Two Links and an Observation

Thanks to Cindy for this wonderful, Faery Tale Wisdom about today’s world, called 2016: Year of the Serpent. This link is well worth a read by anyone who enjoys and/or respects the power of Story to provide deep awakening and understanding, as well as by anyone upset or confused about things like Brexit, Donald Trump, or the increased vitriol that plagues contemporary Western society.

The above link may be enough for people who already feel led to remove themselves from the fray and get back to creating a more positive reality in the here and now, in both tangible and spiritual ways — sometimes quite literally from the ground up by starting gardens and planting fruit trees. If instead of trees, you find yourself firmly planted in one shouting and rioting camp or another, then the next links will help you shake loose of the Left/Right shackles so you can reclaim your own opinions beyond propaganda and reclaim your own agency beyond government, media or their corporate sponsors telling you what to believe.

Quick Updates and Tree Love

Just a few updates on a sunshine and snow filled day!

It’s Good to be Alive, Right About Now

For most people I know, 2017 got off to a slow start, but then the forward momentum snapped like a rubber band. Lots of people, myself included, started new creative projects, and others have redecorated or embraced cleaner, higher vibration foods, as well as new exercise programs. I’ve lost track of how many people started rebounding after I wrote about it in my “Shaking Up the Energies” post. Bouncing, especially to fun and/or sacred music, really does get that lymph flowing and gives stagnation the old heave-ho.

The following Andy Grammer song sums up the shift of energies for so many people, and, coincidentally, this would be great for some dance-rebounding. 😉

Ode to the Rooster

I need to share this post, too. Powerful stories! Thank you, Dana. David and I were talking last night about the importance and power of Story as ways of comforting each other and summoning courage and creative understanding and solutions. This is my favorite of all your marvelous posts! Happy Year of the Rooster!

The Druid's Garden

The Chinese New Year is now being celebrated, and it is once again the Year of the Rooster. I see this as a tremendously positive and powerful sign–a message of light and hope in this time of darkness. In honor of the rooster, I offer two stories that demonstrate how powerful and protective the rooster is–and how the rooster’s energy this year can lend us power and strength to drive back the dark. So now, pull up a chair by the fire, and hear two stories of roosters and their magic.

Painting of Anasazi Rooster

As I mentioned a few blog posts ago, a group of us held an all night vigil for the winter solstice.  This is not an easy ritual–it is about 15 hours of darkness, in the cold months of the year. Our ritual started well enough: we had a glorious sunset, a lovely ceremony, a…

View original post 2,293 more words

Imbolg: the constancy of change, and the ‘end-of-history’ illusion

As we approach Imbolc, the next turn of the Wheel of the Year, I enjoyed Dr. Sharon Blackie’s additional history of this festival, as well as her important musing on change. Indeed, the times they are a’changing. It helps to root to the cycles of the Earth, which do continue their cycle regardless of who does what in the news or otherwise.

Imbolc is often celebrated sometime between January 31st and February 2nd. This year, the actual crossquarter day (when the Sun reaches 15 degrees Aquarius) falls on Friday, February 3rd. Anyone interested in hearth and home, inspiration, metal working (including jewelry), healing, poetry, wells and/or fire might find this week a lovely time to make a Brigid’s cross, light a candle, clean house, or just connect in gratitude. Wherever you are and whatever you celebrate this week, Blessed Be!

Integration Lifetimes and the Splitting of the Worlds

With polarization still vying for so much attention, this 2014 article on Integration Lifetimes wants a repost. If you have Chronic Lyme Disease, Chronic Fatigue or TBI, you are for sure on an Integration Lifetime. If you experienced massive trauma at a very young age, you’re likely on an Integration Lifetime. If you just don’t fit into ANY group, political party or religion, you might very well be on an Integration Lifetime. Earth Herself is pushing for integration, so even if you’re not personally on an Integration Lifetime, by virtue of being here, now, you feel the dynamics.

Integration remains one of the most challenging concepts for most people. If you need help along the journey, please feel free to contact me. Life beyond that core resistance is miraculous and magical. Radiant and healed.

Laura Bruno's Blog

I keep thinking about Inelia Benz’s recent post, “The Splitting of the Worlds –Coming to a planet near You!” , urging people to consider an option besides simple light or dark … positive or negative. According to Inelia — and I had previously written about this, too:

“The physical separation is really up on the human collective mind right now. I would say, for now, just observe it.

“As I observe it, and this is something that is coming out in the Interview with a Psychic Assassin book, there is a third option manifesting. It’s is so outside of our reality scale that it needs to be observed.

“Basically, light and dark can and do exist without the other. In fact, that’s the only way they can exist. We can see both because there is both existing separately from each other in our world. There is also a reality where…

View original post 2,164 more words

Mindful Magic

Ramblings of the Claury

View original post

Reiki 2 Certification Class in Goshen

I have scheduled the next Reiki Level 2 class for the Goshen/Michiana area. This class will be held at the my office/ the blue house next door, which has two double bed guest rooms available for out of town students who need accommodations. Goshen is 2-3 hours from Chicagoland, depending on your exact location, 40 minutes east of South Bend, just a bit south of the Michigan border.

Reiki Level 2 Certification Class in Goshen, IN

Sunday, March 5, 2017, 10 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

This interactive class includes:

• Reiki Level 2 Attunement.
• Experiencing Reiki energy.
• Discussion of 21-day cleanse.
• Establishing a Reiki practice.
• Different qualities of Reiki energy
• Techniques for replacing addictions and bad habits with better ones.
• Clearing rooms & cleaning crystals
• Chakras and healing.
• Mental/Emotional Balance technique
• How to send Reiki thru time & space (long distance healing)
• How to amplify Reiki energy.

At the end of the training, each student will receive a certificate acknowledging completion of Reiki Level 2, as well as recognition as a Reiki Level 2 Practitioner. Taking any Reiki training with me also qualifies each student to audit (at no cost) any additional Reiki classes taught by me, up to and including the level completed with me (space permitting).

Rate: $275 ($250 if prepaid two weeks early.)

Please contact me with questions about Reiki Certification or to sign up for this class.

 

How to Thrive in a Less Than Ideal Location

Today’s topic arises so many times in coaching sessions that I thought I’d address it here, since it seems more common than not for people to feel misplaced, isolated or otherwise “stuck” in a location other than their heart’s desire. Having lived in 43 homes throughout my life — including many of the most beautiful, stunning spots in the US — and currently living well in a way less than ideal area, I can share both personal and professional tips for creating your best life wherever you are. This is not a “settle for less” post, but rather a list of ways to ensure you receive the most benefit, growth and satisfaction from any given location until you either realize you do love where you live, or you manage to leverage yourself into something much more compatible and preferred.

Create a Sacred Space

The first, easiest and most important step you need to do is to reclaim your environment by creating a sacred space. Sacred means “made or declared holy” and includes the idea of “set apart.” Even if you live in a hovel with Messy McMess, find a corner, mantle, bathroom, nightstand, chair, closet, or room that you can clean, clear, decorate and dedicate to you. Size doesn’t matter. Even a corner of a bookshelf, consciously cleaned and intentionally claimed begins the sympathetic magic process of exerting more of your own energy over an incompatible location.

Once you choose a spot, you’ll attract opportunities to charm and enhance other areas. Instead of feeling oppressed by your environment, your field of influence grows and transmutes your surroundings. “As Within, So Without” very often begins with one tiny external shift.

Above, you can see an Element Altar, hidden in plain view, right in the center of our home. This little spot has featured different objects over the years, but I created it from Day One in order to honor the Elements — Earth, Air, Fire, and Water — in our home, celebrating and respecting Nature front and center in a region of the country that defiantly does not.

I’m an artist, so I know the power of color and symbols to shape space (and reality).

Door Number 17 ~ Elen of the Ways

I create each portal door with very specific local or personal intentions, but it always amazes me how those doors take on a life of their own, lending themselves to larger concerns as time or the door evolves. I painted this “Elen of the Ways” door for “Sustainable Sovereignty” regarding a local situation back in 2014. (It worked here, btw … so well that it left people marveling at the synchronicities and unusual openings.)

It strikes me that we’re at a similar point of tension in the world right now. On the one hand, we’ve got governments run amok, trouncing on rights, privacy, and basic human dignity, often manipulating the masses through humanity’s inherent kindness and desire”to do the right thing.” On the other hand, we’ve got so many simultaneous ecological crises happening that I wouldn’t even know where to begin listing them.

How do we find our way through all the different layers and levels? How do we activate kindness and caring in those who have forgotten their way? How do we balance the rights of the oppressed and the oppressors? Can we find TRUE balance and harmony instead of just flipping oppressed and oppressor? Can we each shift away from “power over” and find and embrace new ways of “power to”? How do we invoke and evoke leadership that protects the Land while also honoring the People of the Land?

I’ve seen 4:44 for months now, and I even “fell” into this door a few months ago, letting me know the portal to Sustainable Sovereignty is re-opening for more than our local situation. Today, I pray for similar miracles on the national and international levels. May we each open our own portals to that healed and healing world that already exists in perfect form, just waiting for us to believe, love and nurture it into being. The Rumi quote on this door comes from this poem:

THOUSANDS OF ROSE GARDENS

The intellect says: “The six directions are limits: there is no way out.”
Love says: “There is a way: I have traveled it thousands of times.”
The intellect saw a market and started to haggle:
Love saw thousands of markets beyond that market.
Lovers who drink the dregs of the wine reel from bliss to bliss:
The dark-hearted men of reason
Burn inwardly with denial.
The intellect says, “Do not go forward, annihilation contains only thorns.”
Love laughs back: “The thorns are in you.”
Enough words! Silence!
Pull the thorn of existence out of the heart! Fast!
For when you do you will see thousands of rose gardens in yourself.

 

Laura Bruno's Blog

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, there have been times in my life when I’ve faced problems so tricky, so “impossible” that the only way out was in. Deeeeeep inside, through the inner rabbit hole, through the spiral and out the newly created portal. In those days, I’d paint a door, and you know what? It worked.

For the past three “doors,” I’ve taken to canvases that portray some sort of doorway or entry point — still portals, but not painted on actual doors. I usually select a local or personal issue as the initial point of need or emotional spark, but then I create the portals as offerings for how such issues play out across the world. “As Within, So Without,” and “As Above, So Below.” I’ve painted portals for healing Lyme Disease, for welcoming a return of the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine

View original post 1,499 more words

Finding Our Way

In this week of gathering tension in the US and elsewhere, this November 2015 post wants to go up again. If you’re feeling strongly yanked one way or the other, please do take moments to center yourself, and also please click through to some of the posts and resources mentioned in “Finding Our Way.”

I especially want to alert new readers and remind those who’ve read here over the years that the Bankers Manifesto of 1892 remains in effect. (You can find a link in my post, and I will also link again in the comments. This is so important to know at this time. All is not as it appears.) Those who wish to stay in control spin both sides of every divisive narrative, every divisive issue, and every divisive religious war. They profit from wars of all sorts, and by keeping us fighting each other, they successfully utilize smoke and mirrors to herd us into ever tighter restrictions. Those who most love progressive values would be wise to engage those who most resist those values. Let each side exchange information, not to become the same, but to find who’s best at which things, so that together, we can breathe.

I know many people plan to disrupt the Inauguration with protests, riots, even with calls for assassination. I ask people to pause and return to your own center. Where do your actions lead? Is “Civil” war really an answer? Is it the one you most desire? Can we each channel our energy into actions that lead in the directions we most desire? Can we each take one step this week TOWARDS something we prefer rather than railing against things over which we have little influence? Our strongest influence springs from LOVE. What would you love to expand in your life and in this world? What tiny (or large) action can you take this week to increase the odds of El Mundo Bueno expanding its reach?

Laura Bruno's Blog

On first glance, the next three links  and video might seem completely unrelated; however, taken together, they form a mosaic of awareness, compassion and navigation for these troubled, yet high potential times. I’ll give a quick intro of each link. Please click through as you feel led. These links will likely find more resonance with those from Europe, the UK or with European heritage, but anyone can extrapolate for his or her own culture and ancestry.

Uniquely You, Divinely One

This is a post from February 2013, but it holds increasing relevance today as questions of cultural identity move into front lines of discussion. In addition to exploring a beautiful painting by dear friend and artist Tania Marie, I draw examples from permaculture and monoculture as ways of looking at human culture, global awareness, and “sustainability.”

I also briefly discuss how Runes and a burgeoning Folk Movement were successfully perverted…

View original post 975 more words