Musings

Musings

Friday, July 26, 2013

Measure of Success

Greetings all,


July had been a slow month until this week.  (Thank you despacho ceremony).  Slow enough that I had time to reflect on the past year and actually this phase of my life.  The slowness of my business for three weeks had in one way been a blessing, as it gave me space to process some deep wounds.  I also got some personal research and work done that will end up serving myself and clients well.  I transmuted a lot of heavy feelings (okay yes I cried but you would've too).  Still about a week before the upturn in client sessions I was getting down on how successful I perceived myself to be.  I coined the phrase, "Ok Universe if you don't start supporting me, I'll break up with you and start seeing another Universe on the side."  It was funny and actually I've been working more actively since with parallel universes.  (There's lots to choose from).  However it really occurred to me that the universe was supporting me with the extra time and space to process.

My clients sometimes think I am just this mellow guy who has it all worked out.  The truth is I have my own challenges in both my personal and professional life.  I am affected by the events of the world and everyday life.  I am also affected by the collective idea of success.  I grew up in the mainstream culture.  There is a narrative about success.  Basically we want everyone to recognize us and our work and pat us on the back.  Sometimes we get that, whether it is in the form of more clients, more money, professional awards or acknowledgement.  We won't always be recognized to the extent we think we "need" to be successful.

I got to thinking about how we measure our success.  What if we changed it a bit?  Is it enough for us to know that the work we do is of good quality if our needs are getting met?  Are we confusing goal achievements or social adulations with success?  I know I look at my youtube channel all the time seeing if I have new comments or how many views I have received in a week.  I got so excited when I first hit 100,000 views. of course then I realized some videos top that in less than a few hours.  It got me thinking about how well known I want to be.  I basically just want to be known enough so that I can get to do the work I love doing and live comfortably.  I wouldn't want to be like Oprah I wouldn't have privacy.  I like to keep my life pretty insulated particularly because of the type of work I do.  At the same time my ego is saying, "You fool be famous!"  My ego wants to get into more exclusive places I guess.  This is of course a bit premature, I'm nowhere near even a million hits on my youtube channel.  Hmmm perhaps I should change the title of this blog to ramblings rather than musings.  

Well let's break it down now for you.  Do you consider yourself successful?  How do you define success?  Is your definition too narrow?  Do you discount accomplishments just because others don't see them as special?  Is success more important to you than happiness?  What if happiness became part of your definition of success?  Muse on those this week and let me know if you come up with anything.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Sensitivity

Greetings all,

I hope you've been enjoying the Grand Water Trine in the sky this month.  I've been finding it a challenge myself.  Emotions have been magnified, fears have been brought to light, and the past has reared its head complete with a bulleted list of regrets.  Some are telling me that this the cleanse before the renewal.  Remaining aware of it has been a real test of my resolve.

Emotions are the great challenges.  They paint the events of our life.  They color our internal narrative.  Are we in a tragedy or a comedy?  For someone like me they pose an extra challenge.  I have to first determine whether what I am feeling is mine or not.  You'd be surprised about how many feelings we carry that aren't really ours to start with.  Even if it is only a percentage separating out what isn't ours makes a huge difference.

Another challenge for empathic people is criticism.  Nobody of course enjoys criticism, but it hits doubly hard for empaths.  The thing which is the hardest to remember when it happens is that just because someone says something about you doesn't make it true.  I have a habit of looking at myself under a very fine microscope and cataloguing the shortcomings.  So when somebody comes along and criticizes one of them it is redundant.  Rest assured I am very aware of my flaws.  We vacation together that's how well we know each other.

So if you are like me you have been told that you are too sensitive.  I would say perhaps I am, but that is why people come to see me.  They want to use my sensitivity.  So is it a weakness or a strength?  The answer is it is both.  However I have learned to be wary of people who too often use the line, "you're too sensitive."  Usually in context of the situations I have experienced people who rely on that after saying hurtful things are telling me that my feelings don't matter, and that their need to be clever or superior is more important than treating me with respect.  I've also heard the terms, "Well I'm just blunt take me or leave me."  Experience again has taught me to go ahead and leave.  Who wants to hang around people who are going to constantly beat you over your head with your flaws.

Now some of you are going to think well that is all just ego.  You'd be right.  It is ego.  It's my ego and I own that.  I don't see a reason to let a part of myself be abused.  You wouldn't let someone come to your home and beat up on your dog, why is the social aspect of yourself less important?  In the spiritual community ego bashing is commonplace.  I've heard people talk about "killing" the ego or "destroying" the ego.  That seems a bit violent to me.  I've also noticed that some of these same people are bent on "helping" others destroy their ego.  Mostly they do it by being assholes, and kicking people when they are down.  When confronted they hide behind the "spiritual lesson" they are teaching.  What you have here is a spiritualized ego.  This is the ego on righteousness steroids.  The ego has become enmeshed with the spiritual identity (not that I would know anything about that...).

So are you being too sensitive?  Perhaps, or you could also be surrounded by less than kind people.  I'm not saying that you shouldn't entertain criticism.  I am saying that there comes a time to show it to the door and turn in for the night.  Look around you.  Look at your relationships.  Is there someone who seems to need to hurt the feelings of those they deem too sensitive? Are you carrying more than your fair share of emotional burdens?  Are you respecting the feelings of others?  Are you respecting your own feelings?  I will let you ponder that for a week and hope that you are feeling better for it.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Friday, July 12, 2013

The Vessel

Greetings everyone,

I hope your summer is finding you healthy and happy.  This month particularly offers the fruits of the garden (tomatoes for me).  Also a grand trine in the sky of Saturn, Jupiter and Neptune add a highly fortuitous energy into the mix for the season.  The blessings of the summer sun have been raining down (in my region quite literally raining).

This week I have been tired.  (Yes I am a night owl and no I haven't stayed up all night).  Exhausted like I've been carrying a weight.  It hit me this morning that what I thought was physical pain and exhaustion was actually emotional in nature.  The first clue should have been when I was putting up my laundry this week; everything I had worn the prior week had been either faded blue or heather gray.  There is nothing wrong with those colors, however there was a time in my life where my wardrobe was nothing but grays, faded blues, and sage green.  That was also one of the periods of my life where I was battling through a depression.

We are all vessels of emotion.  Our passions and pain fill us.  When we don't let them flow however we dam the river and start to stagnate.  I recently had an interaction with someone that I would prefer to avoid (for the rest of this life at any rate).  It brought back all sorts of emotions that had been locked away inside: rage, sadness, loss.  Forgiveness would be the course to let go and allow the pent up feelings to flow out and reestablish a healthier flow.  What do you do though when you are still so upset about something that you can't forgive someone?

When I spoke with a friend of mine she told me I should pray for the person I was angry with.  The suggestion filled me with revulsion, and I told her I don't think I can bring myself to do that.  I am sure many of you have felt this about someone who has hurt you deeply.  Well she relayed a story about a teacher of hers that did prayers for the person he was angry with.  (Warning the next sentence may offend some of you).  The prayer went something like this, "God bless that FUCKING bitch!"  He did that every day until the fire drained out of him and he was able to offer a more serene prayer.  More time passed and the person actually came to him to make amends.

I don't tell you this to raise your hopes that if you start praying for people they will come to you and apologize.  What I do think is that it will at least clear the pathways and allow for us to put down our burdens.  We can become a clearer vessel for spirit.  You have to start where you are.  You can't will yourself into serenity when you feel rage.  You have to move through that rage and bless anyways.  Otherwise you just stuff it down and eventually cause an emotional clog in your etheric pipes.  So while I won't stop trying ho'o pono pono I may add the authentic rage prayer to my repertoire.

What about you?  Have you been carrying an extra burden of emotional charges lately?  Are old feelings and issues waiting just below the surface to be triggered?  Are you waiting for some peaceful enlightenment to unburden yourself of toxic feelings?  Maybe you could start with how you feel about those people that are bothering you, maybe even offer a God Bless to that Asshat who really gets you untethered.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Freedom

Greetings all,

I'm a bit late this week on the post, with the holiday I've been feeling a bit off.  The weather while it has been lovely is also quite strange for July.  I was actually cold on the 4th of July so much so that I had to put a long sleeved shirt over my t-shirt.  The 4th also got me thinking about freedom.

When I think of freedom I don't think of flag waving and fireworks.  I mostly just think of how safe we as individuals feel in being ourselves.  Many of us under that definition are not very free at all.  We are slaves to conformity or expectations.  We have an idea (whether true or not) of what is expected of us.  In this country we call it the American dream.  People have been talking an awful lot on media outlets how the dream is dead or worse how it has become a nightmare.

What I am aware of very keenly is the prevalence of the structures of control.  All the things to keep people in line and predictable cogs in the machine of society.  I am not proposing anarchy.  I am suggesting that the patterns we are led to follow are breaking down while simultaneously being force fed to us.  As I look at the amount of force applied to keep us all busily consuming more than the earth can provide sustainably, I often get depressed.  One of the draw backs of being intuitive and keyed into patterns is that you can clearly see where things are going long before you can convince anyone of it.  What I see is a media that is owned by special interests that above all wish to avoid change and personal variance.  (If you were completely individuated it would be harder to market to you...look up individuation it's nifty).  We have political leaders who divide and conquer, pitting one group of people against another convincing us that only they can save us from the "wicked" other.  So we have racial groups being divided, genders (yes there is a war on women),  sexual orientations, and political party affiliation all being used to scare the poop out of us.  Frightened people don't make the best choices, in fact fear shuts down the higher reasoning centers of the brain.

None of this is really new.  We are generally more free than most of those who came before us.  In an age of information though control of the flow of ideas has become the Holy Grail for those who seek to have power over others.  In the past few years we have seen revolutions, movements, and social change.  All of which has met with violent resistance.  I've also been turning that eye in the sky I have on events inward and noticing a gradual shift in awareness to the personal response to outward control. I have been pushing up against relationship expectations, and personal expectations in regards to the myth of the path of life that one takes at "a certain age."  I wrestle with being seen as I am, sensitive and vulnerable, in a world where men are supposed to be valued for their strength and resources.  I don't fit the cultural story we are told/sold.

So what is freedom?  If we did what we wanted to when we wanted to all the time, relationships and cooperation would be impossible or at the very least rare.  If we are too controlled nothing new can happen, and no current problems can be solved because we have stagnated our thinking in rote patterns.  Living in this time we are struck by a paradox, we need to be free in order to contribute fully to society, and yet we also need to be accountable to that society.  In a sense we are our brother's keeper.  In the book Cloud Atlas a character comes to this revelation, "Our lives are not our own we are bound to each other from womb to tomb, and by each crime and every kindness we birth our future."  We are a species that developed to function in a community, a tribe, or a village.  With the powers of technology at our disposal each of us has tremendous power in our hands, power that must consider not only our needs but those of others.  If you think you don't need to temper your power try driving down the wrong side of the road.

So where does this all lead to?  I'm not sure.  I do know that our minds should be free.  We should not fear being and feeling who and what we are.  Yet many of us do.  I have no fast answers I see only the patterns and where they may lead.  I would say it is time for us all to do a very frank assessment of our minds and how much they are controlled by collective stories that are broadcast through news, entertainment, and familial bonds.  How free do you feel?  What keeps you from feeling free if you think you aren't?  What can you do to be more free?  Does becoming more free impact others?  Is that a bad thing?  I'd be interested in seeing what conclusions (if any) you draw.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle