Laws of Abundance

Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude.  What really is gratitude? I speak about it all the time. I share with students, clients, and colleagues - gratitude is the foundation of an Abundance Mindset and living a joyful life.  But why?  What is really happening with a gratitude grounded life? 

Simply put, gratitude is the practice of appreciating what one has. On the next level it is the practice of appreciation for what one has, what one is given, and what one has lost.  But it is more than that. It is a practice in being aware. To appreciate what one has - one must be first aware of what they have.  To appreciate what one is given, one must be aware that they are being given things. 

And to appreciate and hold gratitude for what has been taken away or lost - one must have an even greater awareness of cause & effect and other subtle hermetic universal principles at work - so you can see the quote, unquote “loss” for what it truly is. So if one is actually grateful, and truly holds appreciation for everything in their life (even the unpleasant stuff), then you are in a place of high vibrational awareness, clarity and discernment.  Holding true sight and acknowledgement of what is going on around you and the ability to access wisdom and discern what is actually happening at any given time. 

 So, in short, gratitude = awareness.  Awareness = discernment. Discernment = wisdom. Wisdom = Discernment.  Discernment = Awareness. Awareness = gratitude.

And thus, we have a positive thought cycle occurring which allows us to live a joyful abundant life in flow with the universe even if our circumstances are filled with opportunity and challenge.  In fact, we are more likely to seek opportunities and challenges because we have awareness, because we know that those difficult things we face are the fertilizer for the joy we grow.  

A joyful life is not one without difficulties or sorrow.  We all experience loss and grief in life because life ends. We lose loved ones to death. This is the only certainty in life. That this physical life ends. And along the way in our life we have people we love, and they grow old and die, or they are young and die from illness or tragedy.  These are huge losses.  But we continue.  And those of us who learn in life how to continue and thrive are those who realize and are aware that this cycle in the physical body is not about learning how to survive - because that is the one impossible task. None of us get out alive. This experience in the physical body is about learning how to live and to see the glory that is everything we are given, everything we have, and everything we experience—even the losses. Jesus said to his disciples when you can truly SEE, then you will enter the kingdom of heaven. He was talking about discernment and gratitude. True awareness. When you can truly see what life offers you are capable of gratitude, and when you have awareness, gratitude and discernment - you enter the kingdom of heaven—a joyful life.

What is more heavenly than to be able to look at a shit storm in your life and say Thank You Universe for this opportunity. I am so grateful I had this experience. 

I’ve been reflecting on gratitude all month. At the end of August I had the opportunity to be faculty for an attorney retreat and intensive where we engaged in some serious learning about different life insurance vehicles and annuities interspersed with meditation, personal development, and fun outdoor activities.We pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones in order to learn and shift ourselves and our practices for the sake of being better advisors to our clients.  For me, I was also there holding a container for everyone to meditate and grow within, while keeping the focus on gratitude. Because with gratitude we can learn better, we can accept change better, we can live better.  It is an essential element to anyone’s life but especially for times of change, growth, and obstacles. And in order to change how one does something, or accept and adapt to a forced change we have to expend energy - we have to move out of the groove we have been in to shift into a new one.  No more autopilot.  Time to expend effort little by little every day until we get to the new phase of our becoming. 

Gratitude helps us with this because when we start with awareness and recognition of everything we have in our environment to support us (even if it is just out own wits), and we see just how good it is, then we do not have to expend energy worrying about the lack and attracting more lack, we aren’t running away from anything, we are moving towards something. And if that which we focus on expands it continues in the positive manifestation zone and we manifest that which we desire to bring about, versus that which we are trying to leave behind. 

As an attorney, I find it exceptionally important to always be finding ways to hold gratitude and create containers for my clients that allow them to move toward things. Lawyers in a traditional sense are called upon only when there is a problem. We are the solvers. Or the ones that must help people through an unpleasant situation, or we are the ones causing the unpleasant situation because we manage litigation in a win-lose system. Winning in the law is determined by whether or not the proper procedure is followed - which for the average person is not winning. People want wrongs righted, justice served - but the law cannot really provide that - legal “justice” is not moral justice or God's justice - is simply checking all the boxes in the proper order and following the proper rules.  What the law can provide however, are strong containers of prevention and protection to ensure to the best of our ability that bad things don’t happen, and worse things don’t happen when bad things do occur (especially in the case of dying). But for me that isn’t enough either - I don’t want to just prevent something, I want to create containers for my clients that also grow in abundance alongside providing protection.  And what I learned in my attorney summer camp experience in August was the missing piece on how to use planning to build actual abundance and wealth for families. A true abundance manifestation goal versus just the mindset of planning with the end in mind and using that to expand on opportunities through prevention and protection planning. Now my understanding of life insurance, its strategic use in retirement planning, saving plans and investment, as well as the access to an extremely knowledgeable team of resources that I can consult with to guide my clients, has opened up a huge new gallery of wealth building containers that every family can take advantage of. And it gives me great joy to be able to offer a direction that is truly an Abundance building methodology.

As I write this it is Fall Equinox.  Mabon in the Wiccan calendar.  A day of gratitude and appreciation, bringing balance into our lives as we harvest the fruits of our efforts and give thanks for them.  This autumn I am holding immense gratitude for my new partner in life and everything he has brought into my life, as well as everything he has given me, and alongside this relationship those things which have been lost. I hold gratitude for all of it - and for all of the growth I’ve experienced as a result of being in a real relationship with someone willing to do the work next to me. It's not all roses and sunbeams, and his health is far from good, but I wouldn’t trade this time to be in something else with someone else.

I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to experience something so real with someone so willing & capable of being themself with me. This relationship that brings me such great joy also reminds me of the short and preciousness of life. I’ve never been one to sit by the wayside and not squeeze the marrow out of life—but since Covid I have to admit that all I’ve done is work and fit my relationships in inbetween. When sitting next to my partner and knowing that with his particular health challenges, that our life together is more likely to be truncated than not - it adds an urgency to living. Death is a reality for everyone, and I spend a lot of my time reminding people of that because I am an estate planning attorney - but when it is on your own doorway - it is no longer a philosophical conversation. It is happening. And this is where gratitude is my foundation now, more than ever. The kind of appreciation that keeps me in full awareness so that I can truly see, discern, and live in the kingdom of heaven right now in this physical body enjoying my life in the present moment, for what it is.

Jesus said Come to know what is in front of you, and that which is hidden from you will become clear to you.

This is gratitude. Clarity. Awareness. Discernment. Recognition.

“Whoever has (something) in his hand, (something more) will be given to him.

 And whoever has nothing, even the little he has will be taken from him.” 

So, your homework this month is to determine what you have through the practice of gratitude. Build your foundation to live a joyful life by creating and cultivating your garden of appreciation for every aspect of your life - even the hard parts. 

“Do as I do, be as I am. “ Jesus Christ

“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”  Paulo Coelho (author of The Alchemist)

Sometimes we forget who we are.  Sometimes we think, is this all there is?  And if that is true, what is the point of all of this?  We all can feel stuck.  Trapped even. Unable to get out of the web of the choices we made to get to this point. And then when you are so wrapped in that silky meshy mess, panicking that the gross scary spider is going to come and get you that you lose sight of everything but the panic! The fear! The NEED to get OUT before the monster gets you! Then before you know it, this is what your life is - survival and fear. Trapped in a web and trying to get out.  

No longer are you actually going anywhere.  You are just GETTING OUT. But “getting out” is not a destination. 

And OUT! Is driven by fear which has us thrashing around so much that we just wrap the web even thigh around ourselves so it is now even harder to achieve. It is like one of those Chinese finger traps,you played with as a kid - the harder you pull against it, the tighter it binds you. 

But if we stop thrashing and fighting and fearing The Monster (the unknown).  If we breathe and take a moment and ask ourselves.  Where am I? Who am I? Where am I going? What do I actually want? Where do I want to go? What do I WANT to be doing right now? (in the positive, the answer can’t be ESCAPING or ESCAPISM behavior). If all options are on the table, what would I actually choose to be doing to spend my time if I wasn’t so scared and spending all my energy beating back the tides of change, fear, and all the things I don’t want? 

If you could articulate in the positive a destination. I want to be writing a book.  I want to go to the gym twice a week.  I want a job that fulfills me. I want to have a conversation with my partner. I want an abundant family. I want to laugh. Do you see where I am going with this?  What can you articulate in the positive?  What do you aspire for yourself?  And yeah maybe your mind will say it's a pipe dream.  But you know what?  It is YOUR pipe dream.  And if it brings you joy and light - why is it silly to aspire for that, and to do that, instead of just surviving? instead of just “getting away from THIS.”   Because running away is not a destination.  Getting away is not a goal. It is running from the monster.  Running away from the monster is not running to something at all - it is getting you lost deeper in the woods and going right into the belly of the beast.  

If you feel trapped and depressed or scared of what is to come.  What if you were not spending all of your time on surviving, on beating back the fear, or trying to get away?  If you hate your job and every night you come home and drink a bottle of wine - what is that doing?  That is just numbing the pain from the job you hate.  Is it getting you a new job that is fulfilling?  Is it raising your vibration to a place where you can see a new alternative?  Is it giving you anything but escape?  Yeah you are surviving the pain.  But is that a life?  Surviving and enslaved to something you hate?  

Our negative ego is a real motherfucker.  It makes us believe that running away is a solution.  It says STAY SAFE!  Don’t leave this box. HIDE! Outside this box is failure - is the inability to pay your bills. Outside, is the eternal question, are you dying alone?  Because it says you are not good enough.  You don’t deserve nice things.  You are not capable. No one likes you.  That is for other people.  Other people write books, other people take fabulous vacations, other people get graduate degrees and careers they actually enjoy.  It is an insidious record that keeps playing over and over again - that keeps you thrashing in the spider web you spun yourself. Keeps you making choices that keep you trapped in a cycle of fear and miserable-ness and not progressing toward something that will actually bring you satisfaction and joy.  

And here is the secret.  It is not in some new age book from the early 2000s called, The Secret or even just positive thinking, or in that next social media influencers webinar about the 10 steps to financial freedom and happiness.  It is none of those things.  It is in the most simple (but hard to practice) axiom of Know Thyself.  Know thyself as God. Know thy own needs and wants. Your thoughts create your reality. Hermetic Principle #1 - All is Mind.  99% of your success in creating a change in your life comes from how you feel about the situation because every feeling creates a thought, and every thought is acted upon. So if we feel good about where we are going, and are actually consciously choosing where we are going, and know in your heart of hearts that where you are going is what you actually want to do - then you will follow that gratitude filled feeling, into a gratitude and hope filled thought, then apply consistency and discipline to carry out actions daily (little bits every day) that get you somewhere new that you actually WANT to be.  And after some effort you will find yourself free of your bondage and looking forward to even more amazing things as you take action in the present moment.  But until YOU CHOOSE an actual DESTINATION that you want and desire then you will never ever be able to get there. Because no one ever gets anywhere when you are running away from your life. 

This is your life.  You only get one.  What do you want to be spending your precious minutes on?  How much time and energy have you spent  beating back the fear?  What is the worst that could happen if you paused and surrendered to whatever you are avoiding and chose what you actually want? Then and only then do you realize just how futile and useless the fight that fear is.  How irrelevant - and that all your writhing and drama and gesticulation was just an ugly dance that you can stop. And finally,with clarity and simplicity you can step out from by deciding with discernment and your will to set your mind, your thoughts, words and acts toward the true desire you have in your heart of hearts, for the best and highest good.  Then you will be free of the bonds of the web you wove. The box you stapled yourself into and you can live as the god/goddess you truly are and start creating your reality. 

And THIS is the magick that Jesus spoke of and embodied as a Hermetic teacher. This is why he was able to create miracles - and was trying to teach us to do the same. “Do as I do. Be as I am.”  “Everything I can do, you can do and more.”  Jesus Christ was a Hermetic Teacher.  When he was alive there was no such thing as Christianity.  There was Judaism and Jesus was ethnically Hebrew and he is referred to as a Rabbi but he wasn’t Jewish either. In the annals of time and translation rabbi simply meant teacher.  And Jesus was just that - a teacher of Hermetics. Hermetics and any Hermetic principle is from the mind of God. It is the understanding of God’s mind without human pollution.  If it is Hermetic it will benefit people and always be good.  Because God does no harm. Hermetics creates clarity which simplifies life - thus increasing our potential to act as God in this life.  Whereas the human mind creates complications and traps us in fictions and stories. And ultimately this is what Jesus was teaching - and like good humans we have complicated his words and made a religion out of him which separates what he could do from what we can do.  Which is the exact opposite of his teaching.  “Do as I do. Be as I am.” In other words “Act like the God/Goddess you are.  Master your mind by doing the will of God.” 

Jesus was and is one of the greatest teachers for humanity in all time - and as a master of light he mastered his negative ego completely in this physical life and as a result could create miracles. He used every single one of his gifts as a human being for its intended purpose in its intended way.  And although he was special (because he had a unique mission to bring the ray of love and compassion to this planet for all of us to experience) his message to all of us was that HE WAS NOT SPECIAL. In that everything he could do, we can do.  Our job is to LISTEN to him, to take him as an example of possibility and to start living that possibility.  And through his teachings become the teachings - just as he was.  

Now he did some amazing party tricks (though turning water into wine back in the day just made the water safe to drink) he also defied the laws of physics, cleared negativity, and cured the sick.  However, the potential to do all of this is within us as well. And humans have created miracles again and again.  The examples we have from the gospels (albeit told through the lens of religion, politics, two hundred or more years, translation from aramaic to greek to latin to english) are examples of a clear will (desire from a place of purity) applied with the rules of Hermetics and the power inherent in this existence as a fully actualized human being connected to spirit acknowledging our power as God - you can have a major impact on this physical world. You can defy the laws of physics.  You can create miracles.  You can just simply live a joyful life.  But it all starts by setting your will in motion and remembering that you are god.  You are a powerful being that can affect your reality through your feelings, thoughts, choices and actions.  

With Jesus we weren’t supposed to start a religion.  We were supposed to discern.  To learn. To follow in his footsteps versus follow him.  If we say “Jesus take the wheel!” you abdicate responsibility for your life and that is in the exact opposite of what he was getting at for us.  Did we ever hear of Jesus saying “Father DO everything FOR me?”  Yet we do this all the time with Jesus, with our jobs, by blaming other people, by pouring our sorrows into a bottle or any other substance.  We abdicate our responsibility and we run away to our hiding place prison and we stay safe in our survival mechanisms.  

Bringing me back to my point.  All of us forget how powerful we are from time to time. Or maybe we have no fucking clue we have any power at all.  We forget or are completely ignorant that in most cases we actually hold the keys to let ourselves out from our chosen prison. 

We are all at some point like the figures in the The Devil card of the Rider Waite Tarot deck -held in chains to a big hairy winged beast of a problem but the chains are actually loose enough to simply lift off of our necks, if we desire to remove them.  We chain ourselves to the false God (the thing outside of ourselves that is not us).  We chain ourselves to the Devil, to a demon, to a false idol, we make something or something else God, and we deny our own power. We say we have no choice.  We had to.  I need this escape to cope because I can’t leave him or her.  I can’t leave my job.  I’ll die if I remove the chains of slavery.  But you won’t - the truth is you’ve abdicated your power and voluntarily chained yourself to the external thing and forgotten your power as God.  As the author of your story.  As the determinant of your own destiny.  Then you’ve focused on staying safe, or getting away, or NOT being in the chains you feel trapped in.  

I’ve been personally chewing on all of this because recently I felt a little bit trapped by my own circumstances.  Even though I KNEW LOGICALLY that it was all my choice and all really for the good.  But in preparing for the Florida Bar Exam for over 7 months it started to take a toll on me and I began to forget why I was doing it.  And as my ability to focus on my business was distracted by study, my partner's health, my own arthritis pain, my sense of lack when some things didn’t go as planned and I was disappointed by some individuals. I spent every last bit of my effort preparing for the test then used what little I had left to move twice and learn how to be in a new cohabitation situation. And with my distractions and the challenges - I stopped flowing the normal abundant client load I usually do for a myriad of reasons.  And of course I started getting concerned that I didn’t have enough time or money and my thoughts and feelings turned to lack and fear and this just enhanced the worry and lack and thus had me starting to feel trapped.  Trapped because passing the bar is a big slow thing and Seattle is far away from my home in Florida, and trapped because I have to be vulnerable in my relationship and I can’t run away anymore.  And trapped because I have to communicate about my finances and don’t have the same overflow I’m used to.  All of these things were not helpful. Because I said before 99% of your success is how you FEEL about something versus the actual tactical logical work you put into it.  So here I was working in a way that SHOULD have resulted in my usual flow but it wasn’t - but the thing that was off was my fear.  It was my lack mentality.  Plans are definitely still helpful but your own thoughts will destroy the best plan.  So as long as I feel scared and trapped and in lack, that is the energy I am going to attract.  And no one wants a worried estate planning attorney or an abundance & flow coach who is in lack.  

But luckily I have a practice and a path to follow and a community of lightworkers to recharge in.  I have teachings and things to study that can bring me around and back to my core purpose, strengthen my will, and turn me back to gratitude.  So this trap was a brief mindset blip and now that I’m out of the gauntlet I can actually start holding gratitude for the bar exam and the time to work on client flow, teamwork with my new team members and communication with my love and life partner.  I remember why I am doing this work.  My law license allows me to help so many families create plans that will protect them in their time of need.  And my purpose and mission in light work helps me remember I am not trapped.  I am choosing this.  I will allow the  will of God to flow through me.  And use Jesus as a light and as a master teacher guiding my heart in every moment. Because that is where he has been since I was a small child, guiding me to live as he lived.  Do as he did. To be in my life an embodiment of his teachings in my unique way in this physical life.  There is nothing to run away from. I am not stuck in any trap. I choose everything and I can remove any obstacle. And I have built a beautiful life based on my choices and I will continue to do so.  A joyful life doesn’t result from things being easy or handed to you - in fact sometimes the hardest things in life bring the most value.  

I laugh as I wonder which was harder?  The Florida Bar exam or  being vulnerable and in true partnership with another human being. .  To be honest, I know it is the latter.  Taking a test and getting a piece of paper is easy. I’ve done it time and time again. Helping people as a lawyer is easy.  I’ve done it time and time again.  But being in a relationship with someone I love and who loves me, growing myself and actualizing myself as  an authentic human being is incredibly challenging! Don’t get me wrong - I have prayed and manifested this type of partnership and love, but that doesn't make it not terrifying. To be even more honest, sometimes coexisting and being in real love with my person, scares the living shit out of me.  Because my negative ego is constantly being proved wrong.  I am lovable separate from the things I provide to people in this world. What a concept? I feel like - even now I have to say it twice to truly believe it. I AM LOVEABLE DESPITE WHAT SERVICE I CAN PROVIDE FOR OTHERS! … and you are too. 

I am God. YOU ARE GOD. WE ARE GOD.  Fully worthy of giving and receiving tremendous amounts of love + prosperity. So let’s start creating some miracles - shall we? 

The homework for this episode is simple - well that is, if you allow it to be. 

Love yourself like your life depends on it - because it does. Know Thyself. Know God. Do as God would do. And CHOOSE to love yourself more than your struggle.

Don’t overthink it - just start - a small change in the right direction can make a huge impact.

And if you get lost along the way and need further inspiration - I can help with that! Drop me a line at [email protected]. I will leave you in the words of author Roald Dahl 

“And above all watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always in the most unlikely places.  Those who don’t believe in magick will never find it.” 

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”  Maya Angelou

It is the day after Independence Day.  I’m watching the street sweeper brush up the remnants of yesterday’s fireworks shells on the neighborhood streets of Jacksonville Beach, Florida.  The detritus of the party is all that is left after America’s red, white and blue holiday. Last night thousands of people poured past the front of my house to go to the beach to watch the fireworks and celebrate freedom and independence.  Thousands of explosions small and large rocked the beach and I was in the middle of it.  A far cry from the remote shores of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where I have spent the last 10 years celebrating the holiday with my sister and family.  

But nothing is at all like the past for me this year and it has me examining my attachments really closely and getting super clear on what truly is conscious choice and surrender.  Because somewhere in between that lies True Freedom in this lifetime. 

True freedom isn’t surrendering to the current and going with the flow that others set for us. A lot of people think that is an easy life - just let go! Don’t choose, let life take you as it may - everything happens for a reason etc…That’s just floating.  Delegating your personal responsibility for your life to others so you have the excuse “I was just going with the flow!” or “I had no choice!”  You did though.  You chose not to choose in that situation because something in your programming, that artificial intelligence of your negative ego, has you so afraid to do so. whether you believe you can’t have nice things, or you are so afraid to fail, or who knows what your damage is, but if you never examine the baggage you carry, you will never know. 

On the other side, is someone like me.  Controlling every single aspect of everything in your life with an exacting plan that everything must go according to, or else. Achieving the objective of the moment. Because achievement of the next thing is the highest good. Except sometimes, er, well, a lot of the time, my objective is misinformed because it comes from my subconscious programming and I am not aware of that, until it's too late.  If you try to control every little thing you are so busy controlling you can’t see or hear the signs that there is something better or that a higher path could open up, paved in opportunities. Except in these situations I honestly believe I am acting from conscious choice when I double down in stubborn determinism and radical self reliance “to make it work!” to “achieve the gold star!” to “take care of the problem!” But as my recent move from St. Augustine to my partner's house in Jax Beach proves - NO, I’m not always aware of how my thoughts are creating my reality.  And I made a lot of things harder on myself by just assuming I had to do it all myself because that is the way it has always been.  

Meanwhile my partner is left wondering why I didn’t trust him enough to ask for help. And I realized I didn’t because I assumed I couldn’t and I was afraid of retribution for asking at all.  So yeah - I didn’t trust. 

So here I am - surrendering to the change and the shift - all beautiful things coming from being in partnership with another but I was completely unwilling to look at how I approached a situation with him on my team, or even being on a team period. Huh. Was that conscious choice from my higher self? I couldn’t let go of control and my subconscious programming for two seconds, I reacted and went right into “do it all yourself” mode.

But I won’t do that specific thing again.  Now that I see it and can be willing to let it go.  I can learn from it and be aware in the future and not do it that way again. No shame, no blame or guilt.  Yes I was emotional when the situation was brought up for me to look at it. But most of it was from the release of all that stored shit in my subconscious and it wasn’t directed at anybody, as much as it was messy.  Literally my suitcase of unexpressed emotion was strewn all over my partner's living room.  And luckily he’s very patient and held space to let me work it through.

So how do we know if we are surrendering our attachments and living and choosing from the collective consciousness of the higher selves and ascended masters i.e. the positive ego, free of the negative ego and shadow self?  

We can’t sit there and analyze every action. Or can we? No, we can’t - that analysis paralysis would be using our lower self to attempt to solve the problem that got us there in the first place. We have to use discernment.  And this is where training comes in and the invocation of the Adept Initiate.  

“It is by will alone that I set my mind in motion.” 

Every human being, myself very much included, is far from perfect but the path to know thyself allows us to get clearer and clearer every day such that we begin to know ourselves as the creator of our reality and to be able to tap into the will of God and the universe - and with that understanding of the higher good we use our mind as a tool versus us becoming a tool of the mind. 

Monkey mind gets in the back seat where it belongs in a seat belt strapped in.  We sit in the driver's seat with a GPS from a higher power and are capable of managing our thoughts, words, and deeds towards the best and highest good we know at the moment. 

How do we get here? Through daily will strengthening exercises.  Through daily boundary setting exercises.  And learning through doing - achieving the understanding of where I begin and end. Understanding my true needs and wants and where they begin and end. What my wants truly are and how to choose, not out of fight or flight but from nurture and love for self and others.  All of this combined with meditation so there is actual space for mental clarity and the light of God i.e. enlightenment, whatever you choose to call it, to come in. 

From that place we can begin to experience True Freedom.  Freedom from triggers, from self defeating patterns, from digging ourselves into deeper holes when we think we are solving problems.  And when we know ourselves better there are less surprises and we can surrender to the positive will of the universe, letting go of our crap and allowing help to come in when it is offered (among other things.)

As I just shared in my example today, by no means is the path of the adept initiated in the lineage of King Salomon a magick pill that makes you perfect and cures all ills in life.  But if you are willing to do the work it is exceptionally rewarding and leads to the ability to enjoy limitless freedom and joy in this physical existence - improving your daily life gradually with proven repeatable methods. 

If you are interested in learning about these practices and the path of an adept initiate offered in the Empower Thyself program please reach out, I can connect you to a practitioner in your area.  

Alright my friends, until next time, do your best until you know better, then do better!  And if you need help along the way - I can help with that!

“Love God and then do whatever you wish.”   St. Augustine

 This is the quote for the spiritual experience of the sun tarot card in my ultimate guide to the Raider Waite Tarot book. I had to laugh as I read it this morning sitting down to write this podcast.  

 I decided to write about the sun card because it is the solstice, and the sun symbolizes rebirth and daily renewal.  And surprise! This month and for the rest of this year I am in a process of change and renewal yet again.  I’m currently writing this on my deck in St. Augustine, Florida.  Inside my little house in the woods surrounded by magick and elemental beings are boxes ready to be packed and put into storage.  I’m moving.  Again.  I just put the last of my Seattle life into a storage locker at my good friend’s condo and now I am putting my St. Augustine things into storage until November when I hopefully move into my new house that is currently being built. 

 “Birth is not a momentary event, but a permanent process.  Our aim in life is to become completely born…living means being born every minute.” Erich Fromm.

 The process of rebirth for me has been going on for years.  But more intensely these last 2 since I was called to step up in my spiritual practice and make this move to St. Augustine. I keep laughing because it really seems to keep getting more intense when silly me thought it would chill out by now.  But relocating your life and business across the country is a process. All good things - meeting the love of one's life, co-creating a new home together, establishing a foothold in a new city, building a new community, taking yet another bar exam (I could do without this step but it's a right of passage in my profession) - these are all major things.  As is exiting a place (Seattle) where you built a life for the past 20 years. 

 What I’m learning in part is surrender.  Allowing the will of God to flow through me. Allowing the highest good to flow through me.  And not being an obstacle to my own birthing process.  Not being an obstacle to my own greatness and purpose.  I will, thy will, I say.  Let my greatest desire be that I fulfill my contract with God.  The purpose I made for myself when I was spirit before I had amnesia caused by this physical density.  

 So, I am attempting to understand with my higher self my needs and wants.  Then holding the vision for them to be met. And thus arranging my priorities to ensure that energetically, and then physically.  Versus clinging to my past self and fighting the process.  I surrender to the process of rebirthing.  

So I shared the quote that I read and laughed out loud when looking at The Sun card.  There are no coincidences that St. Augustine himself is speaking to me today.  Love God i.e. love yourself and all beings and allow the will of god to flow through you.  Then do what you want.  Well, when the will of god flows through you - you become an agent for the best and highest good. 

December of 2023 marked one year of my leap of faith to move to St. Augustine.  And although it was a month of upheaval and unmet expectations for myself and others it was actually really great - because I put my house in order.  I had to sit down with myself and decide the priorities for Angel’s life. What was it that I really desired and wanted in my life? Yes, I want to do God’s will but I’m not a robot.  I’m a human being with needs and wants and one of our 4 basic needs is love.  I decided that the most important thing to me in my life was to find my life partner.  Someone I could spend my life with who would love me for me, and I would love them for them in return - and we could be a team.  Team us.  

I also decided that I was going to fully let go of Seattle.  That I was going to ground my light here in St. Augustine. I was going to plant my energy in this soil and build my life here instead of traversing the country every other week or month and running myself ragged in the process.  

 The result of this decision? Within 2 months I was registered for the Florida Bar Exam, I found a location for my light center at the Center for Spiritual Living, and I was in a relationship with a person that I love and who loves me in return, who actually wants to spend their life with me as a team.  Not someone in it for some sense of immediate gratification but actual loyalty and commitment to building a relationship and all the co-creation that goes with that. And as a result of all of that, here I am.  Moving and rebirthing myself again.  

But not chaotically.  I’m executing (with assistance) the vision of grounding myself here in St. Augustine and the universe is supporting me because it's in alignment with my purpose.  

How do I know? Because I trust my higher self, I trust the tools of my spiritual practice and the law of the universe I am watching at play around me. I’m far from perfect, or a perfect situation but I’m doing my best and I am holding gratitude for everything given and taken away.

 So let’s talk about The Sun card and the summer solstice for a second.  The Sun = the active principle.  As the moon stands for the collective unconscious the sun stands for the collective Consciousness.  Being able to be free from autonomous programming and making actual choices authentically from our free will.   I’m going to take a step further and say that true choice from our freest of free wills comes from our positive ego that is connected to the holy spirit i.e. the collective consciousness of the ascended masters (these are those who have mastered their negative ego and now live to support those of us in the physical world i.e. Jesus, Buddha, Quan Yin, Isis, Osiris, Odin, Freya, Lakshmi, Ganesha, any archetype from any culture..the ascended masters are numerous).  

If we are connecting with our higher self and making discerning choices for our nurture and wellbeing out of love for ourselves and others we are truly living from free will and influenced by the conscious positive collective consciousness.  

On the other side, if all we are doing is playing out a record of our story fueled by programming from our subconscious (our stored repository of unexpressed and repressed emotions i.e. that suitcase full of crap you had to sit on to close and hide under your bed).  Are you really living fully? If you are motivated only by fear, jealousy, stress, pain, or the avoidance of pain your negative ego says is necessary to survive?  Is that truly a choice? Or are you choosing to be a slave to your masks, your negative ego, and unmanaged emotions? I'd say so - choosing to stay in the prison of fear we build for ourselves because we are afraid to try something different, or think it will hurt is not living.  

Life is filled with a myriad of opportunities to fuck up.  That's the point! To learn by failing forward and making mistakes.  Picking yourself up when you fall down and saying “well, maybe I won't do it that way again.”  But a lot of us (and I have been guilty of this myself) say “I have no choice!” I have to stay here doing this thing this way because if I change I’ll die.  Our negative ego is so caught up in our fight or flight mechanism we really do equate change to death.  

But that is a lie.  Change is rebirth. Growth is freedom. Failing is movement. And if you are not moving forward you are going backwards and you are letting your subconscious rule the show.  Instead we should go arms open naked on a white horse into the sun of a new day smiling because if we fall off it was one hell of a ride. 

Now - the solstice!  The sun is at its peak! This is the time of action.  Of light. Of celebration and growth.  We have all the vitamin D and all of the time and energy to accomplish all of the things! Now is the time of Joy and Illumination.  Of healing by shining light on that which was hidden.  And it's the time of the masculine energetic active principle.  So see what there is to see and be in the now making choices from your positive ego for the best and highest good.  

And that is your assignment this month.  Do or do not.  There is no Try.  Go forth!  Be in the now.  Get ‘er done.  Live your life.  Fail gloriously and celebrate the victory of doing something differently than you did before.  

 I love you all.  And as always if you need any assistance with this assignment or anything else - I can help with that!  Until next time.  Go frolic in the Sun and live joyfully.  

My partner asked me the other day, “Do you ever envy other people?” and I had to think about it for a second. 

His health has been a significant challenge recently and our relationship is strong but new - so I’ve been in a place of “well fuck, universe, thanks for sending me the love of my life and threatening to take him away just as quickly.” 

It's been a real practice in gratitude to stay in ACTUAL gratitude for the time I have with him - because I am here watching him suffer from severe pain & distress as his organs rebel for some unknown reason and his body fills with fluid. 

So, in some ways the answer to his question is yes.  In fact, hell yeah! I currently envy all those people who take their health and their partnerships for granted.  I envy his ex’s who used, abused, and didn’t covet every minute they had with him while he was healthy but instead threw the time away. As here I am picking up the pieces of their heartbreak mess as I stand beside one of the strongest, bravest men I’ve ever met. But at the same time - even though I am jealous of his ghosts, I’m not envious of them. I’d never want to be in those past women’s shoes (i.e. not self aware, actually taking for granted such a gem of a man in their life). I know that it would be nice to have been in their time and place - adventuring, dancing, living an active life - but would I have been ready then? Would he have been ready for me then? Would we have been ready then? It's best we are here right now, the people we are right now, facing this now with the strengths we both have together. In this now.

I know many people who are doing really well and I’m honestly happy for them.  I hold no envy or yearning to be in a different place than I am, with a different person, with a different life.  I hold gratitude that I finally met this man that I can share space & time with, and just be me with, and feel safe with and give my loyalty to. Someone I can create even more love in this world with. Someone I can be a better person with, and dedicate myself to doing just that.  We both share this desire to help others, making the world a better place because we were here. And I just want to enjoy our life together no matter how much time we have left. So no - I don’t envy anyone else.  I do not want to be anyone else. I am very satisfied and happy in my life and I am extremely capable of experiencing and generating more joy even in the face of knowing the one who I am most attached to could leave me alone in this physical life sooner than later. Every single day is precious. We just do not have the luxury of taking it for granted anymore. 

There is a poem I read when teaching to empower thyself that I shall paraphrase right now - essentially it says that God is not “I was” because you cannot find any joy living in the past.  And God is not “I will” because you cannot find any joy worrying about the future.  God is only “I AM” because you can find all possibilities in the present.  All ability to create, live, love and enjoy is here right now.  So that is where you will find joy. 

(Sing) “I close my eyes only for a moment and the moments are gone. All my dreams pass before my eyes a curiosity. Dust in the wind. All they are is dust in the wind. Don’t hang on,nothing forever but the earth and sky. It slips away and all your dollars  won’t buy another minute. Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind…”

(read) “Where for I perceive there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be better after him?” Ecclesiastes 3-22.

I’m writing this podcast on May 1st, Beltane, May Day, the 1st day of summer in the ancient Celtic and pre-Celt calendars. Beltane is a day of celebration for creation, passion, fertility because here in Spring - is the TIME to start the creation process because the divine masculine and divine feminine energies are at their peak.  Father Sky and the sun are perfect to send their rays and mature our plants & endeavors and mover earth’s womb is ready to grow them. She as divine feminine will gestate the seed in her fertile womb so that in a few months a harvest shall come. 

Two things are going on here. The earth is ripe & ready and the sun's rays are about to peak into crescendo.  And the hermetic principle of gender - the universal rule that masculine and feminine energy is needed in a relationship to create (otherwise known as divine union). The holy marriage of opposites results in the perfect harmony necessary to spark and nurture creation. And now is the time for this creation. We are made in God's image - The Elohim. Elo & Eloha - divine masculine & feminine in divine union creator gods.  And this is why when we are in balance both within and without we are more effective in creation. 

Also, now in the wheel of the year we have this peak moment to invest our energy in creation of things. In agrarian times it was dictated by necessity because if you didn’t plant those seeds now you’d have nothing to harvest in the Fall and your family would starve. But today when we’ve delegated our survival to others (i.e. grocery stores, electric companies etc) we can still use the wheel of the year and those energies to our advantage. 

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven; a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck that which is planted, time to kill, and a time to heal, a time to break down, and a time to build up, a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, a time to dance…, a time to keep, and a time to cast away, a time to rend, and a time to sew, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace.”  Ecclesiastes 3: 1-9

So real talk, I’m quoting the Byrds Turn, Turn, Turn more than the bible passage here because I’ve heard the song more than I’ve ever read the bible passage. But when the tune popped into my head in relation to both now as in May and Beltane, and the NOW in my life & relationship & impending mortality of significant others I decided to dive into a little bible study sesh. And then I quickly moved on to reading about the origins of Kansas’s song Dust in the Wind (as it shares a similar origin to Turn, Turn, Turn) and then I digressed.  And truth is I’ve always been a sucker for a depressing sad song in a minor key. 

But what is most important is to recognize that on this earth and in our physical life as a human there are cycles. And we can use these to our advantage OR we can fight the current to our discontent. Now there is no dogma here, I am just suggesting that we go with the template given to us by nature as we are a part of that. And. Being in the present and having ideal situational opportunities to support our creation is a good thing. 

So this is why I was super vulnerable as I sat in the hospital chapel on Beltane morning. I posted my personal prayer on Instagram for all to see.  I vowed to myself that no matter what, myself and my love are going to create a joyful life together.  I hold no attachment to the length (I hope that it's a long time though) I just hold gratitude that we were given the opportunity to fulfill that wish for each other, of being each other's person, for the rest of our lives at least. 

So let’s go back to divine union and the principle of masculine and feminine for creation I dropped on you a moment ago.  As this could be quite controversial in today’s world.  But I want to be clear about what I’m talking about energetically. 

First let’s look at biology - flowers and thus fruits & seeds - they have masculine and feminine pieces that are stimulated by birds and bees (yes I know I’m literally talking about the birds and the bees here) and then after the flower blooms fruit grows and seeds are created which eventually become a new plant.  So we have passive - flower, active - pollinator.  Passive - feminine, active - masculine.  Ok, so in mammals we have the seed/ovum - passive and female.  And then the sperm - active and male.  The two join and you get a baby mammal after some time. Father sky, mother earth - sunlight and raine nourish seeds in the womb of earth. Active & passive masculine and feminine again.  The hermetic principle of gender plays out again and again in the universe - likely even in the mineral kingdom and in the realm of physics (perhaps opposites attract?) but I’m just not versed enough in those subjects to make a good analogy there for you. 

So what’s my point? Honest, the most important takeaway for you this month other than being forced to listen to my singing is gratitude. Do not envy others.  Do not yearn. Look at what you have and love it. Be grateful for the people you have, for the moments you have created. For the love you have and are creating in that moment.  Be present in your life and love it. Yes, I’m repeating myself. Love your life. Even if it is hard right now. But right now is all we have - and here and now is where we create that which we desire. But we can’t know what we desire unless we are present and acknowledge what we already have.  So gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.  It is all temporary anyway.  At least in this physical life.  Love is eternal because it is a force of the universe. Divine union is eternal because it is also part of the universe. Hermetic principles are eternal because it is how the universe works and the universe is eternal.  Spirit is eternal. But all we are in this physical life is dust in the wind.  So now is all we have.  Enjoy it. No matter what. And for everything there is a season,and a time for every purpose under heaven. 

Your homework this month is to do an envy index. What are you coveting of others? What are you yearning for? What do you wish you had that you see another with? Then check yourself. Are you happy for that person? Or are you in a dark place of jealousy or anger even? And tell yourself the truth. Don’t beat yourself up - just be honest with yourself.  Then ask yourself why you are not taking a good look at your life and having gratitude for it.  Why haven’t you gone and got that thing you yearn after? Why are you stopping yourself?  It is not going to land on your doorstep unless you take action.  But sometimes we just have to take stock of what we have in our own life and cherish that before we can grow more good.  And if you desire something - use this time to plant and grow that seed. (listen to my April podcast on the power of intention) My partner and I are going to buy a house - it's a win-win as we can create a life together in a beautiful space free of any baggage of either of our pasts.  I can stop being jealous of his ghosts and we can combine our energies to co-create & hopefully turn his health around in the process.  And even if we don’t we’ve wasted nothing because we wove our energy together to manifest something both of us have always desired which is divine union and the sharing of a life on a team together. 

Alright as always if you need a little assistance in your process I can help with that! Reach out, let's get you creating the life you want to live. 

“When your determination changes, everything will begin to move in the direction you desire.  The moment you resolve to be victorious, every nerve and fiber in your being will immediately orient itself toward your success.  On the other hand if you think “this will never work out,” then at that instant every cell in your being will be deflated and give up the fight. Everything then will move in the direction of failure.  I want you to understand the subtle workings of the mind.  How you orient your mind, the kind of attitude you have, greatly influences both yourself and your environment.”  

This quote is from Daisaku Ikeda, former president of Soka Gakkai International, the largest and most diverse lay organization of Buddhist practitioners in the world. And it has been on or by my desk for at least 10 years. And I’m pretty sure that I first scribbled it down over 20 years ago when I first moved to Seattle, Washington in 2005.  Now after 13 years of studying esoterics and metaphysics it still rings true it just has so many additional levels of meaning and truth.  

Forbes Magazine recently stated that - “intention is a critical factor in achieving success…It provides a purposeful and strategic approach to navigating life's complexities and a guiding force propelling you toward a future of purpose, genuineness and success.” the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy shares that  Intention is “mental directedness towards objects, as if the mind were construed as a mental bow whose arrows could be properly aimed at different targets.” 

The key here that unlocks the Power of Intention is the alignment and purposeful direction of your thoughts and actions toward a desire that you really want to achieve in your life. A prerequisite then for this alignment is you must know for yourself what you desire. What do you really want for your life?  Where do your passions lie? What gives you a sense of true fulfillment? If you do not know what you want and desire in the heart of your hearts then it is really going to be hard to align your thoughts and actions to make that desire happen. And you never unlock the true power of intention.  

The definition of intentional according to Webster's dictionary is “Done on purpose; deliberate.” Synonyms include “Conscious, Willed and Purposeful.”  

In my esoteric and Kabbalistic training we are taught that the Magickian or Alchemist uses their imagination to clearly identify and describe their specific desire, and then they must set their intention, concentration and will upon the appropriate object.  None of this saying "Walk around your life like a zombie doing whatever everyone else says you should do.”  In fact, it is specifically the opposite.  Intention is “thinking ahead and making choices based on personal beliefs, values, and goals.”  Not acting on impulse, but planning ahead to choose things that create a positive impact for your life and the things you value. 

Okay, okay, Angel, you might be saying.  Great, be more positive. Be more intentional.  Those are great buzzwords but how do I do that? But that's just it.  I’m not telling you to BE MORE positive, or BE MORE Intentional.  That would be me “shoulding” on you.  Instead I’m giving you an equation that if you choose to follow it for yourself - your thoughts and actions will be the cause that results in the effect of an intentional life.  And that intentional life of thinking and doing on purpose with purpose will result in you achieving more of what you actually want, desire and desire, which will result in you feeling more fulfillment and joy and gratitude for what you have and have been able to accomplish.  Which will fuel more gratitude, and more ability to to be intentional.  It is a positive cycle of cause and effect which will in turn result in you becoming positive and living a more joyful life.  No shoulding needed. Because you will be doing it. And that is the most important thing. 

So let’s review the equation that allows you to unlock the Power of Intentional creation in your life. 

Step one and the foundational piece is that you need to get clear on what it is you want and desire in your life.  What do you really want for you? All studies and literature on this point to you identifying for you what brings you joy and passion. (not simply what brings you momentary pleasure) But what are your values, what gives you a sense of fulfillment?  What feels purposeful? 

Now if you are at this step (step one) and already stuck, don’t worry.  Start small. Identify a very short term clear achievable thing you would like in your life that you personally would feel good about if you accomplished.  This can be very selfish (or may feel selfish and that is ok, we have to start somewhere). So this could be taking a weekend trip to a place you want to see.  Or paying off a credit card. Balancing your budget. Cleaning your garage. Going to the gym two or three times a week. 

If you allow yourself to hear what you want to do for yourself the answer is there.  Feel out your desires, your intuition and higher self are telling you every day what you actually want.  Another technique to get there is to attend a meditation or listen to a meditation app.  This act of meditating is going to create space in your monkey mind as in it's going to quiet the noise so you can actually hear what your higher self is saying.  But meditation aside - just ask yourself what do I actually want?  And be honest with yourself.  Stop denying your inner voice and desire.  Listen.  You know the answer.  

You must get past step one in order to harness the power of intention.  You have to have an appropriate and specific objective to focus on.  A place to point your mental bow and arrow.  And you really have to actually want it or else you will not be able to focus on it or determine to create it or achieve it without desire. 

Once you have step one.  The thing you desire to achieve then you can begin step two, which is the alignment of your thoughts toward the achievement of the objective.  If you go back to season one episode two or three I speak to this.  The 4 worlds.  1. Idea 2. Thought 3. plan  4. Action.  This is always the path to intentional creation.  In this case Idea = Your desired objective (identifying what you want, specifically). Thought = alignment of your thoughts.  “I am going to create this and I am committed to taking steps to do it.  I am determined and won’t give up.”  Then 3. Plan!  Yes, what are the microsteps and daily intentions you are going to take until you reach what it is you desire?  What is your daily routine going to be?  How are you going to prioritize your time and perhaps even block your time to ensure you have the time to do the things necessary.  Then finally Action = which equals action is alignment with your thoughts and doing the things you have planned to do such that it results in the thing you desire. 

So, this is your equation to harness the power of intention.  Alignment and purposeful direction of your thoughts and actions toward a specific desired objective. 

Now, intentionality is a practice like any other skill. It will take practice before it is second nature and then it is never going to be autonomous programming/ habitual because it is specifically the opposite of automatic/without thought/habit/subconscious doing.  Because you are specifically choosing to be intentional and choosing a disciplined set of daily rituals to move your life in a positive direction and accomplish not only goals but personal development and progression.  

So, it is going to take the specific application of daily consistent effort, but it will be effort that brings you joy and satisfaction and stress reduction versus jogging on the hamster wheel of purposeless action.  

So, let me tell you about the power of intention. Once upon a time I was a very unhappy lawyer working in the corporate realm.  I believed in nothing woo woo like energy healing and I even thought things like power of intention or positive thinking were a pile of huey. I read the quote from Daisaku Ikeda (I was practicing buddhism at the time) and thought how nice it would be to have something to be determined about. I was stressed out, tired all the time and suffered from chronic anxiety and itching because I had a body wide candida infection and no idea.  The doctors I talked to were like “shrug. There is nothing wrong with you.  You must have chronic fatigue.”  I was 27 years old and tired of being tired. I had no purpose.  I had accomplished everything I was supposed to do in life (college, law school, a job in a law firm).  But as a reward I hated my job, was sick, bored and generally meh about the whole thing that was my life.  There was nothing I enjoyed doing besides drinking and listening to music with my friends - but that wasn’t making me happy or feeling any better. Then a friend introduced me to the practice I now do and teach in the Empower Thyself class & initiation.  And I completely ignored her for like 4 or more years.  Because I am a hard head stubbornly attached to my suffering like many logic and achievement driven attorneys I know.  But I eventually caved because I needed a change so badly.  And I saw a change in my friend who took the class.  So it couldn’t hurt right?  Well, it could.  I saw the loss of what I considered a crazy investment of money and time into some spiritual, mindful, wellness, blah, blah, blah, bullshit.  But I cringed and took the chance and invested my $ into the process.  And most of what I learned in that first weekend I dismissed as complete Fooey. How could daily affirmations and intentional statements and some meditations help anything I was facing?  I had medical problems and career problems and satisfaction problems.  But I did believe in testing things to see if they worked.  I paid for the class after all.  I might as well try what I paid for and put it to use.  So I started doing the daily rituals and asking for specific things to come into my life. 

And after a while (not overnight and not immediately, but over time) I started to see shifts, and started to be a little different.  One big change was that I started choosing to do things that I enjoyed for the sheer sake of doing them.  I really liked writing and traveling and food.  So I started a food and travel blog.  And I made an editorial calendar and I created content on that calendar.  I planned trips to create more content for the blog and because I wanted to travel.  My boyfriend/partner at the time thought I was being irresponsible and that Id turned crazy on him because I didn’t just stay home and drink wine and make him dinner anymore.  And eventually that relationship changed/ended because we became different people.  I chose then to move to a nicer big light filled house, and the toxic people in my life started falling away, and my health got better, and my boundaries got better, and I actually started being happy and finding purpose in working with people as a healer and as an attorney.  I started actually charging for my services in a way that brought me abundance so I could invest more in myself and in things I enjoyed and wanted to explore.  I started having opinions about areas I held expertise and I didn’t stress about it.  I stopped worrying about everything and what everyone thought I should do with my life.  Until eventually I intentionally decided to launch my own business and leave my corporate environment all together.  

But honestly the biggest shift was the daily investment in intentional choice.  I chose to do something every day and make small changes.  Then I grew the courage to start choosing things that I was passionate about instead of continuing on the path of SHOULD (what I thought other people wanted me to do, or what one should do to live a successful life).  Shoulding was killing me slowly.  Drinking and chronic purposelessness was causing me illness, not fulfillment.  So the biggest shift was the little shift in me identifying a passion and doing something that brought me joy.  Then taking baby steps to accomplish that.  Eventually all those microsteps led me to be able to make bigger choices about my life and find my actual purpose that keeps me going on a grander scale.  I can read Daisaku Ikeda’s words about determination today and understand hermetically with my actual life what he is talking about - because I am living purposefully and actualizing the Power of Intention in my life every day.  

But it all started with step one.  Me identifying something I desired and that I was passionate about.  So for our exercise this month that is your homework assignment.  What are you passionate about?  What brings you joy?  Not momentary pleasure. What is something that if you did it you would feel really fulfilled internally?  Not something you Should achieve.  But simply something that you want. You are going to delve into your heart of hearts and be honest with yourself.  You know what you desire.  Go inside and listen to yourself and figure it out.  Then write it down.  Articulate what you desire and specifically want for yourself and write it on a piece of paper.  Then bonus - do a vision board.  Make this desire visual so you are really clear what it looks like.  Because if you are really clear about it, and really want it, and are really passionate about it - you are going to have the motivation to align your thoughts to take action.  You will create a plan, even if that is baby steps you are going to take every day to achieve that thing.  You are going to focus your attention and will upon an appropriate object such to manifest it in your life.  And when you do you are going to celebrate it.  And maybe even tell me about it.  And if you are truly stuck - reach out! I can help with that!  Let’s get you on your path to purpose, joy and harnessing the power of intention. 

It is time to go down a rabbit hole, my friends. The Rabbit and the Hare are both symbols of abundance, fertility, the womb, the moon, rebirth, and the goddess - and in this month of Ostara (Vernal Equinox) and Easter, when I am releasing this 3rd installment of the 3rd season of my podcast in the 3rd month of the year the symbol of the triple goddess, the trilogy, and the triple rabbit known as the Triskele (spelled out T R I S K E L E) is front and center in my consciousness.  

The Triskele, the symbol of the triple rabbit or three hares, features three rabbits running in a circle and their ears join in the center to make an equilateral triangle. This symbol transcends religions found in Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and Celtic/Nordic traditions. It's found on a cave wall in China and drawn on rocks in Germanic and Celtic stones, and found within Christian churches in the British Isles. Like many symbols, it has been adopted by religion, but not really religious, as religion is really the new kid on the block - symbolism goes back much further into the primordial origins and archetypes of humans. Symbols are the sacred geometric building blocks of the universe - circles, squares, and triangles. All things are built on, and with these 3 shapes and sacred geometry is the stuff upon which all material comes into formation. I told you we were going down a rabbit hole and here we go - if you look at the Triskele in Celtic illustrations the rabbits running in circles are often replaced by spirals - the spiral is the Fibonacci Sequence and the pattern that fractals, flowers, snails, trees, crystal and all life grows in. In other words, the triple rabbit is the fibonacci sequence, the sacred geometric pattern of all life. 

So, my three rabbits running in a circle with a triangle in the center represent life itself. The kingdom of heaven is embodied in this flesh, for I am the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Amen. (singing a little) "Jesus Christ Superstar… do you think you are what they say you are?" I share this Andrew Lloyd Webber lyric to make a point - Jesus, our celebrated riser from the dead at this time of year (symbolizing the resurrection of the earth from winter and all the cycles of rebirth and fertility that come at the vernal equinox), DID know EXACTLY what he was and was trying REALLY REALLY hard to get the rest of us humans at the time to listen. We are spirit embodied in this flesh. The glory and power of divine energy is held within this physicality. Thus, all the power of a god to manifest miracles can come forth from within each and every one of us. Spirit is symbolized with a triangle, as is fire. The fire of alchemy, the transformation from muck to gold. From this mundane flesh to spirit. To be enlightened is to sever the attachment to this physical body, being ALL that we are and are meant to be in this life. Yes, our physical bodies are built from sacred geometry; just look at the double helix of our physical DNA and then at the glyph of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. But that just means our spirit is currently contained in our flesh, not that we are only this flesh and blood. 

Our journey in this lifetime, and what Jesus was trying to teach us, is that we can create miracles in our lives if we believe we are and choose to truly know ourselves as God. We need to know ourselves as divine beings capable of manifesting the life of purpose we want to live. But no one but ourselves can know yourself as this divine being. But once we choose to know ourselves as divine, as spirit, as a creator of our life - ignorance of our larger universal power cannot be taken away. The fundamental knowledge of the self as divine spirit opens the gate to the kingdom of heaven (not some place in the clouds with angels playing harps). Still, you reclaim your crown as the sovereign of your life and create a kingdom of joy, light, and abundance for yourself, your family and your community. And this is how we are going to create peace on earth. Like the church hymn. "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me."

Shambala is a world where humans have actualized themselves, awakened to the possibility that they are the creator God of their life and are living that daily. They are treating themselves as a God and thus treating others as a God. If you know and love yourself as a divine and worthy being, you can know and love another as a divine and worthy being. Even if that divine being makes choices that harm you. You can forgive those who harm you because they know not what they do. They are ignorant that they are God and that they are harming another god. They are ignorant that they have a choice in what they are doing.

Okay, some of you may now think I've fallen off my proverbial rocker with this rabbit hole. I've gone from three rabbits running in a circle to sacred geometry, Jesus Christ Superstar, and You are God. Yep—and now we are going to talk about the Easter Bunny. Jesus Christ, Angel. Yep, Exactly. 

In my research about rabbits and hares, in an attempt to find some creative take on talking about Abundance Mindset or fertility, I went down a small hole little road about the Oschter Hare, i.e., The Easter Hare or i.e., the Easter Bunny to which many today attributes to the myth of Ostara or Eostre turning a bird into a rabbit and the rabbit laying eggs to show its gratitude to the goddess. This legend is pretty recent (like the late 1800s), but as synchronicity would have it, one article I read quoted a story from an April 13, 1911, Warren, Minnesota newspaper. My mother is from Warren, Minnesota as was her mother and father, my maternal grandparents George and Agnes Sabol. My grandparents were both from prolific Catholic families with 12 and 13 siblings at once. They were farmers of the midwestern plains, stoic and practical - but seeing the date of 1911 I wondered if either of them (George or Agnes) saw the article when they were growing up and if either of them ever believed in the Easter bunny. Ironically, Warren is the name of a home for rabbits - I learned this as a little person reading Watership Down, which isn't a book for children. However, I was not a normal child, and I picked up most of what Richard Adams was lying down with his rabbit allegory. 

 The quote from the 1911 Warren, Minnesota newspaper article reads. 

"The Easter Bunny is said to have been a bird which at one time drew the chariot of the goddess of spring and was turned into a hare. Every year, however, at the coming of spring, the hare remembers and in commemoration of its original bird nature lays eggs as an offering to spring & youth that it symbolizes." 

I never really believed in the Easter Bunny, but I did enjoy the tradition of the basket and the chocolate that was found there on Easter Sunday morning. I'm still not a fan of Cadbury eggs to this day (too sweet) but Easter Candy makes me think about my grandmother Agnes and going to church. (I'd always stuff my pockets with easter candy when brought to church on easter, and the chocolate would melt and get all over my hands, to my grandmother's great dissatisfaction). My grandmother loved to sing hymns. I think when she sang in church, it was one of the few times she felt joy in her life - because at that moment, she could connect with God within and without and be in the light, free from the sorrow of a life pockmarked with abuse, alcoholism and pain caused by untreated stomach and emotional maladies. I loved to watch her sing even if I hated being in the church because I knew it was her happy place, and nowhere else was.  

I've spent a lot of time thinking about my grandmother Agnes. When you are a really young woman, and you watch one of your primary caregivers so miserable that they drink themselves to death, it sticks with you. And I know now that she suffered from the side effects of being sexually abused as a small child and other untreated trauma. But sorrow is not the only thing I learned from my grandmother Agnes. I knew the power of planting seeds and nourishing the world around you. She was a master gardener, and her plants were prolific. She was the living embodiment of The Empress archetype or the abundant mother goddess Lakshmi, as everything she touched grew abundantly, and she fed her family from her bounty. On an income of nothing but social security, my family never had food insecurity. There were vats of sauerkraut, beets, asparagus, fresh beans, carrots, tomatoes, radishes, lettuce, and raspberries all summer long, and pickles and canned things all winter. The men brought home the venison, and the women waited in line for government cheese and agricultural subsidies. We were financially poor but we were neither hungry nor lacking, ever. There was always enough money and prosperity to give to the church and to celebrate all holidays and birthdays. All of our needs were met.

And we always sang. Sang in church. Sang when picking the beans. Sang when making a lemon meringue pie. And when singing, she knew joy, and we always had enough. And this is true abundance - joy in knowing you are spirit, resting upon gratitude and celebration of what you have even if it is not perfect, even sometimes if it is very far from ideal. When we can have true gratitude for everything we have and celebrate it and our life, we can be in a space of true joy and flow abundance in all aspects.  

In some ways, it is just that simple. It is a rabbit laying eggs to celebrate spring and show gratitude to the goddess when it remembers it was once a bird. It is recognition that we are something way bigger and greater underneath this flesh. It is remembering who we truly are. We are spirit. We have never been born, and we will never die as spirits. And by remembering who we are we tap into the universal knowing, into the flow of life itself, and we start to create and love and experience joy - and thus take steps to nourish ourselves and others holistically - not just our physical bodies so we can step out of survival mode/lack mentality and instead see beyond lizard brain and switch into thriving/ abundance mindset where there is always enough. We run not away from things but towards things or for the joy of the wind in our hair or the feeling of using our legs where we gain the courage to create new pathways to plant new seeds in our life for new experiences versus settling for comfort zones.

So, our exercise for this month is to plant a seed of joy in your life and to celebrate an accomplishment to nourish that joy with song and dance. 

First, meditate and get clarity on one thing you want to create for yourself by August (1st Harvest/Lammas). You will have four months to nurture this seed. Write down what you want to create on a slip of paper. Now, take this piece of paper outside and find an appropriate place to plant it on the earth. You will dig up a little bit of soil and plant it, just like you would a natural seed. 

After you bury it, you will nourish that joy seed with the water and fertilizer of your song and dance. You are going to celebrate unabashedly with complete silliness around the seed. Sing your favorite song or hymn, or make up a ditty and dance around the joy seed at least three times. But I encourage you to do even more than 3, work up a sweat! Get into it! Make yourself laugh at yourself. Belt that song out of those lungs and celebrate life, what you have accomplished, and what you can do as a divine being. You are the creator of your destiny. You are the rabbit who can lay eggs because you remember who you truly are! Dance in that circle, nourish your joy and grow in abundance. You are the nurturer, the God, the goddess; you are the spirit! You can create miracles. The kingdom of spirit is embodied in your flesh. Dance it out. Make that seed grow, sprout, and blossom into abundance throughout your life. You got this. Have fun with it! Light that alchemical fire of joy in your heart. 

Well, I hope you enjoyed this little circle down a rabbit hole today, my friends. May you have a joyful spring, a blessed Ostara, a happy Easter, and a prayer-filled Ramadan. If you need a little assistance planting seeds of abundance and nourishment in your life, I can help with that! Reach out via my website and book a call today. 

“There are no happy endings in Love.  Because as long as love exists there is no ending but transformation. Love is the force that transforms eternity.”  Sovereign Ipsissimus Dave Lanyon

 (Angel singing all you need is love) “Love is all you need.” The Beatles

Yet, love is not enough for a relationship between two people to flourish. Long-term romantic relationships require effort applied to the appropriate object (the relationship) in order to work long-term. And the appropriate object is not the other person in the relationship with you - that results in the desire to change the other person, or fixate on them for good or bad, and it creates dependency on them like a substance. (now you want to love and care for and be kind to the other person but that is not the focus point of your effort when in a romantic relationship). 

So, let me backup for a second. Let me describe what I’ve learned about relationships hermetically.  Imagine that a relationship is a pyramid (a triangle). The two people in love and in relationship form the base of the pyramid so man and woman or man/man, woman/woman are at the two corners - then at the top of the pyramid is The Relationship. It is a 3rd entity, a “child” so to speak created by the two beings in relationship, through the exchange of masculine and feminine energies. The Relationship itself is an entity and it is born of the two making a commitment to themself and to the other to always better themself (because we are not perfect) and better the relationship (because its made of two imperfect beings - so needs effort and nurture and improvement of those two beings to thrive). The only way the relationship is going to work is if there is

1. TRUST - consistency of actions and repeatedly doing what you said you were going to do for and with the other person, and for and with yourself in relation to that other person.
2. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY - recognition that as a human being you are not perfect and that you are always seeing, hearing,doing things thru a filter of your mind/thoughts/programming and that you are going to do your best to acknowledge and take responsibility for your mind/thoughts/programming in all of their imperfections.
3. COMMITMENT - commitment to the relationship via the discipline of being a better individual through personal growth and development. Discipline to know thyself better and be better in the world through the positive actualization of your purpose. Finally encircling all of these, ideally there is a shared understanding of value in something between the two people - family, faith, spirituality, purpose. Maybe simply the recognition that all humans are just that, human, and we all deserve to be treated as such. 

Returning to the point - If you are committed to making yourself better because you Love yourself and respect yourself as a divine being then you can respect the other human in the relationship the same way, and then work with that person to nourish the relationship like you are raising a child. Resting this nourishment on the foundation of Trust, Honesty, Personal Responsibility, Commitment and Care - you can love and flow love in this cycle because the channel for that love to flow is held open by those foundational elements I described and the archway they create. (and if one of these elements is missing then like a dam the flow for your love gets blocked and the child/relationship will suffer).

If you can’t see yourself first as the central sun of your universe, making your own world with your thoughts, actions and perspectives, all of the foundational elements are challenged.  If all you see is the world acting upon you, standing in need, or in victim or blaming other people for not treating you right or giving you what you need, then you are not able to take responsibility for yourself as the creator of the central source of awareness in your universe. It is essential to recognize that every relationship with every single person, place or thing in your life starts in your mind.  It lives first in your thoughts and those thoughts are colored by that mind. 

So let me put a pause on the relationship between two people, for just a moment so we can understand this extremely important point.  First let’s just define what is a relationship period, and how relationships work in your life.  A relationship is simply a connection you have with a person, place or thing and it can be positive or negative. It does not require there to be affection, for example you can have a relationship with your car, your computer, your house, your city of residence. You can also have relationships with pets and with people - family, friends, colleagues, employees, your favorite barista.  And then you have romantic relationships with your spouse, lover, partner whatever label you choose and state of commitment you are in. 

Everything you do is in relationship and every relationship is colored by your thoughts and thus your mind (because this is Hermetic Principle #1 ALL IS MIND). It is an oversimplification but no matter where you go, what you have or who you are with THERE YOU ARE.  You cannot leave yourself out of any relationship, or else you would be dead and there would be NO RELATIONSHIP for you (you can have relationships with dead persons but that is a whole other topic for another day). You are the CENTER of your relationships not because you are the center of everyone’s universe but because you are the center of your own universe.  And all relationships with everything in your life first take place in your mind. Your thoughts affect every interaction and connection you have.  And these thoughts come from your mind. You act on what is inside your head for better or for worse. Thus, if we are going to improve our world and our relationships (which are our world) we first have to clean up our thoughts/mind so we can start to discern what really is going on inside us and thus truly see what is happening outside of us. In addition - how we treat ourselves is tantamount to how we treat others. So we have to take responsibility for how we love and care for ourselves, and know ourselves first before we can really know what it is to love another person, and understand better what is happening in the relationships we choose to make. And we choose all of our relationships consciously or subconsciously, we are 100% at the epicenter of every positive or negative relationship in our lives whether those are with people, places or things.  So the Key to us having healthy positive relationships (and a good life because our entire life is made up of relationships) is having a good relationship with yourself. Knowing Yourself. Taking care of yourself. Loving yourself. Taking responsibility for yourself. If you first know thyself - you will have good relationships with persons, places and things because you’ll realize that your external reality is a reflection of your inner reality (Hermetic Principle #2 As above so below, as within so without). And you will start to actualize the reality you desire to live in and experience actual joy and purpose.

OK so with that all reviewed let’s go back to the main event. My bold statement that Love is not enough for a romantic relationship to work. I’m definitely statistically accurate in the United States with marriages currently having a less than 50% success rate. But this is not a podcast about legal trends or even the cause of divorce (but I will note that the #1 reported cause of divorce is infidelity, The Destroyer of Trust, one of the 3 foundations necessary for nourishment to flow to The Relationship). 

Alright so if love, or loving the other person is not enough, what is?  Well that is just it. It is the focus of your attention on the appropriate object, and in the case of Your relationships what is the one common denominator?  You.  You must be committed to knowing yourself,  and creating positive growth of the self so that you are able to capably understand and discern that you are actually in a relationship, and be the person that allows that relationship to grow and sustain. 

Let’s use an overly simplistic thought example.  If you think “this person is harming me.” Then that is your reality. But are they?  Are they stabbing you with a knife? That would be objective harm. Are they saying no to a particular request? Is that NO harm?  Maybe you just do not like the answer and it “hurts” you in that you feel something you do not like.  But what is that actually?  Maybe they are preventing physical harm by saying no?  What is the objective reality of the situation? What if you analyze the inputs from around you, and within you, and acknowledge what is happening? Can you discern reality? Or are you experiencing a fact pattern that the negative ego mind is putting directly into a proof to make the other person wrong for their boundary i.e. saying no and because you don’t like this, you label it bad or harm? 

Now let’s take an example from my life. First I want to be really vulnerable about my life.

If you were to look at my track record of relationships you would see a pattern of me experiencing a pattern of major betrayals of trust.  One partner I have “loved” after another in my life has significantly lied to me, usually around a core issue of fidelity at major points in our relationship, or I have been left suddenly (in most cases because they chose another). I actually, until recently, had a lot of shame around this. I felt like there was something wrong with me. All I’ve ever wanted was a devoted partner to share this life with but all I found was one heartbreak after another. (long sigh)  Boohoo tragic me. That is until I owned the pattern as a reflection of how I treated myself. I was subconsciously setting myself up to fail by choosing relationships that would result in the very outcome my little person and anxious attachment abandoned me was trying to avoid.  It was me who kept leading myself to situations where I was ultimately going to be rejected, lied to, and/or experience infidelity. 

Recently, the universe delivered me the gift of having to start dating again. This time around knowing what I know now about my patterns I went into it promising myself I would not repeat what I did before. I was also going to be very aware of my past hurts and triggers and not project them upon anyone I am dating. Furthermore if I was going to date anyone they had to be on the same page about this and willing to and be able to communicate in the moment about thoughts, feelings and not take the process personally. But instead be willing to come to the table to discuss in the moment what happens between two people when they learn to relate.  Essentially, I was going to follow the formula I am sharing with you. Hours and hours of hermetic and spiritual training have been about overcoming this core issue in my life. I’ve achieved everything else. But this area I keep failing at. So with that lens of seeking someone first who was willing and able to communicate, in the moment, directly, objectively, and with the same desire of truly getting to know the other person for the sake of creating a long term relationship - I find myself practicing just that with someone. And as I continue to get to know him, things have come up that set off my anxiousness, my fear of betrayal, my fears of screwing things up, of being too much, of driving people away.  But the difference this time, when those fears come up, we have together created a safe space to share them, acknowledge what is happening in the moment, and inquire further where they are coming from. 

For example, in my life -  I called my new Significant Other and said I needed to go to Southern Florida to help my father, he mentioned some resources he had in that area, and without clarifying if he was actually offering them to me specifically - I heard it as an offer to help me with my situation. But we made no firm plans, like a date to go and use these resources. And then a week later when I was going to start confirming specifics he tells me he is unavailable as he had some serious health appointments he needed to go to. Two things happen at this moment for me - 1. A part of me was like OMG he made a promise and now he isn’t following through (siren alarm! Red flag! eep!) and 2. Why didn’t he tell me he had this health stuff going on? And then I paused myself from the emotional drama train and asked what actually happened? What objectively occurred? (versus what I thought happened)  What did you actually say in that conversation? Were you clear? Did I ask for assistance directly? Did you make any firm agreement to anything? And then as far as the health stuff, at our stage of relationship most people don’t get out their planner and just start listing off major doctors appointments coming up.  I didn’t tell him about mine, why would he tell me his?  Telling myself the truth, I had to acknowledge that there was very likely a huge gap between what objectively occurred and what I perceived. So instead of turning over the proverbial table in some sort of temper tantrum and playing right into negative emotions from old patterns and self sabotaging -  I chose the opportunity to learn how each one of us works better.  And that is how I presented it when we talked.  I started with telling him that I think I misunderstood something, and I wanted to know where that miscommunication rooted from, so that going forward it didn’t happen again. We came to a very easy and thoughtful place of clarity on what happened with no drama or erosion of trust.  Just the opposite. We now have a reference point for planning things together in the future. Which if applied consistently by each of us will create more trust.

Alright my friends, I hope you are seeing the necessity of self-clarity in your relationships. You can love someone but if there is no trust, no personal responsibility for your thoughts and programming, no commitment to working on yourself for the sake of yourself and the relationship then there is no container for that love to flow into, and the child (the relationship) will starve. Meanwhile, if you do not know yourself, if you do not love yourself, then you will not be able to discern what really is going on in your relationship with yourself, let alone your relationship with others. 

So, my exercise for everyone this month is just this.  You are going to look into the mirror every morning for the next 7 days and say “I Love You”  to yourself. Seriously, look into your own eyes deeply and say it.  I love you. Do it. Then repeat it. I Love You. Allow the words to sink deep into your heart. Then repeat it again. I Love you. Sit with it.  And do this every day for 7 days - in the morning, first thing. And if it is hard - then you know that you have some things to work on in your relationship with yourself. and I can help with that!  Reach out and book a call with me. Let’s get you on the road to being able to say “I love you” with ease and see how that self mastery blossoms into a bouquet of beautiful relationships with others. 

When we are born and take our first breath, our soul enters this physical flesh, and we become animated. We enter this density and forget what it was like to be a spirit. The only thing that keeps us tethered to that experience is our soul - and as we learn things from this physical experience through our five physical and spiritual senses, our experience as spirit gets further and further away. We start building many programs that display our personality and become masks we wear. We project ways of being upon ourselves like a drive-in movie theater screen. For example, if this happens, it means this is about me or another person. I'm not worthy of love because…, we can't have nice things, that way of life is not for me… or in front of my parents, I act this way; when dating, I'm this way; when at work, I am this way. You have so many autonomous programs and various masks. When you are an adult, you forget entirely who you are. You also get super attached to this rental vehicle of physicality (some of us call it a meat suit) we walk around in. We believe this is all there is - perhaps diving into hedonistic pleasures that physicality has to offer us headlong to cope with the sense that this is all there is. Drinking, eating, sexting your way through life, putting more in, in an attempt to fill the void in your heart where a sense of purpose should be. 

Or you may bury yourself under another identity - mom, soldier, project manager, content creator, influencer. I don't know whatever form of busy floats your boat and how you associate every aspect of yourself with that job or role. But you can't be that role, job, or version of yourself forever. The flesh gives out, our beauty fades, we get injured, we get fat, we lose our strength, our hearing, our sigh. Either way, our purpose can never be found simply in the job we do because we are more than this body and this physical experience. 

We are spirit. (Pause)

We have never been born, and we will never die (as spirit). But this physical body will most certainly die and fall away - that is the one certainty of this physical experience we are all having. Death. 

Wow. Angel. What a way to start out a new season of your podcast on a bright note. I am reminding everyone that they die. This is the truth, though. My job as an estate planning attorney is precisely this - I remind people of their mortality and get them to prepare for it so they do not leave their families a big, stinking, expensive mess when the physical inevitability occurs. It is never too early to plan, but it can always be too late. "if you are having trouble with planning, I can help! Feel free to shoot me an email for more information. Stay tuned until the end of the episode for contact info."

But the point of this podcast today is to talk about a smaller kind of death and rebirth. The type of death held and symbolized within the Rider Waite Tarot card (Death), in the Rune stone Eihwaz, and in the cycle of the Phoenix. Renewal through the conscious choice to let go of your shit. Flush it down the toilet and start fresh. Or the willing submission to the holy fire of transformation - by letting go of the old so there is room for the new.  

Let's briefly talk about the Phoenix in case you need to familiarize yourself with this mythological being. Per my Signs & Symbols sourcebook, the bird symbolizes alchemy because it is reborn for its ashes after voluntarily combusting. Keyword here. Voluntarily. There is a whole process - where the Phoenix goes around the world collecting aromatic wood, herbs, and spices so it can build its funeral pyre in a date palm tree. Then it lights itself on fire and is reborn upon the next day's dawn. 

While alive for 500 to 1500 years, the Phoenix persists only on aromatic wood smoke, thus not harming anything to eat. 

Let's focus on the voluntary submission to the purifying flames, thus bringing rebirth as an archetype for us to explore. More importantly, the ritual. The slow, intentional gathering of the right spices, wood, and herbs, building a nest in a particular place, and performing the act in a specific time-space order for the magickal creatures' transformation. What is critical to this ritual is the intention. The willingness to let go of one life/to die because out the other side is more beauty, joy, and freedom. 

Now, not every change/little death in our lives happens this methodically. We may be forced to renew an aspect of ourselves because something is destroyed or stolen or a relationship with a person ends suddenly. Proverbial band-aids are ripped off in our lives all the time. I lost a lot of things this last year - so many that a part of me is tired of being resilient - but I didn't lose myself. I found more of myself than ever in the process of losing. 

This last year, I found myself robbed in a foreign country, far from home. The violation of that theft and losing all my healing tools became a gift. This is how I approached death. Intentionally and purposefully, I released the attachment, giving me the power to be reborn, just like the Phoenix. 

It was late summer; I walked out the door of my hotel in Mississauga, Ontario, at 8 am and looked at the empty parking space where my Luna (my moon rock colored 2023 Toyota 4 runner) was supposed to be and thought, "Where is my car?!" 

Yes, My car was gone, not misplaced nor towed, but STOLEN!  

Can you imagine my heartbreak when I realized I was suddenly being given the spiritual lesson of "examining my relationship with my car." 

It has been said that "to affect reality, you have to acknowledge the actual reality of a situation."  

Interestingly enough, I had spent the previous two days listening to Sovereign Ipsissimus Dave Lanyon teach on the hermetic of relationships. Therefore, I was in inappropriate headspace to face the immediate reality that my car had disappeared. This isn't any car. This was my 45th birthday present to myself - and it was gone!

Along with a lifetime of collected tools in the lockbox and my suitcase holding all my gear for the "Warriors of Light Martial Arts Retreat" that I was headed to in a few days.  

Surprisingly calm, I returned to the front desk of the hotel, reporting my stolen car. Not being a citizen of Canada, I also realized I needed to learn how to call the police. I sent my friend ahead to class to let them know I'd be delayed due to car theft and set about calling the police, insurance, and Toyota to start the tracking of my vehicle - and then the realization of all the things I had lost began to trickle into my brain. 

A huge part of me just wanted to sit down and cry - but I knew denying the loss and getting angry about it wasn't going to change the fact that my car had been stolen. Based on the security footage shown to me by the hotel manager, the skilled and savvy thieves likely had it on a shipping container to Sudan. 

Losing my car was an extreme violation. Losing my Life Activation Wand was a heartbreaker. Losing my favorite "Trampled by Turtles" sweatshirt, my adored watermelon patterned dress, and my go-to sneakers was a HUGE bummer.

But I immediately and voluntarily surrendered to the things I had an attachment to - it was just that, THINGS. No amount of emotional theatrics and painful gesticulation would bring them back. I could shake my fist at the sky and call in holy hellfire upon the thieves and their descendants, but that just seemed dramatic, and I had things to do, places to be, and a life to live, which would be a major inconvenience.  

And at the end of the day, I was OK. I was OK, mentally and physically; no one had harmed my body or family or dog - it was just stuff. 

My colleagues were surprised at how calm I was. Luckily, for the next 3 days, I was in a class called "Know Thyself," where I got to meditate with Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed and make art. It was the best possible way to recover from this massive violation. 

I share this example from my life as my version of "The Phoenix Story" because although having everything stolen from me was not my choice, my reaction to the theft was my choice. 

And like the Phoenix, I submitted willingly to the transformation. And this is what made the difference, as it allowed me to upgrade everything about my life and healing practice, which was 100% because I intended to release the attachment and will enable the renewal to occur. On a brighter note, I got the red version of the car that I had initially wanted but had to settle for Moonstone gray. 

Change happens in our lives regularly. Deaths happen in our lives as we allow ourselves to evolve. If we get stuck on the old way, the attachment holds us back and causes pain & suffering. If we release the attachment - we can be reborn, fly onto greater heights, and experience joy from the process. 

So here is an exercise for you to embrace change and intentionally allow alchemical renewal into your life.  

First, identify and create a space to sit and meditate. It doesn't have to be perfect, just quiet, clear of clutter and debris, and in view of an altar. 

Second, create an altar if you don't already have one place, two white candles, a rock, a feather, and some incense, or a diffuser with the lovely essential oil you enjoy smelling.  

Third, which is a bonus rather than a necessity - collect some palo santo. You can purchase this at your local spiritual or earth magick supply store/crystal shop or order it from Amazon.

Now, in the intentional environment you have set up for yourself, light the candles, burn the palo santo (just a little bit so the smoke wafts over your face and body), burn the incense, or start your diffuser and sit and meditate to get clarity on the things you want to let go of, on the things you need to release.  

What are you carrying around as baggage weighing you down? Who do you need to forgive? (remember yourself). What past things are you attached to and sad about or experiencing some emotion that you can now do nothing about?

While you meditate, remember to breathe. Take deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. 

Just allow the information to come in however it does, and then after 10 min or so, journal what you have experienced. Write down anything that comes to mind. Allow it to flow from pen to paper so you ground the truth and reality of it for your life. You are taking ideas from thought to reality on paper.

Now, pick one or two of the oversized items and write them out on individual slips of paper.  

Then, identify somewhere safe to burn things. You are going to build yourself a little ritual fire. Take your palo santo, and find some dry cedar if it's available where you are. You could find some excellent wood chips that you'd put in a BBQ or cinnamon sticks and pine needles. Just make sure your little funeral pyre is aromatic and intentional to you.  

Then light it up! And place your phoenix papers into the fire. Use this purposeful ritual to release those things you are attached to so you can truly be renewed and refreshed and start anew.  

Watch everything in the fire burn and hold gratitude as you do. Therein lies your rebirth. 

You can do this exercise for any of the things you experienced in your meditation or for things that come up later. What is most important as a takeaway from this exercise is the choice to intentionally and voluntarily submit to letting go. That voluntary and intentional act is the energy that brings renewal. 

As I started this podcast sharing - yes - everyone dies. This is part of our physical existence. But so is listening to our soul, getting past the autonomous programming to remember who you really are - which is spirit. A divine being who creates their reality with their thoughts and actions.  

If this podcast or anything I've brought up intrigues you - or if you want to learn daily practices that can help you create your life more intentionally, find more joy, or get over your proverbial baggage. I can help with that! Reach out via my website, angellatterell.com, and book a call. Let's talk about the benefits of the Empower Thyself class & initiation and other means of actualizing what lies within you for the best and highest good!