Be Bold, Be Free, Be Beautiful!

David Newman, aka Durga Das, sings “Thinking of You” — chants and English lyrics that bring a wonderful message of love and peace:

Jennifer Hoffman ~ Indigo & Crystals: Unemployed or Unmanaged?

Thanks to the Golden Age Daily for posting this Jennifer Hoffman article, which expresses much of what arises from Intuitive Life Path Assessments and Life Coaching. Despite the fact that we live in a post-single-career world, so many people struggle with their parents’ or grandparents’ definition of “a real job.” I love Jennifer’s discussion of “work” and how real work can mean doing and being our deepest passion.

Many people feel called back to the Earth right now, and I have a number of clients deliberately downsizing job and home size so that they spend less but live more abundantly. Other clients are in transition from the “normal” job world into careers like coaching, teaching yoga or Reiki, urban homesteading, or freelance writing and editing. Jennifer’s article addresses some of the skills, discipline and vision needed in order to live well under such circumstances. I know from personal experience that it is possible to turn a “no,” a “bad economy” or physical disability into a fulfilling career that pays the bills. Yes, it takes work, dedication and a willingness to experiment and address the world’s needs, but a world on the brink of so much chaos and systemic failure leaves much room for creativity and innovation.

David likes to say, “As the new arises, the old shall fall away.” We desperately need people to help the new arise! If you feel called outside of the old, comfortable cubicle, or if you’ve found yourself booted out of a decaying system, fear not! Options abound … and who knows? You just might become some of that change we all long to see in the world.

Jennifer Hoffman ~ Indigo & Crystals: Unemployed or Unmanaged?

Enlightening Life

At the moment, everyone in my immediate family is unemployed, by society’s standards. This means that no one has an official j-o-b, in which they work for someone. I couldn’t be more thrilled, especially for my children who, as Indigos, have tried really hard to fit into the regular, ‘normal’ job world and it just didn’t work for them. It never worked for me either and after six layoffs in eight years I decided to pursue another path. But while ‘unemployed’ is what this is called, everyone is working, although their gifts, talents, time and energy resources are not being managed by someone else.

We’re in the midst of a significant societal transformation that is changing the world of work, how work is defined, what counts as work and how we view our work day and work world. For many of us, whom I’ll call ‘older’ Indigos, work meant a job, following rules, living on a fixed salary, being told what to do and when to do it. It meant having a ‘boss’ or being managed by someone else. If you’re like me, that didn’t work too well for you. For the new generations, work can involve anything they want, as today’s possibilities are endless. Who would have thought that someone could work as a game designer, blogger, travel writer, or YouTube personality?

The way we view work has to change with what is happening to our jobs. Lifetime employment is history, self-managed employment is the new trend. If you hate your job, you are in a great place to make powerful changes but first, understand why you dislike your job. Do you have wonderful ideas you want to give voice to? Are you feeling squeezed by the limitations of your job, management or workplace? Do you dread going to work every day because of the politics and game playing? This is your Indigo energy expressing itself. The next question is, ‘what are you going to do about it?’

Working at a job you dislike, feel stifled by or feel out of integrity with is soul wrenching. What do you want to do and if you can get beyond your belief that money is tied to a job, instead of work that you love, you have taken a powerful step into valuing your gifts and talents enough to allow them to be an active part of your life. Indigos are here to change the world and they’re on the cusp of those changes. They don’t tolerate politics, limitations, barriers to growth or being managed. They’re happiest when they’re doing work they love, using their gifts and talents and confidently sharing them with the world in valued and valuable ways, which includes earning a comfortable living.

If this resonates with you, it is time to take a peek under the covers and see what is in your heart. What do you love to do? What do you think you do well? How would you finish this sentence, ‘If I didn’t have to worry about money, I would be doing …..?’ That can be your next step if you have the courage to follow your heart, bring your Indigo courage to the forefront and value your gifts and talents enough to share them with the world in valued and valuable ways. Go for it, please, the world needs what you have to offer now. The opportunities are there for you, step into them confidently.

Copyright (c) 2013 by Jennifer Hoffman. This article may be freely shared, translated, or linked to as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website. Any other use is strictly provided. If you are interested in licensing this content for paid distribution, please email support@enlighteninglife.com.

Healthy Skin: A Medical Intuitive Perspective

This old article from 2009 just popped up for me … quite synchronously, indeed. Sometimes old “Laura Bruno posts” give me exactly the insight I had begun to seek elsewhere. LOL, but true. I decided to repost this piece because four years later than the original article, I’m again hearing from many, many clients experiencing outbreaks of acne, rosacea, strange rashes, shingles and other skin ailments — especially people for whom long awaited goals have suddenly begun to manifest. If I’m getting that many calls for sessions about this, as well as experiencing some skin issues myself and hearing the same from friends and family members who normally have “perfect skin,” then I figure there are many more silent people out there who would benefit from this information. Blessings to all in these unusually intense and expansive times!

from 2009:

I’ve been having a “rash” of Medical Intuitive clients complaining about acne, rashes or other unpleasant skin issues. Although many people face these issues, calls about them have become more frequent lately. It seems that rounds of doctor visits, natural or steroid creams, water or juice fasts, visualization and liver cleanses have not managed to alter the symptoms.

I find this very interesting! It’s not the same rash or the same location, and these clients live all over the world, so the same environmental factor seems unlikely. I do sense some similar root causes, though, so I thought I’d share the most common observations here.

1 ) Check Your Superfood and Beta-Carotene Consumption. Although getting too much vitamin A through diet seems unlikely on a SAD or SUKD, in the realm of raw foods and superfoods, it does happen. High sources include: goji berries, spirulina, carrot juice, AFA algae, mango, spinach, kale, beets, and many seaweeds. People who load up on antioxidant rich foods can easily slip into a beta-carotene glut in which they’re consuming many, many times the recommended daily allowance for vitamin A. Unlike B-vitamins that we excreet through urine, vitamin A goes into the liver. Too much can cause a strain.

I have had many raw food clients call me complaining of excessive skin dryness, flushing and/or a burning itch that seems to creep under the skin. In most cases, once they backed down high beta-carotene foods for a few days the itch completely resolved. Depending on severity, they may need to avoid seaweeds, mango, goji and spirulina for a few weeks to a few months, but I’ve yet to meet anyone that hasn’t been able to work some of these back in with time.

2 ) “Face” Your Fears of Increased Visibility. Skin represents the face we show the world–the wrapping on the package of our soul. So many of the most visible people in our society have suffered severe battles with acne, rosacea, or other skin issues. In many cases, the fear of people seeing their skin kept these folks in the shadow much longer than was natural for them. Having suffered mild acne myself, I totally understand the urge to think, “Oh, I can’t possibly teach about health if I don’t look perfect. No one will listen to me if I have a zit. They’ll think I don’t know what I’m talking about.” This attitude kept me from putting myself “out there” as a medical intuitive until 2006, even though I had been a practicing medical intuitive since 2001.

I get it. When skin issues present themselves, the last thing people want to do is increase their visibility. But sometimes that’s exactly what needs to occur in order for the symptoms to resolve. My own skin cleared as I grew more courageous about admitting what kind of work I do. Each time I feel challenged to raise that visibility a little more, I still experience an occasional blemish. I know from working with so many other leaders that this is extremely common, so now I just roll with it. The more people can embrace the beauty of what wants to flow through them and allow that message whatever size stage it needs, the more the acne or other unsightly things seem to resolve.

Even when it does not resolve right away, the energy takes over. I know many people who have acne who routinely get told how radiant and beautiful their complexions are! Sometimes they want to argue with whoever bestows the compliment, but in reality, they are living more honestly by letting their gifts and energy flow. Other people perceive that as beauty.

3 ) Look to the Past to Understand the Present. As one of our major detox organs, the skin offers an easy exit for all sorts of things we really don’t want clogging up our system. Many already understand the importance of cleaning the colon and liver and how that can affect the health of the skin.

From an intuitive standpoint, the colon represents control and the liver houses anger, especially anger stemming from frustration. Just as the body will release toxins when it feels strong enough to handle them, so it will release old emotions or issues when it senses enough of a support system to process these away. Skin offers a dramatic way of “coming out” about formerly repressed or embarrassing events, feelings or issues.

On a global scale, many people are getting ready to release their gifts into the world in huge ways beyond what they dreamed of doing. In preparation of this next level of visibility and awareness, we’re going through a global purge on this planet and as individuals. I believe this accounts for why so many people who “never” have skin issues suddenly do. These rashes and other challenges represent a call to look very deep and to send compassion to ourselves in earlier times when we did not have the necessary tools to handle trauma or disappointment.

By way of example, I’m experiencing this in my own life right along with so many of my clients. I have had an odd rash on my right thigh for the last couple months. I found it fascinating because it exactly traces my “bladder meridian,” which is an energy channel in Chinese medicine. While recovering from my brain injury, I learned that fluorescent lights would “blow out” my bladder meridian. It would just short circuit and leave me hopelessly fatigued and unable to function until my holistic doctor “reconnected it” through energy work and some herbs. “How interesting,” I thought, “that I’m finally at a place where my body can let the rest of that go.”

When the rash continued to creep its way down my leg in a straight line, I contacted a dermatologist. She gasped because she had “never seen this in an adult before.” She biopsied it and found that it was, in fact, a childhood rash, which usually occurs at age 3. Hmmm … even more interesting! My paternal grandfather died when I was 3. He was my absolute favorite person in the world, my very best friend. I have memories of drawing with him when I was 2, as well as vague memories from even earlier than that. I vividly remember the day he died. I also remember a quick recognition (especially for a 3 year old) that other people were hurting and that my grief would only upset them more.

Over the years, I’ve done a lot of work around that grief, and it certainly helps to have so many intuitive gifts of communication! Still, my reaction — that stuffing of the grief and shock that someone could just disappear — had left a mark on my inner terrain. The dermatologist urged me to use a steroid cream, even though the rash typically resolves on its own. It’s not contageous, infectious or in any way dangerous. It just looks like a red line running down the limb. If the location and diagnosis (Lichen striatus) did not so obviously tie into old trauma, I might feel worried or frustrated. But in reality, I see this as a celebration that my soul feels ready to release those traumas in a final way before moving on to the next level. I opted not to use the steroid cream, since that only represses the symptoms. If this is an old drama coming to the surface after 33 years, then it feels right to let it play itself out.

I’ve seen this pattern so many times in clients. Sometimes dietary shifts or creams help, but sometimes the skin simply announces progress — making visible what occurs beneath perception. Sometimes “ugly” skin makes us infinitely more conscious of our inner pathos, vulnerability and beauty. And whenever that happens, I rejoice.

Peace to you!

Related posts: Natural Beauty, 2012 and the Mayan Calender: What’s Happening?, Coaching Yourself through Food Issues, Breast Health: Some Medical Intuitive Observations.

www.internationalrenaissancecoaching.com

Interrelationship by Thich Nhat Hanh

Thanks to Ann at exopermaculture and Poetry Chaikhana for today’s burst of loveliness!

Interrelationship
By Thich Nhat Hanh
(1929 – )

You are me, and I am you.
Isn’t it obvious that we “inter-are”?
You cultivate the flower in yourself,
so that I will be beautiful.
I transform the garbage in myself,
so that you will not have to suffer.

I support you;
you support me.
I am in this world to offer you peace;
you are in this world to bring me joy.

One Week Left for January 2013 Specials

Back by popular request … a repeat of November 2012’s Specials, available now for one more week:

JANUARY SPECIALS

$77 Past Life Quickie

With the veils thinning, so many more people have begun to experience what I call “past life bleed-through.” Dreams, hunches, visions, flashes … however the suspected past life awareness arrives, it can feel unsettling, exciting and/or cause obsessive questions. This half-hour reading allows people to ask persistent questions, or to have a check-in regarding the most pressing karmic issues presenting themselves right now. Yes, this can include past life relationships with animal friends. I don’t normally offer Past Life Readings in a half-hour format, but I wanted to make this available to the larger numbers of people wondering about previous lifetimes and relationships. If you’d like to double this special for the full hour, just let me know in your schedule request. Offer valid if prepaid on or before January 31, 2013.

$333 Intuitive Coaching Three-Pack

With regular intuitive or life coaching sessions running $175/hour, this November Special offers major savings at $333/three hours. I’ve found that even people who normally process things on their own feel challenged by the increased intensity and “sorting” of the Universe these days. As we continue with Earth changes, internal and galactic shifts, I feel called to offer a short burst of support to those in need. These sessions can be used close together or saved for a future need. The entire package can be gifted to someone else, but (for simplicity of paperwork) these three-packs cannot be divided and shared among multiple individuals. Offer valid if prepaid on or before January 31, 2013. To schedule your first session or purchase the package, please contact me here.

Urban Farming Guidebook

There’s a new resource out to support local governments and food growers (or potential growers) to create urban resources for local food. If you click here, you can read about it and even download a free PDF for you and/or your local government. I’ve already forwarded the link to someone we know on the Goshen Town Council, as we would love to see edible landscaping and additional local food resources around town.

The link above will land you on Milkwood Farm’s permaculture blog from Down Under — an inspiring resource with info on tiny houses, community farming, mushroom cultivation, and all sorts of wonderful eco-adventures. Enjoy!

Creative Inspiration and Synchronicity

Of course, I shouldn’t feel surprised that my “faery-twin” friend Tania Marie just posted about her massive jolt of creative inspiration, as we always tend to mirror each others’ process. Tania’s recent post shares her journey and some fun photos and creativity quotes, which I decided to share here.

Like Tania, I’ve felt some big nudges lately to up the creativity quotient. After over a year and a half of not being able to practice yoga due to a sacrum injury, as of last week I can suddenly “do” yoga every single day. What relief, and what a flow of joy and creative juices. David and I have also been listening each night to the book on tape version of Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. All the songs and magick had me itching to write a novel again, until last night I spontaneously started empathing Frodo’s shoulder injury, which reminded me that novel writing with all its inherent conflict to move the plot forward, isn’t exactly the kind of thing I’d love to create. If I wanted more conflict, I could just read the news or let my mind spin out on all manner of creative-destruction possibilities. Been there, done that … but the creative urge has grown very strong indeed.

Last night, David dug out a large blank canvas we found during our move. Time to paint a portal. I do love painting! Preferably doors, but any large canvas will do, especially since I already have a portal purpose for this one. Unlike novel writing, for me, painting expresses the freest opportunity to decide what I would most love to bring into being. I think this one will look like The World Tree on the surface, but I’m excited for all the Runic coding and delightful details I can add in and around the tree. Pulling several Faeries Oracle Cards this morning, followed by reading Tania’s post, just felt like winks and nods from the Universe: “Yep, Laura, roll up your sleeves and break out the colors. It’s time to paint your world!”

“Every day is an opportunity to be creative – the canvas is your mind, the brushes and colours are your thoughts and feelings, the panorama is your story, the complete picture is a work of art called, ‘my life’. Be careful what you put on the canvas of your mind today – it matters.” ~Innerspace

“To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.” ~Osho

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” ~Maya Angelou

“An artist paints, dances, draws, writes, designs, or acts at the expanding edge of consciousness. We press into the unknown rather than the known. This makes life lovely and lively.” ~Julia Cameron

“A truly creative person rids him or herself of all self-imposed limitations.” ~Gerald G. Jampolsky

Magick Wands and Chris Hedges ~ A Time for ‘Sublime Madness’

Thanks to Gillian for drawing my attention to this particular Chris Hedges article. Though dire, it’s also quite an unusual post for him in that he recognizes the power of the human imagination. I have been getting the same message lately about the state of our world: things have gone so far beyond what normal “doing” can remedy that it’s time for magic, magick, mgieck … whatever you call it, it’s time to tap in, dig deep, and empower those wands, spells, prayers, and beliefs in miracles.

With all the debate about Second Amendment rights, I’ve done some major soul searching. I don’t own a gun, and I don’t desire to own a gun. I’ve imagined what it would feel like to shoot someone, even in self defense, and to me personally, that just doesn’t feel in alignment with the rest of how I live my life. But neither does powerlessness. As Thomas Jefferson said, “The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.” I don’t believe in remaining a powerless victim; I just prefer to use different means of defending myself.

After much prayer, visioning, study, hope and assessment of the potential road ahead, I bought a magick wand. Hand-crafted of holly, with a silver cord and prehnite stone at the tip, “Freya’s Dawn” came to me synchronously and beautifully. I’ve wanted a wand since 2004, but until a couple weeks ago, nothing ever grabbed me. I thought wands were kind of hokey, unnecessary, and perhaps just weird … but I still felt called to own one. Maybe my inner conflict kept the right wand at bay.

In any case, in my attempts to find and remain in my center despite awareness of some really not-nice things in the works in our country and in this world, I had returned to studying magick in a more intense, dedicated way. All of sudden, the whole purpose and scientific reasoning behind a wand made sense to me! It’s not about me not having the power myself; it’s about focusing that power in a stronger way. It’s not that one can’t do magick without a wand; it’s about amplifying energies. One definition of magic(k) is simply aligning ourselves with the natural harmony of the Universe. We learn how to work with energies, timing, crystals, plants, myths, and stories, rather than accidentally sabotaging our efforts through poor planning. The right wand is kind of like the Power symbol in Reiki — it amps up the energy already flowing through.

I’ve had some powerful manifestations in my life, both with and without wand. For me, personally, I felt like I needed to take the next step in strongly manifesting a new reality. The progress, though tangible, just doesn’t seem to be proceeding at pace with nasty and relentless implementation of the New World Order (as opposed to Natural Order). I choose Natural Order, and I know that Nature always bats last. For some reason, though, having a wand feels like I now have a powerful defensive weapon. Unlike a gun, I can also use this wand to create and empower worlds. And so, I do.

Chris Hedges gives a more intellectual read on this phenomenon, without mentioning wands or magick. As he says, “It is the imagination that makes possible transcendence.” Thank God/dess/goodness, I have a very fertile imagination. May we each dig deep and create beauty and freedom as we feel led. If ever there was a time for the Power of Love to take action, Now would be it. Of course, magicians, mystics and artists know that all Time is Now. We can access peace, prosperity, Love, Grace, and transformation anytime. Sometimes those extra tools just come in handy. 😉

The beginning of Chris’s article follows, with a link to the second page on his site:

Chris Hedges ~ A Time for ‘Sublime Madness’

The planet we have assaulted will convulse with fury. The senseless greed of limitless capitalist expansion will implode the global economy. The decimation of civil liberties, carried out in the name of fighting terror, will shackle us to an interconnected security and surveillance state that stretches from Moscow to Istanbul to New York. To endure what lies ahead we will have to harness the human imagination. It was the human imagination that permitted African-Americans during slavery and the Jim Crow era to transcend their physical condition. It was the human imagination that sustained Sitting Bull and Black Elk as their land was seized and their cultures were broken. And it was the human imagination that allowed the survivors in the Nazi death camps to retain the power of the sacred.

It is the imagination that makes possible transcendence. Chants, work songs, spirituals, the blues, poetry, dance and art converged under slavery to nourish and sustain this imagination. These were the forces that, as Ralph Ellison wrote, “we had in place of freedom.” The oppressed would be the first — for they know their fate — to admit that on a rational level such a notion is absurd, but they also know that it is only through the imagination that they survive. Jewish inmates in Auschwitz reportedly put God on trial for the Holocaust and then condemned God to death. A rabbi stood after the verdict to lead the evening prayers.

African-Americans and Native Americans, for centuries, had little control over their destinies. Forces of bigotry and violence kept them subjugated by whites. Suffering, for the oppressed, was tangible. Death was a constant companion. And it was only their imagination, as William Faulkner noted at the end of “The Sound and the Fury,” that permitted them — unlike the novel’s white Compson family — to “endure.”

The theologian James H. Cone captures this in his masterpiece “The Cross and the Lynching Tree.” Cone says that for oppressed blacks the cross was a “paradoxical religious symbol because it inverts the world’s value system with the news that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last word, that the last shall be first and the first last.” Cone continues:

That God could “make a way out of no way” in Jesus’ cross was truly absurd to the intellect, yet profoundly real in the souls of black folk. Enslaved blacks who first heard the gospel message seized on the power of the cross. Christ crucified manifested God’s loving and liberating presence in the contradictions of black life—that transcendent presence in the lives of black Christians that empowered them to believe that ultimately, in God’s eschatological future, they would not be defeated by the “troubles of this world,” no matter how great and painful their suffering. Believing this paradox, this absurd claim of faith, was only possible in humility and repentance. There was no place for the proud and the mighty, for people who think that God called them to rule over others. The cross was God’s critique of power—white power—with powerless love, snatching victory out of defeat.

Reinhold Niebuhr, as Cone points out in his book, labeled this capacity to defy the forces of repression “a sublime madness in the soul.” Niebuhr wrote that “nothing but madness will do battle with malignant power and ‘spiritual wickedness in high places.’ ” This sublime madness, as Niebuhr understood, is dangerous, but it is vital. Without it, “truth is obscured.” And Niebuhr also knew that traditional liberalism was a useless force in moments of extremity. Liberalism, Niebuhr said, “lacks the spirit of enthusiasm, not to say fanaticism, which is so necessary to move the world out of its beaten tracks. It is too intellectual and too little emotional to be an efficient force in history.”

Niebuhr’s “sublime madness” permits the rest of us to view the possibilities of a world otherwise seen only by the visionary, the artist and the madman. And it permits us to fight for these possibilities. The prophets in the Hebrew Bible had this sublime madness. The words of the Hebrew prophets, as Abraham Heschel wrote, were “a scream in the night. While the world is at ease and asleep, the prophet feels the blast from heaven.” (Click here to continue reading @ TruthDig)

The Science of Persuasion

The following video offers six tips for getting what you want. You could think of it as a list of scientific marketing strategies, but that’s not why I’m posting the video. In the realm of manipulation, let’s just say, “Knowledge is power.” I’ve posted before regarding symbols and the subconscious, but this video talks more about ways that human behavior can reliably be influenced during this age of information overload.

Next time you’re certain that “the other side is wrong” or wonder if someone “might have an agenda,” take a step back and see if you can spot any of these techniques. Finding such techniques in use doesn’t necessarily mean the source is “bad” or purposely trying to brainwash you … BUT … recognizing the techniques in use can help you to remain objective as you make your own informed decisions.

“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” ~Henry David Thoreau

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

“A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.” ~Mahatma Gandhi

Electra Jung ~ Capricorn New Moon, Aries First Quarter Moon Phase

Today we have a guest blog post from my friend, Electra Jung, of Signs From Above Astrology. I like how Electra shares important information not only on the New Moon, but also on the less frequently discussed Quarter Moon Phase. Judging by things I’m hearing in private sessions, I suspect many blog readers (or in this case, listeners) will resonate with the energies Electra describes. January 18 marks the First Quarter Moon of 2013. Are you ready? Find out how you can be: