Receiving

Greetings all,

I hope you had de"light"ful week.  It was the summer solstice and for me that means ceremony.  Yes I got my drumming on.  I also got my despacho kit out, and the lovely bundle you see above is the result.  I love ceremony, and it forms a nice cornerstone in my practice.  Despacho for me is about gratitude for what I've been blessed with and asking for what I need in the moment.  Asking for blessings and receiving them are two different skills.

My life is filled with mostly unbelievable chains of events.  I still have a hard time believing half the things that occur, and I was there for them.  You'd think that doing the work that I do I would be totally chill with things showing up just when I need them.  I apparently have a high subconscious threshold of incredulity. Some of it stems from control issues and the fantasy version of reality we are sold by culture and media.  It colors so much of how we perceive our lives and the "natural" paths that we think lives are supposed to take.

I spent many years metaphorically banging my head against the wall trying to get things to happen.  Only thing was, I was following the logical script of how things happen.  We have a false perception of how the defining factors of our lives come together.  This is all enforced by countless movies (I'm looking at you romantic comedies...liars) and television shows.  We on the surface know that it is all fake, but when it is all we are feeding our subconscious mind, well that is what it builds the lens of our perceptions with.  This is why talking to real people who have found a path to the life they dreamed of is so important.  You get to see how much luck and chance had a hand in the recipe of their story.  That chaos that is life seems to weave in and out of all of our experiences like the currents  of the ocean.  Each tendril carrying us across the sea of time in a pattern too complex for most of us to comprehend.

This energy that some call fate, luck, or providence doesn't exist in a vacuum.  Our actions, reactions, and basic nature steer us in that current.  Some days we are barely treading water and other days we are cruising along at top speed towards the summer isles.  I've had some really good turns from the luck wheel lately.  I'm super grateful for it.  Oddly enough though it has made me nervous.  I've had a hard time accepting this good fortune.  Yes I know it is a good problem to have if you have to have a problem at all.  Again let me repeat I am grateful, and I am not complaining.  I am becoming aware of my own inner resistances to receiving the good that I've been requesting in my ceremonies.  The manner in which some of the blessings have shown up have me asking the question, "Do I really deserve this?"

Why am I telling you all this?  Well sometimes blessings come to us in ways that we don't expect.  When they don't follow the societal script of how things should arrive we can somehow doubt our worthiness to receive them.  I will point out that if you are judging yourself in this manner, you are likely judging others as well.  So stop it already.  Learn to take the compliment, and receive the gifts that you are given.  When you have a run of good luck, make use of it and be sure to spread it around.    There is no one "right" way as to how things should happen for us or anyone else.  When we get caught up in the cultural fantasy land of the way things should be we miss out on the miracle of the way things are.  So loosen up, relax, and count your blessings without worrying over whether or not you deserve them.  I assure you that you do, and by extension so does everyone else.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle