Leave Behind

Greetings all,

Happy New Year! Well, almost but I thought I should pen this while the sun was still in the sky.  2017 has been a rough ride for many of us.  There has been a lot of death and destruction this year.

As I look ahead, I wish I could say that on the global scale things will be better.  I think we still have quite a bit of hard times in front of us before we come out the other side.  Right now we are in the forge and the forces arrayed against us will hopefully make us stronger, but if we don't handle ourselves well we are just as likely to break under the strain.  What will make the difference is how we support each other in our challenges.  The weight of the past is heavy and we are going to be called to set it down or be crushed by it.  We will have enough to carry into the future without also ferrying our regret along.

"If only....",  I hear you say.  Truthfully I say it or at least think it too.  If only this had gone right, if only I hadn't gotten into that relationship, if only that plan had worked out, if only I had been ready for what was coming.  If only, is a phrase that will drive you mad, if only you let it.  When you look at things beyond emotion (not without, beyond) and see the greater story and interlinking of causality, regret becomes more difficult to indulge.  The absolute worst situations in my life led me to develop the skills and tools I use for myself and my clients.  When one difficulty turned me away from my plans it thrust me in the path of something else I hadn't even thought of trying.  The only thing I can regret is that I had to be the sort of person to learn things the hard way.

Regret is a weighty burden to carry.  I can't keep carrying it if I want to carry the seeds of what I want to create in my life.  I have a lot to bring about in the coming year, and that will take energy and focus.  If my attention is constantly pulled behind, lamenting how things should have been, I won't have the stamina to bring out the changes I need to create the life I deserve.  I was recently listening to a podcast (it helps me enjoy cleaning) that used the initials WTF except this time the letters stood for Where is the Future?  Well the future is in us, we carry it.  It can either be a regurgitation of past regrets or it can be informed by lessons learned.

Why am I telling you this?  Well I know all of you are carrying things down the road that you just don't need or are downright hurtful to you.  The picture above was from my final ceremony of 2017.  The focus of that one was to leave behind anything that would hold us back in the new year.  I suggest you make a similar plea to whatever powers you believe in to help you do the same.  Think of what dreams you wish to build in the year, and see what you must leave behind.  Sometimes it is as simple as dwelling upon an old hurt.  Sometimes you may have to expend a bit more effort to jettison the junk of yesteryears.  It's well worth it though.  So in this time of the fading year I wish you freedom from regret and good cheer.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

When the Dark is Rising

Greetings all,

I hope you have had a calm week.  Most of us are rushing around in December like mad chickens.  I've had a week of classes, clients, ceremonies, and of course Star Wars.  (Don't worry no spoilers within this post).

Four times a year I am required to drum.  I drum more than that, but I only absolutely have to on the solstices and the equinoxes.  My winter solstice ceremonies seem to move about from year to year.   When I build a house I will do my drumming there, but until then it seems as though I will be spreading my brand of magic around the region.  Last year I was given a dream to guide my ceremony.  I saw four warriors drumming for the light against the dark in a cave where the phoenix flew down to meet them.  Sure enough I had drummers in the four directions, and we drummed in a manmade salt cave, surrounded by warm salt lamps and twinkling star light in the ceiling. This year I drummed in a refurbished meat packing plant that has turned into an arts center.  The space had phenomenal acoustics.

The past two weeks I have had an old quote stuck in my head from the Susan Cooper novel, The Dark is Rising.  The quote goes, "When the dark is rising six will turn them back, three from the circle, three from the track."  I read a lot of fiction particularly speculative fiction, scifi, fairy tales, and urban fantasy.  I find there is a lot of emotional depth in these as well as paradigm expanding opportunities.  The world is not as solid as we believe, and fiction helps me to explore other realities and try them out.  Occasionally I get a little bleed through with these engaging stories.

In our solstice night ceremony, we had six people (including yours truly).  Three of us had drums, and three of us had rattles.  Three from the circle, three from the track was represented.  In dreams our focus can shift the landscape and action of the dream, reweaving a new reality around us.  Well life is a collective dream, and when we focus enough attention we create eddies in reality, little vortexes where other realms can push through altering our shared dream.  The ceremony I led was connected with many others being held across North America.  We heard voices during the drumming.  This is not the first time that has happened, and it isn't just me who hears them (so put the antipsychotics down).

Why am I telling you this?  Well magic and mystery are my thing.  It's my job to remind people that there is more out there than meets the eye.  Right now we are in a dark time both physically and historically.  The powerful elite have seized more and more control from individuals in their fear driven minds.  In these dark times, it is important to remember that together we have power, tremendous power that can literally change reality around us.  So in this gathering dark don't despair. Winter is here, but it will also pass.  Don't surrender your power,  don't give up.  Decide what it is you want to bring into the world.  Nurture the light you have within, share it with others.  Light up the road of life as you travel down it.  The biggest trick in the book is to make people think that what they do doesn't matter.  Take it from the Mooneagle, everything matters.  The smallest kindness can change the world.  The right word spoken in the right place at the right time can unlock a new future. So in these long nights consider your dreaming, consider your light, and consider yourself blessed.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

What We Make

Greetings all,

I hope you had a good week.  December is always a busy time for so many of us.  It is important to hold some unstructured time so that we can replenish.  Right now I'm in a holding position as I gather my energies for the year ahead.  I've got plans...plans within plans to quote the novel Dune.

There are many techniques out there focused on manifesting what you want.  It is the most basic uses of magic in any tradition.  Every culture and magical system has practices, rituals, and belief structures on how to manifest your desires.  At the core of them all is focus.  Where we focus our  attention, whether positively or negatively is where we give our power.

 A lot of us are trained to focus on what we lack by our society.  "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." However once our basic needs are met (food, shelter, clothing) more abstract needs like meaningful work and relationships take over the dashboard of our mental focus.  Most of the time we look to our social groups to see what those mean to us, or worse we look to media.  I don't know about you, but my relationships have never followed rom coms in their pattern, and buddy comedies have never looked anything like my friendships.  Perhaps I am an outlier, but if I were to compare my life to what is popularly portrayed I'd say I've failed at life.  I don't think I've failed, so I am calling bullshit on all that.

In this time of long nights and gray wintry days I'm challenging myself to find out what it is I want in my life.  I know I can create it, if I am clear on what I want.  This isn't me bragging, anyone can manifest.  We do it all the time.  Most of us are kind of sloppy at it, so we manifest what we don't want as often as what we do want.  A lot of us run on auto pilot manifesting in the path of least resistance, which means the outer world is steering us more than our own directives.  This is why clarity is so important.

Why am I telling you this?  Well I feel that the year ahead will be a very powerful one for manifesting.  For that reason it would be wise to thoroughly consider what we want to create in the coming months.  If you don't know what you want then ask to manifest clarity and guidance.  For me I start close in and then move out.  So having more energy and feeling stronger and healthier in my body would be a good place to start.  From there I could move into more grace and ease with family and friends, perhaps making new friends and connections.  Moving further outwards, I'd like to see further growth in my business and creativity.  You get the idea.

So how about you?  How clear are you about what you want to bring into your life?  Are you creating your life on auto pilot?  Do you stop to consider what will bring you joy?  Well you still have a few days left in 2017 to mull it over, so get to it.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Seasons

Greetings all,

I hope you had a wonderful week.  Mine has been on the whole very satisfying.  It has been full of dreams, journeys, classes, games, and things falling together.  At times I've felt like I've been pulled in ten directions at once, but these last three days have me feeling a bit more settled.

Last night was the first snow of the season.  It came late in the afternoon without much accumulation, but the visibility for a half hour was quite low.  Often it seems if the first frozen precipitation falls on the weekend our city doesn't feel the need to treat the roads.  Well I was more than half way to a holiday dinner party when I lost control of my car the first time.  Before the night had ended I must have skidded at least half a dozen times.  Luckily I drive at a reasonable pace and with the road conditions I was more sedate in my speed than normally.  Still I was tempted to turn around and go home, but with all I had accomplished I felt like I should be social.  It is the season of gathering.

Thinking of all the trouble people go through to get together through less than ideal traveling conditions has me thinking of how social we are as a species. We live together in great numbers with relative peace all things considered.  We seem drawn together at these times where the nights are long.  Perhaps it is cultural, holiday times were always special growing up as they were for my parents before me, and their parents before them.  Would we observe the season in the same way without that backdrop of ancestral history?  I think we would.

All over the world there seems to be some observance of these high and low times as it comes to the sunshine in the year.  Whether it is Christmas, Yule, Chanukah, Diwali, or Saturnalia the darkness of the northern hemisphere has us gathering lights to banish the long night and beckon back the sun.  The response from so many cultures shows me that there is some deeper yearning that is met by gathering together and lighting fires and cheering on each other's inner light.

Why am I telling you this?  Well many of us struggle with holidays.  We compare our situations to cultural images of perfection and happiness that are unrealistic.  Others of us may be estranged from family or friends.  Still others have lost loved ones whose absence is even more keenly felt in these times of gathering.

As I live longer I have seen the holidays shrink, and rather than allow that grief, I have constant messages from media and my everyday life telling me how happy I should be.  I have eschewed most work related parties this year because I find it difficult to keep the appropriate level of "cheer" at the ready.  (It probably doesn't help matters that I don't imbibe alcohol either).

So in this time of gathering dark, I challenge you to bring your light.  Be with others you care about.  Enjoy their company.  Allow your sadness for bygone days and friends to coexist with your appreciation of those that remain to you.  That I believe is the true meaning of the season, not the manic dancing reindeer party machine, guzzling the eggnog.  Be authentic in your joy and in your grief.  Don't require anyone to fix it, and in return don't think you have to fix anyone else.  Just share your light.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Of Keys and Locks

Greetings all,

Welcome to the holiday season! This week has been full of surprises.  Mostly what has been showing up is potentials for growth in the coming year.  Finding unlooked for opportunities, and openings into new ways of working and being has also been shaking open the doors of life.

I had a spontaneous movie night this week with a dear friend.  We were looking around and the people in her apartment complex had some quite amusing WIFI network names.  There was the ever popular FBI home surveillance network, but by far our favorite was "The Promise LAN."  Of course it was password protected.  You don't get in the promised LAN without the right key.

I've been finding lately that my working style with people has been shifting.  It has become more of a partnership model rather than a sit back, and let me do the healing.  (Note:  I don't really do the healing, Spirit does that I just hold space).  I've been engaging people to track patterns and issues along with me.  I've been rethinking how much responsibility rests in my hands and how much in theirs.  This has been creating more exciting, productive, and less tiring sessions.

I've thought  about blocks and how we get in our own way.  The Universe knows I trip myself up and self sabotage constantly.  Getting to the bottom of the why's of that, looking at agreements, and changing them or at least the relationship to them has me working more like a coach these days.  I still move energy and patterns around, but I find that facilitating and presenting people with the keys to their own blocks is far more effective than if I try and unlock their power for them.  I'm excited again about the future rather than just worried.  I'm excited about bringing more value and clarity to those that work with me.  I'm feeling greater confidence and that makes my work go much smoother.

The biggest block I have found is the belief that we can't get better, can't get what we want, or can't change.  If we don't deal with that pattern we can move mountains of energy and everything will stay locked into place.  I recently had a spirit tell me that I wouldn't let myself dream.  I knew exactly what they meant.  I settled, because I never thought I could get what it was I wanted.  I'm done playing small though, and I'm going after what I want.

So why am I telling you this?  Well we get stuck sometimes in life, and we give up pursuing our passions.  We let go of having something in our life that lights us up from the inside.  When we do that we become locked into the prison of mass consciousness and limitations.  I'm not saying that we should follow through on every desire and impulse, but we must at least allow ourselves the place to explore some of them.

So have you stopped making your personal wish list?  Have you stopped being excited at life's possibilities?  Have you tried to be "realistic" rather than idealistic?  Well perhaps it is time you reexamined that approach.  If you don't attempt something you have a 0% chance of success.  If you allow yourself to dream, to wish, to attempt, then you may unlock the key to the Promised Land...you may also get the WIFI password.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Thanks

Greetings all,

For those of you like me in the States, I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving.  I hope that you were able to gather with loved ones whether the bonds be of blood or friendship.  One day out of the year I always know what my ceremony will be about.  That is one thing I'm thankful for.

Every Friday is a day of ceremony for me.  It has been for over 3 years now.  I bring out my mesa and rattle prayers for my ever expanding list of blessed folks.  So many people thank me each week for the prayers, but I really feel that I get the better end of the deal.  This ceremony has become a cornerstone of my practice.  It also always begins with gratitude.  First to the Creator, then to Mother Earth and so on until I have thanked every being in spirit that has assisted me or my clients.  That happens before any prayers are sent out.  In giving thanks I honor those bonds, and show that I respect the spirits that answer when I call.

You will be tested this season.  Yes I am speaking to you.  The world we have dreamed is incomplete.  It makes people feel unworthy of life.  It requires us to constantly prove our worth and our deservingness to be here.  In this season you will be told you must prove your love by buying trinkets.  You will be told that you must if you wish to be worthy of respect and love.  You will be shown stories of perfect homes, with perfect trees, perfect feasts, and perfect families.  You will compare yourself to these fantasies.  You will feel as if you have failed, because you don't have the boundless energy, enthusiasm, and emotional fluidity of these fables.  

I'm all for a good story.  However lately we have sacrificed depth for the window dressings of a story.  We've gone in for special effects and the props department, and skimped on the writing.  I don't quite feel the magic of the season.  So as we gather this year, I have an idea.  Be present with one another.  Bring beauty into your home and families.  Don't focus so much on having everything perfect or being filled with glee.  We are going into the dark of the year.  The important thing is we're going together.

Why am I telling you this?  Well Christmas has swallowed Thanksgiving and has almost inhaled Halloween too.  It has become more about economy than about any spiritual truth.  Black Friday has passed, I did not participate.  I never do.  It was only recently that I found out that the title was due to the fact that it was the day that retailers finally go into the profit margin, hence they are in the black instead of the red.  I always thought it meant that it dark and terrible you know like the black death.  So in this time of blaring red and green neon advertisements I challenge you to reconnect with the seasons and nature's rhythm.  I challenge you to stoke your inner fire and share it with those you care for.  I challenge you to let yourself rest and enjoy the time.  See what does for your holiday spirit.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Phasing

Greetings all,

At times I like playing with the Photo Booth app on my laptop.  This week has been one of monumental changes for me.  Some of them are bittersweet, but ultimately helpful.  Others are golden opportunities on the road ahead.

There was a time in my life when I would try every single new energy healing technique that I heard about.  I was convinced that it would be the "thing" that would solve all my problems.  This drive to deal with painful personal issues was very useful in amassing my technical knowledge.  They call this  pattern the wounded healer archetype.  Basically it means that your own pain drives you to search for answers which ends up helping other people.  At some point most wounded healers hit a barrier where there is no further they can go until they heal their own wounds.  I feel like I am at that point.

Feeling trapped in a re-ocurring pattern can be very frustrating.  Breaking free of it can be traumatic.  It is often messy.  As you can see above I'm trying to escape from the matrix.  I've been working on patterns of respect, self worth, and my relationship to material wealth.  So you know nothing major.  What's been interesting is how the pieces have been falling together while other parts of my life have been falling apart.  At the same time, I've been experimenting with some new techniques and even had some work done by other practitioners.  (What can I say energy wise I live dangerously).

Occasionally I work the wounded healer archetype pattern going in reverse.  What I mean is that a client has an issue and during session work we create a strategy to harmonize it which I then can apply to my own situation.  This was the case this past week relating to my concepts around wealth.  Now I've always had enough, if just barely, but the anxiety around it being just enough has exerted too much influence on my decisions as to what my options are.  After working with this client I remember even saying to them, "Wow I need to do this process for myself."  Well I took my own advice and went into deep states of meditation and worked the process.  I came out of it quite disorientated and a tiny bit anxious.  This tends to be a sign that a core pattern of self has been moved, realigned, or changed entirely.  For those not expecting this reaction it can create a cycle of increasing anxiety as one tries to find out what is wrong.

In the midst of all this I had a great opportunity come knocking at my door out of the blue.  My initial reaction before the self work was to be a bit trepidatious.  Now I'm getting excited about it instead.  A friend once told me that the physiological symptoms of anxiety and excitement are the same, the only difference is how we interpret them.  Anxiety is taxing to our system while a moderate amount of excitement is more tonifying. So before we label something as anxiety, we should always check to see if it is actually positive anticipation.

Why am I telling you this?  Well we are all going to go through similar patterns and activities through out our life.  The experience we have of these patterns will repeat unless we change the vibration of how we relate to them, and come out of phase with the less helpful ones.

So how about you?  Are you finding yourself retreading the same paths, but with different window dressings?  Are the patterns of interaction around you triggering old wounds?  Do you find yourself making the same mistakes, or having the same complaints?  Well if you are consider it an invitation to get to the root of the problem and come out of phase with it.  It may be time to relate to it from a higher perspective.  As we move into the holiday season many of us will be around family and old patterns will be switched on automatic pilot.  Use this time to observe your piece of the collective pie of experiences.  Find the piece of you that no longer fits the story.  When you do, you are giving permission to others to begin their own transformational journey as well.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

What's in a Name

Greetings all,

I've had a week.  I was feeling under the weather, but I'm beginning to pull through.  I've had events and classes for which I am grateful.  When I don't feel well I get easily bored.  There is really only so much a person can rest before they get well restless.

I have been thinking for a while about this post.  People ask me all the time about my name.  I get the, "Is that your real name?" or ,"So are you Native American?" The answer to the second is as far as I am aware I don't think I'm Native American.  I've not had the DNA ancestry test done to see where all my people are from so I can't know for certain, but I was not raised on a reservation or with any of the disadvantages that a tribal heritage brings in this country.  As to whether or not my name is real well that depends on what you mean by real.

A name is a placeholder, a description.  It is a shorthand for identity.  The name Mooneagle was given to me by one of my teachers.  She just walked up to my booth at a psychic fair and said, "You're Mooneagle."  It stuck, I mean she's a shamanic practitioner and she used the power of naming.  I liked the name but was nervous about using it.  At first it felt like I was misleading people, or that people would think I am silly.  What made it stick was that at the time I was being stalked by a group of people I had cut ties with.  I was beginning to teach and offer services and I didn't want them to find me.  So when a flier was made about a workshop I was going to help teach I joked with a friend that they should use Mooneagle.  They thought I was serious and by the time I told them no the fliers were all printed.  The rest as they say is history.

A funny thing happened after a few years.  The name of Mooneagle felt more and more like me than my birth name.  I sort of grew into it.  Occasionally people still try to shame me about it, but I am Mooneagle and Mooneagle is me.  It allowed me to become more than my family's expectations or limits, it allowed me to be just myself.  Plus after I published my book that pretty much sealed the deal.  

What does the name Mooneagle mean.  Well although people think it sounds vaguely Native American it is more astrological in nature.  My moon was in the sign of Scorpio when I was born.  There are 3 animals associated with that sign: the serpent, the scorpion, and when the sign transcends its shadow the eagle.  The moon sign often is thought of as our hidden side or our inner emotional landscape.  I've been sneaky like a snake, sharp like a scorpion, but I want to soar like the eagle taking in the view without being mired in it.  To feel and to understand rather than just react, that is what the Mooneagle means to me.

So how about you?  What names do you claim for yourself? Are they limiting or do they give you space to grow into them? There is a power in a name that most of us have forgotten.  We should be respectful of them and wary of the names we choose for ourselves and others.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

En"lighten"ing

Greetings all,

I hope you had a Happy Halloween.  I got into the spirit of it with the local jack-o-lantern spectacular.  It inspired me to carve quite a large smile on my seasonal squash's face.  Scraping his insides felt very cleansing for myself.  I've been sorting through what matters and what doesn't.  October has been one of my busiest months with me gadding about, out in the real world more and staying behind the screen less, well some of that was not my doing but rather the doing of my late laptop.

I have this last week been rather skeptical of social media.  It is a siren song to see what everybody is up to.  The algorithms are designed to be addictive.  I've been drawn in a few times.  However I'm waking up more and more to the fact that Facebook isn't real.  It's been a realization a long time coming.  It started a few years ago attending a party which in my mind seemed less like a party and more like a photo shoot for social media.  "Look at us, aren't we having fun?  Don't you wish your life was like ours?"

This past year and a half social media has been a minefield of political confrontation.  It was nonstop outrage and yet it felt wrong to unplug because of the idea that I had to stay informed.  Well I can say my 12 day break didn't leave me feeling uniformed, but it did bring me a sense of peace and rhythm that I had forgotten about.  I felt so much lighter.  I spent time talking to people undistracted, truly listening.  I have begun and continue to purge my social media feeds of most of the inflammatory posts.  It is not me sticking my head in the sand.  I just realized I didn't want to have outrage on a constant loop.  I make decisions that aren't well thought out when I am outraged. I wonder if that is the real point to keep people outraged and divided while the powerful raid the coffers, to keep people afraid so that they vote for more brutal responses in order to feel safe.

Why am I telling you this?  Well I am lucky to have good people around me.  I am lucky to have had the benefit of multiple perspectives due to the trait of never quite fitting in with any one place.  I am lucky to have the sight of radiant autumn leaves outside my bedroom window to see, rather than just photos on a computer screen.  I am lucky to know the difference between glamour and life.

What about you?  Are you walking in a daze convinced that your screen is reality?  Do you know the difference between sitting in a room together and being together?  Do you remind yourself that people's social media feed is a carefully crafted illusion meant to portray a story of a life rather than an actual life.  Does your inner world take more from your screen or more from your daily habits and interactions with the people you love?  What if you scrubbed your screen so that it really was a vehicle of connection?  What if you made it back into the tool?  What if you connected with people face to face and let photo opportunities slide so that you could be completely present.  Seeing life through a lens separates us from that life, what if you gave yourself permission to live that life rather than just document it?

Peace and Blessings.
Thomas Mooneagle

The Serpent and the Apple

Greetings all,

I haven't written in two weeks.  This is the first time I've taken a break from the blog since 2013.  It was the right decision, and also convenient seeing as how I would have had to borrow a laptop to do it.  I am once more plugged in, and I am not sure how I feel about it.  I should backtrack a little to give you some context.

I was preparing to co-facilitate a class on Self Sabotage and Spirit Animals.  (To be clear the spirit animals were not the cause of the sabotage they were the help).  Part of my preparations was a journey to see Sashamama for a healing dismemberment.  Yes I realize that last sentence had a lot in it that made no sense, let's start with the who first.  Sashamama is the mother serpent of the Amazon, you know her more popularly as Anaconda.  In the South American medicine wheel she is the Guardian of the South.  She teaches us to shed our past as she sheds her skin.  Okay introductions done, now you are probably wondering about a healing dismemberment, how can being dismembered ever be a good thing?  Well in shamanism when an animal eats you in a journey it is considered a healing.  They are taking you apart so that you can be restructured, they can make you better, faster, stronger, and less of an asshole.  I have had many such dismemberments in the past ten years as I have taken my trainings.  In fact if I hadn't had a dismemberment in more than six months I get to it,  otherwise it will happen in dreamtime.  That is not pleasant for anybody.  The spirit has to chase me down, and I'm quite fast in the dream realms.  If they do catch me I will physically feel the sensation of being ripped apart and wake up still feeling it for a second or two.  That little side effect makes me a bit more proactive in journeying.

It had been a while, and I knew that I needed Sashamama's help for this class.  Here's the sticky point, I've never been dismembered by any serpent before.  I am afraid of snakes in ordinary reality.  Remember what I said about me being fast in the dream realms.  Mama Anaconda has tried to catch me before, but she never did.  So I went into this journey knowing it would be a bit uncomfortable.  When her mouth opened to swallow me I had to close my spirit's eyes and pretend I was in a wet sleeping bag.  I went in and she shat me out.  Did I forget to mention how glamorous shamanism can be kids?  So with the dismemberment done she agreed to help the participants for the class.  They would all be getting a taste of that snaky love bite.

All was going well, I did my weekly prayer ceremony mailed it off, and then the computer crashed.  I ran some diagnostics and rebooted and all was fine so I went home for supper.  After supper I was in for a shock, the computer wouldn't boot.  So the next day I took it to the Mac repair place.  Monday afternoon I received a call that the video card failed, but I couldn't get it repaired because it was a vintage model (Apple's term for anything more than 5 years old).  So I had to buy a new computer and they wanted close to a thousand more than what I paid for the previous one to get similar capabilities.  So after I leveled every curse in the tongues, of elves, men, and hobbits  I set out on a quest for a new computer.  This quest took twelve days.

Twelve days I was cast forth from the digital realm, only touching it on occasion with borrowed time on another's window to the blogosphere.  In this time out of time I found myself meditating more, practicing yoga and tai chi for longer periods, getting to bed earlier, and with plenty of time to get where I needed to be without rushing.  Digital distractions had been eating away at my moments of life for a while, but it had gotten pretty bad.  I had begun to sanitize my Facebook feed and declutter, but it wasn't enough.  The computer was always on, in part because I had this fear of it failing if I turned it off (self fulfilling prophecy).  With it always online, any little thought to check messages or see a video took me away from real life and sucked me into digital fantasy land.  So Sashamama ate the element of self sabotage.  It was a great lesson, but a very expensive one.  Truth is with a business I really have to have a computer.  However when this new one arrived I was wary of it.  I have turned it off every evening and waited until after I've gotten things done in the day to turn it on.  This time I am trying to use it responsibly without the addictive behavior I'd developed prior.  I am hoping twelve days was enough to retrain the patterns.

Why am I telling you this?  Well as I look around the world, I see people consumed by their tech.  Running around to find charge ports to service its needs, they have become the servant and the machine the master.  We are only given so much time on this earth, and many of us are wasting it on phones rather than friends.  Rather than sit with our feelings we feed our impulses to escape any uncomfortable moments.  I'm not saying we should never numb ourselves or let ourselves be entertained, but it is clear to me that my life was suffering due to my imbalanced relationship with my technology.

So ask yourself?  Am I subservient to my tech?  Do I dodge human interaction, trading it for a digital facsimile? Do I get sucked into digital quizzes promising to tell me who I am?  Am I losing sleep surfing through youtube how to videos?  Do I feel a pull on my attention every few minutes to check in and see if something is happening someplace else?  Well if you answered yes you may need Mama Anaconda's help too, just make sure you back up your data before you enlist her expertise.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Millennials

Greetings all,

I am typing from a borrowed machine.  My laptop is in the shop.  It is currently dead. I only hope that the high priests of tech can resurrect it easily and cheaply.  So no photos on this week's blog post.

Having been cut off for two days from easy internet access I am finding there is so much more time in my day.  There is time for more meditation and yoga.  There is time to give people my full attention.  It can be startling to realize how much we compulsively look stuff up until we are without the means to do so.  I've never much cared for using my phone as a computer except at great need so I am having some flashbacks to the 90s before hi speed internet was everywhere, and google wasn't able to find us anyone and anything instantly.  The other thing that happened in the 90s were the Millennials.

What can I say about this much maligned millennial demographic that hasn't already been said.  Well quite a lot actually.  Being a prognosticator of sorts I take a great interest in up and coming generations.  I think we've handed this one a pretty bad deal.  They are inheriting a world with vastly depleted resources, polluted environments, climate change, antibiotic resistance, and debt.  I technically am part of Generation X, but I come at the tail end of it almost between that and Millennials.  So I feel for them I really do. It seems every article you read about them they are getting slammed.  They are being called selfish and lazy.  Simultaneously they seem to be very active in destroying sectors of the economy.  This is mostly being written by the boomer generation and some misguided X'ers.

While the aging power structure blames them for the wholesale destruction of our way of life I think it is about time to point out all the wonderful things about them.  For starters they are all about diversity. This generation seems to be more accepting of differences among people.  Whether it is ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, gender preference, or economic status, Millennials don't seem to care.  They also are more environmentally conscious.  They want things to be sustainable.  Perhaps they can already see the writing on the wall but the generations before them rapaciously have gone through a good deal of the earth's resources and squandered them for short term gains and comfort.  Our Millennials are also one of the most educated and innovated generations yet, they've had to be.  They also happen to be one of the largest generations.  This is good news since they seem quite concerned with social justice.

Right now our young people need our help though.  They are saddled with debt and limited access to social services.  Instead of encouragement they are often lampooned by the media as incompetent children living in their mom's basement.  What the media conveniently leaves out for the comfort of older viewers is that those basement dwellers are often working full time jobs and can barely afford their student loan payments and healthcare.  We have turned students into profit making ventures for banks thus robbing a generation of resources, then we turn around and blame them for not consuming more to boost stock prices.  This feedback loop has created the perfect scapegoat for society.  Millennial bashing seems to be a daily occurrence in the press and online.  We've changed from, "The children are the future,", to "Screw those lazy brats I paid for my own college and got a job after to buy a house."  What most people don't want to look at is that the social contract since they were in their 20s has been altered significantly.  A person used to be able to land a good job out of college that provided medical benefits that were cheap, they could afford to buy a home, have a pension, and even put money towards retirement.  Now it is generally only state employees that have these magical unicorns known as pensions.  Healthcare even if you have a plan can bankrupt a family even with both parents working and insured.  A part time job that used to cover tuition won't even cover books for a semester.  Is it any wonder that some of this generation is thinking they shouldn't bust their ass to not even squeak by?

Why am I telling you this?  Well I am the Faery Godfather to a few in this generation and they are awesome people!  It's so maddening to see them demonized when I know how hard they work and how well they treat others.  I'm seeing ideas and inventions that they are creating at very young ages that could literally save the world.  As I look around and see all the craziness in our society they give me hope that if they could claim their power, the future would once again be something to look forward to.  We are not lacking in solutions to the world's problems only in the will to implement them.  Millennials have that will, now they just need our help.  So if you're a parent, grandparent, teacher, or in any way involved with these up and coming human beings please do what you can to encourage them and let them know that they are powerful and that they matter.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Inspirational

Greetings all,

I hope your week went well.  Mine was a flurry of activity.  I've been trying to balance it all just like the sculpture above.  Well almost like that, I tend to balance things with pants on.  This week I've been prepping a kiln load of work which is currently firing away.  I also got to goto St. James Art Fair.  I look forward to it all year.  Besides that I had an art opening to attend as one of the local ceramic artists.

As I walked through the fair with a friend.  I breathed in all the energy of creativity.  The court itself is a wonderfully tended neighborhood full of old victorian homes that borders Central Park.  Seeing all the work of so many gifted artists and craftspeople always inspires me.  It fills up my heart and feeds my own inner creative spark.  Inspiration held a special place in some of the old pagan traditions of Europe.  When you trace the word origin, it comes from the latin root inspirare which means to breathe in the divine influence.  We often use the phrase, "Divinely inspired", but that is just like saying divinely breathed in the divine.  I do consider it a gift from Spirit, but not always a deity.  Inspiration can be passed from person to person, leading to one more reason to believe that we all carry the divine within ourselves.

Inspiration is a super power.  The best leaders have it, visionaries, those who bring us scientific breakthroughs, and artists.  When society is stuck in a pattern and there seems no way forward or out of the mess we find ourselves in, it takes someone with inspiration enough to share to help us change.   It is really the only way we can ever change other people.  If you actively try to change people. you will be mostly unsuccessful.  You may even get attacked.  If you inspire someone by your words or actions they choose change.  It is done without coercion because it comes from that sacred part within ourselves which the sacred part in others recognizes.  If you look at the state of our world right now we are in sore need of inspiration.  It is the source of light amidst the darkness.

So why am I telling you this?  Well we often think change comes from a lot of applied force and effort.  It can come in passionate hope and even joy.  Think of when you were inspired in your life by someone.  How did it change your perspective about yourself?  How did it change your perspective on what you believe is possible?  Now is the time for us to act from our heart centered passions, not only for our sake, but for the sake of those we might inspire.  Inspiration wakes the spirit in us to its full potential.  The  world needs our spirits in action right now.  So take time to stoke those inner fires.  Breathe in what lights you up and move with it, for yourself and the ones that follow in your footsteps.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Value

Greetings all,

Yes I know I'm late, but two days in a row I have collapsed in bed soon after the sun has set.  I've actually been looking at my writing commitment which I made four years ago and wondering if it still applies.  I made it in a time of personal loss and transition.  I needed a way to process my experiences and blogging seemed to help.  Lately it has been more of a chore, but that feeling comes and goes.  I haven't made any hard and fast decisions yet about the future of my writing here so no worries.  However, if you do enjoy my musings please let me know by commenting and sharing.  Writing on the internet is like putting a message in a bottle, I never know on which shore it will end up.

So waking up this morning and checking my newsfeed on Facebook I was shown many "Thoughts and prayers", for the people of Las Vegas.  I had no idea what had happened, but 'thoughts and prayers' is generally code for mostly preventable mass murder by guns here in America.  We act sad for a day or two and then go about our business.  Those of us who think that we should perhaps do something to prevent such tragedies are shouted down by the NRA and their spokespeople and the few crazy gun nuts who think firearms should be everywhere.  So we just wait until the next mass shooting and hope that neither we nor our loved ones are involved.

This has a lot to do with our hierarchy of values in America.  I shall make a list from the least to most valued. (This is a list of societal values NOT mine).

10. Muslims
9.   People of Color
8.   Gay People
7.   Jews
6.   Foreign born citizens
5.   White women (if they are Christian and appropriately dressed)
4.   White men
3.    Police officers
2.    Unborn fetuses
1.    Guns

You may notice a few things about that list.  For one there are no children on it.  We only value children (on the societal level) when they are unborn.  Once they are out of the womb they are expected to just deal with things, which is fine if they are born to wealthy white people.  Society is unwilling to invest in education and development.  We are also not willing to stop killing and imprisoning people of color.  America sees their lives as a commodity for prisons for profit or for target practice.  As for Jews, Gays, and Muslims they make convenient scapegoats for politicians.  Notice there are no veterans on that list.  We don't care about our soldiers once they come back as we give them poor support and that is why their suicide rate is so high.  As far as recent citizens we expect them to keep their heads down and thank God (the right one of course) that they made it in.

So let's all talk about the smoking gun in that list.  Here in America guns are valued more than the unborn fetuses that people will blow up clinics to demonstrate the sanctity of life.  This is why we can't have nice things.  We have things backwards.  First off there shouldn't be a different category for people.  There should be one category for human life.  That should go at the top of our list.  Guns should always be behind that.  I used to be a bit more moderate about guns, but the gun lobby has been so rabid to prevent any sort of sane measures I'm thinking it is time that nobody had them in civilian life (police included).  We have proven again and again that we just can't handle them responsibly.  I know this puts me at odds with people I know, even people I like and respect.  I have been in people's gun rooms (for my foreign readers here in the USA some people collect so many weapons they need a room to store them in) and all I could feel was the energy of violent death emanating from every direction.  They were clearly excited about this, I was not.  I've also been around people who had a rifle out for sports shooting and I was completely at ease around them.  I have been threatened by a drunk fundamentalist that they would get their gun because I don't believe the same way they do.  We may glorify it in our movies, games, and television but we must never forget the terror and death that guns suddenly bring.

Why am I telling you this?  Well I am sick of the hypocrisy of it all.  Number two on the list was unborn fetuses.  We wax poetic on the value of the life that might be, but we are perfectly happy to send that little bundle of joy out into a land that is being turned into a shooting gallery for the deranged.  This faux concern for life is even more laughable when we look at the state of healthcare in America.  Notice that wasn't on the list either.  I have insurance that I can't afford to use, and may lose in the next year.  I don't know how far this message in a bottle will go, but if it gets spread I am sure I and my family will get death threats.  Somebody might shoot me.  If I am shot and not instantly killed I won't be able to afford treatment.  Should I die violently before our parasitic healthcare system drains all my assets let it be known that I want my resources to goto the Water Protectors of Standing Rock.  Why you ask, because protecting our natural environment and resources is something that I value.

Okay I'm done ranting, but I must ask what do you value?  Have you got a list of values and their order of importance?  Do your values contradict themselves?  If they do, have you ever tried to reconcile those conflicts?  Do you value some lives more than others?  If so why?  Feel free to leave comments about what your biggest value is.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

The Flow

Greetings all,

I hope your week was magical.  Mine was certainly eventful with my normal classes, monthly meditation, a public talk, and the quarterly drumming I've been staying occupied.  Right now I have a kiln cooling, fired on the equinox so hopefully the work will be a turning point for me.

The equinoxes and solstices are the turning spokes on the wheel of the year, marking the edges and midpoints of seasons.   The earth's rhythm and our own are joined.  This past year has been one of many changes for both myself and others.  There are some rough waters ahead, but there are also many opportunities to change course and take part in more fulfilling adventures.  Lately I've been discovering the distinction between being grateful and settling.

Now if you are reading this I am sure you have something to be grateful for.  Accepting things as they come is a wonderful skill to develop.  However going with the flow has been a source of great disillusionment.  What if the flow is wrong?  Think of the energy in a mob.  Herd instinct can sing us into complacency.   Our tendency is to accept our circumstances until they become unbearable.  Going against the flow is not easy, so we'll just try and ride it out.  In my life I have settled for less, because I've been afraid to ask for more.  I mean I'm doing okay, not great but okay.  Who am I to ask for more?  Still there is a longing in me, and it isn't being filled.

This is not to say I am not grateful for what I have, I am.  I also realize that I must strive a bit or I'll never be anywhere but where I am.  So striking a balance between striving and accepting, gratitude for what I have, and the desire for something better, isn't easy.  The good things in life take work.  Whether that is career, relationships, or family, they all require effort.  This applies to the energy work I do  too.  It took me years to get to a place of awareness and skill to do it in a way that looks effortless.  When I don't make it harder than it has to be, it generally is, but it wasn't always.  Knowing when to paddle and when to float is probably one of the most valuable lessons you can learn.  (If you learn it please tell me the secret, I'm still guessing).

When I struggle to maintain balance I am lucky to know certain practices centered around re balancing myself.  One of my favorites is Despacho ceremony.  The pictures above are from this week's Equinox celebration.  Besides the usual drumming I had the opportunity to do Despacho.  It is all about showing our gratitude to Spirit and Mother Earth, and asking for what we need in our lives.  It is about reciprocity, giving our thanks and our best efforts, and receiving blessings.  It is a cycle that moves throughout our lives and the lives of all beings.  I like it because it balances that need to honor what we have going for us with the desire to improve our lives.  Plus they're pretty, and there is generally leftover chocolate.

So why am I telling you this.  Well as we reach turning points in the year and our lives, we should take stock.  We can remember what we have to be grateful for, and simultaneously strive to make our lives better.  What about you?  Are you counting your blessings?  Are you simply going about your day to day on autopilot?  Are you afraid to ask for what you truly want?  I invite you to the great work of balancing gratitude and desire.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Google Me Furious

Greetings all,

I hope you had a delightful week.  Mine has been more problem centric in a way.  I got to experience the deep fury I usually keep chained up in the basement.  So fun times right?

As a child I had very intense emotions.  I remember being 4 or 5 and being so overcome by my feelings I'd bite my own fist.  I never did (to my recollection) bite other people, much to my parents' relief.  However, I was often alone in my room when these intense feelings would overtake me.  I also had quite a temper, although to this day my mother swears that neither I nor my siblings ever threw tantrums.  I just don't see how that could be possible, personally I think she just chose to forget those experiences.  My point is that I worked hard to cage the rage or emotional turmoil I possessed.  I am like many men afraid of the rage that we carry within us.

Now when I tell people about my rage they generally begin to giggle.  I am considered soft spoken (if you don't count the swear words), gentle, and calm.  Well I work very hard at remaining calm.  I've seen what happens when I lose my temper.  Stuff tends to break without me even touching it.  I react rather than respond when I let the red rage rule me.  In short, I don't make sound decisions from a long term strategy perspective when I operate from anger.  On the other hand, when I neuter my anger people often think they are in a consequence free zone in their interactions with me.

This week, since I had a day that I couldn't work in the studio I decided to tackle a problem I've had with my website.  For at least the past six months, whenever you google my name you'd get an error message on the search where my homepage occurs.  The link worked.  The page was operating, but it was as if it wasn't there on google.  Now Bing had me show up just fine, but nobody uses Bing.  I mean Google is not just a name it is now also a verb.  So I called my web host not once but about ten times in total to see if we could fix this (The first three calls were placed over the summer).  It turned out I knew more than the tech support people.  When I complained I got stonewalled.  They couldn't help me fix it (they blamed google), but they wouldn't refund me any money for my invisible site.  Well I lost it.  I am proud to say I ruined the day for about six people on Wednesday.  That is not quite accurate, they ruined their day by not honoring their contractual obligations to me and my insistence that they should.  I was shaking I was so angry with them.  If I could have force choked them through the phone I would have, while saying, "I find your lack of technical expertise disturbing."

So I used my words.  Now I have somehow repaired the problem on my own.  Unfortunately I had to strip my site down to the most boring minimum.  At least I appear when people search me.  Still I am unsatisfied with those folks who helped feed my rage beast.  I mean he almost broke the chains.  Anger is a sticky emotion.  We can't live without it, but finding a good way to live with it is tricky.  I've had it save my life once or twice.  I've certainly had it change my life on multiple occasions, sometimes for better and other times for worse.  The problem that I had was that there was nowhere for this energy to go.  It wasn't solving my problem it was just pointing out I was dealing with jackasses.  I felt trapped by it, as there were no solutions and I couldn't kill the jackasses.  (Not that I would actually kill them....just hurt them real bad...this is why I keep the rage beast caged).  This is why I don't have rocket launchers on my car, because let's face it I'd use them.  Most of us would.  I mean you've seen how some asshats drive.

Recently someone suggested I look into writing for Elephant Journal.  I was sort of intrigued.  I was skeptical that my more racy or explicit posts (search for the 'Healing Power of Fuck Off' as an example) would be acceptable material.  I like my voice.  I like that I can scream explicit swear words on this blog.  I am trying to remain honest with my writing.  Honesty seems to lull the rage beast into slumber.  Do I want him gone, absolutely not.  He is necessary.  I want him as an option if I or a loved is in danger, so I can scream, "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!"  Anger is a part of the spectrum of emotions if we lose him (or her) all the other emotions just get that much more muted.  Joy would be less intense and who wants to live in a faded world?  Besides that anger is great fuel for getting you out of your funk.  You just have to be very careful that you let it fuel you and not rule you.  Those brain chemicals energize us but they aren't meant for long term usage  I felt pretty bad after being angry all day.  I can only imagine what people who live in that state must feel like.

So why am I telling you this?  Well I was pissed off and wanted to vent a bit for sure, but beyond that this experience really held up a mirror to show just how much further I have to go on the emotional maturity spectrum.  Dealing with emotions particularly the stickier ones like anger or fear really determine how much we can enjoy our lives.  Emotions underpin everything.  They color how we see ourselves.  They define our relationships.  How well we navigate them governs how well we deal with our successes and challenges.  Our education system is very concerned with literacy and mathematical ability,  but we barely scratch the surface of emotional literacy.  So this week I invite you to tune into your emotions, especially those that you keep locked away.  I'm not saying you should let all your emotions out to roam the village freely, but you should at least check in to see if they have all the necessities.  If you don't do that occasionally there will be a larger mess to clean up.  Acknowledge what you feel even if it is just to yourself.  Emotions, even the darker ones give meaning and context to life.  Schopenhauer once said, "Life without pain has no meaning."  Well ladies and gentlemen I have good news, if that is true, your lives will certainly have plenty of meaning.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Season of Dreams

Greetings all,

Yes this post is late.  I was at the point of sleep when I remembered I hadn't posted it, but at that moment the pillow's call was stronger than the keyboard's.  Sleep and dreams have a gravitational effect on us, and for me at least a seasonal one as well.

The weather has turned cool here the past two weeks.  There is a slight briskness in the air, and the scent of fall is upon us.  Although the real indication for me was the shift in my dreaming of late.  My dreams seem to be more fleeting and distant in the summer months.  Autumn begins the deepening of dreams in my life.  This is not to say I can't have detailed or meaningful dreams at other points in the year's tapestry of weather, but the remembered occurrences are higher in the fall and winter.  The psyche at its most unconscious level is in sync with the earth's rhythms.

Dreams often are dismissed by serious minded people.  Adults in our society don't have time to muss over the implications of our night wanderings.  I find this attitude very damaging to our wholeness.  For me, dreams offer a chance to operate without the stranglehold of the ego filtering my perceptions.  My agenda is not often considered and I get to peak beneath the hood of my personality to see what is really driving the car.  I have made decisions and changed my mind on topics because of dreams.  I give them weight, and in return they give me insight.

Why am I telling you this?  Well so often we're in such a rush to start the day, we don't consider the second life of our dreams.  The nurse from Romeo and Juliet said, "Seek happy nights for happy days."  Now while she wasn't referring to dreams her advice has merit.  If we've been suppressing a need or ignoring a problem, odds are it is going to show up in the nightly light show.  Beyond that, we may get to see bits of information that were filtered out of everyday perceptions.  Those bits can give a greater understanding of the motives of ourselves and others.  Dreams can also show you where you are at odds with yourself.  They are a goldmine of inspiration and information.

So are you minding your dream life?  Do you notice shifts in it across the seasons?  Do you notice how changes in your life affect it?  What could richer dreams be trying to tell you?  As the autumn mists roll in and the space between waking and sleep grows thin, pay attention.  Hold onto the wisps of story as you wake.   They may bring you a gift.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Break Up, Wake Up, and Breakthrough

Greetings all,

I hope you are doing well.  The hour is late here.  I fell asleep before writing and now I am racing the sunrise.  It's been a weird week for me.  The tail end of the summer always brings with it a great deal of nostalgia.  The school year begins and for someone who spent so many years in academia I still find it odd to not be involved in it.

So you may be wondering what's up with the mug?  Well I got accepted into a  juried art show, and yes I did make that mug.  For those of you who are new readers I am also an artist.  It is part of my profession that has been on the back burner for a few years.  You see I'd hit a wall with my art.  Well actually I hit several walls, repeatedly, or rather constantly.  After I graduated back in 05, I didn't have the equipment I needed to make work.  Then I worked as a studio assistant in exchange for equipment use.  That went well for about a year or so and then that studio closed.  I then helped someone set up their home studio in exchange for firings.  They backed out of the deal after I finished all the heavy work for them.  So I finally got my own kiln and equipment, but then I couldn't get the glazes to work.  After much frustration, I got a few colors the way I wanted them, but was kept out of a national show by a former professor. About three years ago I got into a small gallery in Gatlinburg.  This for me was a godsend as I had run out of shelf space and couldn't make anymore work.  Unfortunately, the gallery sold my work then neglected to pay me and tried to make off with over a thousand dollars of my work.  The final straw came as I found out that the clay I had stored had dried out into brick hard material.  I literally broke my body trying to make the clay work.  To sum it up for more than 13 years I have hit nothing but setbacks and disappointments.  The good news is that I'm stubborn.

As I look back on what I just wrote I realize how much I needed an outlet for my frustration.  I didn't mean to go into such detail.  In fact I missed the one piece of information I meant to convey.  I've been working in porcelain since about 2004, and it has been kicking my butt the entire time.  Porcelain was once valued up there with precious metals in the west, and after working with it for so long I can see why.  As pretty as it is, it is quite the diva to work with.  This week I switched to a different clay body.  I basically got tired of the abusive relationship it has had with me.  It seems to think I am beneath it, and do I really want to hang around with something that has such a low opinion of myself? Now it certainly didn't cause all of the problems stated above, but I can tell you that working with material that insists on fighting you every step of the way is exhausting and demoralizing.  So imagine my surprise when I opened a fresh bag of new clay and started prepping it for wheel work and finding that it didn't push back at me.  I set it on the wheel and had it centered in thirty seconds as opposed to five to ten minutes.  It responded to my touch like an ardent lover.  Now I am grateful to porcelain for making me a better artist, but I consider this blog post as my Dear John letter to porcelain.  I'm not sorry it's over, I'm only sorry it took me this long to figure out that you are not long term relationship material.

So why am I telling you in intrinsic detail about my feud with self important clay?  Well I imagine that many of us have something in our life where we keep banging our heads against the wall.  Perhaps we think it is all due to our own failings, but maybe it is just the circumstances.  Maybe we think we don't have options.  I am amazed that changing this one thing has opened up the horizon.  We can get fixed into an approach in our heads that keeps us from trying something else.  For you it may not be clay it could be a job, a town, or even a relationship.  Stop trying to make something work that isn't going to.  It is okay to occasionally admit defeat and move onto something else.  I stayed in my dysfunctional relationship with a material because it looked so beautiful, particularly in my mind. It is easy to idealize how things should be and what the "right" way is to get to our goals.  I'm telling you now save yourself the pain, snap out of the delusion.  There is no right way to go about your life. Stop trying to squeeze yourself into something that is not a fit for you.  Look for what works for you because, you're a much better master to your life than anything or anyone else.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

So Little

Greetings all,

It has been an exciting week.  We started off with a nation spanning total solar eclipse.  I myself was just out of the path of totality.  Had I not had two classes to teach that day I would have traveled the few hours to see it.  Lucky for me there is another one in just seven years, and I have glasses that will last that long.

I watched with family members from my backyard and driveway.  We passed around the eclipse glasses.  At one point I practiced Tai Chi, just to have the experience under the odd light.  In my area, the eclipse got to 96 percent coverage.  What struck me the most was just how bright only 4 percent of the sun's light was.  There was a noticeable temperature change, the wind picked up, but on the whole I was expecting it to be much darker.  It looked more like late afternoon than midday.  The shadows were odd, as the gaps in the tree canopy showed the thin crescent of light of the sun overhead.  The sun waned and waxed like the moon, changing their roles in the sky.

There has been much written on the symbolism of the eclipse, astrologically and energetically.  For me personally I found it to be a very emotional event.  The fact that only the smallest sliver of sun still had the power to light up our world was the biggest thing I took away from it.  In a way it gives me hope.  In dark times no matter how small the source of light may be it still has the power to push back the darkness.

As I look back on my many failures I wonder if they matter.  If only a small amount of what I attempt succeeds it may be enough to make a big impact.  So this week as you think about your life, decisions, regrets, and your occasional accomplishments be a bit more mindful of how a small shaft of light can make all the difference in your world.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Story Themes

Greetings all,

This week I've been mulling over the kinds of stories we tell in our culture.  I've noticed a trend, and I think it says a lot about us.

The classic tales of the past often see our hero (or heroine) begin in their home.  They are then forced by circumstances to leave and travel out into the greater world.  They encounter both allies and obstacles.  At some point they find power either in an object, an ability, or a piece of knowledge.  They then return home to set things right and settle back into their community.  This is not all tales, but it is the template for many of them.  The uniting factor is the return home.

Modern tales often concern people's struggle to get out and escape from their origins to make it big in the larger world.  These tales don't focus on the return home or to community, only the exit strategy.  The change here is of course the belief in the rugged individual, and exceptional qualities that our would be heroes possess.  In the old stories the return revitalizes the community and lifts them up and the hero becomes enmeshed in the continuity of society.

As we look around our world the state of many of our communities are in disarray.  No matter where we live there is always "that part of town" or county where you steer clear if you are smart.  Every city has the place where the homeless gather, where the junkies hide out, where the working girls ply their trade, and the place where the gangs run the streets.  It's no wonder that so many of our stories focus on making it out and making it big.  I wonder though that in making that the focus of our stories if we haven't ensured that those dark places will continue to thrive and consume those of us not lucky enough to make it out.  Some places are predatory, they feed on the hopes and dreams of people consuming them a bit day by day.  It is natural to want to run from the lions, but not many will ever out run them.

In escaping we save ourselves, but lose our community.  I wonder if the stories changed again back to  themes of returning home to save it if our attitude would change.  If the focus became less on our heroes and more on the relationships that drove them on and back to where they began would that change society?  It is easy for me to write this, I've been blessed in my point of origin.  Still I see the damage that occurs when the individual is taken out of community. That damage works both ways, the loss of emotional support to the individual, and the loss of skills, drive, and care taking to the community.

So why am I telling you this?  Well there is so much pressure to be a personal success, to be an individual.  There is quite a bit less on being a good community member.  As I observe the events of the world I become more convinced that our tunnel vision concerning our lives as individuals is at the root of many problems.  When our communities break down that affects our families, and when our families break down it affects each person.  That effect is then recycled back into our community creating deeper fissures.  Then the idea of being on your own becomes more than an idea, it becomes the shared reality.  When people are on their own they are much easier to manage and control by larger societal forces.  It is also easier to sell them on half truths, or to use scapegoats.  If you don't have connections with the "other" it is easy to believe what you are told about them.

I don't have answers.  I work with individuals or very small groups.  I'm not a big social person.  I tend to be wary of communities as I have been for most of my life a convenient scapegoat.  I do however see the need for community, and the damage the lack of it creates.  So I start small trying to build relationships a bit at a time.  I try to create value where I am, because there is very little in this world that cannot be solved by people coming together.  We may have to go out into the world and fight our dragons, but eventually we all long to come home.  For you I wish that the road blesses you with good companions and that you find a way to bring what you have gained on your travels back to your point of origin to share.  Communities outlive individuals, skills like stories can be passed down.  So I hope your story brings you safely home.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Bless Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

Greetings all,

I hope you've had a blessed week.  I'm still reintegrating into my life from the peak experiences on my travels.  I'm doing my best to bring those insights into my daily existence and embody them.  An old saying goes, "Enlightenment is not found on the mountaintop, but rather in the marketplace."  Meaning, it is easy to be all grand and wise when you're all alone in your meditation hut, but society is where the test of your training will be.

Unlike many people on vacation I bought very little on my trip.  The little figurine above was one of the exceptions.  She was one of several in a gallery my friend Jodi and I walked into.  For some reason when we're together we shop.  We just find the coolest things when we go anywhere.  The little statuette is titled 'Self Blessing'.  I bought her as a reminder to be good to myself.  Too often I am rushing about getting things done, using my talents to help others, while neglecting to channel my own energies in service to my needs.  Taking time to renew my own resources has been viewed as selfish or indulgent.  Time away from the rush and my normal environment has shown me that it is a necessity.

When I left on my trip I was in pain.  I was exhausted.  I was pretty much done with people.  I had nothing left to give.  This was entirely my fault.  I let myself get pushed into that pattern.  Now that I have returned I am pushing back.  So even if it is just a minute I am taking the time to bless myself.  I am putting myself first in prayers for that moment.  I had forgotten there was a difference between being of service and being a servant.  So now I am committed to giving myself a good turn when I can.  If I don't treat myself well how can I expect anyone else to?

Why am I telling you this?  Well, self care can be hard to come by in our society of productivity and the competing demands of multitasking.  A quiet moment has been made into a luxury that we best not take because we've been told we're replaceable.  I say fuck that.  Yes we have obligations, and we should honor them.  However, never confuse another person's comfort with their needs.  We cannot live up to everyone's expectations, and shortchanging our health and sanity to try is foolish.  So I suggest you begin blessing yourself each day, maybe more than once.  Say no to what you have to in order to really take care of yourself.  Will you always be able to do that, probably not, but I am quite sure you don't avail yourself of your personal veto power anywhere near often enough.  In the meantime, bless yourself before you wreck yourself on the rack of societal expectations.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Best Unlaid Plans

Greetings all,

The best laid plans and so on and so forth.  All my plans used to share one trait, they never worked.  As I reintegrate into my daily life I'm having to let go once more of how I thought things should run. Still I have come back to a more centered view of plans laid or unlaid.

For many years I made plans, and then life came through and destroyed them all.  The one piece that I needed as a linchpin all of the sudden would evaporate so I'd go on to Plan B.  Plan C and D were shortly to follow.  I got through most of the alphabet when I decided to stop making plans.  I drifted.  There was much less disappointment, but I also didn't really get anywhere.  I would say I almost became afraid to hope for anything that I wanted since all my plans to move towards it always fell apart.  I mostly spent my time learning during the plan free era.  In some respects it was  a very useful time.  If my plans had worked out I never would have learned all the skills I employ now, both in my day to day life and in my chosen professions.

Eventually you have to choose a direction or have it chosen for you.  I've learned it is better to choose consciously whenever possible.  At least that way you have a vote (even if Fate overrules  you).  So I tried making more flexible plans, and they were less abysmal failures.  They weren't total successes, but some strides were made, they just seemed to be at a glacial pace.  Two steps forward, and one step back is a dance I have become familiar with.

In the past year or two, my style has shifted yet again.  Plans, even flexible ones, seem to be too structured for the chaotic happenstance in which the world operates.  Now I don't make plans, I plant seeds.  I have goals, I take an action here and there.  Planting the intent wherever I find myself.  Some of those seeds will never germinate, some won't germinate for a long time.  Some shockingly planted years ago will all sprout up at once.  Rather than trying to be a king over my life I have attempted instead to be a gardener.  I tend the seeds of possibilities as they sprout. With this approach I can be more flexible and responsive to the world around me, partnering with opportunities when they appear rather than trying to find that one perfect set of circumstances to move forward.  It is a strategy that involves a lot of letting go, and a lot of trust.  I'm not saying it is a perfect strategy, but in the past few months I have seen amazing things happen with very small efforts.  Rather than pouring enormous amounts of energy into bending the world, I am simply cultivating the bit of earth where I find myself.

So why am I telling you this?  Well many of you are in the process of manifesting the life of your dreams.  That's all well and good, but ask yourself if are you approaching it with a rigidity of mind.  Are you waiting for the perfect variables to make your move?  I'm all for picking your moment, but any time we find ourselves in will have both challenges and opportunities.  Plans fail when they don't take into account the changing tides of life around us.  What if instead of trying to control the world we planted the seeds of what we love where we are?  What if we concentrated on tending the seeds that sprouted?  What if we paid attention to which seeds sprouted and under what conditions, so that we became better cultivators of the gardens of our life?  When we plant a seed we don't keep digging it back up to see if it is growing, we have to let go and trust that life will unfold.  So I would ask that in the coming months you plant a few seeds and trust that some of them will germinate in their own time.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

The Long Way Round

Greetings all,

I hope you have been enjoying the month of July.  For me it has been eventful.  My trip home from the Monroe Institute had as many turns as my trek through my inner psyche while I was there.  Each time I have gone I have meandered a bit before returning home.  It helps to soften my re-entry.

So by way of Baltimore, Mechanicsburg, Utica, and Columbus, I slowly made my sojourn back to day to day life.  I visited old friends in new spaces.  I held ceremony with new people.  I laid the groundwork for future travels and opportunities.  In each place I tried to be fully there, not looking too far ahead or behind.  It is difficult when you pack several trips into one to center yourself where you happen to be.  I just try remind myself that when I look back I'll be wishing I was there again.  I had minimal social media and I tried to stay off the phone once I arrived at each destination.  My mind did stray to absent friends, those that I really wanted to share the story of my travels with as I had in the past.  The return through Ohio brought that into sharper focus, as I was going through a friend's stone collection to help their wife sort through it.  The picture above was an unexpected find, gem grade green tourmaline in quartz.  This was something I never knew my friend had; I found many unique pieces in my short stay there.

When we lose people in life we often wonder if we honored the time we had together.  Maybe we have regrets, and for those of us who are fortunate we simply miss them.  It's funny how we sometimes only understand a relationship in the rearview mirror of memory.  Another friend I often thought was kind of spacey was simply experiencing chemo brain as she had cancer for most of the years I knew her.  It isn't just relationships we see better in retrospect, it is our journeys.  That is why the return home is vital.  It gives us a chance to think on where we began as we head back towards it.  I choose to take the long way round so that I may come to a bit of understanding before I settle back into the familiar.

So why am I telling you this?  Well, often we rush through our experiences, so focused on getting there and back that we don't stop to ponder and reflect.  We water down our interactions by not being fully present, playing on our phones while our friends and family wait for our reply.  The siren song of 'what's next' can be irresistible, and yet it keeps us from truly living.  We cannot live anywhere, but in the moment we are inhabiting.

As I rode home I noticed the roads ahead became like mirrors in the distance.  I am puzzled how asphalt can turn into a reflection.  How can the road reflect the sky?  I knew this observation was somehow profound, and I also knew I would have missed it if I had spent the whole trip back on my phone (I have a headset I'm not suicidal).  In the coming weeks, I suggest you take some time to be alone with your thoughts.  Think about where you have just been before moving ahead into where you are going.  Be present with your loved ones, because time is precious, and while media can wait, people cannot.  If you miss ones that have gone on, take heart.  You'll meet again.  You're just taking the long way round.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle