Self Portraits

Greetings all,

A week back from my sojourn and I can hardly believe where I was.  It all seems like a dream.  I've been playing catch up since my last post.  However I've had some time to reflect a bit on some of the lessons I learned on the road.

Sometimes it is very hard to see ourselves apart from our lives.  This is one reason why travel and new experiences are so important for our growth.  We constantly have familiar people reflecting back to us who they think we are.  We can forget that others cannot possibly see all of us.  Just like a globe in a dark room where one side is lit, we remain a mystery often even from ourselves.  New people see us without the filters of familiarity so we have new reflections to ponder.

I generally prefer to travel with friends but some of my most transformative journeys have been ones undertaken alone.  Years ago my first trip to Penland was the longest car trip I'd ever undertaken.  I  worried about it, worried that I'd drive myself crazy (literally get it, ah well I can't resist a pun).  I didn't,  and it was on this trip I finally felt like an artist.  My first post graduate work-study trip made me realize how capable (and likable) I can be.  There are some places we must go alone every now and then.  We must go alone to see ourselves rather than the reflection that our loved ones (and less loved ones) mirror back to us.  For highly empathic people this goes double. We have to disentangle our image from the images others hold of us.

So on this particular trip I realized something.  I'm not very nice to myself.  I'm horribly judgmental of my actions and my achievements (or perceived lack thereof).  It was during one of the exercises that were conducted in silence where I came to this conclusion.  No one was interacting or reflecting back to me so it was just myself and my emotions.  It didn't feel so good.  I was harshing my own mellow.  I couldn't pinpoint the source of my unease at first until I thought about how I normally let people treat me.  I have trained those around me poorly.  As one of my mentors often says, "We teach people how to treat us."  I was cow towing to their judgments of me and my life.  I was on a level agreeing with them that I was "less than".  The thing about judgment is that when you are judging yourself you are not in the present moment.  You are living in the past.  I have held past mistakes from years ago against myself.  Which is crazy because those mistakes have kept me from making similar errors.  (The Mooneagle prefers to make all new mistakes rather than repeat old ones).

So Judgy Mcjudge had come to a conclusion.  Okay I came to a conclusion.  I had to realize that the judgments of others were wrong without making them "wrong".  Do you get the distinction?  I needed to fully disengage from judgment without taking offense from the perspectives of others.  Now I've come a long way in the category of not caring what random people think of me, but when it comes to those close to me I have a ways to go yet.  The longest journey begins with a single step though and the first step should be a decision.  Basically I must decide that I am a good person deserving of good in my life.  I do things differently that doesn't make me wrong it makes me different.

You maybe wondering how all of this applies to you.  Well how often are you letting someone else hold the paintbrush on your self portrait?  Who do you let define you?  Whose judgment do you implicitly accept about yourself?  What judgments do you hold against yourself?  What would happen if you decided you were simply good enough?  Take some time this week to conjure your image out of the depths of your heart and let all the mirrors shatter.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

There and Back Again

Greetings al,

At long last I have returned home.  My two week sojourn saw me through the states of West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio.  The Magic and Mystery tour of the Mooneagle has ended for the time being.  It was to my mind only a start.  For a while I had a dream of traveling and being hosted by people where I would do despacho ceremony and see clients.  I do love to travel and this trip was the first step into financing that sort of existence.

All told I have done 2 full despacho ceremonies in the past week and one mini offering.  I feel like it brought in blessings everywhere I went.  Now back in my day to day existence I am feeling the contrast of where I used to belong and where I currently resonate.  I am feeling people around me in a different way.  Something in me has changed and so I am being called to step up my game.  I am pushing forward to more consistently manifest the place where I belong.

While it feels like I've not been gone long, it also feels like I have been gone for over a month.  This is in part because for the first half of my trip I unplugged.  I had almost a whole week devoid of electronic distractions.  I strived to maintain a very low level of technological intrusion for the remainder of my trip.  I did my best to be present with my hosts.  Now that I am home it shall be interesting to see how much of that presence and detachment from screen time I can hold onto.  It shall be a practice of discipline, but one I think well worth the effort.  I want my connectivity to serve me not enslave me.  As I watch others tantalized by their phones, tweeting and face booking I come to realize that perhaps we have lost the distinction between our tools and ourselves.

So here I am feeling a little out of place where I am, and yet not wanting to regress into what I used to be. That was the point of my journey after all, to return as a different person.  The hero's journey is not complete until he (or she) returns home with all that they have learned.  Sometimes this homecoming is celebrated, other times it is not.  As we return people expect us to be as we always have been.  In getting out of my routine and normal environment I made time to sing songs of power into my daily life.  I asked empowering questions.  I played in the field of possibilities.

On my trip I was visited several times by fox.  The place in the mountains where I attended a workshop had a lounge called the Fox Den.  It was a sunken room that had pictures of foxes all around. Then when I stayed at a friend's house on my final night I got to see her domesticated fox run around.  On my drive home a fox crossed the road in front of me.  He made it safely to the other side, but a few moments before I had seen the remains of one of his kin that had not been so lucky.  Fox medicine is something I am familiar with because it is one of the medicines(or powers if you like) that I carry.  Fox is a trickster, a master of camouflage, a guide to Faery.  This perhaps for me is a sign to move deeper into the faery tale that is my life.  It may also be a sign to move carefully and quietly in the time ahead.  I find it interesting that it appears at a time when I am endeavoring to spread my network.  Perhaps it means I should do so quietly and steadily behind the scenes maybe not letting on what my true goals or destinations are.  Well mums the word then.

So how about you?  Have you gone out into the great beyond or big world and come back another person?  Do you find yourself no longer in sync with those around you?  Do you feel it is time to recreate your life to more accurately reflect your image?  Find your center and dwell in your intentions. Set them out quietly into the world at large.  Know your goals but maybe speak softly if at all of them.  Let me know where you land.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Culmination

Greetings all,

I hope you had as blessed a week as I have had.  It has been full of surprising connections and so much information it will be months at the least for me to integrate it all.  What amazes me is that I was able for the most part to stay present in the midst of the biggest trip of my life so far.  I was among people of all walks of life, ages, family dynamics, and geographical origins.  We came from vastly different paradigms and yet we all got along.  Mostly because we were all there to grow and learn and support each other.  If only the world would do that.

I have gone far beyond what I thought is possible and now I am once more thinking, "What else can I do, experience, learn?" I am considering going places I never have been drawn to before.  So as I start to catch myself thinking back into my previous limitations I try and pause and think if I really want to believe that.  It is so easy to go back into familiar patterns. They are like old jeans we have worn a long time.  Now it seems there are some holes in the jeans though, maybe it is time to replace them with something that fits the current me better.

This week I have reached a tipping point.  A good one I think.  I received many messages and confirmations.  I had a vision from years ago come to life before my eyes.  I reached a place of no space and no time,  I walked into the void and came out wearing something different in my skin.  I feel like my training has just about reached a culmination.  Not to say that I won't be learning anything more or won't take more classes and learn more skills, but rather a synthesis has begun of all the different paths I have walked.  I have created out of unlikely prospects something wonderful.  I intend to so again.

Where have I been?  The mountains is all I will say for now. I have been everywhere and nowhere.  I have merged dream, journey, and vision into the physical world.  I have become that which is in me to be come and shall continue to become even more of what and who I am.  I am not trying to be obscure just to be mysterious.  I have just not yet fully processed my experience.  How can I write about what moves inside me out of conscious awareness?  I have faith that what lies beneath shall propel me forward into more joy and awareness.  I also have a commitment to write every week so these are my rambling half grasping of the trip so far.

So what about you?  Have you come to a point where your past lessons have culminated into something more than the sum of their parts?  Have you struggled to encapsulate the mysteries you have experienced.  What would happen if you tried only to integrate them rather than explain them?  Can you remain in wonder about where you are now and what comes next?  Try to see yourself as an epic hero having completed the prologue of your journey.  See what arises in you.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

In the Wind

Greetings all,

Happy 4th of July to my fellow citizens.  In celebration of Independence day I've gone off onto the open road.  I am in the wind.  This is the first day of what I'm referring to as the Mooneagle Magic and Mystery tour.  I have quite the road trip in the works.  In fact I'm typing this from my hotel room.

I've been running around like a mad man trying to get things done leading up to this trip.  I was so nervous and excited.  I was just realizing today that this is the first time I have booked a room for myself.  I've either ever shared or someone else has done the booking for me(which is a great way to get the Mooneagle to come to your town by the way).  This is by far the longest road trip I have ever undertaken alone.  I've got so much to look forward to I'm exhausted (or maybe that is the drive and all the trip prepping I did, rotating tires takes it out of you).

I was talking with my friend Jenny the Bear the other night and I mentioned that this trip kept me thinking about the past.  She told me that long trips will do that to you.  Perhaps it is because I can't quite imagine what will come next, and being by myself has me looking backwards for comfort.  Perhaps it is because I don't want to bring too many expectations of what I am about to encounter.  Perhaps it is due to the sometimes scary prospect of being alone in the world amidst strangers in strange places.  It could also be the season.  I tend to wax nostalgic in the summer.  All the summers of the past seem to run together in my head.  Seasons are like separate worlds once you stray into one you can't seem to escape it.  Summer and winter both seem to have immense gravity.  When you are in them they seem endless, whereas autumn and spring seem to always be ephemeral, fading into something else.  They are like the borderlands, soon past.

Travel for me happens from spring to fall.  I tend to avoid traveling in the winter at least by car.  I've always been a child of the wind though.  I had family in the airline business growing up and so we always were going someplace new.  By the time I was ten I had been to more places than many people get to see in their life.  The west particularly left its mark on me.  The echoes of the people who walked the sacred roads in times past followed me.  So now that I am in charge of my own journeys I make it a point to go to someplace I've never been to each year.  I have done this for about 13 years.  It works out well travel is good for the soul.

So you may be asking where is it I am off to next?   To which I'd say, "Spoilers."  I'd hate to sully the journey with vague expectations.  Perhaps you'll hear from me in a few weeks or maybe I'll keep it a mystery for a bit longer.  What comes next is the adventure, the open road, the wind in my hair.

What about you?  Does the kingdom of summer hold some new adventure for you?  Do the weight of seasons past have you stuck?  What would happen if you slipped off the path into a bit of the unknown?  Would you be willing to follow a pixie's trail?  What about just hearing a pixie's tale?  Find a direction that calls your spirit and get out your maps.  Chart a course and let the wind sing you there.  Let me know what you find and I may share my tale too.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle