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.

The (Healing) Weight of Water

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Energy Healing, Gaia & Elementals6 Comments
Healing Waters
Healing Waters

I fell asleep to water. Outside the walls of my home, a storm of thunder and lightning raged its energy, working to cleanse the atmosphere of the heavy humidity from the day. On the shelf beside my bed was the just closed book by Sue Vincent and Dr. G. Michael Vasey, The Mystical Hexagram. My left hand rested on the arm of my husband, as I silently sent energies to lift the heavy weight of water I felt within him, knowing as I did, that what one sees or feels in others, one also has within.

There is a reason that water is both heavy and healing. It is the element that both stores our emotions and releases them when we are ready. Have you ever noticed how some people appear heavier than others, not just physically, but emotionally. That idea of “carrying the weight of the world,” on one’s shoulders, or at least the weight of the past. An imbalance, or (dis)ease, within the body is usually the result of stored emotions.

We are made mostly of water, that element of emotions. So is the earth. Just like us, Earth needs to cleanse and release when density builds. Sometimes, like last night, she cries fierce tears. It behooves us to do the same. Sometimes we need to weep, or have a “good fit,” of release, in order to heal and rid our bodies of our stored emotions. When we do, we feel better, we feel lighter. After Earth weeps, the air we breathe is less dense.

In my dreams, I was standing inside my house with my husband, watching lines of water pour through the roof. A discouraging dream, you might say, but it became one of empowerment. There was the tiger who leapt from the shelf, filling the room with the energy of creation and power.  Out of the emotional element of water, we can create. Sometimes this takes a spark of fire – the element that overlaps the triangle of water to create the “mystical hexagram” that Sue and Dr. Vasey have written a book about.

In Tarot, the element of water is often portrayed with the chalice – a symbol of feminine wisdom and creation. The Queen of Cups in the Rider deck is one of my favorite cards, it shows us that anything is possible when we go within and create from those sacred waters of the soul.

Rider Queen of Cups
Rider Queen of Cups

To do this, we need to release, to bring forth those energies stored within the water of our emotions, and us them to create our individual gifts, such are writing, art, music, etc. This is where life emerges out of stagnation. Consider a vernal pool holding winter’s melt. The life that is birthed within those still waters does not stay for long. Compare this to a lake continually fed by the moving waters of a mountain river. Here, oxygenated life flourishes and cycles repeatedly through the phases of birth, death and rebirth.

Close your eyes and imagine standing near, or in, a stagnant pool of water, then a lake, a river, a waterfall and the ocean. The energy of water changes profoundly. What is the water in your body like?

When I woke at 2:40am, I needed to pee. Quite literally I had the urge to relieve myself of the water held inside my bladder. You could also say that I was clearing the water of that leaking house in my dream. Although I have done a lot of healing of myself, with the help of some wonderful healers, I am not wholly free of the clutches of water. Sometimes it builds and calls for release.

We not only carry the water of our own emotions, we literally carry the water of the World’s. Our bodies are made from Earth’s elements, we require these shared energies to sustain our existence, recycling our waste to be reused in another form, in another body that shares our home. Water cycles through bodies, it travels through the ground and is expired into the air as vapor. The element collects into clouds and comes back down with gravity. Water remembers where its been, it can only exist when it joins with other water molecules.

In this way, water carries both weight and wisdom. When we learn how to work with the emotional element of water, we become gifted creators and healers. We rediscover, or release, hidden truths and wisdom. Water can carry us to the fiercest places within, and it can also cleanse us of our sorrows and fears, especially when we add a little light.

After The Storm
After A Storm

“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.

Robin: The Bird of (Re)birth #robins #robinsymbolism #robintotem #rebirth #sacralchakra #throatchakra

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Energy Healing6 Comments

Robin

The American Robin is considered by many to be a harbinger of spring. When the robin returns to its summer home in the spring, it gets to work building a nest with its mate and laying a brood of beautiful, sky-blue eggs. It is also one of the first birds to sing at dawn, harkening the new day with its melodious voice.

The robin, in many respects, is a bird of beginnings, of birth, and of the rebirth of the true, creative self. Upon its proud chest, robin shamelessly displays the color orange. Although robins are considered to have a “red-breast,” the color is really a deep orange, the vibration of the second, or sacral chakra. Orange and the second chakra are symbolic of our creative and sexual drives. This wheel of energy stirs us into action, and when balanced and healthy,  enables us to live our creative truths without worry of how we will be received by the world.

When I see robin, the bird always inspires a sense of awe and reverence. Standing erect and confident on the ground, where it digs through the body of Earth for sustenance, robin appears a master of the self. The robin has no doubt who s/he is, unafraid to sing in full-throated beauty the first song of the morning.

The robin births eggs in the spring in the color of the cloudless sky, making the robin a creator of truth and a teacher for a healthy throat chakra. The throat chakra is the fifth chakra in the set of seven primary chakras in the body. It is closely tied to the second chakra. When we are able to create freely from that seat of orange energy, we need to be able to bring it up through our throats, where we express our truths with compassion and confidence.

Near the end of last summer, on the first day of returning to school for my children, I experienced a day of magical peace and communion with nature. It had been a difficult summer for me, not because the kids were home, although that presents its own set of challenges and gifts, last summer was a time of transition for me. I was emerging into the field of energy healing, and was getting ready to finish up my memoir and start sending it out to the world. I was feeling called to release old fears and habits that were no longer serving me. Part of this releasing was letting go of relationships that were no longer in alignment with who I was, and my upper back, neck and shoulders were suffering the struggle to unburdan an old, heavy load.

feather

That day at the end of August, after I sent my children off on the bus, I was able to decompress and live in the moment in a way I had not been able to for a long time. I spent the beautiful sun-filled day with my dogs walking in the woods and sitting outside. Many birds appeared to me, including a hummingbird, flicker, and robin. For a long time I watched these individual birds and took in the lessons they had to offer. Robin sat in a maple tree in my front yard, toward the middle of the afternoon shortly before the kids were due off the bus. I had my camera with me all day, and I captured the bird on the branch, then watched as it released a single feather, which swirled with gravity toward the earth beside where I sat. A gift, it seemed.

Spirit sometimes speaks to us with feathers, offering them to us as a gesture of hope and reassurance that we are a part of a great, universal love that is so vast and infinite we can hardly comprehend it in our human form. I am often reluctant to take feathers from the Earth when I see them, for there is also the belief that one should not take from Earth what one does not need, or belongs to someone else. Sometimes, though, the gifts are so overt one is pulled to accept them. That day, as I gently lifted the fallen feather, feeling the vibration of the robin’s energy still humming inside, I knew I had been given a precious gift. A gift of new birth and beginnings. It’s been quite a journey.

The Great Blue Heron: Wader of Elements #herons #heronsymbolism #heronmessenger #greatblueheron

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers3 Comments

heron wading

Often, when I look to the sky these days I see the majestic form of a great blue heron flying a silent, solitary search for the next body of water. In flight, the great blue heron evokes the image of a prehistoric bird from a time when dinosaurs ruled the land and sky.

The great blue heron is often seen alone and there is a sense of awe instilled when we are lucky enough to glimpse this shy bird who walks and flies soundlessly through the elements of air, water, and earth. It is a bird of great grace and beauty with long appendages adorned in watercolor feathers.

The heron, when its presence graces our lives, reminds us of our inner strength and ability to adapt and survive on our own. That when we live a life of quiet grace, our inner beauty radiates and affects those around us.
flying great blue heron

Although it is not a water bird, the heron is a wader of shallow depths in the areas where land and water mingle. Here, the heron walks with stealth and grace on long legs, bending with ease to find sustenance in the form of fish, frogs, or other small animals living in or near the water.

The heron not only moves between the elements of land, water, and air with effortless ease, it is a master of balance, able to support its large, slender form on one long leg. Balance comes to the individual through wisdom and the ability to go within to find harmony. The heron evokes ancient wisdom. It is a sage for the soul who seeks balance and the harmony of inner truth, as well as a guide for the individual who finds peace in solitary endeavors.

The photographs in this post were taken by a good friend of mine who dances with heron. Much love and gratitude to you, Rachel, a woman who embodies the grace and beauty of inner strength. The journey of the heron can be lonely at times, but offers great rewards.