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The Return of Grace #grace #selfcompassion #yoga

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Energy Healing, Memoir, Reflections, Uncategorized4 Comments
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Light over shadows

I have found grace, again. You could say I just went through another “Dark Night of the Soul.” One of many, but this one was particularly acute. This one began on my birthday, if you are interested in reading that story you can find it in my post The Return of the Goddess. It came to a head one month later, when I entered one of my darkest nights and found myself doubting whether I was going to find the light again. “You’re not a quitter,” my good friend told me as I sobbed over the phone 3,000 miles away from her.

She was right. I have never given up, even in my darkest moments when the light seemed to flicker in a shroud of darkness inside of me, gasping for air, and I had no real intention of giving up then. Yet, grace seemed illusive, a state so far from where I was, that I could not imaging reaching it again.

I have found grace, again. The light, burning inside has erupted through the shroud of shadows and pronounced victory. Grace, I have found, is subtle. It is gentle, yet profoundly beautiful as it works its way through the pain to find the heart of life and beat it gently back into rhythm. Let me give you some of the story so you will better understand the cycle as it came through me.

On my 43rd birthday, my pain-body, or shadow-self, called out to be seen. I saw that inner-child and the goddess-woman still hiding in the shadows wanting to be healed and brought back into the light. Through the course of the ensuing month, I was faced with many tests that brought me ever-deeper into the darkness that needed to be explored and healed. As all spiritual tests are that ask us to evolve, these were not easy, and after one full month of them with little respite, I felt brought to the point of collapse, yet in an almost sadistic way, I was also saying to the Universe, “bring it on, let’s do this.”

And so the adage, “be careful what you ask for, you just might get it,” could be applied, yet I also believe that we are never given what we cannot, in theory, handle. So, I worked though the horrific dreams at night and the daily, sometimes, horrific, ordeals of waking time. I started going to tai chi classes on Fridays, a few hours after my regular yoga class. As a friend so eloquently stated during lunch today, when yoga is practiced as intended “it is like inviting God into your body.” Or, it could be said, it is like letting the God force that is within you, but only simmering, stir back into life. Yoga, tai chi and other activities that work with the life fore energy, can be incredibly intense, leaving you feeling like you have literally had a battle of light against darkness.

In the midst of this, I decided to get myself an energy healing that focused on releasing ancestral trauma and abuse, going deep through the lineages to release stored memories of trauma, including those passed down (which, by the way, was on a Friday, right in the middle of yoga and tai chi). Foolishly, I had hoped to be done with the worse part of what I had been experiencing after the session. As my friend 3,000 miles away reminded me, “You know better than that, Alethea. You’ve told me about how this works before,” adding an anecdote just in case I needed proof.

So, the wave of darkness came crashing down in full force this past week. One of the most dramatic incidences that occurred involved witnessing my daughter’s terror at being exposed to a horrific story at school by a police officer teaching drug education. The aftermath of this being almost as unpleasant as the episode itself, showcasing the shadow-side of many involved, along with my own.

In the midst of all of this, I began reading M. Scott Peck’s, M.D. book People of the Lie: The Hope of Healing Human Evil. Having just finished The Road Last Traveled by Peck, something nudged me to go further into this place of darkness inside to explore. And there was that moment, yes, that moment, where I had to ask myself, are you dancing with the “devil?” Now let me clarify, by “devil,” I adhere to Peck’s then 8-yr-old son who defined the devil to be the opposite of “live,” or “lived,” which is the word spelled in reverse. That state of non”life” where we can succumb completely to the darkness that resides inside. I knew I was agreeing to push myself to the brink of fear, and as my spiritual mentor pointed out to me after my lasted journal for the Silent Eye School of Consciousness, “You are really going through some dark things at present… but always remember that the ball cannot bounce until it hits the ground…and the harder it falls, the higher it will soar.” It’s worth also mentioning that this dark night was occurring during the 6th month of my second year with the school. The half-way point. One could also say, the turning point.

Those words were written by my mentor a week ago, and as I’ve just said, it got worse before it got better.

I realized the light of grace was returning to me last night, in my dreams, where I often learn a lot about myself. I found myself riding in airplanes (the symbolism of which you can look up) to faraway destinations I had never been to, by myself, without the baggage I was accustomed to taking with me. The planes dived and flipped in mid-air, I found myself without my seat-belt on, I was in a strange place with strange people, yet I was okay.

I woke feeling lighter, much lighter that I have for many days. The tests that could trigger me during the morning, did not. At 11:15 I got into my blue Volt, and started driving north to meet my friend for lunch. I felt exhilarated, like I had new life coursing inside me. A large crow flew from the forest beside the road and straight over me, as though guiding me north, for some time. I smiled. The crow had returned. The messenger that reminds me of rebirth out of darkness. And it never left. Through the entire ride there and back home, the crow appeared often. At the beginning of the ride home, going south, it emerged from the forest with a red apple in its mouth, and flew over the car once again, turning south to guide me. I found myself filled with gratitude. In the parking lot there had been a car parked beside me with 444 on its plate, during the ride home, 555 (for more information on number meanings I recommend Doreen Virtue’s resources or Joanne Sacred Scribe’s website.  I felt incredibly blessed and guided, and I knew the light inside had won, again. I knew that I had just turned another corner in this journey of life.

As I continued to drive, with crows appearing in trees and in flight beside me, I listened to the end of a story on NPR about a writer who had suffered brain damage from an accident, and had not only survived, but thrived from her ordeal. She had transformed her darkness into light. After the story was over, I hit the buttons on my touchscreen to find music, and found John Legend’s song “All of Me” playing. Impulsively I started singing, surprising myself with the harmony of our voices. I sang loud and with passion. I sang to myself, “all of me loves all of you,” and I meant it. And I cried, again. Not from a place of despair, but from the state of gratitude, surrender, and grace. I felt filled with light and life.

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Mourning dove feather I found on my path: “Light emerges out of darkness”

I used to drink this as a child

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Gaia & Elementals, Reflections, Uncategorized2 Comments

Sometimes all it takes is a trigger to make your remember, again. I was getting my hair cut and highlighted, and while the color was setting, my friend, the stylist, was proudly showing me photographs of the beautiful fairy house she made with her 10-yr. old “little sister.” I was impressed by the intricate details and the obvious care and love that had gone into its creation, but the images faded into the background as we talked about other things. An hour later I walked out the door and continued on with my day. The little fairy house, already forgotten, lurked somewhere hidden inside my mind.

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A “fairy house” beside my home

Sometimes it takes a trigger, and also a release of the old to give way to the forgotten inner. After leaving the salon, I made my way to my tai chi class, where I stayed for the next hour. As I was preparing to leave, I over-heard a woman remark to her companion, “It’s like having reiki.” She’s absolutely right, I stopped in pause.

Or a double dose in my case. You see before I went to the salon, I had my Friday morning yoga class. Both yoga and tai chi work with the energy centers in the body where we hold our “chi,” and allow it to stir back into life where it has become stagnant. We also release stuck energy that’s ready to leave, to allow the true life force energy that resides in all of us to flow as it wants to. In tai chi class, we literally draw into our bodies the energy of Earth and the Universe to rejuvenate our bodies as we shake out the old that we no longer want to carry.

I was exhausted by the time I got home, and I uncharacteristically found my way to the hammock under the oaks and hemlocks and stayed there for so long I could hear the whisper of the arbiter inside me reminding me, “You should be making dinner now.” But, a stronger voice said, “Stay awhile longer. Forget about time as you have grown to follow it.”

So I stayed and took in the contrast of the green canopy of leaves filtering the brilliant illusion of a blue ceiling, allowing myself to just be. I watched and listened to the squirrels in the oak, carrying on their conversations as they clung impossibly to their vertical home. I fell into that hazy sleep of daytime, only to wake and wonder where I had temporarily gone.

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The blue of the sky

The day gave way to evening, and I ventured back into town to get take-out for my family. No one complained that I did not cook. The sky turned from the color of a blue jay’s wing to the color of the crows who had circled the skies like an omen when I had walked the dogs before I ventured to the  hammock.  I grew increasingly tired after dinner, sleep calling louder with each hour that passed until I finally made my way to bed.

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Night’s messenger

I can’t tell you where I traveled while I slept for most of the night, but I can tell you about the scene from which I woke this morning. I am still smiling with the memory of coming home, even though I couldn’t find the tea on the internet after I woke. But that’s really irrelevant.

Home, to my recollection, was mostly the scene of a summer forest. I woke, in the dream, that is, alone and outside. I had been sleeping in some sort of tent and my family was already gone for the day. I rolled my blankets and ventured out into my surroundings, which were lush and green, the color of the oak leaves before they turn in fall. There was some sort of wire enclosure, to keep animals in or out, I was not sure, but I rolled it away none-the-less. I searched the area for signs of life and found myself suddenly in winter, drawn up a hill beside an old mansion. There were neighbors working on their own house. I left them alone and walked through the snow toward a large hedgerow shaped into an archway. It was covered in ice, but there was a narrow opening in the middle, so I squeezed my way through. I was back to summer.

I shed my heavy coat, for there was no longer need of it, and found I was hungry. I ventured inside a hobbit-like house that felt like home, and there inside was a child. A girl who seemed to know me, and I her. She, I discovered, was also hungry. “I think they went to get more food,” she told me, and we saw the remnants of a meal. Animals appeared around our feet. A couple of young cats, and two small white dogs. The blind one lingered around my legs. Daisy appeared, but not my dog companions who are still in physical form.

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Daisy, who always reminded me when the elementals had something to say

Soon we discovered the food. It was a full buffet, laid out, partially hidden, in a depression in the kitchen counter. For a moment we indulged our appetites, then began the search for tea. “I think it’s over there, I told the girl.” We culled through drawers filled with tea, but could not find the kind we were looking for. Above the counter were cabinets, and I opened one, only to discover what I had been looking for. My eager hands held the boxes filled with the green of spring. I read the labels, “Fairy Tea,” and felt the inner stirrings of joy. “I used to drink this as a child,” I told her. But, of course, she already knew that.

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With my friend Deb at Samhain. That spark of light on my left arm just might be a fairy

 

 

What the vines said

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Gaia & Elementals, Reflections, Uncategorized17 Comments

I went outside this morning to ask the vines about Life…

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Spiraling into a chalice

I asked, “Why do you spiral energy only to hold on tight to solid form?”

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The struggle to hold “solid” form

“But also spiral untethered, as though reaching only for the light? Which do you prefer? How do you choose where you send your energy?”

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Spiraling free

The vine replied, “For the same reason you do. To grow.”

“But what of this tangle back to self, after the reach for light?” I asked, looking at spiral that became a knot.”

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The tangle back on self

“Because the blind search can be binding,” replied the bee gathering pollen from the sunflower.

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A divine alchemist

So I turned to the bee, “Tell me about Life.”

“Life is alchemy,” the bee replied as it gathered pollen in its arms and sipped nectar from the heart of the flower. “Life is the continual process of creation.”

“And destruction,” offered the dragonfly who would not stay long enough to be captured by the camera. “Inertia causes stagnation and confusion, until the old is broken down to form the new.”

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Tipped against Time

“But growth does not abide by time,” offered the grasshopper who looked at the sundial reading false time. “Whatever time is to you.”

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Time-hopper

“Sometimes it is rest, followed by a jump over an obstacle. Like a rock.”

“Did you say call my name?” asked the rock. “Some think of me as an obstacle. Some may even call me stuck, but even what looks like stasis is really slow movement. Even I am not in the same place where I began.”

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An illusion of stasis 

 

 

 

 

Important Message from Keeper of Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe. – Chief Arvol Looking Horse

On By Alethea KehasIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Please read this post. It is time to come together for the common good of all. It is time to right the wrongs of the past.

ravenredbone's avatarMake No Bones About It

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I, Chief Arvol Looking Horse, of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nations, ask you to understand an Indigenous perspective on what has happened in America, what we call “Turtle Island.” My words seek to unite the global community through a message from our sacred ceremonies to unite spiritually, each in our own ways of beliefs in the Creator.

We have been warned from ancient prophecies of these times we live in today, but have also been given a very important message about a solution to turn these terrible times.

To understand the depth of this message you must recognize the importance of Sacred Sites and realize the interconnectedness of what is happening today, in reflection of the continued massacres that are occurring on other lands and our own Americas.

I have been learning about these important issues since the age of 12 when I received the Sacred White Buffalo Calf…

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The Return of the Goddess

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Memoir, Reflections, Uncategorized12 Comments

Yesterday I baked myself a birthday cake. A day late. It came out okay. The children and husband were polite, telling me it was “good,” but I knew they could taste what should have been there. There is a belief held by some, myself included, that the food we prepare for consumption holds the emotions we feel as we assemble it. When I took my first bite of the cake I had made for myself, because I had decided I couldn’t let the occasion pass without one, I tasted a distinct note of melancholia, if not the definitive spice of sadness.

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A not so pretty cake before the strawberry sauces was added 

Birthdays are never easy days for me. The wounded inner child comes out weeping to be nurtured, loved and adored unconditionally on this day, as well as the cloaked goddess who desires to cast aside the garment of domesticity and shine in all her glory. For at least one day. Instead, reality takes over. The hectic nature of our modern lives consumes the celebratory energy of the day, and the goddess and inner child are squeezed into the spare moments. But they are still there, waiting to be let out, and I find I can no longer deny their presence, nor do I want to.

I don’t think I am alone in my hidden, or not so hidden desires. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re shared by most of my fellow goddesses in hiding on this planet. There was a time, you see, when the goddess was revered. The woman-as-goddess was simply an undeniable truth. There was no question of our sacred power and gifts. We were revered and honored for the divine famine energy we possessed, as well as that awesome ability to create and bring forth life.

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“Ancient” artifact of 3 goddesses – Bath, England 

I’d like to believe we are gradually coming back to this place, but we’re not there yet. I am not the only woman out there who has to occasionally bake her own cake, and buy her own flowers (yes, I did that too). And, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. It’s a step toward honoring that inner goddess and child. It is an expression of self-love that is essential to healing the wounded spirit.

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The lovely sunflowers I bought myself

Last night I told my own daughter, who, I might add has had at least a handful of pedicures and manicures in her twelve years on this planet, while I have had one, a pedicure, in my 43 year, that life was not always like it is now. I brought back the time of the goddess and told her about how women shone in all their glory in a way that honored their power and truth. A time when we were not something to be feared, but revered.

I told her this is something that needs to be brought back, and that it can start within the home. That it is not a selfish desire. It is, quite simply essential. When we look at the world we live in, it is hard to deny that we are out of balance, and the scales have long been tipped dangerously on the side of masculine force. Notice I said force and not energy, as the true masculine energy is not forceful in its power, and it is always, ideally, balanced with the divine feminine nature that exists in all of us. We have forgotten that we are both. We have forgotten harmony and balance, and the glorious celebration of who we are. We have forgotten the need to bring forth in ourselves and others the hidden energies that lie in wait inside of us, so that we can nurture their rebirths.

The goddess within needs to be brought out. It’s high time we celebrated “her,” and revered her. It’s high time we starting using the name “Isis,” who was once celebrated as an aspect of the divine mother, in the name of love and not war.

So, you see, what I held inside and desired to come forth on my birthday this year, is an energy that exists in all of us. We all hold within us the dark and the light. The yin and the yang. The divine masculine and famine energies. And, there is always, always, the inner child waiting to come out to dance in the sun (or rain). If only for one day, but hopefully everyday.

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My children, several years ago, dancing in the rain

 

 

 

The Unseen Sea – 4: Nine Steps to Knowing

On By Alethea KehasIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

This is why I keep going back to “school.” Probably best to start with the first post in the series here, but if you are drawn into the words below, there’s a reason…

Part Four of The Unseen Sea: adrift in the enneagram I am not equating LUCA’s enduring sense of self-protection with our own consciousness as a living, brain-possessing being, with all its co…

Source: The Unseen Sea – 4: Nine Steps to Knowing

Unity, Peace and Diversity: Part Two

On By Alethea KehasIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

A wonderful post about the importance of unity:

This lovely space in Glastonbury, on a damp July Sunday, became, for a magical hour or so, a place of sanctuary. I would love to think that the energy built yesterday will extend that feeling of in…

Source: Unity, Peace and Diversity: Part Two

Gardening for the Mind, Body & Spirit

On By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections, UncategorizedLeave a comment

My friend Ginny, who incidentally inspired the idea for this post, told me she “grows vegetables to nourish her body and flowers to nourish her soul.” Tending to her ornamental gardens is a meditative act for Ginny, while growing vegetables instills in her an appreciation for the harvest that will nourish her body.

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I believe gardening can feed both the body and the soul, as it does for Ginny. The very act of growing and nurturing life is inherently spiritual, and can be a healing balm to our entire being. All of our senses are brought to life when we garden with awareness. The eyes feast on the rainbow of hues that nature offers, adding regeneration and balance to the energy centers in our body, or chakras, which vibrate to the color frequencies seen in the natural world. For example, when we gaze at the abundance of green leaves in the spring, which erupt out of the gray of winter’s dormancy, the heart chakra is awakened. A bold daisy with its yellow center, in turn, reminds us that we hold the sun within our solar plexus and the power to live with courage and joy.

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Actively participating in the planting, care and harvesting of life nurtures our own creative center, which is held within our lower abdomen, our second chakra, and vibrates in the color of orange. We are all creative beings, which is most likely one of the many reasons so many of us love to garden. At the end of the growing season, when we reap the rewards of our harvest from the food we planted, we bring the wonderment of the life we helped to create into our own bodies for nourishment and enjoyment.

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Another friend of mine, Becca, gardens barefoot, and when she told me this I thought, Could there possibly be a better way? When our naked feet touch bare ground, we find balance, stimulating our root chakra and grounding us to Earth. Our bodies are of the Earth, and sometimes in the bustle of our daily lives we forget this. When we dig our hands in dirt to plant and weed, we re-establish a primal, and I believe, an essential reconnection with Earth.

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It’s difficult to deny the joy that can be found through gardening. When we are surrounded by the blissful fragrance of blooms, such as May lilacs, our instinct is to breathe fully, through our noses, to take in the full bounty of their aromas. Our eyes cannot help but admire, in turn, the purple star-like clusters that form a glorious array. And, if we sit in stillness for a few moments with our senses open, we often find ourselves in the state of joy-filled presence. This presence opens up our higher chakras, bringing us to a state of spiritual connection to the life-force energy that flows within us and in nature.

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Gardening is also wonderful way to clear the troubled mind and heart. You’ve probably come across one of those popular sayings about gardening being the best therapist. Those of us who garden can attest to its truth. When we garden, especially with the intent to nurture life, we do just that. We heal. We grow. We rebirth with the plants we tend to each spring.

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When I was going though my spiritual awakening, I found refuge in gardening. Pulling up rocks and tearing up patches of lawn satisfied my primal need for release. The over-flow of repressed emotions I had long held inside erupted into the creation of new life as I brought order to chaos. The Earth, ever-forgiving, offered herself to my hands, which needed to pull and destroy, but also to rebuild. Where patchy grass once spread an uneven mat of green, I soon had walls of rocks encircling irises and lilies given to me by my mother, the source of such much of my inner turmoil. Later, I added roses, which reminded me of the grandmother I hadn’t seen since the summer day I said goodbye to her when I was twelve and flew three thousand miles away for the last time. Now, years later, I still seek balance in my gardens. The plants I help to grow offer me refuge, and a place of beautiful abundance where I can find peace and joy.

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Gardening, with its cyclical process of life and death, can remind us that we are also continually growing and rebirthing ourselves. As we allow our old ways of being to die off to the new, just as the pepper plant offers its green fleshy heart for nourishment before its stalks return to the detritus of Earth each fall. The seeds inside offering the promise of new life, a new harvest of creation in the spring.

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The Eyes of an Elephant: A Plea for Help Fundraiser #savetheelephants #donate

On By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Animal Messengers, Energy Healing, Meditations, Uncategorized2 Comments

Last night I woke around 2:00 am because the sensor light in my daughter’s room was on. Finding her sound asleep, I touched the lamp to turn it off and went back to bed, but could not fall back to sleep. As I closed my eyes, an image of the elephant exhibit at the Oregon Zoo popped into my head, a place I had visited each year as a child when I would go west to see my birth father.

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Elephant in Captivity at Oregon Zoo. A haunting sight/A haunted site

Soon images of elephants held in captivity for human entertainment filled my mind. I saw their eyes. Have you ever looked into an elephant’s eyes and read the story they tell? Try it. You will be forever changed. I can recall that day, six years ago, when I took my children to the Oregon Zoo and looked into this elephant’s eyes pictured above and read sorrow. I was filled with guilt. What was I doing? What were we all doing? What had we collectively done to these wise beings?

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Born into Captivity

Elephants are highly intelligent animals. Their eyes, and the wisdom they hold, remind me of the eyes of whales. It is widely known and accepted that elephants are deeply empathic creatures who hold the family unit as sacred. They form bonds with others, including humans who show them compassion, which stretch beyond their individual lifetimes. Their psychic connections, along with their ability to remember, surpass our own. When you look into an elephant’s eyes, you get the impression that you will be remembered long after you leave. You, if you are aware of what you are seeing, will never forget the experience. You will be forever changed.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Several weeks ago, while sitting in meditation, the image of that elephant held behind those bars at the Oregon Zoo returned to me. I saw only its eyes and this time I read their plea for help. I had no choice but to remember. Until, once again, I tried to forget.

Sometimes we seek out messengers, sometimes they come to us. Often, these messengers are animals. We all have spirit, or totem animals, who help us along at various stages of our life journeys, and sometimes we are asked to give help in return. In the early hours of this morning, I found myself struggling with the messenger who had come to me again. With the same plea, “Help me.”

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An Unnatural Habitat

Please consider donating to the cause of placing elephants in sanctuaries instead of zoos at In Defense of Animals. In return, if you email me a copy of your donation receipt at aekehas@gmail.com, I’ll give you a free, 3-card tarot reading for whatever life question you would like insight on.

Copy-Editing and Ghostwriting

On By Alethea KehasIn Uncategorized2 Comments

If there is anyone out there in the WordPress blogging community who is in need of either a Copy Editor, or a Ghostwriter, could you contact me on the blog? I offer both services – and now wa…

Source: Copy-Editing and Ghostwriting