Category: Reflections

The Fall of Life

On By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, Reflections2 Comments

I’m one of those people who feels the need to mourn summer, but secretly relishes the turning of seasons. Summer, I often find, is too full of life. The kids are home, and everywhere energy is bursting in a competition of color and song. I am easily over-whelmed and distracted.

Give me, instead, the slow grace of autumn. Let me linger on the resilience of life refusing to succumb to an easy sleep. Now, the forest chatter is filled with squirrels and chipmunks rushing to store sustenance for the long months of winter. The palette is painted in hues of the setting sun, and Earth still hugs the warmth of her heat.

IMG_0440In autumn, one can’t help but notice the endurance of life. How it springs from decay:IMG_0443 And burst forth from open wounds:IMG_0432 IMG_0434 IMG_0439
In autumn, the writer cannot help but be drawn to the lure of long nights, when the pull of the moon is stronger than the sun, and the magic of darkness stirs with creative potential. In the months when life is falling into “sleep,” I find the quickening of the soul, awakening the true self within.

A Collector of Hope

On By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Reflections3 Comments

Sometimes, when I get discouraged by the trash that re-appears each week on roadsides, I think of the collector of cigarettes on the corner of Wende Dr. and Derry Rd. While I waited for the traffic to clear, I would watch him behind the windshield of my car. Trying to be discrete, I would peak at his bent form, his eyes focused on the task at hand, as he plucked cigarettes out of the sand and bagged them like precious peaches fresh from the farm.

He must have been in his mid-to-late eighties during the six years I lived in southern NH. His advanced age was obvious, the stoop of her shoulders, one could see, was not limited, but perhaps, accentuated by, the hours he spent each week searching through the sand. He looked, in fact, as though he were part of the landscape, weathered by time. Tan work-boots caked in dust adorned his shuffling feet, above which more dust colored his faded trousers and plaid shirt. The man I called the “Cigarette  Collector,” wore an untrimmed beard that covered lips I imagined mumbled sounds coherent only to his mind. While I watched, he greeted no one, but the earth below his feet.

As I waited for my turn to exit my neighborhood, I would imagine the life of this mysterious man. When I was a child, growing up in a small town in central NH, there was once an old man, we’ll call him Mr. Witherspoon, who used to live in a tiny run-down house painted red beside a creek. Mr. Witherspoon, as far as I knew, kept to himself and lived alone. This only added to his intrigue.

It wasn’t often that my path would cross by his house, but when it did I would stare at the trophies that lined his lightless windows and try to imagine him as a young man. It was easier to picture him as an eccentric recluse, shuttered against time. The tiny stream beside his house, I became convinced, was where he bathed, even in the snows of winter.

I never got to know Mr. Witherspoon, just as I never got to know the collector of cigarettes who spent hours each week clearing a small space of earth of discarded debris. As far as I knew, the mysterious old man that captivated my adult imagination, collected only cigarettes, for his plastic bread-bag held only their candy-corn colors.

I found the cigarette collector’s regular presence both sad and comforting. To me, he looked lonely and withdrawn, but perhaps I was merely projecting my own emotions onto him. Yet, he gave me hope. The old man was a symbol of timeless grace and compassion. His feet moved in a slow dance across the sand that was captivating and beautiful. His heart, I knew, was beating the sacred rhythm of the Earth he cared enough about to keep clean.

The Open Channel

On By Alethea KehasIn Energy Healing, Memoir, Reflections6 Comments

This morning, while walking the dogs along the autumn roadside, I thought of my son. Last night the air was fierce with wild wind and rain, and I was walking through the aftermath of a storm. Maple leaves and golden pine needles carpeted my path, and the words of my son when he was 2 years old returned to me.  “Look, Mom,” he had once exclaimed with delight, while pointing to the ground beneath his feet “It’s Halloween Hair.”

Halloween Hair
Halloween Hair

We had been walking together in October, near our former home in Hudson, NH. The ground, much like it is today, was littered with pine needles, making it look like the scatterings of clipped, orange hair. My son had seen a poetic beauty in a scene many adults might have missed.

On another day, also when my son was 2, we were playing in a park and he pointed up to a maple tree with dark purple leaves (I believe they’re called Crimson Maples). “Look, Mom,” he said that day, “It’s a chocolate tree.” I thought for sure I had given birth to a little poet. You can imagine my delight!

Perhaps I had, we’ll see, but my son’s words were not in the realm of extraordinary. Have you ever listened to the language of a young child? Mixed with the stumble of syntax, you will often find incredible beauty and wisdom. A young child still holds onto the secrets of the soul, a young child is still an open channel to the world of Spirit.

This is why young children see colors, or auras, around people, play with “imaginary” friends (fairies, spirit guides, etc.) and live blissfully in the moment. Many of us spend our lives trying to retrieve this connection to source. Fear has a (not so) funny way of shutting off the light-switch.

You have probably heard some of the stories of “genius.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem  “Kubla Khan” coming to him in dreamy lyrics while he slept, and which he recovered hastily the next day onto the safe permanence of the page. The invention of the sewing machine, again emerging from a “dream” in the night. There are countless more.

I have a friend who channels messages from Ascended Masters during the night. She wakes to their words, grabs a pen and paper, and retrieves their messages in the fog of not being fully “awake.”

When I write, my best words emerge from an uncluttered mind. When I practice energy healing, the strongest effects occur when I let go of my fear. When we strip away the trappings of our fears and close off the chattering voice of our ego, Spirit comes through in that open channel of light. This is how masterpieces are formed, great inventions are made, and “miracles” occur.

One way to practice being an “open-channel,” is automatic, or channeled writing. I do this sometimes when I am experiencing writer’s block, or need an answer to a life-question that is troubling me. No doubt there are many ways to practice this form of communication, but it really is quite simple.

The key to channeled writing is to let the mind drift into a meditative-like state, where one is conscious, but not actively thinking. I like to use the computer to write, as my hands work faster on the keyboard. You might prefer to go outside with a pen and pad of paper, where the energy of nature will help you clear the clutter of your thoughts.

Once you feel relaxed and “open,” write, or mentally think your question. I suggest writing it, this starts the flow of writing that you will not stop until you feel finished. You can pause after your question, or you can simply start writing and see what comes up. Again, the key is not to let your ego’s thoughts enter into the space, which they might initially (the ego can be very stubborn). Don’t worry, you will see what is ego when you are done, and you can simply erase, delete or scratch out those early words. Think of it like clearing away the dustballs under the couch. It’s a necessary step to achieving a clean space.

Then write. Simply write. Without stopping, write whatever comes through your hand. Since I am empathic, I feel the energy of Source, or Spirit, come though as a tingling sensation in my hands. You might too, or you may see images, hear the voice of Spirit,  have a heightened sense of smell, or some other sense, while you write.

While you write, don’t worry about grammar or syntax, don’t worry about a coherent sentence, you can edit later. Stop when you feel ready. Again, there are no “rules” or right way to do this. I like to thank the source of the words after I feel finished, then I read through what I have written.

If you get discouraged and cannot seem to open the flow of communication, don’t worry. Try again later. Change your scene and method. Try it immediately after waking, or right before sleep. Find what works best for you. Perhaps you will only have a few lines, or a paragraph at first, don’t get discouraged. I find automatic writing to be fun and healing, and it often leaves me joy-filled, as I have connected to that energy of source, which is also referred to sometimes as “bliss.” Like anything else, the more you “practice” channeled writing, the easier it gets.

Letting Go: A Path to Inner Peace

On By Alethea KehasIn Energy Healing, Memoir, Reflections2 Comments

On my Inner Truth Healing Facebook page I asked my audience for blog topic suggestions, and a friend asked me to write about the energetic freedom of “letting go” of the expectation of a certain type of relationship with someone else, in particular with a family member. This is a multifaceted topic, which I feel ultimately reduces to those first two words: “letting go.” First, let me clarify that when I say “letting go,” I do not mean you should, in anyway, let go of your personal power, quite often this is what is creating the imbalance or perceived difficulty in the relationship.

Energy is able to flow freely when we let go of attachments or constrictions. This, in the broader sense, is the concept of letting go. The ability to allow the universal life-force energy to flow in and out of you without the limiting factors of fears. Easier said, than done, I know.

Most of us come into the world with past-life fears bundled into our soul energy, and in our present lives our fears are wrapped-up in different forms. A pattern develops, and it is up to us to find out how to unweave the threads and set the energy free. We are, like my friend Karen Kubicko (who is writing a book on her past lives) likes to say, living in a classroom called Life.  When we master a lesson, or fear, we let go of the restrictions it creates. Sometimes this takes many lifetimes.

For example, I have had several lifetimes (I currently know of at least 4), where I have experienced disempowerment on a fairly large scale. In one of my earliest lifetimes I was a male healer in a clan where my abilities were a threat, and jealousy also arose regarding my love interest. I was murdered by a severe blow to the head. Later, I had a life as a male eunuch, literally emasculated via castration. In my most recent past life (that I am aware of), I tried to flee from, and was eventually caught, and likely killed by the Nazis in WWII. The trauma of this ordeal used to haunt my childhood dreams in the form of a reoccurring nightmare of trying to flee from an unseen monster in a dark forest of pines. In my child-mind, I formed new characters based on my present life fears.

In one of my lives as a writer, my written words were used against me. In this current life, it took me years to garner the courage to write and share my words, and, to this day, I have no urge to keep a daily journal.

We carry not only our past lives with us, but also the lives of our ancestors. I come from a lineage of women (and some men) afraid to speak their truths, unsure of their voices because they have learned to doubt them, and have often been harmed when they have tried to speak with the conviction of their hearts.

With just this information, you could hardly be surprised to learn that one of my challenges in this life is using my voice/personal power with assertion and confidence. I chose as a young child to err on the side of silence, and still try to avoid conflict whenever possible. Yet, despite my best efforts, I still sometimes attract what I most fear. We all do.

Bullies have appeared in my path since before I was born, happy to take the power that I too freely give away. We get back what we send out. If we live in a state of victimhood, people projecting an over-abundance of masculine energy will cross our path and happily take away our power. They may not project this “bully” behavior towards everyone, but they will when they meet someone who is an energetic magnetic to this energy.

I’m not such an easy target as I used to be, but this stepping into my personal power has not occurred without effort and much healing work. In this process of healing, I have learned to look at people differently.

Most of us, at some point, or at various points in our lives, have a desire to change another person so that s/he will love or like us more, or vice-versa. When I am honest with myself, I can think of few people whom I have not wanted to change in some way, and at some point during my relationship with them.

When we have a desire to change someone else, our soul is really asking for us to change, or heal, something within ourselves. This relates to the idea that those who live peaceful lives of acceptance, like the Buddha, have no need or desire to try to change the world around them, including the people they encounter. Peace comes from within.

So how do we let go of that need/desire for change in others? Usually what we want to change in one person is repeated in another form in someone else. A pattern develops, and just when we think we’ve rid ourselves of a particular type of person/problem, that person/problem appears in another form. This happens because you have agreed to work on that challenge in this life, and it will not disappear until you have mastered it.

Often, those people who are triggering a negative reaction in you, have made a soul contract with you to help you over-come, or release this challenge, and your contract will only be released when the lesson is learned, and the energetic attachment is set free. Sometimes you both need to learn from each other.

This idea has helped me immensely, and has caused my perception of “difficult” or “challenging” people in my lives to change. I, in essence, view everyone as a teacher, sometimes I know I am their teacher, and accept this as my role in their lives, but most often I see how I can learn from my experiences with the energy they project that is challenging for me. Now, I ask myself what the lesson is for me, and how can I garner the most learning from a particular experience or interaction.

When I react impulsively, in a way that I will later regret, I look at the fear-based energy that is restricting the flow of freedom within me. Why is it still resisting this flow? Usually, more internal work needs to be done, but I have been given a gift. The gift of another try. We need not beat ourselves up when patterns repeat, instead we should remember the difficult challenges/lessons we have agreed to take on in our lives.

What happens when you have a family member who serves as a difficult teacher for you in this life, causing your relationship to be strained. It can be like a constant reminder of your fears, which isn’t always pleasant for both parties involved. I have two children, and, if you ask my daughter, my eldest, who I favor, she would tell you her brother. Perhaps not an easy concept to admit as a parent, as I believe most of us like to think we love and treat our children in an equal manner.

Although my love for my daughter knows no bounds, she is, without a doubt, one of my greatest teachers in this life. We made a soul contract going into this life, she didn’t have to reincarnate again, but she did, for me, my husband and my son. She is an incredible gift. Yet, she is infinitely challenging for all of us! Her power center and voice are strong and sure, she speaks her mind with conviction, often relentlessly. She tests my patience and my strength daily. I need her in my life, and she knows it. I can’t imagine a greater gift of love.

If our teachers were always kind and compassionate, would we learn to over-come our deepest struggles? Although my daughter is still a child, she knows, in the way she can understand, that she is a teacher for me. It can be frustrating, I realize, when the other person does not remember their soul-contract with you in this life. I have those people around me too, and sometimes my contract with them has been filled, but they have not fulfilled their contract with me.

Should this change how we perceive challenging people, or how we interact with them? Probably not. We have two logical options: we can free them from their soul-contracts in this life by cutting our energetic cords with them, or we can keep them as teachers. Ending our present-life contracts often result in ending our present day relationships with these people, and we should not view this as a failure, as our soul will know that this is what is best for both parties involved. We have simply done enough, it’s time to move on, it’s time to release the strained energy.

Or, we can choose to continue to teach and learn from them. Even though I have fulfilled my soul-contract obligations with some of my family members, I still learn from them, and I am hoping they, in their way, learn from me. They still serve to remind me of what I need to heal within, and where my energy tends to constrict.

I believe that when we learn a life lesson, the triggers for it abate. A pattern of “challenging” encounters with people either go away, or the effects they have on us change. When the peace within us is bright enough, nothing can take away its light.

Please feel free to share your own thoughts and experiences, and if you have a healing-related topic you would like me to blog about, please let me know.

“Say What You Need to Say” #speakyourtruth #thyroiddisease

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Energy Healing, Memoir, Reflections6 Comments

I turned off the light the other night after reading the following passage spoken by Agnes Whistling Elk in Lynn V. Andrews’ book Jaguar Woman, “‘Children are told to speak when spoken to. We as women are taught that to speak of our power is to be shunned by most of society. When you listen to the voices of many men and women you hear a strangled sound. And it’s no wonder. Women’s voices are often weak or a monotone or barely audible. Voices need to be open and free, so that energy can flow through the throat center. We hold our enlightenment there. If energy is trapped in the throat, it can’t move up into the crown of the head. That’s why we get sore throats, thyroid problems, or diseases such as throat cancer. Whenever you have an energy knot like that, it will eventually cause disease.'” (70)

Agnes and the narrator go on to discuss how this concept of trapped energy pertains to disorders in other areas of the human body, but this is where I ended my reading for the night. It was the message I needed to “hear.” After closing the book and placing it on my dresser, the lyrics “Say What You Need to Say” by John Mayer played over like a stuck record inside of my head.

The message from Spirit was clear and obvious, but the concept itself is complex. When I was about 24- years-old, I was diagnosed with thyroid disease. To be more precise, hypothyroidism, which means my thyroid was under-active. I was not surprised. Thyroid disease, after all, runs in my family on my mother’s side. She has it, her sister has it, my sister has it, and the list likely goes on. I have an old photograph of great aunts, five sisters posing in pretty dresses that hug their enlarged, goitered throats.

At 24, I thought my thyroid disease was a cause of bad genetics, I neglected to consider the environmental triggers. I didn’t realize I was holding a knot of energy trapped in my throat. All I knew was that I was destined to take a hormone to supplement my deficiency for the rest of my life, and that if I had children, especially daughters, it was likely they would suffer the same fate. This is what I was told, this is what I believed to be true.

I was wrong, thankfully. Over the past several years, I have witnessed the breaking down of the truths that were the foundation for my early life. Not a day goes by that I am not thankful I set foot on this path to spiritual truth. As Agnes states in Jaguar Woman, we heal ourselves, sometimes through the facilitation of others. Awhile ago a psychic told me I would cure, or heal, my thyroid disorder. I’m still getting there. I’ve lowered my dose, but not a lot. I wrote my memoir, but I still have not sent it out wholly and fearlessly into the world. And, I still don’t always “say what I need to say.”

What does that mean? How does the individual who is used to being silenced, often through many lifetimes, clear the trapped, stagnant energy in her throat? It’s not about avenging past wrongs, it’s not about anger or rage and it’s not a matter of turning into a person driven by aggression. I have lived most of this life trying to avoid conflict, assuming that if I were to speak my truths at certain moments, especially when dealing with aggressive people, I would face a verbal battle or worse. Silence became a way of life for me; a life, it seems, not so easy to change.

I still have moments when I flee a room in tears, unable to form the words caught in the web of energy inside my throat.  Sometimes we heal “miraculously,” sometimes we heal by small steps with a few leaps and bounds. In Jaguar Woman, Agnes cures the beginnings of disease in the narrator’s throat by using shamanic healing to help her free the image of a black crow Andrews sees trapped in her throat. The crow tells Andrews, “You need to remember the importance of saying what you need to say.” (66)

The words that we need to say come from that place of truth inside of our soul.  As Meyer sing, “from a heart wide open.” Our true voice is the clear, bold, yet compassionate voice of the spirit, stripped of the fears of ego. It is the release of constriction from fear’s hands at the present moment, for it does little good to move back to the past in an attempt to alter a situation that has already occurred. The energy has already been lost, or wasted. The moment cannot be fully recovered.

Later in the day, while driving my children into town, I turned on the radio at the moment “Free Bird,” by Lynyrd Skynyrd was playing. Spirit likes using this song as a call to action for me. It’s not an accident that a healthy throat chakra vibrates in the color of a cloudless blue sky, the color of a robin’s egg in spring. And, yes, I saw a robin when I walked out the door of my house in the morning, boldly baring its orange chest to the world and pointing its yellow beak to me.

4:30

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Reflections4 Comments

It was another night of fitful dreams. Three nights ago it was a house full of snakes. I was inside, and the floor was a moving mass of their rainbowed bodies. As I have mentioned in an earlier post, snakes have been coming into my life a lot lately. Last week, while on vacation, I went for a run by myself and passed first a dead snake, and then a living snake. The snake is a symbol of change and transformation.  As Denise Lynn writes in her book The Hidden Power of Dreams, it is an animal that is not to be feared when seen in a dream.  It is a messenger/symbol that awakens healing and creative energy inside of us.

After my dream of snakes, I experienced 2 nights of dreams filled with packing bags for a trip I was to make by myself. The destination was unclear, and there was anxiety over filling the bags too full, as well as what I was leaving behind. There were piles of clothes I didn’t need, including some that belong to my mother. This is linked to the snake message and their ability to shed their old skins, leaving them behind like the baggage of the past that is no longer needed and can weigh us down.

I was also concerned with leaving my family behind for this journey I was to make. Worry, as you know, can tangle and incapacitate, and I found myself anxious about making my flight. In last night’s dream, I was to leave at 4:30pm. Clearly I needed to remember these numbers, because even after I woke with my pains in my 2nd chakra (yes, clearly energy was trying to free itself) and tried to reprogram my mind for a new dream, the numbers and the preparations for my journey came back to me.

Recently, a friend of mine told about Joanne Sacred Scribes’ website on interpreting number sequences. Scribes looks at the number 4:30 as a compilation of the individual numbers. The number 4  evokes the Archangels, 3, the Ascended Masters, and 0, the Universe and its endless potential of God/Source energy. 4 is also a number of building foundations, family and stability.  The number evokes the 4 elements and sacred directions. It speaks of wholeness and unity.

The number 3 is symbolic of the trinity of mind/body/spirt and the sacred feminine energies of child/mother/crone. When one combines 3 and 4 to get 7, the symbolism turns inward, to the sacred wisdom inside of us and the energy force of our 7 chakras. It’s a personal path to spiritual truth.

I’ve been feeling the pull to journey to that place of deeper inner wisdom. It’s waiting for me to strip away the vestiges of fear and to trust what my soul already knows. It is  journey we are all called to take at some point in our lives (or at various times in our lives), when we open ourselves to the divine blueprint of our soul’s truth. Why we fear this, it’s hard to say. We get caught up in what we think (or thought) is reality. The mundane sequence of “living” envelopes us and we neglect that spark of unlimited potential inside of us. We are afraid of being different. Of being “wrong.” Of failing. And sometimes, we are afraid of our ego-less power.

The ego easily interferes, telling us that we are unworthy of being divine beings, and causes us to doubt our potential. At least that is the case with me. I rarely doubt the divine energies that come through during healing sessions with clients, but I tend to doubt when it happens to me alone. But this is shifting. I am coming to accept that my soul is patiently waiting for me to shed the skin of my past and walk the path of divine potential.

On the night of July 29th, I was given the keys and some of my guides. The messages were clear and strong, and even though my ego tried to step in and interfere, this was not the stuff of the imagination. What I have come to realize and accept is that we are all capable of journeying to our divine truth, that the guides and tools we need are just  beyond the gate of fear. The stripping away is both exiting and liberating. I was a girl, after all, raised on the belief that we lived a soulless life that ended upon death. You can, perhaps, understand how wonderful it is for me to accept that the fairies I wanted so fiercely to believe in are not only are real, they are more real than the truths I was raised on.  Nothing matches the feeling of meeting the Fairy Queen, of talking with angels and Ascended Masters, of traveling to other realms and entering the energy of animal guides. We find home when we open the channel to our higher selves, and relearning the ancient wisdom that we are being called to remember.  There’s nothing like connecting to the divine life force of love energy that connects all of us. It’s time to believe what we know to be true, to travel back through the head of the ankh and remember.  If I am being called to take this journey, so are you.

The Lovers

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections6 Comments

It started with a solitary swimmer in the middle of the lake. I watched the slender black body ripple the surface of the water, the white chest catching the light of the sun.  A common beauty on this lake where I am spending the week, but still a great gift to behold. On Monday I woke early to see a set of 6 swimmers making a lap around the perimeter of the lake, searching for fish. It was only 5:30 am and I had not thought to bring a camera. But, yesterday I had one poised and ready.

common loon

I heard the call of its lover from some unseen point across the lake. Turning my head with the loon’s to a song that belongs to night, laden with mystery and longing. There is nothing that stirs the cells of the heart quite like the lyrics of the loon. For that lingering moment we forget the present, and fall into a haunting past of something not quite lost within us.

There was no answer from the swimmer I watched, only a few moments of silence. Then, suddenly, the absent lover appeared on the edge of my vision, and what followed was a dance of reunion so beautiful I could only give thanks for this beautiful gift as I clicked away.

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Sometimes we are allowed to bear witness to the exquisite dance of nature in a way that humbles us and fills us with a renewed faith in our beautiful world. This was such a moment.

Multiple Messengers #watersymbolism #dreamsymbolism #animalmessengers

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Reflections4 Comments

Sometime Spirit likes to hammer the point home until we get it.  I find this happens when I am really being called to shift and get rid of old energies and systems of belief that are not serving my highest good. Since my mind likes to work with symbols and metaphors, I often get these messages in the form of animals and vividly detailed dreams. When I put all the pieces together the puzzle becomes complete and I really “get it.”

I’ll share my most recent series of messages as an example. It’s rather amusing when one lets go of self-frustration. Two nights ago I had a series of vivid dreams, of which I would now recall in more detail had I written them right down after waking. But, I think what I retained was enough to get Spirit’s point across, especially when combined with the other messengers that ensued.

In the dreams I found myself in a landscape of water (the element of emotion). The water was an ocean, and it was rising. As I made my way through the water I encountered a large (too large) seal. It was alive, but unmoving, floating like a buoy with its bloated belly turned toward me.

The seal as an animal messenger beckons us to awaken our imaginations and creativity. In his book Animal Speak, Ted Andrews writes, “If a seal or seal lion has shown up as a totem, it is time to do some questioning. Are you getting out of balance.” (pg. 311). Considering that my seal was bloated and unmoving, I would have to say yes.  Since I am a writer and my soul needs this form of creative nurturing, the seal was a “gentle” reminder to find space to feed this part of my soul.

What of the bloated belly though? One might say that the seal in my dream was over-fed. Now, let me tell you about the other vivid image that stayed with me from that night. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say I was on a toilet and a lot of waste was moving through me. Our physical bodies are responsible for storing, processing and getting rid of the energy we take in. Sometimes, when we harbor fears, these energies find a home within us and grow – they quite literally bloat our bellies, or cause dis-ease of some kind. As a former sufferer of IBS, I know too well this type of energy retention and the body’s struggle for release and balance. Although, two nights ago, I was not literally having an episode of IBS, spirit was showing me that it was time for a release of fears.

The following day, I went for a walk with the dogs and my eyes were pulled to the side of the road where a black snake lay curled in the sand. Again, my animal messenger was unmoving, although alive. The snake as a messenger seems to make an appearance in my life when I am in the process of, or am about to undergo, a big shift. As a totem/messenger, the snake awakens the dormant energies inside of us (it’s associated with the awakening of the kundalini energy at the base of our spine) and, through its ability to shed its entire skin, calls us to release our old self and rebirth.

The snake energy is associated with the 2nd chakra, where we house our sexual and creative energies. A chakra area that has been calling for attention and healing in my body.  The point of Spirit was really starting to hit home, but there were still two more messengers to consider.

Over the past few days I have, much to my dismay, encountered more than a few ants in my house. Through much investigation and cleaning, I discovered the lure – a jar of honey with a loose lid. Now I must confess that the ant is not one of the animals I tend to spare when I encounter them in my house, so I did my best to thank the universe while I sent the messengers down the drain with a good dose of the element of water.

It’s likely the message here was multifaceted. The ants were lured to honey – a sweet substance of life (and there may be an indirect message from bee here too, see below). Ants, as most people are aware, are quite industrious. They work in a complex social unit of cooperation and order. Andrews writes in his book: “The ant is the teacher of how to build, how to become the architect of your own life. It can show you how to construct your dreams into reality. It will show you that the greatest success occurs with persistence.” (pg. 336). I can safely say I have a few dreams I’d like to manifest into reality, some of which are directly related to writing.

Now let’s side-track a little and look at the bee, because we really should consider the lure of honey. Andrews states that “Bees are long-time symbols for accomplishing the impossible.” (pg. 337). Of course one might say that the impossible is only impossible inside the confines of our minds. Could it be that I am being called to actually enjoy, and find the sweetness inside, the process of manifesting my creative endeavors into reality (yes, there is a tone of irony here)?  Sometimes we do forget that life is supposed to be fun and filled with light and joy.

There’s just one more messenger I want to consider before I end this blog. The catbird. I seem to have a resident catbird outside my home that likes to make itself seen in my presence at the most telling of times. The catbird, with its talent for a wide range of songs, is a messenger of communication. This morning, when my friend the catbird appeared before me, I was quite literally thinking about my own communication blockages (related to the throat chakra in particular).

And so, it seems, spirit is calling me to the two chakras in most need of my attention – the 2nd, and also the 5th. Two chakras I feel are intimately connected. For when we manifest our creative gifts, we want to be sure we sing them in the clear, beautiful and enduring voice of our truth.

Salamander, Tarot and the Element of Fire #tarot #salamandersymbolism

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Energy Healing, Gaia & Elementals, Reflections, Tarot/Oracle Readings32 Comments

salamander

Those of you who study Tarot will know that the image of the salamander appears on 3 cards of the Rider deck, all in the suit of wands – representing the element of fire. The salamander, though, is shown only on the “royalty” cards, and not on all 4.
Rider Page of Wands
In the Page of Wands, we see a young person contemplating the growth that is sprouting from his wand, which he holds like a staff, ready to embark upon a journey.  He wears a yellow tunic (symbolic of the 3rd chakra – the power center),  which is covered in salamanders curving toward circles. Under the tunic, the Page has on orange leggings, the same color as the lining of his cloak.

Rider Knight of Wands

The next card in the line of royalty, the Knight of Wands, depicts a knight riding a steed, presumably towards battle. Again, we see a yellow tunic with salamanders, some of which are now forming complete circles, connecting tails to heads. The figure has moved from the point of contemplation that we see in the Page card, to action. The color orange, symbolic of the 2nd, or sacral, chakra, appears on the steed, as well as in flaming plumes emerging from the Knight’s back and head.

The 2nd chakra is where we house the energy of creation, both sexual and artistic. From this energy center, which exists between our tailbone and our solar plexus, we give birth to our unique gifts. When our 2nd chakra is healthy, we  glow with the fire of creation. We have a healthy and satisfying sexual life, and are manifesting our innate creative gifts.

The salamander has long been considered the animal symbol of fire.  Some species of salamander, the type we associate with the elemental symbol of fire, are a bright orange. Often we see them appear in the woods, or upon our walking paths, after it has rained and the earth is still damp. These silent, harmless creatures, look like curls of flame on the forest floor, and we must watch our step carefully so as not to tread on them.

The lithe body of the salamander also evokes the element of fire with its ability to bend and twist with stealth-like ease as it crawls across the ground.  Its moist skin reminds us that fire often needs the element of water to temper its heat. When we have too much fire energy inside of us, we can literally feel a burning in our second chakra. Sometimes this burning is a call to put our creative gifts into action, sometimes it reminds us of a balance lost.  When an individual has suffered sexual abuse, or is sexually obsessed (which can be a side-effect of sexual abuse), the second chakra will often appear over-inflamed.

With the second chakra, as with any of our energy centers, it is always a question of finding that healthy balance. An over-expressed chakra can create havoc, while a stagnant chakra can lead to lethargy. In the case of the second chakra in particular, a loss of appetite for pleasure and a lack of vibrancy in one’s aura can result.

When I opened up my deck of Rider Tarot cards I was initially surprised to see that the image of the salamander appeared on the Page, Knight and King (image later in post) cards, but not on the Queen.

Rider Queen of Wands

Unlike in your average deck of cards, the King in Tarot does not “trump” the Queen card. In fact, I often find that the Queen cards symbolize a more balanced energy representative of the suit. In the Queen of Wands in the Rider deck, we find a woman/queen sitting on a throne with her legs relaxed and spread out to the sides. Her “relaxed” posture shows us that her 2nd chakra is unrestricted.

The animals featured in the card include the lion, fox, and cat. Two of the three lions are yellow, as is the robe and crown of the queen, symbolic of the 3rd charka, the seat of our inner power. The fox is red/orange, evoking the 1st and 2nd chakras – another indication of the comfortable, fearless aura of the queen. In her hands she holds her wand (in bloom) and a sunflower – a symbol of the birth of one’s creative and sexual self (the fertilized seed’s growth into a flower). Then there’s the black cat, sitting at her feet. When I was at Goddard College, I took a tarot workshop with Rachel Pollack, and I remember her telling us that she associates herself with the Queen of Wands card.

Once, when Pollack was giving tarot workshops overseas, a black cat suddenly appeared and sat at her feet while she spoke, then, just as quietly, left when she was finished. The cat, especially the black cat, is associated with feminine mystery and magic. One can’t help but feel the feminine and creative power of this card, yet it is not overwhelming or threatening.Rider King of Wands

Now, maybe it’s just me, but the figure in the King of Wands card looks a bit disgruntled, and dare I say a bit angry. Although he is seated, he looks as though he is getting ready to stand, his gaze turned toward an unknown source that may be troubling him. His left hand (the hand that held the sunflower in the Queen of Wands), is partially clenched and the arm is pulled back as though prepping to support the king to stand.

The element of fire is everywhere in the picture. The King’s hair is a red/orange, as is his dress. His yellow crown bares tips that look like flames, and the salamander has reappeared. Instead of a cat at his feet, we see a salamander off to the side. On the back of his throne, and on the outer layer of his cloak, there are salamanders curled into circles. One can’t help but think that the king has not only mastered this element, but perhaps has over-mastered it to the point where there is an imbalance, or too much heat, in the second chakra.

Twice in recent days, an orange salamander has appeared on my path. Its small, flame-like body reminding me to go within and assess the 2nd chakra energies that are calling for balance, for voice, and for healing. It’s a reminder that sometimes  we need a bit of fire to burn off the emotional element of water, and to spur our desires into action. My salamander, after all, came after rain.