Transmutation News March 2009
A couple of years ago Isis who is my spiritual teacher asked me to share a message with all my students and readers of the Transmutation News. She said that people doing their spiritual work do not have to ride the same wave as mass consciousness. As you evolve you do not have to get the same wake call as people who have not begun to do their work.
This is a message I have shared a few times on previous Transmutation News. As I watch my own life and the life of friends and students who are working on themselves I observe huge challenges that many are facing. And of course being on a spiritual path means going through the initiations that carve away at our ego so that we really can evolve. And these initiations do create little deaths in our lives that can be quite painful.
I decided to journey to Isis and to ask her what is one step that can lead to riding a different wave. My nature is I tend to be a step by step person. I like to look at the big picture when it is shown to me and then work with a step by step process to manifest my goals.
The word that Isis gave me that embraces the first step is “surrender”. Many of us have had to fight for physical and emotional health and well being. And there is a place where using our will and fighting for what we want is appropriate. And then there is a place for surrender. So once again we find ourselves dancing a paradox in life in not giving up on what we want and at the same time surrendering to our divine will which knows what is truly right for us.
Many years ago Osiris gave me the following message in a shamanic journey: “It doesn’t take real strength when one only uses will. Real strength is when one can open to the powers that be.”
It is impossible to be on a true spiritual path that leads to an evolution of consciousness when your life is ruled by your ego or thinking mind. So the dance that we must learn is how to hold a vision, for we need some kind of vision to fuel our creations and at the same time let go to our spirit which holds a bigger vision. And when we can surrender to our spirit we move into another level of freedom. I started to write about finding freedom in January.
During my 20’s and 30’s I struggled financially. I often did not have enough money to buy food or pay my bills. When I moved to Santa Fe in the early 1980’s my struggles only worsened. I worked constantly but could not pay my bills. I kept my Volkswagen van in case I had to move into my car. This was my only perceived security in life.
I often would wake up in the middle of the night and spend hours in the darkness worrying about how I was going to pay my rent. It was really painful, as many of you know this scenario. One night I woke up in the middle of the night and my worrying chatter started back in. My stomach was once again in a knot and something snapped in me. I got out of bed, and I spontaneously shouted out in my room, “I am not willing to spend one more minute of my life worrying about money. I am going to put all the energy I have spent about worrying about paying my bills into being the most creative person I can be.” It was like a magical moment in my life and I felt my world shift.
In that magical moment I gave up the egoic struggle and turned it over to my spirit. And my spirit knew how to create a life where I could be in service and at the same time not have such a struggle to survive in the physical world.
This is one example where surrendering to my spirit saw me through very challenging times.
Then later on in my life I went through a very tough emotional experience. And “the mantra” that pulled me through was, “The strength of my spirit will carry me through”. And it did. This was a theme of my book A Fall to Grace.
I could share more examples of how surrendering to my spirit, my divine will opened doors for many opportunities or got me through challenging times. But you get the point.
This month I would ask you to reflect on your life. Reflect on times when you relinquished what you wanted on an egoic level and surrendered to your spirit or what you might call a higher power. Write down some times in your life when good things happened when you moved from working from the little self or small will to giving up to your divine will.
Surrender does create freedom in our life. We don’t want to give up on our visions. We want to balance action and surrender. And finding the balance of where it is important to keep to our vision and where we need to release what our ego wants to our spirit is a dance of balance we must all learn right now. Our spirit can see a picture that we cannot always see from the perspective we hold. And sometimes surrendering to your divine can lead you to fight for something where you had previously taken a passive stance.
The key is when we can release our burdens to our inner spirit and inner creator we move to an enlightened state of consciousness and from this place we can ride a different wave.
Try working with an affirmation such as, “I release my life to my spirit/divine will and I ask that the next step be shown to me.” You can create your own phrase and wording. Try this and notice if you get a strong intuitive hit about how to proceed next in your life. Or you might find an unexpected opportunity being presented to you in your life.
Another aspect to look at in our lives is what energies we need to disengage from in order to ride a different wave.
Recently I made an emergency trip to the home of my mother who had become very ill. She is 94 and was battling a bad infection in her blood. Those of us close to my mother did not believe she would make it through. I would go to see her at the hospital and she was in a delirious and fevered state. She would say there was a party with people all dressed up in her room telling her it was time to go with them. And she refused.
One day those of us around her did not think she would make it through the night. So I decided to stay the night with her at the hospital and be with her if she decided to join “this spiritual party”.
I went back to my parent’s apartment to get what I needed to stay over at the hospital. And I was driving back to the hospital during rush hour. My parents live in a crowded and over populated city. The rage driving going on was amazing to me and I felt myself moving into the same state of rage of the drivers around me.
And I had to stop myself and remember that I was going to a very sacred event and make a choice to disengage myself from the energy around me that was so dense.
My mother made it through the night and made it through the infection. She is now home trying to get back to her life. But I learned many things during this adventure. And one of them was to be able to remember how sacred life is and make choices about what energies I am willing to engage in.
For myself one way I disengage from energies that do not feel “real”, honest, and part of the sacredness of life is to bless what I am in reaction to.
We have done work together to bless the earth, air, water, fire and the beauty of nature. We can also bless people and life situations that we are challenged by.
I have found that when I get angry at someone I bless them instead of spending hours of my day thinking about how angry I am. I acknowledge my feelings as we do in the work of transmuting and transforming the energy behind my thought and emotions as I wrote about in How to Heal Toxic Thoughts. And I have found that by blessing people and situations I am in reaction to stops my looping thoughts which takes energy from me throughout the day.
This month take an inventory of the energies that are draining you. Make choices about what energies you want to feed and what energies you want to disengage from. This is another aspect of riding a different wave. For the energies you engage in throughout the day will impact the state of consciousness you hold which ends up choosing the wave you ride.
The ultimate key to riding a different wave is recognizing that it is not what life brings you but how you react to it. And of course learning how to ride out the rocky and turbulent times is a work in progress.
March 20 is the spring equinox. Time sure is moving quickly. Take this day to surrender to the fire of your spirit to assist you in bursting forth into new life. Each seed holds a destiny and does fight to burst forth from the seed stage out onto the earth. But unless the seed is warmed by the spiritual fires within it does not have the fuel to grow. Trust the spiritual fires within that will fuel a life of beauty and creativity. Surrender to your own divine will.
To honor spring take some time to be out in nature blessing the beauty of the elements and all that they bring to you. Spend some time with friends and discuss some of what I have written in this month’s Transmutation News. Support each other in surrendering to divine will. Discuss with friends the energies you wish to feed and the energies you would like to disengage from. This brings us to freedom and to joy. And there is no better way to honor the earth during springtime than to feel joy. And don’t forget to find some time to play and celebrate as we welcome in this wonderful and fertile time of year.
One of the qualities of people who are devoted to service is that we tend to focus on others rather than ourselves. We keep seeing our spiritual community in their divine light. And this is so important as we gather our energies together to create change.
But we must not forget to honor our divine light. On March 11, the full moon, as we continue to weave a web of light that honors the earth and all of life let’s remember to honor our own light.
As we do our monthly healing in behalf of our global community make sure you focus on your divine light as you honor the divine light of others.
For those of you who are new to The Transmutation News please read the instructions for our full moon ceremony and for the healing of our global community on Creating A Human Web of Light on the Transmutation News page.
Denise Andes in Santa Fe shared a wonderful exercise that she does with her clients to smooth out the nervous system. And it fits in well with honoring your own light.
“Find an image of ‘wrapping’ oneself with a ribbon of light and expanding into that ‘wrapping’ to have the experience of being ‘held’ in love….a place that is full….a place where fear cannot exist.”
I thank Denise for sharing this for it is a lovely exercise.
Announcements:
In the January Transmutation News I wrote about a new workshop I am planning. And I did come up with a date in November. Here is a little bit of what I wrote in January and how you can get more information.
Working In Community to Thrive During These Changing Times
November 11-15 2009 (Wed dinner through Sunday lunch)
Bishops Lodge Ranch Resort and Spa in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Taught by Sandra Ingerman and Woods Shoemaker
For information on how to register please contact:
Ruth Aber at: aruthabelle@aol.com
I know the unlimited potential that can come from working within on the inner landscaping that is needed to give birth to the fruits of the world we wish to live in.
And I also know how much practice went in to what the ancient civilizations were able to accomplish.
I would like to work with a group who really is willing to commit to a circle to work with creating the inner landscape needed to give solid results in the outer world. The goal would be to learn the difference between the desires of the ego and replace those with our guidance from divine will. To really look at how we can concentrate our thoughts and words so that we can produce our desired goal. And to work together in full support of each other so that each person’s goals are exponentially met by the group’s energy. This means that we all need to work through together issues about how we compare ourselves to others and move into states of jealousy and envy.
Simply the group would commit to work with creation and manifestation practices as well as practices to truly use the power of concentration and focus where our thoughts are words are in alignment with what we want to produce. We will work with personal goals as well as healing for the planet.
The group will meet in Santa Fe for four days and then we will continue our work together through monthly teleconferencing.
And a yahoo group will be set up for those who want to engage in more communication and support. We will stay committed as an ongoing group.
I will lead most of the training with practices and ceremonies that I have written about in my new upcoming book How to Thrive During Changing Times (working title).
Woods Shoemaker, my husband, has a great wealth of tools to share. He will teach some light yoga and breathing techniques to calm and center the mind and body as well as teaching meditation techniques to access stillness and Source.
We will also spend time in contemplation and bonding in cooperation and collaboration as a circle. The work we will do is for ourselves and for the planet.
I am very excited about this work as I know in every cell of my being and my bones how much is possible. The group will be limited to 40 people. If there if enough for a second group I will schedule another time.
And soon I will begin to format an adaptation of this workshop that can be done purely through teleconferencing for those who cannot travel.
I would like for all of us to bless and give thanks to Claudia Felix Rodrigues in Portugal who has taken over translating the Transmutation News into Portuguese. Thank you for your service to our global community.
Soul Retrieval has just been republished in Brazil. It was published in Brazil years ago and went out of print. I am happy to have the book in Portuguese again. I of course am still looking for a publisher in Portugal. Resgate da alma: Reencontre os pedacos da alma que voce perdeu is now available in Portuguese through the publisher Vida & Consciencia.
Soul Retrieval has also recently been published in Greek and Hungarian. It is wonderful to share this important healing work in different languages.
Ross Lew Allen is a friend and colleague of mine in Santa Fe. He is a brilliant shamanic practitioner listed on www.shamanicteachers.com. I have known Ross for many years and he is an incredibly gifted artist and jewelry maker. He has a store in Santa Fe and has been known to introduce tourists to shamanism as they have browsed in his store.
Ross took a workshop with me last year where I had brought in different principles of How to Heal Toxic Thoughts. He has created a wonderful sterling silver “Toxic Thought Changer”. Its owner can send a powerful message with the moving part designed into the piece. You can move it with a sound or whistle as you catch a toxic thought and transmute it.
I love the one that I have. The pendant costs $52.00 which includes an adjustable leather cord and a handmade cloth medicine pouch. Shipping costs will vary depending on where you live.
You can purchase one by emailing or phoning Laura LewAllen at:
contactus@lewallenjewelry.com
1-800-988-5112
Last month I made an announcement about Bryan Flournoy’s site. I accidentally gave his email address instead of his website. So I am posting the announcement again.
Through the bi-monthly (publishing every two months) Workstation, Bryan Flournoy presents interviews from a pre-selected group of visionaries with a similar planetary focus, while emphasizing the importance of 'collective effort' through their articles and a virtual panel discussion. The Workstation launches February 15, 2009. Look for Bryan's interview with Sandra Ingerman along with others in the March-Spring issue bearing this theme, Transform the Outer World Through the Feminine's Inner Divine. Learn More... Visit: www.the-metatelepathic-clinic.com.
I also wanted to let you know about a new book by Dr. Judith Orloff, psychiatrist and author of the bestseller Positive Energy. She has now written a wonderful book Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life . The book shows how you can change your emotions, beliefs, brain chemistry and brain wiring. The book is published by Random House and is available now.
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