Fear itself

Greetings all,

Well this week I am going to write an actual post rather than just an announcement.  You'd have to be on this side of the screen though to see that my shout out last week was miraculous even in its brevity.  I'm actually amazed at all that has been done this past month or so.

As I meet deadlines, and take on new challenges I have been met by my old companion fear.  I've been playing the what if game in my head, imagining all the different things that could go wrong.  This is not something new.  I do torment myself from time to time with the worst case scenario.  However as I have delved more into my self I am realizing just how much fear has been entangled with my identity. It has become a character trait rather than a passing emotion.

There was a great book written in the 90s called The Gift of Fear.  In it the author defined fear as a biological response in the presence of immediate physical danger.  We have in our civilized brains taken fear out of the wild and removed it from its moorings.  Now it stalks our relationships, our work, and our own daydreams. We daily recreate our own nightmarish fantasies of what we really hope doesn't happen, but can't stop thinking about.  Sometimes we become so good at it, they even happen outside of our heads. We have become the chosen one, in our own self fulfilling prophecies of defeat and disaster.

Fear is a useful survival mechanism, but in myself and many others it has gone beyond that.  It has become mixed up with who we think we are.  We often define ourselves by our fears.  This is not in our best interests.  It makes us stressed out and it also makes us easy to manipulate. Our media works hard to keep us in low to mid grade generalized anxiety state on a daily basis. Make the people afraid and they will give anything to the powers that be to protect them to whatever bogey man the networks are selling.  Most of the time we don't think about it, but every generation it rears its ugly head with things like ethnic cleansing, police killing unarmed men, internment camps, and religious persecution. These are the fruits of fear.

I ran across some old notes from a lecture one of my teachers' gave years ago.  I found a quote, "Anyone who is trying to scare you a little is really trying to scare you a lot." It's quite true it is the basis for much of the manipulation we encounter.  Now I am not saying we should do away with fear, because it has kept us alive. I am saying that we need to reestablish it as a temporary functional state rather than a constant presence in our heads.  We must feel ourselves without constant anxiety. Once I recognized this pattern in myself I knew I had to address it if I was ever to have a moment's peace while I drew breath.

How about you?  How much does your fear and anxiety shape your life and choices? Can you imagine yourself without it for a day, a week? or a month?  Odds are unless you are living in a war zone or a very violent neighborhood there is no need for that continuous sense of unease. Start to examine how much of yourself and your actions is really you, and how much it is your fears.  Until next time check out the song Drive by Incubus.  I'll put the link below.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Shout out

Greetings all,

This week I am not writing a post, well not in the traditional sense.  I am traveling again up to Columbus this time to ULE.  I will be speaking there about Runes the topic of my first book which just went up on amazon this week.  Needless to say it's been busy and as such I have not prepared a topic.  Not to worry fresh insights will be unearthed next week.  This week though I am taking the pressure off and just giving myself a pat on the back.

Check out my new book, Drumming Down the Runes Walking the 24 Roads.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Finding Beauty

Greetings all,

The travels continue as I set forth once more, this time to Camp Chesterfield for their psychic fair.  I've been teaching quite a bit the past few weeks, and I've been putting the finishing touches on my first book.  I'm just really a cover and a book jacket description away from publication.  It has been very overwhelming.  Hopefully the next time I finish a book, I won't have everything happening at the same time.  I won't lie some weeks it has been quite a strain to pull something out of my head to share here. Not to worry, I'll soon be devoting all my author energy back to the blog…until my next book.  Don't ask me when that will be or what it will be about, because I don't know yet.

In the mad dash to get everything done this week I had a moment of clarity in between my classes today.  I was looking out a window and noticing the dew on the ornamental grasses of the corporate campus. (I've been teaching tai chi as part of a corporate wellness program this month).  The mid morning light was glinting off the dew like jewels as the grass slowly swayed in the breeze.  White cotton ball clouds floated by on bright blue sky overhead.  It was beautiful.  I was moved by the simplicity of that scene and privileged to acknowledge the beauty that nature provides us.

I hear a lot about how mankind is ruining the planet.  Hell, I'm often one of the voices raising that point. People do go a bit far in suggesting the planet would be better off without us.  We are a part of nature, even if we have forgotten it.  Like all the plants and animals, we have a sacred purpose in the web of life. No one really agrees as to what that purpose is, but many of us do agree that most of our species has forsaken it.

Today looking at the perfect way the sunlight kissed the dew, it seemed clear to me what our purpose is. In that moment, I had a strong knowing that our purpose was to behold the beauty and splendor in the world, and when we have rejoiced in it till we are full then we expand it out into the universe.  We are the beholders of beauty.  By acknowledging and honoring the beauty in the universe we help make it sacred. We can even in a small way partner with it, and create even greater beauty.

Now some of you may think this purpose is shallow and all about looks.  It isn't.  In our culture, we often confuse beauty with sexy.  Not that there is anything wrong with sexy, but it isn't the same thing as beauty.  You can be beautiful but not necessarily sexy. You can also be sexy but far from beautiful. Beauty can be in an act, a gesture, or a word.  Beauty can be the way you care for your loved ones.  It can be perseverance in the face of impossible odds. It can be the lines of wisdom in the face of a beloved grandparent.  It can be the way you greet the day.

We daily broadcast images of the grotesque and ugly acts that our kind perpetuate upon the planet and each other. I think it is coercive in a way, to shutdown our basic capacity for beauty.  If we stop looking for beauty, we stop finding it.  We live in a gray world of blood and ash without it.  This makes it easy to market to us.  Sex, blood, and death sell like ice cream on a hot day in a world robbed of beauty. The heart is what perceives beauty, and ad men have been really dodgy about marketing to the heart.  It is tricky, much easier to cut it out and either make us afraid or horny. Hard-wired biological drives will increase profits, the heart in comparison is a risky venture.

You may be thinking, "Sheesh Mooneagle stop preaching about pretty sunsets and dew drops and give me something practical." If you are thinking that you haven't been reading my blog very long have you? There is some very practical applications and implications of my idea.  If we accept it as one possible purpose for humanity it has the capacity to transform ourselves and our civilization.  How would we treat the world and each other if we were imbued with the sacredness of our purpose in nature?

This is where I leave you….ok just kidding.  Ask yourself if beauty has a place in your heart and life? Do you notice the thousands of acts of beauty around you each day?  Do you notice the sun and the moon?  Do you delight in how the wind moves through the trees? Do you devote time in your life to creating beauty?  Do you bring it into your work and your relationships? If not, it may be time for you to hand your heart some markers and let it recolor the world for you.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Words

Greetings all,

Bittersweet has been this week as I close in on achieving one of the major goals of my life.  My book is ready for publication. I'm just getting with a photographer and graphic designer to create the cover.  Almost two years in the making for a book that is 70 or so pages seems like a lot.  Drumming Down the Runes, was more than a book though, it was an epic journey.  It also served as a reminder to me about the power in our words.

Marketing, love it or hate it, is omnipresent in our culture.  For myself, it is one of those necessary evils.  Still I try to make even my marketing align with some form of service.  This blog could be seen as a form of marketing, but I also try to go deeper with it and hopefully provide some insights for my readers to ponder. Still at the base of it all, marketing to me seems to be about the devaluing of the power in words.  It is glamour without substance more often than not.

In the beginning there was the word.  Some of you probably recognize that phrase from one translation of Genesis. Our use of language has evolved quite a bit in the past few thousand years. A man's word (or woman's word just so as we aren't being sexist) used to carry a lot more weight.  The breaking of one's word carried a heavy toll.  These days we toss words around carelessly, sometimes not even sure of their true meaning. We use words that hurt in order to sound clever or superior.  We may have become desensitized to our words, but there is power in them still.  We see this in rise of teen suicides affected by cyber bullying.  Just words on a screen someone might say, but those words carried a death sentence to the intended readers.

I myself have been lax in my use of words.  I have at various times been told by spirit to "stop gossiping".  It is a detrimental habit, one that I have taken a great deal of effort to reduce or eliminate in my life.  I have a gift of words and influence.  I can even imbue words with subtextual meanings to say a lot without saying anything.  This can be useful, and it can also be manipulative and cruel if done without a lot of self reflection as to my motives.  So my blog you see can be useful for things other than marketing.  I think it helps me stop myself from idly doling out power on things that are beneath the line of integrity…I still fail.  My words can be petty, spiteful, and brash.  With a book on the way, I just hope I have used my words in a constructive and healing manner.

Words shape the framework of the perception of our lives and world. World is only one letter more than word. Ponder that one. Experiencing and writing about the power of letters for the past two years has been eye opening.  A single letter can have a multitude of associations tied to it.  It can be maddening to think of how much unconsciousness we tolerate in our words.  Maybe this is why so many spiritual traditions talk about listening more than talking.

 You might be thinking, "So what Mooneagle what does this mean to me?" Well how conscious are you of the ways in which you use language?  Are you given to exaggeration? Is false flattery and flowery verbiage camouflaging your true feelings? Are you precise in your questions to one another? How about the words you use to describe your life? Self talk can make the difference between a positive self image and self loathing. Do your words have weight, or are they just pushing air around? What would happen if considered your words more carefully? How would your words shape your world?  Let that idea gestate for a time within yourself, and then see what is brought forth.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle