Survival Tactics

Maybe it is the rebel in me or perhaps it is just my way of surviving. I am not sure if it even matters, all I know is that it works for me. When this time of year rolls in and the world around me becomes chaotically busy and frenzied… I slow down. When peoples’ daily agenda pads fill up with more and more commitments and obligations, mine gets more and more white space. Living simply during this time of the year allows me to find my way. I know that over-stimulation is not good for me. I shut down. I am the one person in my family who avoids the Mall like the plague. I don not enjoy it, come home with a screaming headache and feel like I need to reprogram myself after a shopping trip spent there. Too much noise, too many people, too many distractions…ahhhhhh!

So the same is true for me with my days and nights during this time of the year. I have to create white space for me to be able to enjoy my holiday time and the things that really matter. I make a point of letting go of things that are not necessary. I delegate to my family responsibilities that I do not need to hold all by myself. This is not the time to play Super Woman!

When I make the effort to live simply, (how sad that it needs to be an effort), everyone benefits. I am a happier person, a better-organized person, I am able to have fun, live large, celebrate and relax. I also have the time then to honor my body and eat healthy and get out side for long hikes and walks. Simple living suits me well. I know I glow and ripple out positive energy when I embrace this. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember all this and I find myself stepping into that beckoning pool of frenzied holiday activity, only to quickly pull myself out, wrap up in a blanket of peace and comfort and move on.

How do you survive the holiday season?

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2012 Lisa Meade

Falling In Love With Possibilities

"Fall in love with the possibilities ahead. Let your hoped for intuitions be true until they are proved wrong."-- David Whyte from The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self & Relationship. We fall in love with many things and people over our lifetimes; life partners, babes in arms, philanthropic missions, or soul-stirring songs. But what about falling in love with the less tangible? Have you fallen in love with your possibilities?

If you believe that anything IS possible, how can you not? Exploring those possibilities brings our passions into play. We can get excited about the impossibilities, we can get heated over the obstacles on our path, we can look beyond the can’ts or shoulds into the cans and the wills! We bring an energy to the proposition, we light fires beneath the potentials, and we breathe life into the callings.

Once we begin this process, our intuitions step forward bringing the lineage of our wisdom and life lessons. It shares with us the hunches and knowings. It awakens the fibers within our soul that are supporting guidelines we use to cross the chasm from unlikely to absolutely. Our intuitions are based only on our recognized insights and spirit's knowing. Those nudges of yes or gentle bracings of hesitations guide us gently down the path of what the next moment holds for us. But they are only as effective as we allow them to be.

If we are not in tune with our intuitions, what do we turn to? Many look to others for answers, but do those answers always fit your life story or do they fit someone else’s? Many stay stuck as they are too fearful or unsure of the steps that lead to all the possibilities. Some are so out of touch with their passions and inner fires that possibilities are challenged in making themselves known.

Do you allow yourself to fall in love with the possibilities? Do you grant yourself permission to dream big? Or do you keep yourself small and in a box, worried that you could become so great, so happy, so large, or so full that you would not know what to do?

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2012 Lisa Meade

Small Steps of Honor

How often do you reflect on what you have to offer to others? For many the act of self-appreciation, putting value on your strengths and offering these up to others is a hard place to become comfortable in. Yet, each of us has been gifted by the Universe, by Spirit, by your Higher Power with a purpose in this lifetime. One purpose does not compare to another and one is not more valuable for we cannot measure or judge what is of more need to those around us. Once we can appreciate this fact we begin to look at our self-worth differently. We begin to recognize that our most effective way of honoring Source is through the understanding of our strengths, our gifts and our talents and sharing them with others or bringing them to our actions daily.

As we move into our comfort of this fact we begin to find grace and ease as we embrace the life designed specifically for us, not trying to duplicate that of another. We appreciate our individual learning style, our unique blessings we have to share, and our special relationship with life; our life, filled with our own powerful experiences, lessons and possibilities.

“Taking the first vulnerable steps into our own experience, no matter how small or hidden at the beginning, opens us to a more generous life, where what we have to give figures as largely as what we receive. We stop trying to draw infinitely from a finite world and begin to learn how little is necessary to live a life that honors the soul of the world” states David Whyte from The Heart Aroused: Poetry & the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America.

Finding fulfillment of body, mind and soul evolves from our opening ourselves up to this fact. We learn that the simple ways are often the richest. We see that less really is more. We understand that our personal path need not be measured by anyone else’s and we are at peace with this as we walk a path of honor.

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2012 Lisa Meade

The Gifts of My Tools

As a shaman I use many tools in my services and practices. Recently I purchased a new deck of cards to be used to further my skills as part of a requirement with my work with my mentor and teacher. As I opened the fresh deck and sat with my cup of tea dreamily looking at each new card with wonder I remembered all the different times in the past that I have done this with other decks and even with other tools. My soul resonates with the possibilities. It feels as though every cell in my being is awake to the beauty and the energy unfolding around me. My mind trips away on the upcoming uses and explorations. My spirit sings! My most recent deck is The Anubis Oracle: A Journey into the Shamanic Mysteries of Egypt . The images are magical, the messages and descriptions have me lost in ideas as I enter into my shamanic thoughts and see the lessons unfold in a powerful and inspiring ways. I am learning without even applying. Just feeling the connection to the cards, to the guides on each, and to the images that surround them I am aware that this will prove to be so valuable to my work. As Robert Moss, author, teacher and visionary of shamanic soul care and dreams stated, “Tarot images can be mirrors for the self. They can also be windows to something beyond the present self. We may be able to look through the painted image of a card, into a scene beyond it. The border of the card became a window. When I look through that window, I might find myself glimpsing an event in the future, or the dramas of lovers or rivals, or the play of elemental forces, or the workings of spirits behind the curtain of the world.” What a sacred way of viewing the images on these cards; so widely expansive.

I have experienced similar reactions to other instruments I now have in my sacred tool larder. I remember the very first time I held and beat my drum. I had spent hours, days even, crafting this frame drum from scratch, the beater adorned with colors and decorative charms and feathers that hold strong meaning to me and my connection to my drum. The first time I used my drum in a sacred act, tears sprung from my eyes and my heart raced. To this day, when I hold my drum, it is with the greatest respect and admiration of the bridge it creates for me to spirit and my guides.

What spiritual tools do you have in your life that serve you to connect with source? How do you resonate with them? If you are needing to add some positive energy to your spiritual path and are looking for ways to connect with passion and delight, perhaps a new tool is just what you need. Ask your soul what it longs for, take a quiet walk and see what the Universe suggests, or talk to some of your friends and see what they connect with and how or why. It could be a rattle, a key, a charm, a pendulum, a crystal, a pose…You may be delightfully surprised at what crosses your path and how alive you feel when you utilize it in your spiritual relationship. Imagine the possibilities!