Masking and UNmasking

Isn't it interesting how the masking and unmasking we do at costume parties mirrors what is going on in the world around us? The green leaves that sprouted in spring and came to fullness in summer now turn colors and fall to the ground, leaving only the skeletons of the trees contrasted against the sky. 

During the year people see us in different ways. One mask might be our professional status, the face which others see as we present ourselves as skilled individuals. Another face is our personal self where we engage in our relationships, hobbies, activities and other pursuits. Then we have our spiritual persona where we follow our spiritual path or our religious rituals. 

Yet, at the heart of it all, there is simply the person who embodies all of this. Where others may see only one of these aspects of us, few see all of them. 

Standing in our sacred space, reflecting on our place in the world, we choose which aspect of our persona we choose to present next. Consciously choosing what is next we may emphasize a different aspect of our professional practice, relationships, avocations and spiritual practices. 

So the metaphor of masks at parties reveals truth. The characters we choose to inhabit for an evening at a party is a playful way of trying on some other character or characteristics that we wish to experience. 

The masks we wear may be revealing the truth of the direction we desire. Yes, I know that one thought may be that this is only an evening's entertainment.

Now look again, for there is a root of truth that appeals to us when we choose to read the same kinds of books, the same kinds of movies and are fascinated by the same kinds of stories over and over again. There are common threads that appeal to our sense of who we are and what kind of world we want what kind of life we want, how we would like to see ourselves as a person. 

Masking is a way of looking at the world through different eyes for a while and letting others see us differently for a while. As we all have experienced, this can be very enlivening and enlightening. And that is why we look forward to doing it. 

Knowing this about ourselves is revealing of inner truths as we enjoy our revelry. Knowing this about Halloween is like appreciating the difference between soul cakes and trick or treat.

You see in the old days, at Halloween, visitors would come to visit and sing songs, say prayers or tell stories about those who had died this year and the hosts would offer them soul cakes and drinks in appreciation. The Celts called this day Samhain and it marked the beginning of winter. They would also set a place at the table for the person who had died, and this was called the dumb supper.

Ironically, in a far a way country which we now call Mexico, on that very same day of the year, the Celebration was called La Dia de Los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead. And on this day too, the dead were honored with their favorite food and people told stories to remember them and wish them well on their journey into the next world, and like the Celts, they also bake special breads just for this holiday.

In both cases, the honoring of the dead was also a celebration of life. The Day of the Dead prominently features skeletons dancing, affirming that life goes on on another level. 

So the sweetness of life and the recognition of the various levels of self that we consider on this holiday offers a great insight into what life means to us, how we see ourselves and the impact we have on others. Masks and treats of this holiday are other aspects of self hidden in plain sight. And the pleasure is that all of this can be enjoyed with a great deal of fun, illumination and imagination. It is delicious, isn't it? 

Celebrating the M Days

May is the month of M days. After kicking off the month with high spirited Mayday Maypole dances, the month then brings us Mother's Day and we wrap it up with Memorial Day.

With each of the M days, we return to the heart of matters. Each of the three M days is about heart. We begin the month with exuberant energy pouring off us, dancing for what we really want. It makes a difference. When we work up a sweat going for what we want, we are following our heart's desires. Is it even possible to work up a sweat for matters that we do not really care about? So we work up the energy to bring our dreams into reality.

Mother's Day is an opportunity for us to express gratitude to our mother. The purpose is simple yet profound. You don't really have to buy anything to express your feelings. It is simply taking the time to do so. As we examine our own story on this planet in this lifetime, lessons can be derived from the story of our mother and father. Reflecting on this story and the related stories can be useful in sharpening our vision of our own future. When Mother's Day is an opportunity to tell stories, there is an opportunity for enlightenment.

As we wrap up the month with Memorial Day, we give honor and pay our respects to those who have died in war. Begun as a day of healing after the Civil War, it was later expanded to include those who died in all wars in which Americans were involved. Then it also expanded generally to remembering our dead. It was a natural progression. I suppose many people who were going to the cemetery to place flowers on the graves of military veterans also figured it would be a good time to stop at other family members graves.

Memorial Day is a potent holiday because of course, we cannot conjure up the memories of wars without also bringing up feelings about why we ever got involved in those wars. I have hope that in the future we will be much more reluctant to go to war and much more skeptical of those who urge us to do so. Of course, I, like John Lennon, imagine different futures for us all.

In fact, those of us who are seers have accepted the challenge of seeing things differently, of being able to interpret the stories differently, of being able to see what others are missing. It is what we agreed to do with our abilities.

We do not always want to see what we see, and sometimes we do not like what we see, but as seers, we take a look and then report back to the one who is asking us questions.

It is our nature to like questions. I started out by picking up a deck and asking myself what can a deck of cards do? I started doing energy healing on others because I asked if people really could do that. I started to learn about past lives after I asked the questions about whether it was real and whether it mattered. I found the answers to the questions were extremely gratifying.

And here we are, celebrating the magnificent M days in the month of May.

So do a little dance to energize your dreams. You can start right where you are. Right there, in the privacy of your home, move around to call to your spirit guides and send your intentions off into the universe. Funny how the whole world seems a little brighter when your clear intentions are empowered by energetic movement. Signal to everyone that you are ready to get moving.

And if you enjoy dancing with other people, there are always places to go and do that too. Take time to reflect, then get up and move, stirring up the energy that will advance you in the direction of your dreams.

Cosmic Do-Overs

Karma or as others call it, fate, is often hidden in plain sight.

Consider the obvious fact that we are here. Sometimes people think that we need to rise above the sensory experiences of our bodies to get to some etheric level that they envision as floating somewhere above this physical world.

No, I don't agree. We are born into these bodies because they are the best vehicles for us to learn our cosmic lessons. There is no better place for learning cosmic concepts or applying them than right here. That is why we are here.

And I certainly believe that the fact that we have these bodies means that we were created to experience them to the fullest. As long as we are here, make the most of it.

All the greatest and most delicious parts of the human experience are right here, along with the worst and most odious aspects.

Reincarnation is a gift. We get do-overs. Those of us who still have lessons to be learned get a chance to do them over.

When we truly appreciate our bodies and enjoy the experience of living here, that is the best method of appreciation for the opportunity we have been given.

If there were some better place for us to be, wouldn't we be there?

Look around. Look at your self. Look at your life. What would you like to get out of your experience inhabiting this body next?

You know for sure that it is some kind of cosmic do-over. You don't have to wait until after you die to sense ways to answer this question. We get multiple chances to get a taste of it within this lifetime we are living.

Maybe the fist step is to have gratitude for being here in this body instead of thinking that we need to rise above it.

Surrounded by Symbols

This season, more than the rest of the year, is more laden with evocative symbols than any other time.

How familiar are we with evergreen trees, holly wreaths, mistletoe? What about the New Year's symbols of the baby and the grim reaper? The witch at Halloween? The cornucopia at Thanksgiving?

We speak in this shorthand all the time. We know that a red diagonal line through anything means no. We know that thumbs up means yes. We know that a person who opens their arms is welcoming us and one who crosses their arms is not. We know that a colon and a half parenthesis is a smile. :)

Symbols have been part of our lives since before we had fully formed language. Primal ones that we have found, like the ancient cave paintings, are as emotive as many more finely drawn paintings, and carry a powerful amount of energy in a few spare lines.

There are systems to symbols, and some, like the runes or the I Ching hexagrams have an interesting way of fitting together and interlocking visually.

Others, like the system of tarot, have a way of interlocking conceptually, and although they are visual in themselves, they cannot be as compact as abstract forms like runes, or the hexagrams of the I Ching.

Some symbols are so emotionally charged that their mere appearance sends chills or rushes of joy, depending on the sign, without anyone saying anything or any accompanying literature.

Obviously, some symbols are references to ancient beliefs and feelings and some are purely modern inventions of convenience which may or may not last. With some symbols we have near universal agreement, but with others not.

We bring our own interpretations to symbols as well as recognizing traditional meanings. This is why two people can look at the same picture and have two very different experiences of it.

And this is also why this is such an emotional time of year for so many people. We are surrounded by symbols and they can convey a host of messages to us faster than we can digest them.

Here But Not Here, Gone But Not Gone

At times of transition, our minds sometimes let us fade in and out of consciousness. Not that we are blacking out, or anything like that. For example, I have moved a number of times in my life, but lived in Atlanta longer than anywhere before I moved to Colorado, and every once in a while I find myself saying that I have to drive into Atlanta for an event tonight.

Of course, Denver looks nothing like Atlanta, and I know I am here, not there. But when I am in that in between state, what is connecting is that I am going in town, and for a long time, that's what it felt like and looked like. Before I get in the car and actually go there, I might actually think I am going there. But then once I am out in the car, the familiar sights remind me that the Atlanta part of my life is gone, but not gone.

It happens like that with people in our life too. Sometimes after the death of someone we knew for a long time, we find ourselves thinking that we will be going over to see them one day soon and then we remember that they have already gone.

When we are used to getting up to go to work at the same time every morning, and then that changes, we find ourselves getting out of bed thinking we need to hurry up and make coffee and get dressed, and then we remember that we don't have to leave or go anywhere right now, and then we can think about what we want or need to do today.

People who have recently ended a relationship can also experience these feelings when they think about going somewhere, and for a moment their memory slips and they picture themselves going with their old partner or being with their old partner.

It is as if our bodies have memories of their own and they remember certain experiences so well that they can still recall a presence that is now gone. It is as if our bodies hold on to these old memories until they are replaced by not just newer, but more powerful, memories that occupy more of our consciousness.

Even then, the lingering memories of what used to be still have a powerful grip, whether we call it nostalgia or sentimentality or romanticism, those powerful memories will never be completely gone as long as we live in those bodies that experienced them.

I have a theory that medical experts may not agree with, and it is this. Although I know that Alzheimers is a degenerative disease that affects the mind, I also know, in the psychic way of knowing that sometimes people will choose to slip in and out of consciousness, and sometimes allow themselves to feel here, but not here, as they recall some more pleasant moment of their past.

I think people sometimes choose that blissful state of here but not here, gone but not gone.

Let me be clear that I am not saying that people can just will themselves out of Alzheimers. I am just saying that even those of us in good health can sometimes allow ourselves the pleasure of slipping in and out of different states of consciousness.

When our energy ebbs and flows in those in between times we may be walking between the worlds, as it is often said of shamans. We are simply enjoying a feeling whether or not it is actually accurate, it may be feeling accurate. When we have a pleasant thought, our body experiences that as if it were happening.

That between the worlds state seems to exist between the highs and lows. There are times when that level of consciousness feels as delightful as anything we might have deliberately cultivated, but it is even more enjoyable because it just comes, without being summoned. There is a flow to it.

Without trying too hard, in fact I will say because we do not try too hard, we find ourselves in a euphoric state that feels effortless. We can be walking between two worlds when we practice being here, but not here, gone but not gone.

Closure

Sometimes there are chapters of our lives that cry out for the proper ending. We feel incomplete or out of sorts unless we can put things in perspective through some word or action that lets us feel that we have completed our work in that part of our life, or said what we really wanted to say in order to let go and move on.

For lack of this aspect of completion, a person could walk around feeling ill at ease in their own skin. Until they reconcile their feelings with what happened, they often may be out of sorts in their dealings with others who had nothing to do with the reason for their upset.

Of course, it is best if you can reach this closure with people in real life who were involved in the events or situation. That is often optimal.

However, sometimes, the person with whom you would like closure is dead, or lives far away, or for other reasons you choose not to contact them.

In that case, closure can be done ritually, through special ceremonies. In one case, I assisted a woman who needed to put to rest her grieving over a miscarriage that had happened a number of years earlier. After the ritual, she found peace with that issue for the first time in years.

In another case, a person needed to release a grievance over an injustice from years before. In another case, a person simply wanted a meaningful ritual to say farewell to a parent who died when they were not there.

I was also present one evening when a person performed a ritual act to signal closure to his old career.

When we do such things, we can experience a feeling of peace that we have acknowledged that a significant part of our life has ended and we say farewell to that as we prepare to begin our next chapter and set out on our next adventure.

Is there an area of your life that you feel needs closure? Have you ever thought about addressing that in a ritual context?

It is a powerful and life affirming act. It can also help us draw wisdom and compassion from those life lessons.

This is a powerful form of alchemy and an act of magic that we perform to transform sadness into a creative force, and bring peace from chaos, to bring understanding and compassion from confusion and hurt.

If you have a feeling that such an act of closure is needed, then the time is now. There is even love among the ruins of what once was, and that is always left to the gleaners who know how to find value and nourishment in the parts that have been left behind.

And it is always the survivors who are the beneficiaries, although the ghosts will often take the ritual as their cue, and take their leave, finally breaking their earthly bonds and moving on. Ghosts are not just spirits of the dead who have not crossed over. Relationships and careers have ghosts too, and sometimes these cast long shadows, until our fires cast enough heat and light to burn them away.

Is Your Mask and Costume Temporary or Permanent?

Right now, the weather feels perfect for the mood and the time. Leaves are turning colors, it has been a bit rainy and overcast. Samhain and the Day of the Dead are approaching, and our thoughts turn to wishing those who have crossed the veil a good journey into their next phase of life in the spirit world.

That task is one that feels so right to do. It is good to honor those whose company we have enjoyed in this life. It feels like something we need to do in order to move on and let them move on.

Of course, the mood is not all somber. There are fabulous parties where people create costumes and masks and enter into the altered state induced by the trance of the change in appearances. For that brief time at costume parties, we get to be someone else and see how it feels to view the world from a different perspective and have the world see us from a different perspective.

In these brief windows when we don masks and costumes, part of the persona that may be kept hidden much of the rest of the time, suddenly is brought out to play. There are dreams that lie dormant most of the time, when we want to be someone who lived in a different era, a different world, played a different role.

Sometimes, these expressions are nothing more than a flirtation with a fantasy, but then there are times when we can make these our reality.

If you can imagine a different life for yourself, that is the first step to realizing it. So is your mask and costume representing a temporary or a permanent change?

The Living & The Dead

This week someone asked for my help because a person they knew had been missing for several days.

After visiting places the person had been, touching some of the things he had worn, and then reading using the pendulum, tarot cards and runes in addition to just tuning in, I got a very clear hit that the person was dead and that it was violent, not a natural death.

Of course, this is not the message that his friends were hoping for. Yet, I sensed a sigh of relief as well as sadness.

The woman who was close to the man who was missing later confided that she at least felt free to accept the truth rather than stay stuck in the hope that he would return and that everything would be fine. Once she was able to be open to the other outcomes, she was able to begin her grieving process instead of being stuck.

Today, my reading was confirmed. He is dead and it was not a natural death.

Readings of this type and rituals for those who have crossed over are for the benefit of those who are living, the ones who are still here. Of course, we wish the spirits well on their journey, however the solace is most necessary for the survivors.

When people ask for the truth in a reading, it may or may not be easy to accept, depending on the subject. And sometimes when there is denial, it is not to say that the reading is wrong, it could just be that the truth is hard to accept.

The greatest mysteries of all are those of birth, death, life and rebirth. We may not always understand these changes and why people enter into them the way they do.

Those of us whose services are engaged to see, convey what we see and when a clearing, blessing or healing is requested, we do that for the benefit of all concerned. Understanding why a person did what they did may not always be easy to grasp or accept.

When we pause to acknowledge death, we are performing an essential act of being alive.

Written in Stone?

Last night I was listening to an interview on the radio with John Anthony West who has done a lot of controversial research on ancient cultures. For example, he says that the sphinx was actually created by some civilization the preceded the Egyptians and that the erosion on its exterior was done by water, not wind. Of course, people who have a vested interest in their theory of the past don't even want to discuss this.

This type of reaction is not new. I was raised in the Catholic church and went to Catholic schools. We were taught that Catholicism became as big as it did because whenever people were introduced to it, they regarded it as so superior to whatever came before it, that they just abandoned those old ways and joined it. Of course, later in life when I read other history books, I discovered that this was not actually how it all happened.

Göbekli Tepe, located in Turkey, is the site I heard them discussing, so I looked it up and saw the photos. It appears to have been an ancient temple made of stone pillars 10-15 tons each, carved in raised relief with figures of various animals and people. Ground penetrating radar shows that there may be 18 more similar structures adjacent to the one that is unearthed. They estimate these sites to be older than the pyramids of Egypt or Stonehenge. Much of this work was done under the direction of the German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt.

Such a huge endeavor had to be organized and directed by a powerful person. A powerful vision must have been behind this work, and either the people agreed with this vision and worked toward it, or they were forced to work on it. The other obvious fact the stones give us is that these people had to be very skilled to carve raised relief figures into the stone columns at a time when other historians and archaeologists would not credit people with having tools to do such work.

Now the next amazing thing about this site is that someone then buried it under tons of dirt, which actually helped preserve it.

So the question we are facing is this. Why would people spend the immense amount of time and energy necessary to build such a complex, and then cover it over with dirt and abandon it?

A possible explanation could be this. Perhaps the political or religious structure that caused its creation later fell out of favor and people moved on.

Compare that to the structural changes in our society right now. At the beginning of the US, everyone was a farmer, craftsman, merchant or trader. Cottage industries were how most people made their living.

That was until the industrial age, when factories became the major employers and people quit working on farms or in home based businesses to go to work for the large employers. And that structure stayed in place until our present time.

However, as we now see major corporations closing down their US factories and offices in order to hire cheaper labor in other countries, the US workers are now left to create new ways of making a living.

Some people have gone back to farming, some in specialized organic farms or farms that raise heirloom varieties of plants that can command higher prices. Other people are inventing and marketing their own products. Others are creating specialized services that they can personally offer.

Although some people may be forced into these roles because they cannot get other employment comparable to what they used to have, it is, in essence the return of cottage industries, or home based businesses. Self employment and small businesses will be the wave of our future.

In a way, this may be like the ancient people covering up their old constructions once they have decided that they have moved beyond that model. Just a short time ago, people in the US grew up thinking that getting a job working in a large corporation was their career, their livelihood. Now people are looking at creating their own work, their own business, as their path in life.

Religions are following the same path as many of the churches which used to be full to capacity are now being shut down for lack of attendance, or hobbling along with a fraction of what they used to have. Meanwhile, although there are new megachurches replacing some of these, there is an increasing percentage of the population that chooses to not to belong to any organized religion, as many as one quarter of the population according to some surveys. There too, as individuals no longer are part of large organizations, their spiritual path or religion may be a self directed, home based activity.

These archaeological finds, contrasted with our current situation suggests that human history and the evolution of our societies and civilizations has been more of a rise and fall than a steady forward march. These excavations clearly show that humans were capable of great feats during the time of hunter gatherers, predating the rise of agricultural societies and the changes they engendered. Then after demonstrating they could do such things, people chose to abandon them.

We are now riding the cusp of another rise and fall era. Old structures are falling and new ones are rising. How we proceed from here will be the result of millions of individual decisions, which may look more organized to people looking back on us many years from now.

We can choose to ride this cusp coming from either love or fear. Be aware of what motivates your choices. We are already inhabiting new forms. Can you feel it? How are you navigating this ride?

Altars of Acceptance

Someone recently remarked to me that she never saw so much Halloween stuff as she has in Colorado. She thinks that people go crazy over it out here, and she can't imagine any reason why since it is nothing more than a day for kids to get candy.

Of course, there is much more to it than that. although in many people's minds, it has been reduced to nothing more than trick or treating and costume parties, it has very deep metaphysical roots and it heralds an important turning in our lives every year. And that is why people really feel drawn to celebrate it for a month. Right now, this is the last of September and there will be corn mazes, hay mazes and pumpkin patches up through the end of October.

The roots of the holiday go back to ancestral times. All of our ancestral times. As far back as caveman days people have felt that it is important to honor the dead and use special ceremonies to mark their passing, remember their lives, and wish them well on their way to the next world.

Why wouldn't they? Birth and Death are the the two gateways we all have to pass through. Our families and friends are always the ones at these gateways. They help celebrate when we arrive, and they help mourn when we leave.

In modern times, as many people have left folklore and ceremonial ways slip from their grasp, some cultures have retained them powerfully, contributing universal traditions that still resonate and help people heal from their grief while wishing the spirit on to what's next for them.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance were the names that Elizabeth Kubler Ross gave to the Five Stages of Grief. Making an altar for the one who has crossed over is a powerful way to get to acceptance.

Birth, death and rebirth. Our gateways. Our inescapable gateways. The certain markers of our journey. These are the portals we pass through, and we cannot choose otherwise. So our only choice is to recognize the gateway for what it is.

We either make altars then warm ourselves at the bonfires, or we carry more weight than we need to for many years to come.

So this is how it happened. Some people chose to lose their grip on the ancient ways and only remembered to serve refreshments to the mourners and those who come to give solace and bring light through the storytelling and the music and the prayers. Except over the years they forgot to do all the other things and just served refreshments.

The refreshments are a wonderful seasonal taste that reminds us of the sweetness of life, after we have done our rituals.

Whether they are large or small, elaborate or simple, we need to make our altars. We need to honor those who have crossed and send them through the gateway on waves of our good energy. Those who make their altars enjoy their peace better than those who do not. It is at the altar that we find acceptance. It is our time and place to express our grief. It is a far more wise, powerful and ancient root ritual than simply giving candy to kids.

Here today, we can feel the strength and beauty of these ceremonies through the Mexican festivities known as the Day of the Dead. The Celtic equivalent, called Samhain, which gave birth to Halloween, are both celebrated on the same day of the year. Two powerful ancient cultures that have continued to set aside time every year to ritually remember their dead in the same time frame as giving thanks for the harvest, and preceding the time when families and friends are drawn together to celebrate and welcome in the future.

Why should we still pay attention to these holidays? Who does not know someone who has died? Who has had trouble acknowledging their grief, letting go of it and moving onward? We need to release their spirits so that they can move on, and we need to release ourselves so that we can move on.

Although the primary focus is on people we know who have died this year, people sometimes use these same ceremonies to say farewell to an animal who was an important part of their life as well.

Reincarnation and Animals

Cats, dogs and other animals who share our lives are there for a reason, same as people are in our lives for a reason. Sometimes they reincarnate with us, and one cat or one dog can be a reincarnation of another we have had in our lives.

Grieving for an animal that dies is the same process as grieving for a person who dies. They share experiences in our life with us, just like people do. And they share love with us, just like people do. Sometimes they are even better at it because they don't really think about what happened last month, last year, yesterday or whatever. They are really great teachers about staying in the moment.

When we lose an animal that we shared part of our life with, there are lessons that have been offered to us, even though they came through a dog or cat, rather than a person.

Some people believe that people get reincarnated as animals, but I have seen animals that remind me to a great degree of other animals I have known.

We may lose an animal suddenly through an accident, or through a long, lingering illness. The grieving is still necessary, and we send our love with it into the next world, however that looks. You never know when you might see them again. Some people may doubt that animals have the possibility of reincarnation, but they have a spirit that animates them too, and the intelligence and the love have to come from somewhere.

I don't know how else to account for the similarities in personality between certain cats and dogs I have known. You may have had a similar experience as well. This is one of those things that we may not be able to prove, but we can feel.

Coyote as Chupacabra

It turns out that the animal reported to be a chupacabra killed in Texas this week was really a coyote deformed by mites and parasites, not a mythical creature.

However, there is an interesting life lesson to this story.

For one, that animal must have gone through an extreme amount of agony before it was shot. Perhaps it was shunned by other coyotes. Without fur for protection, perhaps even walking around outside in sunlight would have been painful. Perhaps it had to struggle to even scavenge or digest what it ate. It must have had a distorted life as well as a distorted appearance.

If we think about coyotes in general, they are survivors. People in suburbs of Los Angeles and Las Vegas and other cities now routinely site them in their neighborhoods, and these are not animals you normally see in urban areas. But you see, once we extended our neighborhoods out into what had been their neighborhood for eons, they learned to adapt and scavenge.

That survival instinct led them to follow the path of highways east, until now they are thriving in eastern and southern parts of the U.S. where they had never been seen before. They have changed the geography and environment wherever they go. For example, the wolves are natural adversaries of coyotes, so when people have tried to kill all the wolves, what they got in return was more coyotes.

Native lore attributes a dual intensity to the coyote, as both a creator character, and a dangerous destructive character. In the tales he can be both funny and vicious, and in both aspects, an important player in the fabric of life.

I don't know if these are reasons why people who help people cross the border from Mexico are called coyotes, but it would make sense. They are resourceful and cunning, but can also have the reputation for being ruthless. No matter what others think of them, they perform a necessary role in society. They exist as long as there is a demand for their services.

The animal coyotes find a way to survive in the world at all costs. There are elements of this trait all around the world. For example, the character Loki in the Norse mythology contains many of the same elements. They are not exactly equal, but they contain that blend of humor and danger when pushed to the boundaries of the world, at which point the boundary is expanded. Then coyotes, and Loki, are no longer outside, but inside of the boundaries and part of our world that will always be part of our world.

You see, if we did not have these scary characters at the boundaries of our world, we would invent them. Have we invented the chupacabra or Bigfoot? Would the Norse stories be much more pallid without Loki? Can we have a world without something strange at the periphery? Consider this. In both the native coyote stories and the Norse Loki stories, we find humor. What would life be without humor?

If we perceive a sick coyote to be a supernatural monster, what does that say about the way our minds work? And for as much havoc as he wreaks in the stories, the only stories in the Norse myths that contain any humor are the ones where Loki is a central character. Perhaps the inseparable twins of danger and humor are part of the essence of survival strategies.

A Surrealistic Life

Every day, it gets easier and easier for me to see this world as some kind of alternate reality I am just visiting.

For example, we are witnessing the worst oil spill in the history of the planet, which will muck up beaches and fishing for quite some time to come, killing untold numbers of birds and fish and making it impossible for some people to make a living for some unknown period of time. After all, the fishermen won't be able to fish, and not many people would want to eat what they are catching.

Yet, there are blowhards and wing nuts who somehow managed to get their own radio shows who can be heard saying that this is really no big deal, that this kind of thing happens all the time and nature will just clean it up.

Maybe the people who talk like this should be treated to an all you can eat buffet of freshly caught shrimp and fish from the Gulf Coast.

I'm no longer surprised by these corporate execs who will stop at nothing to increase their profits. Remember that buy who got busted last year for shipping contaminated peanuts even though he knew they were contaminated? He should be fed peanut butter sandwiches from that batch.

Then over on the other side of the planet, we have another bizarre series of events where one ethnic group is busy killing people of another ethnic group, just because they are different, and just because they are there.

It is like another nightmarish chapter of the mess in the Balkans that we watched unravel in the 90s.

Being a more playful spirit myself, I cannot imagine why some people's idea of fun would be to run around killing people. Why not have a weekend of sex, drugs and rock n roll?

Have fun, make money, start businesses, invite people to party with you. Enjoy a fair, festival, concert, a cool swim on a hot day. But, hey, but that's just me.

I do my best to live in an alternate universe. That other universe sure is messy.

Drafting Peace

I was looking at some old photos from the 1960s today on a website, and that prompted some thoughts on what happened then.

For example, there were some huge peace demonstrations to end the war in Vietnam back then and I participated in many of them myself. Why? Simple. Back then we had the draft, whioh meant that every male over the age of 18 was required to register and having done so, you could be ordered to report for duty in the army and sent to Vietnam. Guys I knew were dying in Vietnam as soon as the summer we graduated from high school. And for what?

The simple fact of the draft gave both young men and their parents cause to be concerned, and brought many to the demonstrations.

Many people, when considering the question of whether they would be willing to die for Vietnam, decided that they would not. Eventually, popular opinion caused our politicians to end the war.

Which brings us to the present day. There were no massive demonstrations when either of the Bushes were launching wars in Iraq. Why not? Because there is no draft, so all young men are not in danger of being shipped to Iraq to face possible sudden death or permanent injury. If there was still a draft there would have been large protests.

Support is stronger for the war in Afghanistan because the terrorists who were responsible for 9/11 had training camps in that country, and there is a lot of agreement that retaliating against them is the correct thing to do.

When we don't have a vested interest in an action or series of events, we are less concerned about how it turns out. If we don't personally have to go and fight in a war, then how it goes is somebody else's problem.

At the root of that activism and idealism in the 60s was a very personal interest in making the world a better place. We cannot control what everyone else in the world does, but we can control what we do. I still look forward to a time when we are not involved in any war with anyone.

Here is a related thought. If we consider terrorists to be enemy combatants then we are elevating a handful of deranged suicidal people to the level of worthy adversary.

If we were to treat them instead as criminals to be tracked down, the violence would be smaller and more contained. If coordinated police and military forces tracked down mad bombers, saboteurs, kidnappers and murderers and treated them as such, they would have a much harder time portraying themselves as heroes.

Another current example is the horrendous spate of killings by the drug cartels in Mexico who are fighting for the rights to be our illegal drug suppliers. So now there is talk about lending military aid to the Mexican government to try and end this carnage. However, legalizing drugs would end the carnage more quickly and efficiently than a fleet of helicopters and battalions of soldiers.

Apprehending criminals rather than declaring wars could be a better way to do what needs to be done. So we can act in our own self defense and work toward peace at the same time. We can do it.

Drawing the Death Card

One of the cards that most people are afraid to draw from the tarot deck is Death.

In one respect, that is a very natural response, because when we are busy living, we do not want to dwell on thoughts of dying.

Like everything else, we can change our response to it by reframing our understanding of this word and this concept. This weekend, as I mentioned earlier this week, we have two major holidays which celebrate this phase of our evolution, the day known to some as Halloween, Samhain or the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos).

In almost all cases in a reading, though, the Death card is not about predicting that you are going to die. Usually it represents a major change in a person's life.

For example, when we leave home to begin our adult life, we have left our childhood behind. When we get married, a new phase of our life begins, and the old phase has died. When we get divorced, the marriage has died. When we graduate from school and enter the full time working world, another phase of our life has died. When we leave one career and begin a different one, a part of us dies to give birth to a new phase of our life. Sometimes we outgrow old friendships and embrace new friendships when we meet fellow travelers on the same path in life.

Just like the caterpillar must die so that it can become a butterfly, we too, shed layers of ourselves in the course of our evolution and growth in a lifetime. So yes, it is also appropriate to celebrate and mourn those parts of our life that we have let go of in order to give birth to a new part of our life.

To address the other aspect of Death, the one that most people identify with first, when we note the passing of someone we loved, someone who played a significant part in our life, we are acknowledging our interconnectedness and how that person helped us evolve. Often, they held up mirrors for us.

When a person very close to us dies, there is an immediate sense of loss, of grief. That is natural. These holidays also give us time for a little perspective. With a little more distance of time, we can stop and reflect on the essence, the totality of that relationship.

Various religions have different theories about what happens after we die. Where do we go from here? We will not know for sure until we get there, what it is like.

What we do know is that if we appreciate all aspects of life, we must also appreciate death as one of the passages we will go through, just like we all went through puberty. I remember it well. That is when my hair got curly. It is still curly. What does that mean?

We need to accept each phase in its own turn. Most of us want to live as long as we can, as well as we can. That is natural.

Reframe it this way. Is your love life now what you thought it would be like when you had your first sexual awakenings? Is it like what you thought it would be like 10 years ago? Is your career or business experience now what you thought it would be like when you began working? Is it even what you thought it would be 20 years ago or 5 years ago?

We don't know what happens when we cross that veil and pass through that gateway either. We will know when we get there. Don't worry about it now. Just live your life as well as you can now and what's next will take care of itself. It always does. It is part of our evolution. Each stage of our life is an evolution.

Drawing the Death card does not mean that the end of your life in this body is just around the corner. What it does mean is that there is another evolution we are working our way through right now.

Let go of fear and embrace the change. Just like all of my speculations about my sex life or my work life from my younger age have proven very different from my younger vision, so might my views about death. Looking at death reveals another way to see life. Can you see it now?

Bodies of Water

Swimming is a return to our natural state in a most primal way. We are suspened in water for nine months prior to birth. Some women, seeking a natural way to help ease their children into the world, give birth in water.

When we are stressed, swimming is a great way to relax, stretching out our bodies again and introducing fluid movement to undo the constrictive nature of sitting at a desk. After an hour of swimming, we have returned to a primal state of relaxation, where we are a body of water suspended in a body of water. We are relaxed.

Why do you think that so many people take their vacations and holidays by the beach? Whether it is ocean, lake, or river, these are destinations of choice. Water calls to us by nature, and we return again and again, seeking solace and healing.

Water reconditions our state of fluidity. We reconnect with our natural state of motion. It is also the way we express emotion. When we feel strongly, water flows to facilitate our feelings and we see visible signs of expression in laughter, tears, sweat, excitement, fear, orgasm, nervousness, sorrow and joy. It is all there, written in our water.

We are bodies of water, on a planet of mostly water. Our bones are the land where the water meets an organizing influence of solidity. Where the water meets the shore is the place we find our transition. We transition from work to play. Our skeleton is the rallying point around which our water ebbs and flows. It can form a stabilizing influence, a frame for the water to swirl around.

Our spirits thrive on moving water. They respond to the cycles of the moon, our moods massaged into varying states of being. Spirit moves through us, signaling us with instinctive flows in our bodies, producing feelings that guide us into action.

When we flow with another person, our waters dance and mingle, joining us in a way that makes our boundaries feel soft, our separation disappear. When we are close and moving together, the rhythm of our ebb and flow is a tide of its own set in motion, coming to rest only when the water has covered the low ground, and high tide has created a new shoreline. And it reaches a peaceful state and settles there for a while before receding to low ground and the old shoreline, but inevitably it seeks to join in that motion of swelling and rising again, the hunger for high tide being part of its nature. Water seeks to move, like we seek to move to find those high and low places along our shorelines, to rise and fall, to swim with together, water with water.

We are bodies of water, moving in water, water within water, taste upon taste, lapping at our shorelines, moving in a rhythm of life that will never stop, can never stop. Even in death, many ancient people pictured our spirits returning to swim across great bodies of water to whatever is next. Or they pictured our spirits rejoining the great ocean of spirits and swimming together before reemerging as another body, another life. Dreams, ideas, inspirations come to us in water for this reason. We reconnect with our nature. We free the boundaries and let intuition come.

We are bodies of water, swimming in water, swimming in spirits, swimming in bodies, swimming in emotions, swimming with each other, swimming alone. We are always swimming, experiencing high and low tides, exploring the fluid space in our dreams, our consciousness, our feelings, our touches, our movements, reminding us that being fluid is our natural state. Bodies with bodies, bodies suspended, belief suspended, emotions engaged, we are bodies of water within bodies of water, with bodies of water, on a planet of water.

It is our essence, our presence, our natural state. Bodies of water, with bodies of water, on bodies of water, in bodies of water, flowing, flowing, flowing.

Blood Moon or Hunter's Moon This Weekend

The full moon coming this weekend is known as the Blood Moon or Hunter's Moon. It gets that name from the fact that this is the time of the year when our ancestors would hunt and cull their herds and butcher meat to carry them through the winter. To this day, this time of year still brings the hunting season.

By this time of year, people would also have chopped enough firewood for the winter months in addition to having gathered and dried herbs, and set aside staple foods from the harvests.

In the month of the Blood Moon also comes the holidays where we say farewell to our family and friends who crossed the veil into the next realm this year. It was also a somber time for our ancestors who faced the reality that those who were ill or elderly might not make it through another dark, cold winter.

So it is appropriate to give some thought to these things this weekend in our personal rituals. Have we done the hard work to prepare us for what is next? The holidays on which we say farewell to our dead comes at the end of the month with Halloween, Samhain, and Day of the Dead. Who are the people we need to acknowledge? We can gather our thoughts about them now. Have we put some extra food and candles in our pantries and have some batteries to power some of our devices just in case a winter storm interrupts our normal business and our ability to get around?

Interesting how constant some of our symbology had remained for centuries. For example, ancient hunters wore skins and antlers from their successful hunts and used them as ritual tools for future successful hunts. Hunters still hold on to antlers or mount heads of their kills for trophies.

Even if you do not go out and shoot animals and butcher the meat yourself, we who are meat eaters, can give thanks for those who do. What are you hunting for in your life? A job? A change of career? A relationship? Improved health? More knowledge? New place to live? New friends? More love? New adventures?

Everyone is hunting for something. Use this full moon to align your purposes with the ancient cycles and energies of nature. May you have a successful hunt!

Why Rituals Are Important To Us

We all have our daily rituals, although we may not refer to them that way, and they help us to orient ourselves in the world and prepare for the day ahead. Whether you begin by brewing a cup of coffee or tea, reading, doing yoga or tai chi, making notes in your journal or walking the dog, these are rituals.

When we change clothes as soon as we get home, we are saying to oursleves as much as to the rest of the world that we are now changing our role, our consciousness, our frame of mind, as we make the transition from work to play, relax, exercise, or socialize.

Consider then, the lack of these things when big changes occur in our lives. For example, we have rituals for getting married, but almost none for getting divorced or separated. We may throw a big party when we get a new job, but how do we acknowledge the change when we leave one, whether the change was voluntary or not?

No wonder the period of adjustment is disorienting and extended for many people. Of course, such major life changes take a long time to digest and many changes in a person's lifestyle will flow from these developments. How much might it help put things to rest and put them in perspective if a person were to do something special to recognize and embrace the change? How much would a person be encouraged to complete their transition and move on if they actually did a ritual to signify their change of status?

There is, of course, no correct or uniform time frame for making such a transition, but picture how it feels to do something symbolic and saying to yourself and the world that you are taking the next step into your new life. You begin to prepare for the new possibilities life has to offer and seeing the world as the new person. And this process is aided by doing something to mark the occasion.

Rituals are not just for birth and death, but for all the important passages in our lives. If you feel a need to move yourself forward, perhaps you need to create a ritual for this time in your life.

What Are We Balancing?

Tomorrow is the Fall Equinox, one of the two days of the year when we have an equal amount of dark and light, and the balance tips into dark until the balance tips back to light on the Spring Equinox, six months from now.

This begins our entry into the darkest quadrant of the year, in my opinion the most spiritual quadrant, and also the richest in terms of significant events. We sharpen our instincts in the dark.

What are we really balancing here? Is it the mix of work and play? The dance of partnership and individuality? The dance between our dreams and goals and what we have to do every day to get there? The balancing between silliness and seriousness?

We constantly move between these polar opposites as we live. When we have too much of one thing, we have to bring in more of another in order to find pleasure, relief, joy, renewal, passion.

So actually, how many days are we in balance? Probably few, because we go back and forth between these aspects. We work all day, then in the evening we do something fun. Or we rest. We study serious things and take care of business all week, then we play and party on the weekend. Is that a 50/50 split? Not really.

Look at another famous example. The image of the scales of Libra are also the theme of the statues of Justice. And yet, isn't this somewhat of a misnomer? If a person robs or kills someone, and then they go to jail for a few years, does that achieve balance? It takes the criminal out of public circulation for a while, but it rarely does anything to restore what was stolen from the victims and certainly does not bring back the dead.

Look at what lies ahead for us right after this day of balance. We find ourselves facing progressively darker and colder days for the next few months, and they will not balance out again for quite a while. Then they will just keep getting lighter for a while. In the calendar year, there is balance on only two days.

It appears that the perfect image of balance is really a symbol for a turning point, a dynamic influence, rather than a static state of being.

Saturday, Saturn's Day

Names for the days of the week in some of the European languages, such as French and Italian, come from the seven planets the ancients could see: Sun, Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, and Saturn, which gives its name to Saturday.

As the farthest planet they could see unaided (without telescopes) Saturn represented limitation, the boundaries, structure and discipline. It rules skin, teeth, bones and knees. Bent knees are a sign of humility. Saturn presents tests, which can humble us.

The constant interplay throughout our lifetime between knowing who we are and discovering more about ourselves is domain of the boundaries, of Saturn. Thus, it illuminates us and spurs us on in our life's journey.

Saturn lessons bring self confidence, perseverance and building toward mastery, step by step. As a bringer of change, it is fitting that for many people, Saturday is also a big day to play. We work at our jobs Monday through Friday, and go out to do something different on Saturday, whether it is hiking, bicycling, partying, dancing, concerts or theatre.

Those of us who do work on Saturday are also bringers of change. Many of those people who work a M-F schedule come out for readings and healings on Saturdays, or go to workshops or engage in other activities that test their limits and help enlighten and heal.

Celebrating Saturday as the bringer of change, the boundary crosser, the illuminator of our personal journeys, was appropriate for ancient people, and it still strikes the perfect note for us.