When we willingly meet our shadow and offer it compassion, it no longer has the power to cause harm, and instead becomes another part of the whole. The concept of oneness that we are taught through plant medicine, Yoga and other spiritual practices becomes embodied wisdom, sunk deep into our bones, and permeates our whole being.
To walk the path of the heart, to do the work of being a healer, shaman, medicine woman, leader, teacher, yogi, activist, and to be a voice of the sacred in this lifetime, means finding the willingness and courage to answer this call again and again.
To walk this path is to answer the Wild Calling. It means learning how to trust in each season we find ourselves in, to feel the equal value of our shadow and our light, and to love everything in between. To hold each part of ourselves tenderly with love and compassion means that we can offer this in a true way to all other living beings.
When we know this not just in our minds, but in our whole being, the sacredness of all we are can pour out into the world through our actions and being.
So while the demand and push that asks we look into the eyes of the shadow of ourselves and world around us can feel harsh, maybe even cruel at times, there is a liberation of love on the other side that can only be reached through this work.
The taste of this elixir of freedom, the nectar of sacredness and reverence, the sweet honey of love in the highest form, is worth everything along the way.
Alchemy is the art of transmutation, the act of changing an object’s state. To me, this is the power of love. We can learn to change what we fear into what we love, not just in ourselves, but in the whole world.
And we desperately need this medicine right now.

~Caity Flanagan

I can’t always remember how I know things…..but it certainly isn’t because I don’t doubt first….

inquiry for today~ remember it’s really ok, even good, to be lost sometimes….

the deep

Within Buddhism it is called the Buddha Nature, within Christianity, Christ Consciousness. Call it what you will, it is there and requires no perfecting on our part to make it perfect.
The trouble is we not only don’t see it, but we believe that meditation, yoga, and other spiritual exercises produce it. We think such things as, “I will meditate to awaken my mind,” as if the pure fundamental consciousness within needs awakening.
We may do so with the best intentions, yet not realize that joining a meditation class or yoga studio may be counterproductive to achieving our spiritual ambitions. Working to become more aware and in tune with the nature of reality works under the assumptions that we are not in tune and that a certain amount of perfecting is necessary to become enlightened or at least achieve a far greater awareness than we presently know.
It is not the aim of spiritual discipline to achieve something, but rather to see something within that we have not properly noticed before.
When we strive to achieve something, we immediately start covering over the very thing we wish to see because we start concocting an image of what it is supposed to be.
If there were any aim to spiritual disciplines, it would be to help us stop getting in our way and allow what is already perfect within to shine. Allowing is what is meant by the “effortless path,” a term often used in Vajrayana Buddhism. But effortlessness actually requires a lot of effort; it is not easy to break the habit of “doer” and sit back and allow realization to arise. We must make ourselves vulnerable to realization, and part of being vulnerable is getting rid of the notion of achiever. We don’t achieve anything when we attain illumination but only recognize, finally, what has been there all along.
Proper meditation seldom involves doing anything other than what we are doing. It is not a question of technique, but attitude. Are we trying to accomplish something, or are we trying to get out of our own way? A small shift in attitude can make all the difference in the world. If we can shift our view from achieving enlightenment to recognizing enlightenment, we make ourselves vulnerable to awakening and grace.
~Richard Josephson