner life that is the self as a part of the whole. Perhaps we need to give ourselves a little more compassion. When we look at the vast and complex journey of our existence in human form, we see the struggle to survive, but also to thrive. And in the searching and breaking down, we can relearn how to balance upon the thread of light that is joy.

Humanity has reached the stage of existence marked by The Tower card in Tarot. Its number is 16 in the major arcana cycle. Balanced on one side by The Devil, and the other, by The Star, The Tower card is the epitome of upheaval. To get to the light of the star, that inner, true light of the self, the devil within and without must be reckoned with. As much as we may fear the devil outside of us, we must come to realize that he only exits because of what is inside. The chains, as the card reveals, are self-imposed. We can choose to live chained to fear, or we can break the fortress and let the light shine through.

Becoming, in essence, naked to the true self, is a vulnerable act. It takes trust, courage, and a surrender in the knowing that love is the truth of the self and of Life.  If we reduce The Tower card down to its integral parts, we arrive at card 1, The Magician and card 6, The Lovers, in the major arcana. The Magician possesses the alchemical magic of the self, The Lovers, of the union of the opposing energies; the yin and the yang that exist in the individual self, as well as the self searching for union with another. If we join the 1 to the 6, to complete the reduction, we arrive at the number 7. Card 7 in the Tarot tradition is The Chariot. Here we see the individual reigning over polarity. The yin energies sit one side of the chariot, the yang on the other. The sun and the moon are in balance both within and without. Over the breastplate of the figure that is self, is a square through which the light of the heart is shining through. The light of the star shines on the crown of the head.

 

The Chariot card is card 7, though. It precedes The Devil, The Tower, and The Star in the cycle of life represented in the Tarot. The choice to reign with the force of the ego or with the peace of inner light is still subject to personal will. The number 7 is that magical number that speaks of transformation. Everything is possible, and so there is the promise of union through alchemy.

This breaking down and collapsing that is so prevalent in our time often feels fueled by hatred and the ego’s need for self-preservation at all costs, but when we look closer, as symbolized in the card, we can also find the light of origin. Lightning strikes the crown of power from the top of the tower and opens the pathway to the divine self. Enlightenment can occur through the upheaval, if the self allows it.

Through the rubble of fear and hatred, there exists around us and within us, so many seeds of this light. Stories of courage and truth abound as voices gain strength with the conviction that love is the essence of life. Young women are stepping into the light of the divine feminine energy in a manner the world has not witnessed for a long time. They bring to us the promise of balance as they break fearlessly the barriers of fear. There is a feeling of warrior energy, a warrior energy fed by the light of truth. Their voices are strong and clear, and the are joined by many others, both male and female, in a dance of union.  It’s our choice, collectively, how to collapse the tower and find the balance of life, but it all begins with the self. The self that stays mired in fear, or breaks the fortress to find the light.

 

The Hermit #Harbinger #WritePhoto

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth18 Comments
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Photo Credit: Sue Vincent

The hermit curled his head into his folded feathers. It had a been a long day. Heck, who was he kidding? It had been a long century. He was getting old, too old to be doing this work. And, he was tired. The kind of tired that sets into your bones long before they are supposed to return to the soil. He blamed the humans. The hermit discovered the plague of their greed soon after they started pumping darkness into the veins of Earth five thousand years ago.

He didn’t want to feel like such a curmudgeon. In many ways he’d rather be flying blissfully unaware with the starlings. All they did was gossip and cackle about the other birds as they picked through the dirt for worms. The hermit wasn’t much for idle chatter, though. He never had been. Life would have been easier, he thought, if he had been born into a state of blissful ignorance, but life had chosen him to be a hermit. To fly alone as he surveyed the land and catalogued its history into memory cells. Now the weight was simply too much for his body. His wings were too tired to raise him off the ground, and instead folded inward, protecting the heart that was heavy with time. Soon his body would become one with the Earth from which he was born, and he found himself welcoming that day without sadness or trepidation.

Peace, he thought, finally I will be at peace. But what of the rest? Beneath his winged shoulders, blue feathers of truth betrayed him. It was not yet his time. He had agreed to be a harbinger of death, but also of life. And the golden child had not yet been born. The hermit must wait a little longer to pass on the memories in his cells. Only then could he rest in the knowing that someday the light would be returned.

For Sue Vincent’s #writephoto prompt Harbinger. Please click here to participate in the challenge. 

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Greta Thunberg Standing on the Fulcrum of Fear & Love #IChooseLove #kidyoga #dremoto #watercrystals

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Reflections, Warriors of Light, yoga3 Comments
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Photo Credit: Pixabay

It has felt, for many months, or maybe even many years, as though we are collectively teetering on the fulcrum between fear and love. Some days there is a slight tipping toward love, on others I feel fear pushing its heavy weight into our hearts and there is a slipping towards an abyss that I care not to imagine. Yet, how can we not face our darkness? There are nights when I dream of the Earth caving in upon us, her mighty tongue lapping us back into her dying body.

Two days ago, I sat in a circle of 22 children and talked about love and fear. Although they were no older than 10 yrs. old, some of them already knew of the science behind our emotions. Before I pulled Dr. Emoto’s book The Secret Life of Water out of my bag, one child offered her scientific observations on two apples. One was spoken words of hate, the other words of love. There was an unease to her giggle when I asked her which one had decayed first. Although there is a knowing deep inside each of us, it is sometimes difficult to allow ourselves to understand the effects of our emotions.

We don’t always want to own our energy, or the fact that our energy is intricately woven with all life. If we talk love to water outside of us, it forms into a beautifully exquisite crystal. If we talk hate to water outside of us, the water separates into an ugly mass striving for cohesion. To me it resembles a bacteria smear on a petri dish. Each day it is fed fear, more toxic colonies grow.  It’s worth thinking about what the water inside of you is doing, as I discussed with the children while they gazed at the photos of proof.

Everything, in essence, is energy. Somehow, over the course of thousands of years, we have learned to crave density. We amass wealth in the form of condensed energy thinking it will bring us joy, but we should all know that the tighter the wrap, the more difficult it is for the light to get shine through.

The scientific proof is there, yet many of us care not to see it. Just like the scientific proof exists, and has for many decades, that our climate is indeed in a state of crisis. A crisis brought upon by our individual and collective choices to push the lever towards greed. We care not, for the most part, to see what is going on outside of us or inside of us through the lens of science and truth.

This morning, I decided to scroll through a few comments on Greta Thunberg’s Twitter feed. I have been thinking about this courageous and brilliant young woman a lot lately, and how she has chosen to weather our collective storm valiantly without fear of personal attacks. Of which there have been numerous. One needs only spend about thirty seconds on Twitter to see there are nearly equal tweets on the spectrum of fear/hate as there are on the spectrum of love/reference for this truth seeker and speaker. I found myself amazed, yet not really surprised, by how many people self-righteously send out the energy of hate towards a young woman whose only motivation is to save them, and in the process herself and the planet we all share. It’s mind boggling in its essence. Yet, it’s not. Some of us really like our fear and hate. It makes us feel powerful with all its lies and self-loathing so that we forget that we are harboring and feeding a cancerous mass inside of us.

It would be amusing how much we fear the truth if it were not so disturbing. I have realized, over these past several days while thinking of Greta and all the courageous youth who are standing and speaking up with her, that somehow, quite miraculously it seems, we have birthed new generations who do not hold onto fear the way most of us do. Perhaps it is because they have not yet lived long enough for fear’s weight to grow into a cancerous mass inside of them. I like to believe, though, that somehow they were born with an immunity to it.  That finally, we are moving toward the light as we push fear’s weight into the abyss from which it came. If I don’t believe it, the alternative is unimaginable.

 

Another Morning Has Broken: Grow the Light #GivePraise #Gratitude

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Reflections, Warriors of Light10 Comments

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I woke with the lyrics of the hymn playing  inside of my head in the voice of Judy Collins, even though I grew up listening to Cat Stevens singing “Morning has Broken.” I have not heard the song in years, but there it was, singing inside a mind that refused to fall back to sleep. In my dream, I had been writing this blog post while the beauty of the song played on repeat.

Before I went to sleep last night, I watched most of the U.S. democratic presidential debates. “Are they still on?” my son asked when he came downstairs in preparation for bed. He had suggested we watch them, and together we had for about an hour.

“Yeah, I told him, but they haven’t even gotten to the environment yet.”

“Maybe it’s not on the agenda topics,” my husband replied.

Instead, the focus was on healthcare and gun control. Two topics I will not deny are essential to individual wellbeing. But, if we don’t tend to the home we all share, we won’t have individual selves to care for. Eventually, the morning light will not break into a new day on Earth.

16-yr. old  Greta Thunberg is now famous for telling us, “Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope, but I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”

The truth is, most of us are more concerned with our own houses, than the home we share. Neglecting to realize that our individual houses are irrelevant if we don’t take care of the planet. Simply put, our house will burn if we continue to ignore the fact that our collective home is literally on fire. Immense forests, the lungs of our Earth, are burning because of climate change. While the land burns, the waters are rising. In attempt to shake us awake, our home is self-destructing with our help.

I realized as I was waking this morning that the song playing on repeat through my dreams was not a song, literally, of mourning, but a hymn of praise to the new day. It is also, though, a praise for union and the truth that we are “born of one light.” The song is incredibly beautiful, and it is no wonder it has been sung by various artists throughout the years. It may have originated as a Christian hymn, but it has a universal appeal, as Cat Stevens, also known as Yusuf Islam, has shown us.

Although I don’t adhere to a religion, I believe that we are all birthed from the same light. A light that weaves through all life, including this living planet we call home. We have, collectively, over many years, but more so in the more recent past, worked more to break this light than to honor it and nurture it.

Science says we are creatures of habit. It can take an individual two weeks to a year to break an old habit and form a new one.  Sadly,  we have made a global habit of looking out more for the individual self than our selves as an integral part of the web-of-light/life that we are all a part of.

The other day, I watched a brief clip of Greta being interviewed by a morning show on a major network here in the U.S. She had just traveled to the states via a zero-emissions boat. As her visibly uncomfortable interviewers also pointed out, she has also walked to their studio.

It takes a fair amount of discomfort to welcome in a “new morning” in favor of the one we are used to greeting. It takes a stretching of the eyes and mind a little wider to really see what exists beyond our myopic field of perception. But, the rewards are infinite. Imagine, for a moment, a new morning breaking into day. Imagine your beautiful light weaving into the light around you. Imagine what you can bring to this new day.

Admittedly, most of us will not change all of our habits, and certainly not at once. I know I am not ready to give up travel by plane to sail across the ocean, but there are choices I can make in each moment to dim the light, or to grow it. Here are a few that we can all consider each morning after we wake:

  • Skip the K-cups or the Dunkins run and brew a cup of fair trade, organic coffee or tea. (If you really want that Dunkins or Starbucks, bring your own reusable mug.
  • Gather a full load of laundry before starting the washer, and use warm (not hot) or cold water to wash. The next time you buy detergent, choose one free of harsh chemicals and dyes in the most environmentally friendly packaging you can find. Just say no to those hard plastic containers! If your washer kicks the bucket and can’t be fixed, buy an energy efficient one. When your load is done, hang it outside in the sunshine and save some money by using free, fossil-free energy! If you must dry it in the dryer, use an eco setting and wool dryer balls in favor of toxic non-reusable dryer sheets.
  • Likewise, run your dishwasher only when it is full on the energy-saver setting with eco-friendly detergent in eco-friendly packaging.
  • Make the choice to eat low on the food chain, and finish what is on your plate. If you can’t eat it all, save it for another meal. Compost what you must discard. Grow what you can, or buy it locally and organic.
  • Water the lawn only if you really need to, and tend to it with organic lawn care. Better yet, grow more plants and trees that don’t require maintenance and nourish your body, wildlife, and the lungs of Earth in the process.
  • Carpool to work or school in the most low-emissions vehicle available. Or, better yet, walk or ride a bike when the weather permits it.
  • Skip the hair dryer, iron, and curler, even if it’s just only weekends.
  • Unplug appliances that are not in use.
  • Turn off lights and heat in unoccupied rooms. (And when they are in use, make sure your using the most eco-friendly options available to you).
  • Support local business and farmers who are working on, or using, sustainable practices for the planet.
  • Invest your money in the future rather than the immediate pleasure of instant gratification.
  • Teach your children that caring for their planet will ensure they have a planet to care for them.
  • If you want to add a child or a pet to your home, consider rescuing one from a life of poverty and homelessness.
  • Wear your clothes until you can wear them no more, then use them as rages, make something new out of them, or donate them to someone who can use them.
  • Buy local. Buy eco-friendly. Buy used. Buy only what you need. Use a reusable bag to put your purchases in.
  • Support zero-emissions energy sources whenever you are able to.
  • Turn off the water when you brush your teeth. Turn down the water when you shower.
  • Skip the plastic whenever possible. Use refillable containers. Buy zero-waste products. Remember most of our waste is no longer recycled, and when it is, it takes large amounts of energy to do so.

And, most of all, breathe in the beauty of each morning. Breathe in joy and gratitude for the new day. Breathe in light and Breathe it back out. Imagine a new day where devastation is replaced with joy. Take at least one action each day to co-create another morning for all.

 

The Light Behind our Story #ChooseLove #freesoul #butterflysymbolism

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Memoir, Reflections, Spirit Channelings1 Comment
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Today’s messenger calling for transformation and the return to the unfettered soul

If you choose to, you can see an outer world filled with terrible things. A world on the brink of, or perhaps even over-flowing, with chaos. A world where fear, and all its ugly faces, rules each action and reaction.

Or, you can see a world whose essence is love. A world that, despite pockets of darkness dominated by fear, has at its core only light. If you breathe into the core of Earth, the mother of your body and your home for this life, deep through the multilayers of soil, stone, and water, you will reach a core of light. If you breathe into the layers of your own body, through the skin that sheaths your essence, through the tissue and the bone, you will reach your core of light. A light that is a seed of the very same light in the core of Earth, and of the very same light that exists in the core of each being. Its essence is love. The energetic vibration of creation.

Yet, the mind and body that would encompass this essence easily traps fear. Fear that nestles into tissues and creates the density of disease, distrust, hatred, and paranoia. Along with the false belief that the “me” is separate from the “all.” A fear that breaks apart the light so that its vast web looks as though it is filled with darkness.

We are each so much more powerful than this fear we like to hold onto. This fear that creates separation in a struggle for self-survival. It is but a mere shadow of our true self. And, like all shadows, it is a mere illusion of the truth. Fear looks for separation, love is defined by union.

Instead of holding onto fear, and losing oneself in the shadow of its darkness, why do we not reach inside to find the light of truth? That pure essence of love that threads through each and every one of our beings? Why do we fear who we are? Why do we fear love itself? Why do we fear the true, vast, and limitless expanse of our being that continues on past the death of the layers that would contain it?

Why do we fear the free, unfettered soul?

Perhaps the why is not as important as the habit it has created. Overtime we develop a pattern of holding onto traits and behaviors whose origins we cannot always fully recover. Instead, we simply adopt without consideration of why we are continuing in a pattern that is destructive of the self and the whole. It becomes comfortable, like a tattered and worn blanket we refuse to give up from our childhood. Or, an old coat we’ve worn for so long, we cannot imagine stepping outside the comfort of our home without it. Even though the coat, like the blanket, is no longer of service to us.

Do you ever dream of being naked? Or of lifting your feet into weightless flight? Do you fear one and not the other? It’s a funny thing, this holding onto what our soul calls us to let go of. This returning to the unfettered essence of love that we are is so simple, yet complex in the unraveling it requires and all the letting go of habitual patterns and behaviors. False beliefs dying to the one truth that is you.

Why am I writing these words, calling for love? For the simple turning inward instead of outward as we try to navigate our way through the layers that appear to trap us in density? Because we are in the midst of an age of upheaval. The repetition of the old patterns of fear have repeated to a level of accumulated density in this world that we choose to share, causing a hold of fear that is seemingly tighter than the love that binds.

The Earth and each one of her children is crying out for reunion. For the return to love and unity. It is not my intention to talk of the ephemeral. Of some ideal that will never be achieved. My words are simple, their truth not complex. Nothing is ever gained by fear and hatred, but more fear and hatred. We can cower and ring our hands in dismay, or we can start turning inward to the truth and allowing that reflection to mirror back to us each time we turn our eyes outward. We can simply be, each day, ever more present to the truth of our essence, or we can move that truth into action, rippling the energy of love through our words and movements. Righteous indignation is still fed by fear, even if the outward display of it is for a greater good. Fear feeds fear. Anger feeds anger. Love feeds love. It’s simple math and physics.

Years ago, I found myself lying on a couch for three hours halfway in another realm as I listened to the words of my essence. We all have this voice within us, and it behooves us to listen to it, at least now and then. The words that stayed with me, that haunt me each day are these: “You can always find the light behind the story. Find the light behind each story.”

As I looked through my lives and the greater life around us and ahead of us, I realized these words were not intended for my survival, but for the survival of each and every one of us. If we choose to hold onto our collective fears and all the trappings that have bound us and harmed us, we will get more of the same. There is always light behind the shadow. There is always that core of essence that is love, waiting to be seen, grown and illuminated.

 

 

The Chalice & The Sun #yearning #writephoto #queenofcups

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Gaia & Elementals, Reflections, Warriors of Light15 Comments

I had been intending to write a blog post about some recent explorations I’ve had with the chalice as a symbol when I opened Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt this morning. There before me was a photograph of water in the shape of a chalice illuminated by the light of the sun. The title, “yearning.” I realized that perhaps I had just been provided with the image I needed to explore this ancient symbol in the way it has come to me recently…

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Photo Credit: Sue Vincent

Years ago, when I first began exploring Tarot, I bought myself the Rider-Wait deck. I  often shuffled the cards to find guidance for my life and writing journey. As frequently happens with Tarot, a card will repeatedly show itself. The Queen of Cups was that card for me.

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The Queen of Cups in the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck

The archetype of The Queen sat before me on her throne contemplating a capped golden chalice in her hands bearing a cross at its top. The card is filled with archetypal symbolism, which is up to the individual to explore in relation to his or her own inner journey.

 

 

 

Trading the high price of hedonism for hope #hedonism #ercolano #vatican #pompeii #colosseum #rome #italy

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Reflections, Travel Adventures19 Comments

Since my recent visit to Italy, I have been thinking about the trap of hedonism. From a yogic perspective, hedonism is a concentration of energy in the sacral and solar plexus chakras, or areas of the body. Here is where individual lust, when it is allowed to, takes over the bloom of ever-lasting life. The mind-body forgets that life is not individual, but a collective and infinite rebirthing.

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Ercolano sits unearthed in the middle of a crowded Naples

I keep thinking about Vesuvius covering civilizations at their peak of hedonism in layers of ashes and dirt. Over and over again. We unearth the remains. Stare at the walls still painted in lust, and forget.

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Hedonism on the walls of Pompeii

We forget that we are still here. Captured in our lust. We are not doomed to repeat history, we simply choose to do so.

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This photo was taken in Rome, near the Vatican. If you look closely you will see a bride being photographed in her white gown near underpass where the tents of the homeless are huddled. 

Today, Naples sits piled in apartments filled with crowded life whose waste litters the streets. Plastic discarded after a single use blows amongst piles of dog poop and cigarette butts. In the cracks of pavement, green life stretches to find air and water before it is snuffed out by passersby who are thinking of yesterdays and tomorrows filled with want.

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Live blooming in the cracks of Pompeii 

Three hours away by car, Rome’s streets pave over more lost civilizations. What is left reminds us of the individual ego’s striving for power. Huge monuments raised to its mighty hand stand erect, guarded by machine guns slung over shoulders. Reminders of wars waged, battles for life lost and “won,” and the many, many spoils of victory.

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What was once Egypt’s is now Rome’s

A vast city inside a city houses the spoils of wealth stolen in the name of God.

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Vatican City crowded with visitors

Gold halls lined with painted angels watch over a vast fortune robbed from distant and not so distant lands. Lesser gods trapped in a fortress that has room for only one ruler. Yet, we walk the halls in awe. We  cannot help it. The splendor overwhelms and consumes us.

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A feast for the eyes, even the ceilings of the Vatican are lined in gold opulence.

Below, the echo of the goddess can only be heard when the feet are still and the many voices clamoring to be heard, mute. The want for air is nearly unbearable. Yet we hold onto our crowds, striving, always striving, to get ahead.

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Crowds outside the Colosseum 

I keep thinking we are one fiery breath away from annihilation. Again. We have thinned the air with our crowds and choked it with the pollution of our breath. We have chosen to guard the pillars of our mighty past and erect more as we overlook the goddess who sustains us.

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Mother Earth birthing and supporting life

Instead of honoring the Mother who brings forth new life, feeds, and provides for all our many wants, we trample her to near death in our quest to strive ever higher in dominion.

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A memorial to war in Rome is carefully guarded by men with guns.

It is difficult not to be cynical in this world so focused on the outer it has largely forgotten what sustains it. A world that fears so much what unites it, it would rather destroy itself, over and over again, for want of division. For want of lust to feed the false self. A temporary pleasure of the body that has forgotten the soul housed in light who choose not to see.

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The imposing remains of the Roman Colosseum 

And so I find myself sitting in my comfortable home in America, looking around at all that I have and all that I am in danger of losing. I find myself thinking about my individual choices and if they serve only me, or something greater than my individual self. I live in a town that has recently decided that recycling is not worth the monetary expense, and has chosen to override the planetary expense of not doing so. I live in a nation ruled by a man whose lust for power strives to over-ride all that is of the common good. It is easy to be consumed by the ugliness and despair of what feels like an impending doom. I would not blame our Mother if she  decided it was time, again, to swallow us up.

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Vesuvius in stasis 

But, there is little good to come of wallowing in despair, and much to be gained when one reaches beyond the darkness to grow the light. There is an empowerment of the inner that can be awakened when one looks beyond the myopic lens of the individual wants and sees that choices can be made to grow this light that we all share and that feeds all life.

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A male hummingbird in my garden drinking nectar from peach blossoms

I know that the old ways are not enough. That for me living in my small town in New Hampshire, it is not enough to simply rinse cans and separate paper and food waste anymore. That I must search for ways that are more sustainable, such as growing vegetables and joining a local CSA. I know that I can move beyond not just buying nontoxic and organic products, to making more of my own as I search for those that I must buy in biodegradable and reduced packaging. And, I know that I can search for more innovative ways to reduce and reuse and share ideas that I find with others. There is that realization that “more” can always be done to nurture the good of all, and not just the one. And, that in doing so, one can find not only hope, but joy.

 

The Balance of Sun & Moon #SpringEquinox2019 #equinox #balance #harmony

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Gaia & Elementals, Reflections4 Comments

Today we tumble out of the deep bed of winter and stretch our limbs toward spring in the northern hemisphere. It is a day filled with promise.

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Hope is the bud quickening to the pulse of life ready to bloom into its fullest expression

It is a time of balance. Nearly equal parts dark and light, yet the two are not in opposition.

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The length of day nearly equals the length of night on the equinox

On this spring equinox, we are graced with the glory of the full sun, and also the full moon.

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The moon shines her full face towards Earth, allowing the sun to illuminate her glory at night

It is a time when the yin and yang energies — the divine feminine and masculine — are offered in balance. Equally holding space and supporting one another. Offering a mirror to the potential that resides within each one of us.

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A butterfly, symbol of transformation and rebirth, offering the dark and the light rimed with the blue of truth

 

At this era of time, when Earth and its children struggle for balance and harmony, we are offered this still point. A pause to reflect and then open to the perfection of balance. An offering to seek the sun, but also the moon and find what each has to offer us.

Strength, tempered by peace…

Darkness balanced by light…

Fear balanced by promise…

The singular life supported by all life…

The inhale of breath matching the exhale…

As the moon begins to wane, and the light of the sun lingers longer each day, may we be reminded of this balance. Using the sun’s energy to bring light to our greatest darkness. Darkness that holds fear in all its many forms, but also the seeds of promise. May we be reminded that each fear that we hold onto can transform into new life with the touch of the sun. It can bloom past the darkness from where we hold it tight as we breathe into its lips hope, promise, and love.  In the seeds of fear reside our fullest potential waiting to find the light. It is that place where the limited can become the limitless.

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May we today breathe in the balance of the energies that support us, allowing them to find balance within. Seeding the life that lingers in the darkness as we find the limitless love that unites us all.

 

 

 

Why I visit England (annually) and why we are called to sacred lands #ancientengland #sacredsites #travelingmystic

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections, Travel Adventures12 Comments

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I’ve been thinking about writing this post for awhile. To attempt to explain why we are sometimes drawn, mind, body, and soul to physical places as though we have no choice but to go there. The heart, leading the body back home.

I think many people I know are confused as to why I feel such a need to travel to England, over and over again. What may be viewed as a flight of fancy becomes, perhaps, seen as an excuse to get away in their minds. From the mundane. The roles we choose to play out in life that can feel old and weary.

It’s true. These roles can age us when we allow them to do so. The soul, mind, and body seeks replenishment from that which wears us down. But being drawn to a place on such a holistic level is a soul’s calling the body and mind to home. We live many lifetimes. Sometimes in one place. The location becomes an integral part of our being, woven into the memory of cells so deeply that it is brought with us through our lifetimes. We become, in essence, of that land.

We are all of the larger “land” that is Earth. Its elements have given us our body of life, but what I speak of is memory. Sometimes the call to a certain place feels as vital as breathing. It sustains us and enlivens us. It reseeds the sacred within.

I have tried to find this here, in New Hampshire and in its wider landscape of New England. I have had moments when I have felt the coming home, but this is not so much about place, but about surrendering to the union that connects all life. When I am in the ancient lands of England the sacred enfolds me and strips me bare. It opens the magic hidden within and I begin to remember fully and completely, through every cell of my being, the essence of Life.

There are certain places that hold memories for us to retrieve when we choose to open to them. Portals. Vortexes. The convergence of ley lines. Sacred temples. Stones placed upon the energy that feeds the body of Earth and in alignment to the stars…Long ago, all life lived in this union, but over time the ego took hold and dismantled union in a search for separation. We are still living the false ideal of separation, to our own imminent demise.

I believe there is that essence inside of  all of us that searches for that Light of union. To feel, once again, a part of the sacred whether we are consciously aware of it or not. We go to churches and temples to find it, and sometimes we go to the land. I am drawn to the land. It is here where the memories of home sweep through me in perfect union when I find that quiet space to surrender to it. Each time I travel to England another part of me is brought to life. Another piece of my soul retrieved and reunited.  The land speaks to me in a language I can understand. I am revived and filled with hope when I hear it whisper through my cells.

When I look at life through the eyes of the mundane I see a broken world. I see the ever-present quest for more. To be better. To divide and conquer. I see wars fought over this. I see violence because we are broken. Despair because we have forgotten. We rape and pillage ourselves and the land because we have become disconnected. We have forgotten that when we destroy another, we in essence, destroy ourselves.

Perhaps it is a fool’s quest, but I also travel to England not only so that I can remember, but so that I can somehow, through my words and experiences, stir the memories inside those we have lost and forgotten this sacred union. We are born remembering, but through modern ways of living we easily forget. Ceremony has been lost to the click of an icon to numb the searching brain. The temples of the past turned into playgrounds to capture selfies.

I don’t think it’s an accident that incredible work and care went into building these temples of stone so that they might stand thousands of years later. They are the physical keepers of our ancestral memories. Libraries set in Earth. And, it is quite likely when they were built they were built with this intention in mind. Knowing that one day we would enter, of our own free will, a long age of forgetting. And that we would, one day, also seek to remember as though our very lives depend upon it, because they do.

To place a hand on one of these stones and feel the flooding return of these memories is a testament to their sacred purpose. When I open to the ancient sites of England, the “I” and all its false needs and wants disappear. There is no I. There is only union. Union with the great stone. With Mother Earth. With the vast heavens above. And with all Life. Long ago, this is what our ancestors knew as Truth.

We are living, collectively, through the false ideals of the ego, lives of self-destruction. If we continue on this course, each individual “I” will perish collectively. In what is the utmost of irony in our striving to be better, different, and special from each other, we are making our “I” become extinct. Soon enough we will have depleted all the resources our planet has to offer and there will be no room for life to carry our “special” DNA onto future generations. There will be no living Earth to sustain progeny to live out or legacy, because our legacy will be extinct. Money cannot buy what we need for our survival. A bigger house will not spare us from disaster, no matter how much we fortify it with outer strength. Eventually the “I” dies.  Each “I” has the same destiny of death. Yet if we really cared about each individual “I” we’d collectively realize it takes the “we” to preserve it. To ensure life continues on, sustaining and enriching each other. We are now at that pivotal moment in time. That tipping point where we can choose to continue on towards imminent demise, or trade in the self(ish) for the betterment of the “we.”

Living immersed, as so many of us do, in cultures that strive for individual greatness, we become numb to the sacred within and without. We look at a tree and see a resource, not a fellow being whose breath feeds our own. We look at a body of water and see it as a fun medium for racing our boats, not seeing that our boats pollute the liquid that is meant to sustain us and the life it holds inside of it. We look at our neighbors and think, you have something I want…a bigger house, a nicer car, smarter kids…without realizing that our neighbor is an aspect of ourselves.

When we come into the world, newly born, we still remember. When an infant gazes around you and past you, smiling as though into thin air, they are seeing what you can probably no longer see.  Essence that dances around you as a sacred part of the light woven with all life. Sing the infant that cries to the overwhelm of this chaotic and foreign life we have brought it into, the sound of “Om,” and you will return to her the feeling of home. Of union. Stillness opens the eyes back to memory and the sacred returns in the moment of union.

We all have the doorways within us. We just need to find the keys that open them. England, in many ways, is my key. If you don’t know where your key(s) is hidden, its worth the search to find it. The life that sustains you depends upon it.

A Marriage of Eastern & Western Medicine & my thoughts on the documentary “Heal” #heal #healing #medicine

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Energy Healing, Memoir, Reflections15 Comments

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If you haven’t seen the film “Heal” yet, the trailer can be viewed here. My husband, a family care physician trained in western medicine, and I, a practitioner of energy medicine (to borrow Donna Eden’s term which I prefer over healer), watched the documentary last night. A few days ago my mother-in-law had inquired as to whether I had watched it, so my interest was piqued.

We have been asked the question several times, in several different ways over the years, what it is like to be married to someone who practices “Eastern” v. “Western” medicine. As though they exist on the extreme ends of the a spectrum with no overlap. It is a question that involves polarity, which is always fraught with at least a small dose of misconception and judgment. We live in a world of polarities that can easily overtake our better sense of truth, serving to divine instead of unite.

Our marriage of seeming polarities works. for us. It is not always easy, we have our differences, but we balance each other out. My husband is one of the smartest and caring people I know, and I am not saying this because I am married to him. I have known him since  we were both 17. He is a genuine healer who came to medicine, not for the prestige or the money (hence why he chose family practice), but because he has a genuine interest in helping people.

In his office at work there is a salt lamp and a diffuser to balance the energies and help purify the air around him. If you searched his pockets, you would most likely find the polished gray of hematite and a blue andara crystal. He goes to acupuncture on a semi regular basis, and has had energy healing/medicine.

He has also referred patients to me, and to other “healers.” When we share our stories, we don’t doubt each other’s truths.

Many years ago, we studied science together. I graduated Bowdoin College with degrees in English and biology, thinking I would one day be a geneticist (and a writer on the side), while graduated at the same school to pursue his dream of going to medical school. From Bowdoin, I went to Brown University to continue by study of the biology and chemistry, but after one year there I realized I was not on the path of my heart. I still loved and valued science, but I knew there were other places for me to explore.

I am not finished exploring them, and I would venture to say neither is my husband. Many years ago, when I started venturing into the realm of energy medicine, my mentor at the time told me that my marriage would never work if we were both going in different directions. And, I believed her. I took her words as truth. She was my mentor, and I had falsely placed her upon a pedestal. Something we can all do, but should not. Our best teacher is always ourselves, and we should always check another’s wisdom with our own truth.

I have had to learn, through many difficulties, that a marriage is not about always walking the same path, but about allowing each other to walk their own path, while othering a hand in love to help each other along when it is needed.

We are each here, I believe, to see past false perceptions and to find that unifying force that unities all of us. That thing we call love. Limiting beliefs lead to polarity and false judgements arise from the fear of our own sense of inadequacy.

And now to speak directly about the film we watched together last night. “Heal.”  I am not writing this post to analyze the film, but to spark a different way of viewing medicine. There were aspects of the film that I felt were on-point, so to speak, and places where I wanted more, or different. No doubt my own beliefs and ego-centered judgements factored into my thinking, but one area I was hoping the film might venture into more is how “Western” medicine and “Eastern” medicine need not always be seen as polarities. You know, that “us” v. “them” concept so pervasive in our world right now, at least on the surface.

The downfalls of the practice if medicine driven by money and greed are not to be over-looked, as the film noted, but the focus was on the side of western medicine.  There is also, ego-driven greed in the practice of “eastern” medicine. It’s a fallacy to believe the ego plays a part in one and not the other.  Not always of course, but it is false to imply that this does not occur. There are also limitations to each system when the belief exists that “I know what is right for you.”

I had hoped that the film would attempt to bridge the divide, and to remind us that each extreme did not evolve separately, but that we have, in many ways, chosen to take the paths of division. The healing properties of nature are used in some of our pharmaceuticals (albeit not always ethically), a practice that arose from our earliest history. Hands are used as vehicles to heal in both, whether they are threading a stitch to seal a wound, or directing energy to release a pocket of density.

We have much to learn from each other to keep bridging the divide. The enemy does not exist on the other side, but in the false system of belief of the “other.” I see great promise in where we are heading, despite what we might see or perceive as the truth. I have encountered extreme beliefs based on ego on both sides, and have fallen prey to them myself. We must always check in with fear and weigh it in the heart of truth. But, science and ancient wisdom, or so called “new age” healing need not be viewed as separate and unequal. There’s a common thread that unites us all, and I believe we can weave it together.