What Does Where You Are Say About Where You Are?

May 31, 2009 at 2:18 pm (Creativity, Ecology Of Essences, Magical Nature)
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josephsunset

Wallowa Sunset

In previous posts I’ve mentioned that you can find where you are in stories.  Briefly, whichever character you are drawn to in a story, or whichever situation in the story captures your spirit and your imagination, or fills you with questions, or emotions of any kind (including annoyance!), has a key to offer you in understanding where you are right now in your life.  Stories can be diagnostic tools in this way, and can provide suggestions for where you can go next, what choices you might make, and what might be the results of making those choices (positive and negative).

Similarly, any system or model you come upon can reveal something of who you are right now and provide a map of your inner territory.  One of my favorites is to view my physical location in terms of the energy of the Medicine Wheel.  The Medicine Wheel is such a potent archetype, representing the whole of our life and the natural world, with layers upon layers of perception interwoven within it, rooted in the very simple experience of a complete natural cycle: the energetic flow of day and night, the seasons through the year, the life cycle of conception to death.

Here’s a simple Medicine Wheel map of directional energies.  The following is from an article by Warren Moon on The Natural Learning Cycle that Wilderness Awareness School works with in their nature mentoring work:

The four cardinal directions (E, S, W, N) are the most concrete, while the minor directions represent a transition between the cardinal directions. All natural cycles begin and ultimately end in the NE. Here are some words that help develop the energy or personality of the directions:
NE: 3:30AM, creativity, dreams, conception, spirit, intention, death, vision
E: 6AM, spring, sprout, birth, energetic, curiosity, sun rise, enthusiasm, inspiration
SE: 9:30AM, orientation, childhood, play, emotion
S: 12 Noon, summer, focus, heat, work, adolescence, attention to detail
SW: 3:30PM, siesta, body, earth, wandering, internalization, searching, relaxing
W: 6PM, fall, community, gathering, celebration, sun set, honoring, thanksgiving, leadership
NW: 9:30PM, transition, letting go, surrender, release of ego
N: 12 Midnight, winter, reflection, introspection, storytelling, wisdom, stillness

This list also hints at the natural cycle and gifts that an individual offers and lives during different stages of one’s life–assuming that that person is living the whole, full, healthy expression of his or her life. I plan to delve deeply into this topic here and at The Village Welcomes You! This is really the core of my work.  For now, I invite you to experience your physical location–in your region, country, etc.– as revealing something about your work right now, energetically speaking.

For instance, I currently live in N.E. Oregon, which is in a larger region identified as the Interior Northwest.  We moved here from the Pacific Northwest, and will be soon moving to the West Coast, to northern California.  Let’s look at my starting point, the Northwest, a little more deeply.

While many layers of meaning can be overlaid on these energetic directions, I’ll stick with the ones listed above.

Vashon Soul Map - art by Jane

Vashon Soul Map - art by Jane

Moving to the Pacific Northwest eleven years ago, was certainly a decision of surrender for me.  I remember being in my grandparents’ house (which we had lived in, and which we’re moving back to in a couple of weeks), and being horrified by the thought of leaving this place I loved so dearly.  My harp partner had moved to Vashon Island a half a year before, and my husband was eager to live on a rural island and leave our suburban landscape.  I resolved my internal conflict with this thought that popped into my head: “I’m 35–I’m too young to stay in one place!”  So off we went, and I surrendered to the adventure of a dramatic lifestyle change, and to a whole new way of being in my nature.  Last year, when we moved from the Pacific Northwest (and, yes, a great deal of exploration of the nature of peace and the peacemaking principles characterized this time) to the Interior Northwest, I, of mixed emotions about leaving our island home, certainly found myself in the Persephone realm of the Interior.  This experience, however, which could have totally become a Dark Night Of The Soul, was mixed with other energies.  The energy of the Northeast was one–the realm of dreams, creativity, vision, death–yes, but also of conception–and certainly I had this sense of “emptying the cup” of my life, and opening to a renewed vision of what might eventually emerge.  Other energies were reflected in the name of our street–South East–an interesting play of energies and play-on-energies:  South is about focus, work, attention to detail — and certainly these past few months have been in this realm as I redesign my work.  East is about birth, curiosity, inspiration, and enthusiasm — and that has been a quality here too.  Finally, South East (as SE), is about mischief and magic, playfulness, and orientation.  So, as I plunged into the Interior of surrender and transition, I was also in the realm of mystery, vision, and creativity, and poking around in my little corner of focused work, inspiration, and play. Indeed, when I tended to get morose, I’d remind myself that we lived on/in the South East (SE).  What looked like work and curiosity could easily (and effectively) morph into play (and that would be a very good thing!).

Soon we will be moving to the West Coast — the West being the area of community, celebration, and thanksgiving.  Hurrah!  This certainly feels like a vibrant quality I’m entering into right now, as we reweave with our community in the Bay Area, and continue to deepen our village nature with folks here in the Wallowa Valley, and back on Vashon.  Much is coming together for me, us, right now.  I see that Leadership is listed here too as a quality of the West.  Hm!  So considering a move to the West, I will also entertain the notion of how Leadership might be opening in my life as well.

And the West we return to is in Northern California, the North being the energy of wisdom, storytelling, introspection, stillness.  Storytelling and exploring wisdom is certainly part of my work.  I am curious how I will retain the introspection and stillness I’ve come to value in my life as the pace of our lives pick up in our return to the West.  North is also energetically linked with the Elders, and as we return to my grandparents’ house I certainly am feeling that quality of connection with my elders and with Elder nature already.  What elder wisdom may emerge for me while I inhabit that space?

What does where you are say about where you are?  Play with the idea of the energetic associations about where you physically live, and see how they might reveal a quality that would be helpful for you to consider at this time.  You could even explore the names of where you live: street name, town/city, state/region and wander in the realm of metaphor and symbolism with those names as guides.  How is my experience right now that of (for example, from my life:) “Wallowa” (the land of winding rivers) or of Joseph (both Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, and the Josephs of the Bible).  And what about that state name “Ore-egg-gone”, similar to oregano.  Play with the names and romp in the imaginative terrain it creates for you–maybe even collage or sketch this “Spirit Map”.  You might even find more revealed to you in the process!

Feel free to share what you discover right here!

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Invoking Mountain Essence

May 10, 2009 at 5:58 pm (Ecology Of Essences, Magical Nature)
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A couple of years ago, I saw this poster, advertising the “Fragrance Of The Past” — an exhibit of Chinese calligraphy at the Asian Art Museum in Seattle, WA. The beauty of those characters just rocked my world! As a Reiki practitioner, I work with sacred symbols that focus particular healing energies. Part of what captivated me about the Chinese characters is that they carry meaning and energy as well. Embodied within many of them is a poetic expression, connecting with various aspects of the natural world, as well as to a rich and ancient literary and wisdom tradition. The characters themselves are expressions of beauty, and intended to be such–or so it seems to me. All of these notions wove together within me, and it occurred to me that working with particular characters might be a way I could deepen my connection with various aspects of the natural world, and evoke certain qualities or “essences”. Perhaps these evocations of essences and qualities could even offer a healing energy–just as the sounding of a harp does, or listening to birdsong, or gazing at a mountain does. Indeed, as I understand it, to gaze upon the beauty of the Chinese character of, say, mountain, rendered in calligraphy, is supposed to create the same response in the individual as gazing at a mountain in nature.

When I received my Reiki Master-Teacher attunement, a huge sensation swept into me, rooting me into the earth, and filling me with a sense of ancient, serene stability–a feeling I came to call “Mountain essence”. I felt it other times: once in a dream in the presence of a Mountain, and then when I began to consciously connect the idea of Chinese characters with what they represent in nature while also invoking Reiki. I felt indeed that I had stumbled upon a new art form–or perhaps a variation on a theme, one that allowed me to enter into the nature of the world in an interplay of poetic quality, archetype, and the sacred.

I began with Mountain or shan, learning the strokes and their order in describing the Chinese character, and writing them in the air, or in mirror image, toward myself.  I have used “shan” and other Chinese characters as healing symbols (such as the one for Peace) in performance–inviting the audience to receive the quality of the symbol as either healing energy, or as artistic movement, like a dance form of the hands.  Occasionally, I’ll teach a symbol to a client, so that she may invoke/evoke a particular healing quality that would be helpful in her journey.  I offer such ideas because I believe that all humans are healers at the heart of our beings.  We can all be conduits for loving, healing energy that can serve to nourish, rebalance, or restore our bodies’ innate ability to heal.  Chinese characters have been used for centuries upon centuries in such a profound and artful way, that I believe the “essence” they represent can nourish our being in in the manner that flower essences and other vibrational remedies operate.

Put another way, invoking these characters in a mindful fashion is akin to poetry and prayer, offering a nature blessing.  One could even say words of blessing as you sketch the symbol, such as: “May the unchanging inner nature of the mountain nourish your own strength of spirit and rootedness with the earth.”  Or speak of other qualities of Mountain that might be meaningful to the individual or circumstance you bless.

Here is how to invoke Mountain essence (feel free to try your own style after working with this one):

1. Breathe deeply, connect with your surroundings and with yourself.

2. Connect with God, Spirit, the Divine–your understanding of Mystery, the Creator

3. As with any offering of healing energy if you wish to offer this symbol as a conduit for healing or blessing to another, be sure to ask permission, either aloud or mentally (depending on the situation, or whether the recipient is capable of response or not).  If you hear or sense “no”, then stop right here.  Or you could switch to offering it as an artistic gesture (being sure to let them know that you’ve shifted the intent).  Or you could just offer it in the first place as an art form, something to be enjoyed.  When I offer healing in performance I always make sure that the audience knows they have a choice in how they receive what I’m doing: either as healing energy or as artistic entertainment.  They need only think ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to it.

4.  Bring to your mind and heart the quality of what Mountain represents to you.  These can be multi-faceted, and different each time you work with/meditate on Mountain.

5.  With small gestures using just your fingers, or large strokes engaging your whole arm and hand, sketch Mountain/shan where you want to invoke the essence.  So, this could be over a chakra in yourself or another, or offered to a space, or just … offered.

shan

Mountain/shan: A page from The Nature Of The Chinese Character by Barbara Aria

4.  The order of the strokes is important in creating a Chinese character, and so I consider it important in invoking the Essence.  The picture on the left is the Chinese character for Mountain/shan.  Just to the right is a vertical column of boxes that show the order of the strokes.

So:

a) with a downward motion create the middle stroke of the character

b) moving down and then across, create the left-and-across stroke

c) Finish with a downward stroke that goes below the others at the right.

I find that working with Mountain indeed offers me the deep grounding and tranquility I associate with Mountain nature.  Whether it’s my own mind at work or really some healing energy flowing through makes no difference.  The results for me are the same.  What it offers to others, I will not at this time presume!  But I imagine that beauty and blessing, healing in and of themselves is certainly likely, especially when you explain what you’re offering and it is welcomed.

My two favorite source books for these sorts of Nature and Spirit Essences are The Nature Of The Chinese Character and its companion book The Spirit Of The Chinese Character, both written by Barbara Aria with gorgeous calligraphy by Russell Eng Gon.  You might consider just working closely with one or two that resonate most strongly for you, and then mindfully opening to one or two more.  Be sure to absorb their poetic qualities as well as connect specifically how they appear for you in the natural world.

Not long after I began exploring Chinese characters as essences, I realized that Sian (pronounced “shahn”) is the Welsh name for Jane. Not quite “shan”, but close :-).  I like to imagine that Mountain essence is woven into my own personal nature.  What essence might be woven into yours?

If you experiment with Chinese or other characters as healing symbols or artistic/meditative qualities do post here about what results for you!

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Going “Online” With Your Medicine Life: Part 1

April 3, 2009 at 10:35 am (Creativity, Ecology Of Essences, Magical Nature)
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Dear Real Magic Artists and Creative Soul Adventurers,

I know you’ve all had the experience of coming “Online”/Aligned with your passion and purpose, of feeling that guidance system lining up “Here’s True North–all systems are Go!” This past week has been like that for me, one “ah-ha” ker-chunking into my vision field after another, shining a radiant arrow (in Chakra energy, color, and blaze, perhaps) in my true direction, and illuminating the next perfect steps of the adventure. I can’t tell you how much gratitude I feel about that, and such relief! I feel like what has been the deepest dream in my life (publishing a magical nature novel / creating and experiencing with others a “magical reality” that transforms in real, practical ways the everyday world around us) is now possible. And it no longer has to be a big hairy anguished deal. In fact, now I can have total FUN with the rest of the process.

But how did I get to this place of clarity and momentum (this very morning)? In the next posts I’ll attempt to reconstruct the process and offer some food for thought, so that you, too, can end your wobbling around Magnetic North and can instead jump “online” to your True North. (I’m taking a leap that if you’re reading this post, you’re probably experiencing the frustration, annoyance, and moments of despair about not being able to get ON with your creative and soul-driven life. That you bump into elements that are part of your unique vision, but they aren’t lining up yet into a cohesive pattern and direct pathway yet. But you feel that you’re oh so close!).

These “tips” of the soul direction iceberg that I’ll be sharing in the coming weeks are in no particular order (so far!). I’m going to start with what has perhaps caused the most dramatic, outwardly visible shift in me. I’ll be reiterating a few things I wrote in the last post, but I feel this concept is core to the whole picture of Going “On-Line” With Your Medicine Life.

Take Your Own Medicine

Last week I posted a Medicine Song on this blog. It was the first time I’d ever placed a recorded Medicine Song of mine out to the public. I had woven an intention and healing energy into the song. Here, I offered a certain experience, support, and nourishment to all of you. Why not to myself as well? So I’ve been listening to the Song pretty much everyday, and I tell you it is earth-shaking to be the recipient of your own gift! That automatic cringing that I’ve had in the past when I’ve recorded music (“oh, this isn’t good enough, it’s flawed here …”), just didn’t show up. I’m not exactly sure why–except that perhaps I had decided to fully receive all the blessings I knew I’d woven into the Song, and that changed my experience dramatically. In turn, I am indeed receiving my own Medicine, truly!

1. Identify Your Simple Gift(s)
What do you create that is a simple, artistic, full-of-blessing-and-intention expression of yourself? What is it that you can create almost effortlessly that is so full of heart and potential and magic for you? That you might offer now just for yourself? Or perhaps you actually offer it to others when you meet, a kind of signature “blessing”? One woman I know has peace signs painted on stone that she distributes wherever she is. Another friend folds origami out of anything no matter where he is, and offers them to his companions–at the cafe, in meetings, wherever. If you have a little bit of artistry (or that’s how it feels to you!) that you offer to others on a regular basis, that can be your Simple Gift. I encourage you to see it as ‘medicine’ — that beauty and potential of form that you are offering of yourself to others. I encourage you to know that the gift is healing, that it offers just what is needed, right now, and each time the person experiences it.

2. Gift It To Others
If you offer your Simple Gifts to yourself only, in creating them privately for fun or nourishment, do consider taking the leap and offer them to others. If you feel bold you can tell them the purpose/intention/magic of the gift. Or you can choose to be “invisible” about what you’ve woven into the gift, and just let the simple gesture work its magic, and observe what results.

I tell you, for me, I’ve been deeply moved and awed to read and hear responses to my Medicine Song. This has nudged me to the next level. How might I offer the Simple Gift of song wherever I am? It doesn’t mean that each song is like the one I recorded. Maybe it’s noticing the “music, nature, and magic (the possible)” that’s present wherever we are, whenever we gather and experience, and asking a question or offering a comment from that place. Well, I guess I do that already :-). But that is the point. My next step here would distill the “music, nature, magic” threads into a Simple Gift of more universal currency (my kids get so exasperated when I constantly burst into song, inspired by words or phrases that remind me of a song I know). Perhaps it’s a Fairy Money coin: One Question I can ask, the One Possibility I can voice are the two sides of the same coin, and the coin is the “current-sea” ferrying us all to a new understanding, a new possibility with how we can engage in the multi-Verse. (Hm, my new experiment for the coming week!)

3. Gift Yourself
And, take your own Medicine! Gift yourself with your Essence (for this Simple Gift is just that: a rich, vital, potent, distilled elixir that is your unique magic). Do this for Seven Days, a Moon Cycle, the transform-your-life number of 40 Days.

How will experiencing your own generosity, your own alchemical brew of soul, simplicity, beauty, boldness and zest shapeshift how you engage with yourself, with your world? You really can’t know until you try it for yourself. For me, the amplification of what I now understand to be possible for myself and a specific multi-step, direct path to getting there, plus really cool images and symbols and archetypal language for the architecture of all this to line up for me was absolutely nothing I would have expected. Wished for, yes. Expected, no.

This of course has been my result after Seven Days, in my own personal Universe. For you, engaging with your ‘medicine’ on a daily basis, the results will look and feel radically different, but I’m guessing will be perfectly what you yearn for and need, in your unique mythic and practical language. A perfect expression for and of you.

4. Share Your Results Here!
I want to know how these ideas work for you, what transpires and conspires as a result. All of us reading right here will want to know, I’m sure! Post comments, provide links, whatever you’d like, but do experiment with choosing your Simple Gift and mindfully, intentionally, with curiosity, and in the spirit of fun and the possible offering it to those around you. And gift your Medicine to yourself. You will be offering something beautiful and powerful and very much needed in our world at large, and by you yourself.

A current Sea of Vision: Us-dollars, fairy-to-the-heart-of-our-nature coins, and dragon-spirit magic

A current Sea of Vision: Us-dollars, fairy-to-the-heart-of-our-nature coins, and dragon-spirit energy

I guarantee it!

Your Muse with Magic,
Jane

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