Monday, December 2, 2013

It all Begins and Ends with the Breath.

From the first gasping breath to the expiring exhale and each respiration between, it is the breath that propels every single solitary thing one does and thinks and is....

I breathe, therefore I am.

It is the difference between a fetus and a newborn. It is the breath, the first cry for love and attention and warmth and comfort and nourishment of all kinds that is the difference between the happiest or the saddest day in a parent's life. For the first few weeks all we do is watch our little ones breathe, check to see if their bodies rise and fall to the rhythm of Life, worry about all the millions of ways they could possibly stop breathing, and do everything in our power to make sure none of those things happen.

It is the breath that is the difference between sleeping with your loved one...
 and sleeping with a corpse.

It is the breath that involuntarily fuels the flame of our spirits, that connects our minds and our bodies and literally moves the blood through our veins. It is the breath that regulates the heart and the things of the heart; our thoughts, fears, hopes, dreams, ambitions, doubts, solutions, and facilitates the very ability to conjure up a meaning for any of these things.

If the breath is our LIFEFORCE and we breathe roughly 20,000 precious respirations a day - how much more can one do for one's self when one takes a few deep and meaningful breaths throughout the day?

In a previous post on Psychic Powers I briefly got into the connection between the mind, life, and the breath, but let us explore that concept further here:

In Sanskrit, Greek and Latin we find the definition of Breath is the Vital Force, the Psyche, the Spirit, the Wind and the Air. In the Bible it states that God spoke the heavens and earth and the mountains and the sea into existence and Genesis 2:7 says, that God "breathed the breath of Life" into Adam to create the first human creature....

The French word for the "mind" is l'esprit which looks a lot like the words spirit and respirate....

The words inspire and expire have two definitions - one dealing with New Ideas, Beginnings, Creation and one dealing with The Conclusion of an Idea, Endings, Death - the other definitions are the inhale and exhale of the breath, respectively.

In Maslow's hierarchy of needs the most fundamental to our existence is AIR.

The breath connects us to the present moment. It cools our anger and allows us to make a better decision. It helps us focus on the task at hand. It delivers us to our inside self when we seek an answer not easily found.

As if a perfect reflection of our existence, the breath resembles the ebb and flow of the tide, the phasing of the moon, the daily and bi-annual journey of the sun across our sky and horizon...

The breath, by its very nature, is the answer to all things.

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Here are two Breath Exercises for you to try:

For Balance - using your right thumb to close your right nostril and your right ring finger to close your left nostril, begin by closing your left nostril and slowly inhaling through your right. Stop at the top of the inhale for a moment, release left nostril while closing right nostril, exhale through left nostril. Now inhale through the left nostril, stop at the top of the inhale, release and exhale through the right nostril for one cycle. Repeat 9 more cycles and reap the benefits of balance!

For Sleep -  using your right thumb to close your right nostril and your right ring finger to close your left nostril, begin by closing your left nostril and slowly inhaling and slowly exhaling through only your right nostril. Do this ten times total and notice how your thoughts change. Now switch nostrils. Slowly inhale and slowly exhale through your left nostril while holding your right nostril closed. If you can get through 5 cycles of this without falling asleep, call me!

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Everything In Its Own Time

I've been doing a lot of living and not a lot of writing.

Part of the trouble is that these two things often happen in different tenses.

The other trouble is that writing requires the kind of hindsight that only time can bring...


The challenge now is to write and live at the same time.
To abandon the verb-tense agreements and not reconsider my actions through the perfect lens of time and distance and change.




Maybe it's the transitional season that is Fall - maybe it's the recent death in the family...
Maybe it's that Mercury is in retrograde again or residue from the last full moon or
the fact that it's my half-birthday....


It's probably all of the above, none of the above, some combinations of the above and
additional things that I'm either not listing above or considering.


In the midst of so much change - one thing remains and continues to fill my heart with hope
and love and ambition:

I love Los Angeles. The more I explore this amazing city and its inhabitants, the more in love I fall.
Every botox job gone awry, every implant, every expensive vehicle and every snotty transplant that
thinks their East Coast town is soooooo much more genuine than LA -
(the number two market in America and home of our country's number one export: ENTERTAINMENT) - every pothole, asshole, and hole in the wall inspires me to be present, move forward, and maintain my strong sense of self.

I am grateful for new challenges, new chapters, new days, and new ways of seeing and being.






Friday, April 5, 2013

Plan Your Month (LIFE) with the Moon....

http://www.astrograph.com/learning-astrology/phases.php


Here's an easy-to-read-and-understand guide to the moon's phases.
It might help explain what's happening and why;
and give you a better idea of how to make the most of the
inevitable changes brought about by Moon.

Imagine being in a tribe of about 25 or so people on the night of a New Moon.
Huddled around the fire all is well, but beyond y'all is Infinite Darkness of Nothingness.
The landscape is invisible and full of every possibility that only The Void can bring.
Enveloped in the Black Womb of Creation and Destruction you know Fear and Hope
it is the Beginning and End of All Things.

....Before God said, "Let there be Light," there was first
the Deep Dark Nothingness from which Light and Life spring forth.

Now imagine a couple weeks later when the Full Moon
lights up your whole world and everything that was once hidden
around you is illuminated and nothing is unseen or unknown.
It is as if the Sun is out at night and you can run, jump and play
through the night without doubt or fear...there's an obvious correlation here.

Moon controls the very tide, it is by the Moon that we plant and harvest.
By the Sun we are given Light and our ever-changing Night Light....
Yet Moon reminds us of the Feminine in Her Constant Change, guiding
the Ebb and Flow of Humanity...Moon reminds us of the Breath in Her Full Moon Inhale
and Her New Moon Exhale and each and every phase of the waxing and waning
process....Moon reminds us of Life in Her Brightest Moments and Darkest Hours.

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It's always been a dream of mine to go into space and to the moon.

Would you go to the Moon?
Do you have any Moon rituals?
Do you notice any personal patterns that go along with Moon's phases?
Do you only think about the Moon once in a Blue Moon?




Thursday, April 4, 2013

The Principle or The Vision?

Once I asked my Dad...

"Papa? What's more important; the principle or the vision?"

He considered it for just moment and responded:

"The Process."

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And I'm certain that it's both.
...and either and neither all at the same time and never....to varying degrees.

It's a beautiful ballet and a brouhaha of sticking to your principles, maintaining the vision, and committing to the process that brings about the greatest and most satisfying things in life.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Religiously Spiritual...

Lotsa folks these days are saying,
"I'm not so much religious, I'm spiritual."

Well that's fine and dandy, but I find that I'm
very religious and quite spiritual.

Rites, rituals, celebrations, formalities, ceremony...
all of this facilitates the spiritual experience.
Otherwise, how would we know when the Spirit of God was falling or not?

Can we even tear the two apart?

Can we be religious without being spiritual
or spiritual without being religious?



Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Psychic Powers

There are at least three things I genuinely BELIEVE without any proof other than personal experience:

1. All the answers are found within.
2. One can heal one's self of any dis-ease.
3. We are all psychic.

Let's discuss number three....

The word, "psychic" conjures up in us images of old women dressed up in gypsy garb smoking cigarettes with long, bedazzled fingernails staring into crystal balls. Or the sight of little white houses glowing their neon brilliance sprinkled along Venice Boulevard, each one promising to know something about you that you don't already know...and tell you all about that preciously unknown future of yours.

That's not what i'm talking about.

I'm talking about when you know that the phone's about to ring.
And you know who it is, and why they're calling.
When you know something's amiss.
Déjà vus and flash-forwards.
The instinct of your gut.
Dreams that come true.

All of these little seemingly insignificant *tings* going off in your atmosphere are your psychic cords vibrating from the energy to which it is connected. Is it that you can sense when your mom is about to call you, or does your mom call you because you thought of her first? It works both ways.

There's also the statistics side...if your mom hasn't called you in a while, the chances of her calling at anytime increase exponentially according to the normal frequency of her phone calls. Those statistics play an enormous role in psychic ability - especially in deciphering and eliminating what is NOT probable.

What I find fascinating is the inexplicable element of psychic ability that makes your mom call you at the exact moment you need her most....When you trust your gut about something that you don't really want to trust your gut about - and it turns out you're right...When your flash-forward becomes your déjà vu....When your dreams become your reality...

I believe each and every one of us possess this power to some extent...and like most things, it is improved with practice.

So, how does one go about practicing psychic ability?


FIRST, A DEFINITION:

PSYCHIC:  /ˈsīkik/
"Relating to or denoting faculties or phenomena apparently inexplicable by natural laws, esp. involving telepathy or clairvoyance." - Google.com

Its etymological roots are in the greek word, "psyche" which means Soul/Spirit/Mind and Breath which is essentially Life. Being psychic is as natural as breathing, it's happening constantly....but when you focus on it, that's when the magic happens. Omniscience and Acceptance - Becoming One with Everything. And Everything Begins and Ends with the Breath/Soul/Spirit/Mind....this connection is imperative to understanding how Psychic Ability works.


TRACK THE EBB AND FLOW

To begin to capture your moments of psychic power, realize that everything cycles, ebbs and flows, swings back and forth, and circles back around. Some days are more psychic than others, some weeks, months, seasons and years are more psychic than others, and some are less. Keep track of your psychic experiences and enjoy the ebb and flow of your abilities. Often, deficiency in one area begets proficiency in another; and vice-versa. Shall I go into the long list of clichés, lore, history and personal accounts that support this statement? How about this one:

Once I began to keep track of my own more profound psychic experiences, I was able to realize that my most effortless, powerful, potent, psychic moments occurred a few days before my period. From the mundane to the profane, I am omniscient just before I bleed.

Keeping track helps build trust in your abilities and gives you the unique chance to maximize those days or weeks that are most potent for you, and to truly enjoy the ebb; the darkness of not knowing....inevitably, something is stirring in that darkness that will soon come to light.

GET SOME PEACE AND QUIET

Quiet is imperative for learning to navigate the inner self - the connected self. When you pass through all the little millions of thoughts and feelings, memories, plans, hopes, fears - all these nameable things that are just layers upon layers of nouns, verbs, and adjectives that cover over the unnameable, you are able to reach the source of your feelings, the place that holds your memories, the spark that ignites the plan, the flame that fuels the hope, the lack that perpetuates your fears. Once you pass through those layers of noise, the quiet of your heart is able to be heard.

I'm not saying that the only key to success is to rise early every morning and have a personal quiet time, I am saying that my best days and weeks are the days and weeks I've chosen to have a personal quiet time at the beginning of my day....and my psychic ability shoots through the roof as a result.

And there's a beautiful stillness to the early morning...less frequencies to sift through....

Do I really need to say that we are inundated with noise these days? You know it, I know it; we're living in a noisy, busy, modern world, man....and ya gotta find some quiet if you're going to sort through all the excess buzz to get to the core of things unseen, unheard, and unknown.

PAY ATTENTION - EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED

If you double-take on a person or object, take note. If you feel an inclination to pray for someone, or even if a random person flashes across your third-eye, take note. If you "get a feeling" about something - investigate! Follow up on your gut, your instinct, your sinking and soaring feelings.

You've got your entire ancestry tucked into your cells, think about your grandparents and great-grandparents and ask older family members about their psychic abilities. Your people have done centuries of work for you already, tap in and find your heritage!

Perhaps your psychic abilities are more concentrated on your family or friends, or even strangers. Maybe you see auras or detect danger or heal people from a distance without them knowing, maybe your dreams tell of a future near or far; whatever your ability, start to make the bigger connections from the seemingly unconnected world that surrounds it - remember, you get the information from somewhere, it's how well you're able to connect the dots that form the clear picture.

ACCEPT WHEN YOU ARE "WRONG" - YOU'RE PROBABLY NOT ENTIRELY WRONG

Not every single piece of information is available all at once. Sharpening your skills includes being wrong about something...in order to find out what you were right about...and where your feelings or imagination went off the course.

Perhaps you get the feeling your mom is about to call you and then your dad calls. Close! Consider the strength of your psychic cords with your dad, are they weaker than with your mom? You can easily reinforce and strengthen those connections by opening your mind and heart to the rhythm and frequency of your father, by asking him more questions about his day, or even just thinking of him more often throughout yours. Place a photo of the two of you together in a place where you'll see it every day. Next time your dad calls, you'll know it before it happens.

ELIMINATE THE THINGS THAT DUMB DOWN YOUR ABILITIES

For me, Sugar is my Kryptonite. So is lack of sleep, anger, and falling out of habit with my personal practices...plus all the other things in our world that dumb down our psychic abilities.

If Psychic Connection is about tuning into frequencies and strength of signal, consider how many more frequencies we're dealing with these days than ever before; Seven Billion People on Earth, a good chunk with one or two or five personal mobile devices, radio, satellites, TV, Wi-Fi, iPad, Hi-Def, wii, microwave ovens, podcasts, refrigerators, remote controls....Sifting through all them-thar frequencies requires a bit of extra effort...is it any wonder we've such infantile adults and distracted, mindless children roaming our cities, suburbs and towns?

Figure out what blocks you from making the connections - is it the barrage of commercials bouncing around your dome? Is it the worry about paying your bills? Is it Fear of Knowing more than you already know? Only you know your own limitations and only you can eliminate those mental blocks.


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What are your psychic abilities?
When are they most powerful?
When are they least powerful?