by Ginger | Apr 25, 2021 | Blog
A lone coyote has been visiting my neighborhood on and off for the last few months. He doesn’t stay long, checking for easy food before running off, but he has certainly gotten comfortable enough around humans that he will show up during the day instead of waiting for twilight to hunt. My neighbor and I have been sending him energy to help him find a safer place to go, but he keeps popping back around every few weeks. Meanwhile, I’ve been pondering some of the messages in coyote energy.
Many Native American cultures feature Coyote in their myths as a trickster figure who can be vain and foolish. But Coyote is also playfully inventive and adventurous, not afraid to try something new and willing to learn from his mistakes. He is frequently irreverent and holds the energy of breaking custom or tradition. He will not do things a certain way just because “that’s the way it has always been done.” Wild coyotes are also extremely adaptable to changes in their environment, as shown by their willingness to live and thrive in increasingly urban areas as their natural territories shrink.
Coyote energy reminds us that we, too, are extremely resilient and capable of changing course with ease. Instead of fighting change, we can accept it, create with it and remain in our mastery. Our creative divine selves are infinitely resourceful and constantly draw to us what we need, often in unique and unexpected ways.
I invite you to ask yourself if there is any wisdom for you in the coyote way. Your Soul may recommend some creative projects, playful activities or comedic entertainment. You may be inspired to try something new to get out of your comfort zone or to follow through with an activity that you’ve tried before and dropped because you judged yourself as not very good at it. Or, you might try out some laughter yoga. Sit down and have a big, long belly laugh at the mystery of it all. Life is sacred but it doesn’t have to be serious.
image courtesy of Mathey on Pixabay
by Ginger | Mar 31, 2021 | Blog
As we move past the winter season and prepare ourselves for society opening up again post-pandemic, we may be asking ourselves whether it’s time to clear some things out. I often do an inner spring cleaning check with my Soul to see if it’s time to let go of some old aspects of my personality or habits. Sometimes we get stuck on the parts of ourselves that we’re still healing and forget that what we see as weaknesses are our strengths if we look at them from the divine perspective rather than the third dimensional paradigm.
The aspects of our personalities that we struggle with are just the parts of ourselves still operating in the illusion. It is the fear and self-judgment that causes these traits to express as the shadow side, vibrating at denser frequencies. Once we stop resisting those traits and see the higher frequency truths underneath, they are transformed into gifts and talents that can serve us and the world.
Maybe it’s time for a little spring cleaning of your personality self. Rather than trying to scrub out the parts of yourself that you dislike or believe are useless, ask your Soul to help you see the hidden gem within. Create a list of resonances that will help you to evolve those aspects of yourself into the higher frequency version of expression.
Seen from another viewpoint, stubbornness can be turned toward focus, commitment and determination when aligned with the Divine Plan. What was once anger bottling up can become the passion and strength to create change. The neediness of the past can be used as building blocks for compassion and understanding for others going forward.
The path to true wholeness is not to remove parts of ourselves, or our lives, that we believe don’t work well. The path of healing is to love those parts of ourselves back into wholeness so that we see their true value and allow them to shine in their perfection.
image courtesy of Manfred Richter on Pixabay.com
by Ginger | Feb 27, 2021 | Blog
Recently, I’ve been working on letting go of some old stories of mine which are rooted in the illusion of separation. I was reviewing Pema Chodrin’s book Start Where You Are and came across a story that spoke to me. She is describing the Buddhist teaching about being a child of illusion. This is not about staying in the illusion of separation, but about understanding that the world is not as solid or fixed as we often make it through our labels and stories. It reminds us to remain in a child-like state of openness to the wonder and experience of each moment.
I share the following excerpt for you to meditate upon:
We generally interpret the world so heavily in terms of good and bad, happy and sad, nice and not nice that the world doesn’t get a chance to speak for itself. When we say, “Be a child of illusion,” we’re beginning to get at this fresh way of looking when we’re not caught in our hope and fear. We become mindful, awake, and gentle with our hope and fear. We see them clearly with less bias, less judgment, less sense of a heavy trip. When this happens, the world will speak for itself.
I heard a story about Trungpa Rinpoche sitting in a garden with His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. People were standing around at a distance, close enough to hear but far enough away to give them privacy and space. It was a beautiful day. These two gentlemen had been sitting in the garden for a long time, just sitting there not saying anything. Time went on, and they just sat in the garden not saying anything and seeming to enjoy it very much. Then Trungpa Rinpoche broke the silence and began to laugh. He said to Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, pointing across the lawn, “They call that a tree.” Whereupon Khyentse Rinpoche started to laugh too.
image courtesy of jarmoluk on Pixabay
by Ginger | Jan 31, 2021 | Blog
Like many these days, I’ve been working on finding the balance between remaining detached while being fully present with what’s happening in our world. Many ancient spiritual traditions teach a version of how to be in our witness self, being in the world but not of it. This means being fully grounded, aware and participating in this world but not coming from the fears, false beliefs or entanglements of the lower self/ ego. It means to remain balanced, detached and coming from unconditional love. It does not mean to stand aside and look the other way as if you have no connection to what is happening in the world. How do we remain fully present in a world with increasing levels of anger, blame and violence surfacing which may feel uncomfortable or even painful?
One step is to keep yourself tuned into Divine Truth to help keep you resonating with higher frequencies and not get pulled into the lower frequency energies of anger in some of our current political and social debates. The debates themselves can be a great tool for self-evaluation and making change, but how we approach those debates, with resentment and suspicion or with respect and openness, is key to the results we will see.
Marsha Hankins recently wrote some useful suggestions for seeing clearly through untruth and biased opinion in her blog titled Do You Know When You’re Being Manipulated? We don’t have to invalidate someone else’s feelings or perspective in order to validate our truth and remain in alignment with our divine self. We do have a responsibility to discern the accuracy of information we might use to guide our actions or inform the kinds of questions we’re asking our Soul for our own clearing.
Another step is to welcome all experiences, including the controversy and chaos, for the healing they bring. How can we heal our darkness, our separation, unless we allow ourselves to bring it to the surface? You can’t truly clean out an old closet if you aren’t willing to pull everything out and look at it. At first, the big piles of stuff that we had hidden might feel overwhelming, but this process of weeding out what no longer serves us is essential for our individual and collective healing. Lori Rock wrote a blog in December on The Mastery of Gratitude which reminds us of the value of gratitude for growth opportunities in all of our experiences, including the unpleasant and uncomfortable ones.
In order to navigate these sometimes muddy waters of change and evolution, we will need to be vigilant with how our own energy is vibrating and whether we are remaining in alignment with our truth within. But the rewards are exponential. Imagine living in this world and seeing the divinity in everything, the opportunity for growth in every situation, the ability to connect on all levels with all beings! This is the heaven on earth that spiritual masters have taught for ages.
Being in the witness self is not a passive state, but one of active, loving engagement. And if we still have judgments or attachments holding us out of balance, then it will take some clearing work on our part. But we are ready for it and now is certainly the time. Make a commitment to take a pause and look at what triggers your emotions or bias the moment it comes to your awareness. Before you emphatically nod or shake your head, look within for the deeper truth. Ask your Soul to help you understand all of the perspectives involved. Even pausing for a few moments in your day to tune in and ask for clarity can go a long way to raising your consciousness and helping you to heal.
We can be part of a great spiritual transformation or we can see our world as being torn apart. Which version do you choose to witness?
picture courtesy of jplenio at Pixabay
by Ginger | Dec 30, 2020 | Blog
Like many people these days, you might be feeling a little (or a lot) stuck. Globally, we’ve been in a phase of deep review of old beliefs, old patterns, old paradigms. This can sometimes feel like a tedious, even painful, process. Yet, it’s truly necessary for new life, new patterns, new creations. This global pandemic is giving us, collectively and individually, the opportunity to re-evaluate many aspects of our lives, culture and institutions. It can bring up fear, resistance, anger, blame, judgment and even violence or abuses of power. We may feel like we’ve been staring at these issues so intently that we’re ready to just be done with it, but if we’re still not seeing significant outer change in our situation then feelings of doubt and confusion may come bubbling up. So, we might be feeling stuck right about now.
And it’s okay to feel stuck. Really. Our natural instinct is to struggle against feeling stuck by reaching for the nearest action or “solution” just so the lower self/ego can feel a little bit more in control again. We may even understand intellectually that what we’re doing is just a band-aid that will have no real, lasting effect, but we reach for the temporary relief anyway.
What if you give yourself permission just to allow your stuckness? I don’t mean to just sit in your living room perpetually doing nothing. I mean, taking time each day to be quiet with yourself, including the scared, stuck parts, and allow them to just be without trying to fix or change or solve them. Just be present with those emotions. Breathe them in, really get in touch with all the emotions underneath the stuckness, then breathe out with release. Then breathe them in again. And so on. Allow what comes.
I’m not suggesting that this is a magic formula which will instantly stop the feelings of being stuck. You might feel stuck for a while. And, your particular situation may require some form of more immediate response in the outer world. Of course, you should do what you need to take care of immediate needs. But, instead of taking blind action to get it over with and then burying the emotions so that you can feel “done with it”, try staying conscious of those continuing feelings of confusion and ambiguity. Wherever we bring our awareness, our consciousness, we bring healing and light. This way, we help to release the emotional charge of fear and judgment as we open ourselves to deeper understanding. When we remain present and conscious, even in times of self-doubt, we activate our own inner creativity and discover inspiration for moving forward in ways we weren’t even able to imagine previously.
So, commit to remaining open and accepting even when you don’t immediately see the way forward. Take an action step when you need to but stay receptive to new directions and course changes as the way becomes clearer. Allow the feelings of being stuck to teach you and guide you rather than trying to get rid of them. Being stuck may seem like a weak and helpless place to be, but when we let go of resistance we find great power and potential within. Our emotional blocks can be useful teachers if we allow ourselves to be still and listen.
Try the following e-book for more insights about working through feelings of being stuck:
Getting Unstuck: The Inspiration to Move Forward Again! by Lori Rock
Blog image courtesy of Pixabay
