What We Weave

Greetings all,

I hope you've had a peaceful week.  I can hardly believe we come to the end of 2018.  This past Friday I did my last weekly ceremony of the year.   I made a slideshow of all of them,  it is easy to forget how much goes into all of it until you see it all at once.

As I stand on the precipice of a new year, I'm not quite sure which course to chart.  I've been in a holding it together pattern for a while.  The shape of my life has changed and will continue to, but I haven't yet chosen what I will become when I exit the cocoon.  It is not that I have no direction, I have several projects lined up:  a new book to write, new artwork from the clay studio, continuing my study of chi kung, producing my first workout DVD, and offering some of the workshops I've developed over the past few years locally.  I simply have not yet set my heart into them as yet.  I just don't know what will light my heart on fire.  Right now I am making space for what is to come.

I laughed for the first time in months two nights ago.  I mean real deep, fall off the couch type laughter.  I think that is a good sign of things to come.  I'm beginning to long for things and experiences that had just fallen by the wayside.  That is also a good sign.  Being in the seeker mode precedes the creator mode for me.  This year I want to be more conscious of what I bring in.  It is not that hard to manifest, it is hard to manifest consciously and wisely.  Often in the past I got exactly what I asked for, only to find out I really didn't know what I wanted.

Why am I talking about this?  Well I am quite sure you've had one of your desires come true at some point and then promptly wished you had a receipt for it to take back to the universe's customer service desk.  Getting what we want is not always a pleasant experience.  I think it is a good idea to ask ourselves a few questions.  What does this wish require of me (i.e.  will I have the time, energy, and resources to manage this)?  Will this fundamentally alter the quality of my life?  Let's also not forget, will this enhance my relationship with myself and others?  Really any change I'm asking for needs to hit on those points, or at least solve a problem I have currently.

So how about you?  Are you looking back on the year and assessing the path you've walked?  Are you considering the road ahead?  It is important to step back from time to time and see what the our contribution to the tapestry of our lives has become.  Time is the loom on which we weave life, but we have to pay attention if want a clear pattern to emerge.  It's fine to have some background here and there, but at some point we need to make the loom weave something we intend.  So in this time of resolutions and gatherings, cherish what you have.  Spin the straw of your life into golden thread, and brighten the heavens with your creation.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Midwinter

Greetings all,

It has been a few weeks.   My heart has not been in the blog much of late.  For those of you who don't know I had a death in the family early in December.  I'd been expecting it for a while, but it still sidelined me for a bit.  I'd been involved in caregiving for my grandmother for the past eleven years.  This year her health rapidly declined.  She was 98 when she passed away.  I've kept up with my weekly prayer ceremony commitments and teaching my classes, but after that I just didn't have much energy to write.  I also didn't have much to say.

Friday was the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.  I've often referred to my winter solstice drumming as the movable ceremony.  I never seem to have it in the same place two years in a row.  This year I held it at the Louisville Spiritualist Center.  We drummed for 3 rounds with a short break in between them.  The first round was for gratitude.  The second round was to call in our guides and helpers.  The third round we gifted our light to the darkness within us.

Drumming ceremonies can be very simple.  You call in the directions to create sacred space.  You set an intention, and then you drum a steady beat.  Our first round seemed to take the most energy to get everyone in sync.  During the second round, it flowed much smoother and I even had guidance for the  third round come in (which makes sense since that round was about calling in our guides).  The third round was pure magic.  When the tempo changed for me, nobody missed a beat we all changed our rhythm at the exact same moment as if we shared a single mind.  Time also seemed to stretch.  The drumming sessions seemed to last for a very long time, but after all the rounds we still had a half hour left in the scheduled event time.  It still amazes me that just by the simple beat of the drum we were able to form a temporary telepathic bond, and alter the perceived flow of time.  Afterwards I felt like someone had hit the reset button on my energy.

Darkness can be disorienting, so can loss.  Right now I am not sure which direction I am going.  I don't have to know today or tomorrow.  I can take my time to get realigned.  Ceremonies are useful to help us orient ourselves in the world.  By honoring things like the seasonal turning points we synchronize our rhythms to the rhythms of nature.  Like all the drummers playing together, we are stronger when we are aligned.  I felt very grateful to be able to share that with others.  Our numbers came to 17 for the ceremony.  In tarot the 17th card of the major arcana is the Star.  It is a card of hope, dreams, and transcendence.

Why am I telling you this?  Well for many people 2018 was a brutal slog through loss and discouragement.  We are in the dark half of the year where our inner strength and attitude is tested.  It is no accident that our ancestors began these holiday celebrations at these times.  It is the time where human beings need to come together and celebrate the most.  We need the warmth, not just in our bodies but our hearts as well.   Sharing joy in company is what makes the season shine in the memories of children their whole life.  As life progresses though things happen, hearts break, people pass on, and we can be left feeling only the loss for what was, instead of trying to create that love and warmth in new ways with new people.

So in this dark time, love as much as you can.  If you need to grieve, then grieve.  If you feel alone, seek other lost souls who feel the same and comfort them.  Be the star that others find their way by. Find a way to bring joy to yourself and one another.  That for me is the true reason for the season.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Gratitude

Greetings all,

Lately I have taken breaks from writing.  There is a lot in the works.  The altar set up above was from my post Thanksgiving weekly prayers.  The Friday after Thanksgiving is always easy for me to find the prayer focus as it is always about gratitude.

I won't lie, the last few years have been really tough for me.  I've ended relationships, I've lost people, and I have more loss ahead.  I don't want to sugarcoat things, because sometimes as we drive along the road of life a long stretch of it is truly awful.  However, I do think it is important to acknowledge our blessings and give thanks for what continues to support us.  It's easy to take for granted what we have.  I continue to have some top notch people in my life.  I have several phenomenal teachers with impeccable integrity.  I have a handful of good friends that want the best for me.  I have work that is meaningful to me and makes a difference.  I often forget that teaching Tai Chi in some ways boils down to being paid to workout more.  How many people do you know that get paid for that? I have a warm place to sleep, and I always have food.  I am in fairly good shape and health.  It's easy to see only what is missing or what doesn't measure up, but the truth is I have lot going for me in this moment.

As holiday madness descends, it can be tempting to compare our lives to how we think they ought to be.  No holiday has the power to banish longstanding familial strife, or personal trauma.  It is more than likely that holidays will stir up the heaviness we carry within.  We don't have to be perfect Christmas cards (and the even more annoying holiday brag letter) people. All of us have ups and downs, including yours truly.  I know of no power or magic that will change that, it is simply part of being alive.  Gratitude helps us to remember to be humble.  Much of what we have is due to no special worthiness or quality that we possess, it is simply a product of grace and luck.  Where we are born, the resources we have, are in large part completely beyond our control.  Nothing we have or do is completely ours.  We've all had help and a bit of luck.

So why am I telling you this now two weeks after the fact?  Well I'm sure many of you got caught up in the feasting, and maybe even shopping.  Thanksgiving for many years was my favorite holiday as I got to spend time with loved ones without all the fuss of worrying over presents.  It is often treated as food laden gateway into the holiday season, but I believe it is crucial to regularly reflect on our blessings.  If we don't, we can easily become selfish and greedy, and those traits never lead to fulfillment.

How about you?  Have you spent the time to really reflect on what you have going for you?  Have you told those around you how much you appreciate them?  Have you counted your near misses with tragedy as blessings too?  Well you may want to take some time in between holiday parties, decorating, work, and shopping to feel into your gratitude.  Until next time.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Getting clear

Greetings all,

I hope you had a great week.  The cold seems to have moved in, and we're swiftly moving from fall to winter here.  The time change is still messing with me in the evenings when it seems like the light has just been stolen from the world, but such is the insanity of our clockwork existence.

I can take a long time to make up my mind on things.  I ponder and turn over options in various combinations before I make a single move, loathe to change anything that might make matters worse.   When I do move it can seem impulsive to someone who isn't familiar with me.  They see the pent up energy of my attention unleashed all at once.  It is good to ponder change.

This past week I finally updated the description of my main healing sessions on my website.  I had written it several years ago when I did a reworking of the site.  I had looked at it in the past few months and knew I needed to change it.  When I finally copied it down into my word processor and really looked at what I had put out there for the past few years I was kind of horrified.  It was unclear, full of passive language, self deprecating expressions, and just plain confusing to anyone who wasn't an expert in energetic healings.  It would explain the lackluster sign up rate I had.  Once people work with me they tend to want to work with me again, but I get a lot of questions via email and the most common was about what my sessions were exactly.  I think I have solved that problem though.  I did it by cutting out a lot of detail and using simpler phrases.

I live in a bubble.  I have friends that are in energy healing fields, be it tantra, chi kung, yoga, massage, shamanic practice, or reiki, they all have a framework for the kinds of techniques I employ. The problem is that the world doesn't share my bubble.  Most people don't know what I'm talking about.  There are so many layers of complexity when you work with clients, but you can't really explain that all in a service description.  If you do, you'll overwhelm and confuse people.  This leads to them either thinking they don't know enough to work with you, or that you don't know enough to explain it properly.  Both of those scenarios are less than ideal.  So I took out all the technobabble and generalized things.

Why am I telling you this?  Well, I'm not the only one who lives in a bubble.  We all have an understanding or expertise that we want to share with the world.  It is vital that we learn how to reach people at a basic level so that we can share what we have to offer.  There's time later  to go into more depth with those interested in learning more.  Learning to effectively communicate rather than pontificate is a life lesson.  What appears mundane to us may be completely novel and exotic to someone with different life experiences.

How about you?  Are you trapped in the echo chamber of your life bubble?  Do you have a hard time communicating what you know to the world at large?  Well maybe it is time to simplify.  Try not saying everything in an introduction.  Aim for clarity, simplicity, and connection.  I will be continuing on my quest to reach the outside world.  I hope to meet you there.

Peace and Blessings,

Gentle Reminders

Greetings all,

I hope you've had a festive week of spirits and treats.  I had ceremony and readings the latter half of the week.  I had one impossible bonfire on a rain soaked day of the dead, and magical spreads during a mini psychic fair.

It is easy to get bogged down in the mire of the mundane world.  We forget the mysteries with frightening speed if we don't reinforce our dedication to them.  Even I can get lured into a trance of the logical world, a Newtonian clockwork of drudgery and limitations.  That's why it is important for me to force myself to get out and about to share my gifts with those outside the magical community.  It is from the eyes of others that we sometimes get to see the depth of our own mysteries.  This is why I do a few events each year.  I had stopped for a while as they had never been particularly profitable, but value extends beyond the glimmer of coin.

Years ago when I was the young reader on the scene, I considered myself pretty damn spiffy.  At the time, I'd been reading for a decade nonprofessionally.  Like any skill, the more you practice the better you get.  It was only after going to fairs and meeting some others of the psychic persuasion that I began to doubt myself.  You see their gifts fit neatly into categories.  They were predictable, and seemed to be under their complete control.  My gift remains to this day hard to define, and because of that I often doubt myself.  In fact the more I try for specifics the less I seem to be able to see.  The more I let go, the more readings seem to flow and the more amazing details emerge.  Of course I don't know when they emerge as they are just as likely to come through an offhand comment I make to someone as they are to come from my interpretation of a card or rune.  To sum up, when I'm being the most psychic I may be the least aware of it.  That has been the bane of my confidence for years.

So the value for me participating in fairs for myself has been to restore faith in my intuitive faculty.  I gave several readings this weekend that touched their recipients on a deep soul level.  Their grateful reception helped me to remember that I am gifted and that I do provide value.  That's a gentle reminder that I need in a society that tends to downplay the spiritual arts.

Why am I telling you this?  Well I think it is good to be honest about my own struggles with my self image.  People often don't see the challenges others face within their own minds.  We simply see the results.  The fact is that many people see what I do as frivolous or they wish they had my job because it seems so easy or enjoyable.  While it does sometimes flow well,  oftentimes I use a great deal of focus and concentration to bring forth results.  It can be an exhausting process, and I often have very little control over that process.  I simply show up and do my best.

How about you?  Do you need a gentle reminder that your gifts are valid and valuable?  Do you underestimate yourself?  Do you share with others how much you value their skills?  Well if you're in need of a refresher try sharing what you do outside of your normal haunts.  See what is set loose when you are freed from the normal expectations.  You may surprise yourself or simply remember the powerful being that you are.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Tracking Boundaries

Greetings all,

I hope you've a had a great week and you're eager for the festivities for the upcoming one.  Next weekend the time changes and the gradual lessening of light will get quite the jumpstart.  Even when the sun is shining now the light is thin and pale as opposed to little more than a month ago when the yellow heaviness of the sun beat down constantly.  We are in autumn and winter is coming.

The past two months I've had lots of time to think and reflect on the year.  I've gotten some clarity on some of my boundaries and while it took some uncomfortable experiences to get there I am grateful to finally have it clear for myself.  One thing I learned many years ago was that psychic ability does not deliver moral authority.  What I mean by that is just because you are more in tune with energies it doesn't follow that you are a better or more evolved human being.  These abilities were called siddhis by the yogis and gurus.  They were sometimes developed during people's spiritual practices, but adepts were warned that they could become distractions.  They were not the goal merely a signpost.  Some who developed one or more of these gifts would set themselves up as 'Teachers' and manipulate their students for their own gain.  Many cults start this way.

These days many people are interested in developing psychic abilities.  Some few are even quite successful at improving their own, but what is often not taught in development classes is the proper ethics of psychic gifts.  When not to use these abilities is as important as learning to use them.  Nobody likes a Peeping Tom, whether that is with physical or spiritual eyes.  I'd always felt this but it hadn't crystalized until recently.

I teach many different types of classes: Tai Chi, Chi Kung, Rune work, Shamanic journeying, and various other methods of spiritual/psychic development.  I get people with varying abilities in my classes.  I have occasionally run across several folks who rather than participate will spend the whole class 'tracking' me.  Basically they get their nose up in my energetic business.  I've even had some get angry with me when they couldn't track me.  This of course mystified me.   Then it really pissed me off once it sank in.  Firstly, I am a very private person.  My energy and my inner thoughts are not for other people, that's why we have a spoken language; it conveys what we wish to express and share to others.  Secondly, the arrogance that someone could properly interpret my subconscious inner world is staggering.  I'm me and I don't even understand myself half the time.  Thirdly,  it's nobody else's GOD DAMN BUSINESS!  Maybe I'm just a wee bit sensitive on the subject, but I've encountered people that have used their uninvited psychic prodding to hurt me.

Why am I telling you this?  Well I'm doing my part to educate.  I've talked this over with my teachers and they agreed with me.  Tracking folks without their permission is a violation of their personal space.  I mean you wouldn't go through someone's voicemail and text messages without permission would you?  You wouldn't read through their personal journal without a green light from them?  (If you would we're not going to be friends).  So why would you think it's ok to get up into someone's energy without asking.  I don't do it unless I'm in session with someone, because permission is part of the agreement.  In order for me to work on someone or read for them I need access, so if you show up as my client you've given permission for while we are in session, and only while we are in session.   Believe me the amount of focus it takes to properly sense, track, and interpret is not something I want to be doing 24/7.

How about you?  Did you learn a psychic trick and decide everyone's head was your oyster?  Have you had your inner world violated by thoughtless busy bodies?  Do you stick your third eye where it hasn't been invited?  If so I would suggest turning that eye inward to the places where you don't want to look because the traits or energies that you are seeing in others are more than likely within yourself.  That's not to say that what you're seeing about others isn't true, but it is truth filtered through your lens of perception and experience, not theirs.  If you find yourself on either side of this issue it is time to reassess.  I've reinforced my personal energetic boundaries, and perhaps you should too.  While you are at it, make sure you take time to respect the boundaries of the people you encounter.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Modeling

Greetings all,

If you are wondering about the title this week it doesn't mean I've started a new career in fashion.  I am talking about modeling of behavior in this post.

One of the things I've noticed in the past few years is how dependent we are on role models.  While we are adept at figuring things out, our behavior patterns originate mostly from what we observe around us.  This is true of both good and bad patterns.  We don't learn discernment until much later in our life, and again if it isn't properly modeled for us it can be quite the baptism by fire.  Our models can show us what not to do, and those can be instructive.  However, I find the modeling of healthy patterns far more useful as they seem to be in short supply these days.

I struggle with selfishness.  In the past few years though I have seen true generosity from people.  I have seen thoughtfulness in action, and because of this some of my behaviors are changing.  It's not that I am cruel, some things just literally never occurred to me until I saw someone else doing them.  I've also been privileged to have teachers who model healthy compassionate boundaries that allow for self respect and the respect of others.  Good boundaries oddly enough honor others as much as ourselves.  Again it's something I had to witness in action before I could emulate it.

I think all that is going on in the world today is not so much because people are bad, but because they haven't been shown anything better.  I keep thinking back to all the media I consumed as a kid growing up, and just how much garbage was in it.  There were the ideas, "The good are the mighty, destroying your enemies is the solution, if you do something hard you get the girl."  In real life these things don't play out so well.  Most people are not archetypal characters.  Heroes and villains are rarely so simply defined.  People are complex, but our mainstream models are simplified, generic, and often outdated.  When you start to dig into people's real motivation it is rarely if ever to foment evil in the realm.  This makes me feel lied to by all those Saturday morning cartoons.  Evil often wears the face of righteousness quite effectively.

So why am I telling you this?  Well right now we have some really terrible role models on the global scene.  Culturally we are still playing old stereotypes in our movies and television programming.  We need good people modeling how to get along with each other, how to care for each other, and how to care for ourselves.  

How about you?  Do you have people modeling healthy interaction patterns around you?  What about your actions?  We are all a model to someone else sometime in our life.  It could be someone you know or it could be a stranger, but the smallest act of kindness or cruelty from you could change the course of someone's life and the lives of the people around them.  The behavior you choose to model could literally change the world.  So when you get discouraged and think the tiny bit of good you've done can't help in a world gone mad, think again.  You don't know who's watching, and you don't know how far they will take what they learn from you.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

War of the Paradigms

Greetings all,

I hope you've had a pleasant week.  It certainly has been a challenging one from the cultural level.
Fair warming my liberal bent may a bit more on display in this post.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past few weeks, you are aware that the recent nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court has been accused of sexual assault.  I believe the accusers. This is the latest scandal and atrocity that this political climate has brought to light.  We are in the middle of a cultural war.  This goes beyond the war on women (which is a real thing guys), it goes beyond the right for same sex couples to marry, it goes beyond race, and it goes beyond religious extremism.  At its most basic, it is clash between whether we wish to be an inclusive or exclusive culture.

I look around and I see grown men and women acting like kids do in middle school and high school.  We have cliques for adults, they are called political parties, religions, and socio-economic status.  In the past few years I have witnessed people say and do heinous things to anyone not in their clique.  The fact that rape is terrible shouldn't be a controversial conclusion.  Ripping children away from their parents and locking them in cages that look like dog kennels also should be easily recognized as evil.  Destroying confidence in the press and 'facts' should also not be something to be applauded.  Yet these things have been deemed a great success by those that champion the idea of exclusivity.

On the other end of the spectrum we have the idea of inclusiveness.  Rather than trying to keep everyone else who isn't exactly like us out, we welcome them in.  The idea that there is space at the table for everyone, oddly enough is not a new one.  It is shared by many of the world's religions.  Now most of us don't fall on the far end of either side of that spectrum.  We also can move one direction or the other throughout our lives depending on our experiences and the company we keep.  Exclusivity hoards privilege while inclusivity extends it.

Having been excluded quite a bit growing up I tend to fall in the camp that cheers for inclusivity.  I was lucky being excluded as a kid from the social circles didn't affect my access to healthcare, housing, or my family.  That same attitude which seeks to continue its cultural dominance is the one that contributes to bullying and violence.  History shows us the dark harvest this paradigm reaps: slavery, poverty, and genocide.

Why am I telling you this?  Well right now it is tough to remain hopeful as we witness our representatives champion cruelty in the name of exclusivity.  Inclusiveness seems to be on the losing end of the argument at the moment.  However the fire and noise that the exclusive camp is sending out shows that it feels threatened.  It fears losing its dominance.  In this time, it is probably the weakest it has been in recorded history.  It may not feel like it, but if we keep pushing forward inclusiveness could become the norm.  Imagine for a moment a world where people are treated fairly, and where our representatives care about everyone's well being.  What could be accomplished if we didn't have one hand fighting to keep some people down?  Think on it, keep hope alive, and keep speaking your truth.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

As the Wheel Turns

Greetings all,

Hope you've enjoyed  the first few days of Autumn (if you're in the Northern Hemisphere).  I started my season with drumming and despacho ceremony.  The wheel turns and our lives move in a new pattern.

Autumn for me is a mixed bag.  Some of my favorite things happen in this season, at the same time the fading light holds the promise of the dark winter to come.  Fall is a time where I remember many  friends that aren't with me anymore.  It's a time of magic and of thinning veils.  It is also the season in which I emerged from a shamanic death fifteen years ago.  As the trees lost their leaves, and the animals laid down for the long winter sleep, I had new life racing through my body and spirit.  I reclaimed myself from despair.  As I've said previously, this summer was very challenging.  In fact many of the conditions were a match for that summer that almost claimed my life.  This time though I didn't have to fall so far.  The wheel turned and hit me in the face, but I wasn't knocked down for the count.  I think that means I've grown as a person.

The wheels of our lives turn, and we revisit similar situations throughout our lives.  If we've done our work we interact with them from a different perspective.  This is true on the personal as well as the collective level.  Here in the U.S.A.  we've been revisiting a lot of old patterns.  In the past two years we've seen racism, sexism, and fascism make an unfortunate return to the mainstream culture.  Although to be accurate they were always there, they were simply glossed over with platitudes and code words to sanitize them for the masses.  There is a lot of people reacting with the "We've seen this before."  They're right we have.  I hope that this time we respond from a more mature and inclusive perspective.  If we don', have no fear, the wheel will turn again and we'll be right back here.

Why am I telling you this?  Well if you're like me, a lot of your old tendencies have been making an encore performance in your life lately.  Although it is uncomfortable,  it is also an opportunity.  We have the option to respond differently.  We can maybe even change directions so that this the last time the wheel brings this situation to us.

So how about you?  Has the wheel of life brought back challenges you thought you had already tackled?  Does the world seem to be stuck on the same song on the playlist?  What if you brought to bear all the wisdom you've learned since the first time you heard that tune?  What if you worked towards a different future?  What if collectively we did the same?  It's worth pondering as we wait for the wheel to turn.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Becoming Eagle

Greetings all,

Once again I am late posting.  I am not sorry.  I have been tending to my own needs, and putting time into my own healing path.

Lately I have found it difficult to write as I navigate my own challenges.  In the past I have written my way through my own problems.  This past summer though I've been moving through relationship struggles.  I have found it near impossible to get to a more detached perspective in order to write about it in a way that is not calling someone out.  That is not what this blog is about.  It is about recognizing the patterns in my life that may apply to others, as well as my responses and thought processes as I encounter the world.  I do sometimes rant about things, but if I rant I want it to be about a condition or pattern that many people are experiencing.  I want to draw a line between someone being wrong about an issue and just being wrong.  I have been labelled as 'wrong' before it is not something I wish to inflict on others.

All that said,  I finally can talk in general terms about my experiences of the past 4 months.  It can be summed up by saying I have not been treated with kindness.  If you know me and are reading this, and are wondering if I am talking to you specifically, I am not.  This pattern was pretty well spread around, it did not have one source.  This has forced me to withdraw quite a bit from my social world. Many have negatively interpreted this or taken it personally.  I suppose it is on a level, but mostly it was to preserve myself intact.  Although it may seem like it sometimes, my heart is not made of stone or steel.  It can break.  The good news is that shamans for thousands of years have had the knowledge to put people back together.  They have the technology to make you better, faster, stronger, and less of an asshole.  So when I got to my breaking point I reached out.  (Special thanks to my teachers).

When I was in a space where I was coherent enough to journey I went to see my power animal.  When I asked him why people continued to treat me in this way he said, "You haven't fully stepped into and embodied your power.  There is a space that is empty in you, and that space people project upon.  Those that are in balance project kindness and generosity, those that are suffering project their pain onto you."  He then took me to Eagle.  Not the power animal eagle but to Eagle, Keeper of the East on the medicine wheel.  Eagle did healing work on me which was so profound I wept copiously and shook in my chair (almost like convulsions but in a good way).  After he had finished I asked him what to do about my relationship struggles.  He answered, "Do what is there to do, just be."  That may sound simple, but it was quite profound.  My tendency is to run around trying to fix everything and make everyone okay with me.  He wasn't finished with being all majestic though because he added, "To become Eagle you must become a man without enemies."

There is a lot to unpack there.  I have for many years had the Mooneagle Shit List.  Rest assured if you were on it, you worked real hard to get there.  Now of course I am being told to retire that.  Cancel all my grudges.  Don't exile people into the outer wastes of the world.  I would like to be clear here, me not having enemies doesn't mean I am just hunky dory with everyone.  It doesn't mean I try to make everyone like me and please everyone.  It doesn't mean I don't stand up for myself, a cause, or other people. It simply means I don't hold onto the adversarial energy and make it personal.  Of course when someone hurts you it is very hard to not take that personally, but Eagle was very clear that the next stage of my development was about not doing that.  It was about forgiveness and not carrying around the weight of the 'me versus them' mindset.

So why am I telling you this.  Well I felt it was important to explain my absence these last few weeks as I did my inner work.  I also believe many of us are indoctrinated into the adversarial mindset.  Growing up we have stories with heroes and villains.  We paint ourselves as the heroes of our life and those we have difficulty with become villains.  We interpret all their actions through that lens, and odds are we misinterpret their motivations a fair bit of the time.  We then have to hold ourselves rigidly during our encounters, not just with those people but with everyone.  We're always on alert for the next arch-nemesis.  This makes it easy in the sense that we have people to blame when things don't turn out the way we want them, and that is convenient because life rarely turns out the way we expect it to.

How about you?  Have you got a shit list?  Are you looking to expand it or burn it?  Do you carry the weight of the past on your shoulders or is your heart light?  I know I have carried the weight for far too long, and I would like to be lighter of heart.  I don't expect it to be easy, but I do expect it to be worthwhile.  Join me in a place beyond us and them, where we simply are.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Emerging Wings

Greetings all,

I haven't been very prompt with posts as of late.  It seems to be a time of changes and I'm not quite sure which way the wind is blowing yet.  Whichever direction, I seem to be accompanied there by butterflies.

The butterfly is symbolic of death and rebirth.  It starts out as a caterpillar and then cocoons itself away from the world slowly dissolving its entire form before transforming into the beauty of the butterfly.  The monarch butterfly makes an incredibly long journey.  I was seeing them all the way up in Ontario, but come the fall they start to migrate back to Mexico for the winter.  Monarchs have been few and far between the last few years, but all of the sudden wherever I go,  I see them.  At my stopover in Chicago my friend had even planted milkweed to help attract them.  As someone who seems to get a lot of messages from omens I don't see these encounters as coincidence.

Right now there are things that are dying in my life.  There are loved ones that are getting close to walking their final mile.  There are relationships that are changing or ending altogether.  The shape of my dreams has been changing as well.  So something deep is stirring.  It easy to feel raw and vulnerable while I try and find my feet again in this new energy.   I feel as if I've been in stasis for many years and now the container I've been in is about to burst open just like a butterfly's cocoon.  So maybe all the butterflies crossing my path is nature's way of reassuring me.

So why am I telling you this? I'm reminded of a song called Monarch, by singer/songwriter Matt Alber.  A string of lyrics comes to mind, "In my body there is buried some strange memory of how to fly, what to follow, it will lead me to the origin of me...prehistory."  Yeah there is a lot to unpack there.  To me it means that what we need to move forward is already within us.  The soul waits till the time is right to stir and guide us to spread our wings.  In uncertain times there is something in the stillness that is ready to help us on our path.  I find that a comforting thought.

How about you?  What is stirring beneath your surface?  What do the depths conceal within your heart?  What do you hope will wake?  In times such as this, the only advice I have is to go gently.  Be kind to yourself and others.  It is the same advice I give for life in general, but when we are at the crossing points it is doubly important and so easy to forget.  Take time to thank Spirit for the little messengers and mysteries it sends your way.  They may be delicate like butterfly wings or they may roar like the wind, but in the end they are the chimes to wake us from our trances.  May you wake from your nightmares into sweeter dreams.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Power Trip

Greetings all,

It's been a few weeks.  I had been getting pretty stagnant when it came to blog posts.  I decided to take a short break for my trip so that I could come back with fresh perspectives.

Every year I try and go someplace I've never been before.  It doesn't have to be very far away, just some place new.  Well Ontario was both new and got a stamp in my passport.  (You have to ask them to stamp it though).  I drove across the land over a thousand miles.  This year I just felt I had to go a bit farther.  I am moving into a new phase of my life, with a family member walking their last few miles, and myself allowing myself to be seen in my power.  Lake Superior was a good choice for that experience I think.  It echoes the power of the ocean.

This summer has been one of interpersonal conflicts for me.  I'm not a person who enjoys or particularly does well with conflict, but I make people uncomfortable.  I don't mean to.  My energy has an effect.  It can be subtle and deep, or it can be loud and center stage.  What I've had to learn is that it is not about me, it is about them.  In the past I have purposefully made myself seem small or hidden my light.  Now it is getting to the point where I simply can't hide that shine.  I can only make myself crazy trying to hold it back.  I do my best to be respectful, but beyond that I have no control of how my energy will be received.  This is not a fun lesson, but a necessary one.

So why am I telling you this?  Well the world needs us all to step into and stand in our power.  It may feel uncomfortable to start with, but it is the only way we will find lasting peace and a sense of belonging.  Plus the people wielding power these days don't seem to have our best interests at heart.  Why should we allow them to direct us?  Why shouldn't we direct ourselves and our communities with authentic power? Who are we to deny our gifts to those around us?

What about you?  Have you been stepping up and claiming your power?  Have you allowed it to radiate to those around you?  Have you kept it locked away afraid of what people might think of it?  Sooner or later, the light will leak out.  What if you just opened the door?  What would happen if you allowed yourself to shine?  Try it out and see what shakes loose.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

August Ways

Greetings all,

This post is late, truthfully I started it yesterday and then scrapped it.  The words seemed forced not hitting any deeper truths.  I try to have my writing mean something, otherwise it is just a chore I set myself.

 One of my favorite artists released a new album this year which I of course I had to immediately purchase.  A good deal of my spiritual path has been scored by her work.  For many years I only did readings, but coming into the pathways of manifestation and communion with nature spirits went hand in hand with her music.  It is beautiful, poignant, and also more often than not quite sad.  The road I've taken has not been an easy one, it has left me at times broken and close to life's edges.  It has seen me lose the ones I love to death and more often betrayal.  This album seems to call up the regret and grief in me.  Yet now all of her music echoes with time and friends past.  Nostalgia is not a simple emotion, it is like a forest in the mist, concealing as much as it reveals.  August is one of the times where the summers of my past tend to haunt me a bit.  I was often lonely growing up with long days of solitude.  At the same time I dreaded summer's end because for several years I was terribly bullied at school.  

The nights are lengthening noticeably once more.  The light fades  and the cold and dark seasons are waiting me with their difficulties, or in the words of House Stark, "Winter is coming."  So the change in the light and the air brings up memories of all those former fading seasons.  This has been stirred also by the sound of this album.  For a while in the mid to late 90s Loreena McKennitt was releasing an album fairly regularly.  Then her fiance passed away in 1998, it was almost 8 years before she released an album of new work.  On this latest album there is a song called 100 wishes.  As I listened to the lyrics it speaks of wishing to be in places with someone again.  

It's funny the shapes that people carve out in your life and no matter how they exit those shapes are always there.  Estrangement is a funny sort of loss, final yet not final.  Having so many folks leave by that door often has me wondering what is wrong with me.  My twenties was one long series of soulful hellos and fiery goodbyes.  As I look back now I mourn for what had to be to bring me to who I am.  Despite loss, despite pain, there could be no other way than the road I've walked.  If it happened any other way I wouldn't know what I know, nor do what I do.  Wishing it had been otherwise would be a waste of time and emotional energy.  Not that I don't occasionally play the what if game because like everyone I do.  I wouldn't want to be back there again, even knowing what I know now.  How could I ever let myself be vulnerable if I saw where things would go?  The loss and pain shaped me as surely as a lightning strike shapes a tree, and those contorted limbs and gnarled roots are what makes it unique.  

So why am I telling you this?  Well many of us waste our lives looking backwards, with the words, "If only I had done differently everything would be better."  The truth is we don't know, and if we did we wouldn't be who we are.  Like so many, we run from who we are, believing that we aren't enough in this moment.  The idea that we'd love ourselves more if only we'd done better.  Realizing this is hard because it takes away a distraction from the raw places that need attention in our lives currently.  The work of accepting who we are and where we are is waiting for us.  

How about you?  Are you losing yourself in the ocean of past never had beens? Do your regrets rule your view of your life?  Do you honor the gifts and experiences your road has brought to you?  Does the pain of the past bring you sadness or wisdom?  It can be both, and there is nothing wrong with that.  

Peace and Blessings,

Thomas Mooneagle

Why Put Pen to Paper

Greetings all,

I can't believe it's been almost 3 years since I published my book.  It's been on my mind as I have a series of book signings and events coming up.  What I remember people asking me at the time is, "When is your next book coming out?"  Now I didn't say it but my in my head I was thinking, "Hey asshole I just finished this one give me a minute!"  If you've never written a book you can't appreciate the amount of time and effort it takes.  What's even more amazing is that while I was writing it, I was continuing to pen my blog.

  I do my best to put a blog post out every week. I'm under no obligation to do it, but I feel the pressure to keep it up.  It has its own momentum now and I am a  afraid of losing that.  I have posted almost every week for the last 5 years.  Having a weekly writing assignment really helped me develop my narrative voice.  I learned that I have several different tones and that I can even blend them.  These days I think I have a fairly well developed writing style so I am torn between keeping the blog active, and cutting myself some slack. See I don't know that many people actually read this thing.  This is like a message in a bottle that floats on the ones and zeros of the web.

So why do I do it?  Well it may not be widely read, but there have a been a few times when people have told me that what I wrote really helped them.  There have been instances where writing about my life helped me to see it more clearly and get my thoughts and feelings more sorted.  When you have to compose things for others you have to step outside your normal perspective.  It's the difference between knowing something and being able to explain it.  Of course with all of this speaking of my truth, I do worry that I am making myself completely unemployable.  Companies scour the internet for prospective employee's postings.  My posts can be not safe for work, or quite radical.

Why am I telling you this?  Well the art of the written word is the one thing that sets us apart from other species.  While other creatures have language (particularly dolphins and whales), they don't tend to write anything down.  Writing gives a permanence to thought, as well as organization.  For this alone it is useful.  Writing crosses the ocean of time to share words and ideas between people both intimate and strange to each other.  However the value I find is that the stranger within myself gets to know itself.  As I write I see more clearly the content of my own mind.  Some things I see are not comfortable to view.  Others give me hope.  So I suggest you write your own thoughts down.  Put pen to paper.  You need not cast it onto the electronic ocean for strangers to gawk at. You may keep sealed in a secret place for your eyes only.  See yourself through the lens of your words.  You may be surprised at what you find.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Signs and Signposts

Greetings all,

I hope you had a rewarding week.  I've kept myself occupied.  I got to go out of town to visit a friend and make elderberry syrup.  Yes I know exciting.  I've also done a lot of planning for my upcoming trip up north in August.

So this little beauty showed itself yesterday evening.  Many of us, myself included have had a rough few months.  I personally have been bombarded with family issues at the same time that my friends have been going through their own crucibles.  So rather than supporting each other we've been pulled to our own corners.  However the coast seems to be clearing for us and we're once again coming together.  I'm hoping that brighter times are ahead.  This rainbow was the first of 3 rainbow references to show up in a 24 hour period.  Sometimes the universe just wants to make sure I get the message.  You know I can be a bit slow at times.

There's a lot of bad going on in the world.  It can be overwhelming and seem like things will never get better.  They will, I can't guarantee it will be soon, but they will improve.  The rainbow has been a symbol of beauty and hope for many ages.  It usually appears against the darkness of the storm clouds that helped create it.  To me that says problems or challenges inherently contain the elements necessary to overcome them.  Maybe it is about taking the darkness and from it creating something of transcendent beauty.  It could also just mean, keep your head up kid things will turn around.

So why am I telling you this?  Well it is too easy to get discouraged these days.  Between traditional media and social media, people are vying to control our attention.  More often than not it is negative stories that grab our eyeballs.  Some people have postulated that what we are experiencing on a societal level is a wake up call.  A decidedly rude wake up certainly, but a call to ditch our complacency with the status quo. This may also be happening in our personal lives.  We can become comfortably unsatisfied with our lives, but be unwilling to shake things up. The good news is that life will come in and shake things up for us.  Wait is that good news?

How about you?  Are you stuck in the blahs?  Are you seeing only the dark clouds and missing the rainbows?  It's okay we've all been there.  What if you started to look around you to see the good in the world?  What if you stopped scrolling on Facebook?  What if you spent more time disconnected from screens and more time beneath the sky?  Try it out see how that feels, and until next time.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

A Taste of the Sun

Greetings all,

Another week gone by and another blog post to pen.  The summer has finally brought its bounty in tomatoes to my garden.  The sound of the summer wind is heard in the chorus of cicadas and other insects.   The long warm days and golden twilight remind me of years past.

You really can't get good store bought tomatoes.  They have to harvest them green and spray them with a gas to force ripen them on the way.  Otherwise they are too fragile to transport.  So if you want really good tomatoes you have to goto a local farmers market or you have to grow them yourself.  These cherry tomatoes have a vibrance and sweetness to them that they won't have at the tail end of the season.  They'll still be hands down better than any ones you could get at the supermarket, but right now they have the sweetness of the sun in them.

When it comes down to it all life is a bit of captured starlight specifically our star, the sun.  Nature has found a way of taking that light and infusing us with it via the food we eat, the fuels we use, and even the very vitamins in our body.  When we are children we tend to personalize nature.  That's why you see happy faces in crayon drawings of the sun.  As we grow older we seem to pay less attention to these stalwart celestial objects.  The sun and the moon become more abstract concepts as we lose our relationship to them.  As we move through a human centric world we can if we're not careful succumb to the feeling of separation and isolation, even as we engage in 'social' media.  We have lost connection to the land, sun, moon, rain, and winds.  A vast majority of us eat food so processed that our ancestors wouldn't consider it real food.  We live in highly inefficient climate controlled boxes (not that I don't like AC believe me with the weather we've had I am grateful) and we barely interact with each other.

Why am I telling you this?  Well I think so many of us, myself included,  have forgotten the real elements of life.  We are bombarded by empty entertainments and instant communication, but we are drowning in isolation.  In short. we have forgotten what matters.  Not just in the human world, but in the world of our animal cousins and plant neighbors.  I have watched as neighbors and friends have put their heads in the sand as atrocities committed in our names are perpetrated against people and the health of the planet.  Fouled waterways are someone else's problem, mass incarceration is not their fault, and children ripped from their families and put in cages are part of a political slogan.  I can't imagine that there is much sweetness in the lives of those that would choose to harm others they have never met.

So how about you?  Are you aware of your roots?  Can you taste the sweetness of the sun in your fruits?  Is the world of men leaving a foul taste in your spirit?  There are other relationships we can cultivate beyond our human neighbors.  We can be friend to the sun and streams.  We can be lovers to the moon.  We can delight in the song of the wind.  My hope is that as we reconnect to those relationships that we'll act in a way that honors them.  The echo of our soul is to be found in nature, for we too are part of nature.  Remember that as you enjoy the fruits of the seasons.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Quantum Leap

Greetings all,

I hope your week went well.  Everything seems to be happening at once which if you don't hold with linear time is alright.  If you are still operating under that dream then you best hold onto your hat, because this is where things get weird.

For quite a while now I've been seeding possibilities for many different ventures.  It seems they are all coming up right at the same time.  I find myself slightly overwhelmed.  I'm simultaneously getting back into my artwork, while setting up a chi kung video, speaking at a new psychic fair, and I am preparing to teach my first international workshop.  I think it is apt that it happens to be about the multidimensional nature of the soul.  It quite literally is a quantum leap forward for my life.  (Side note tell me which of the above images should be the poster).

As I was flipping through channels today I saw that the movie Tomorrowland was on.  This movie got rather poor reviews and a lackluster reception at the box office when it came out.  There was a complaint that it was too optimistic.  Looking around these days I can't think of better praise for something.  One quote that sticks with me is, "Dreamers have to stick together."  One of the central points of the film is that our dreams for our future shape and guide it.  I am reminded of the teachings of the Inca who had a type of shaman whose sole purpose was to dream the world into being.  That  dream was a quantum snapshot, collapsing the possibilities into place forming the structure of our participatory reality.

So why am I telling you this?  Well if you look around our world it seems that our quantum snapshot got stuck in one of our nightmares rather than the more pleasant dreams.  We live in an age of distraction.  Everything between ads, social media, traditional media, and political leaders are doing their best to distract us from our quantum nature.  That part of us is capable of incredible and sometimes instantaneous transformation.  The power structures of the world are afraid of that.  A vast number of us have both the information and technology at our fingertips to create world altering phenomena.  So they sing lullabies and conjure apocalyptic visions to keep our minds focused on what we fear.  Then they jump in to 'save' us from the bad ugly thing that terrifies us.

So how about you?  Are you ready to take a quantum leap forward (or sideways, or slantwise) in life?  Are you entranced by the 24 hour media storm of tragedy and scandal?  Is your instagram feed eating your soul?  Are you letting the sands of your life slip away reading endless blog posts?  Not this one of course. ;-)  Well I think it is time to get synched up with your soul, access that power, and DREAM BIG BABY!  Make the powers shake in their little boots.  Tear off the roof of what's possible.  Forge a destiny and write it in the stars above.  The world needs dreamers like you badly.  Heed the call.  Leap forward and claim your dreaming self.   I will see you in that delicious reverie.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Time

Greetings all,

I hope your week went well.  We've had intense weather as well as a lovely full moon.  I sometimes wonder how much to share in these musings.  It felt really good last week to spew forth a blue streak of my frustrations.  However I also realize that this blog gets shared to both my homepage and my author page on amazon.  I need to present as professional for potential clients and customers,  so I try to balance between authenticity and prudence.   Many people have an idea in their head that people who do this sort of work are more evolved.  They mistakenly think that we don't have blind spots or flaws.  I believe this sort of thinking is dangerous for people who seek spirit practitioners and for the spirit practitioners themselves.  It fosters an imbalanced power dynamic that can allow the more wounded parts of the self to exert an undue influence.  You see this in the rise of cults, where the leader starts to believe his (or her) own hype.  I find it difficult to reconcile broadcasting my human failings with the idea that I can be of service to you.  Maybe I lose some business, but I like to think that the people who end up coming to see me do so with eyes open.  Hopefully it balances out.

Lately I've been building the energy for my summer workshop series I'll be teaching in Minneapolis and Thunder Bay in August.  I've been playing around with my crystal skull Pepe.  He is very jolly skull and I can't wait for all the participants to experience his particular vibe.  He's been enjoying being around for my ceremonies and grids.  Friday at the office he was present as I opened the space, which I do the same way each time.  As I did so I had a strong multidimensional feeling, it was if there was a line of me behind and in front of me across time.  All of us were performing the opening ceremony together.  This brought home the idea of working across time to create more powerful effects.  This is also one of the reasons that I do my prayer ceremony on the same day every week.  If I was really spiffy I would do it at the exact same time, but that would be expecting life to be a bit more predictable than is realistic.

Time is a funny concept.  I've mostly felt it like a weight.  Staying in the same place too long it can sometimes be a challenge to break out of a pattern.  As I walk down the same streets I feel the echo of all the times I have walked down them before, and what I carried with me.  The flip side of that is I also have all the times that I transcended on my side too.  Learning to access more of myself, I can leverage more power to create the life I desire.  We exist across time for a reason.  We cannot be contained in only one moment.  Our soul needs that continuum to bring out all of our richness.

So why am I telling you this?  Well, our habits carve grooves in time.  This can work for us or against us.  The more we show up in a loving way, the more of that loving self there is to call upon in every other moment of our lives.  The more times we ask Spirit to come into our lives, the more powerful the effect, because we have the cumulative effect of that intervention.

How about you?  Are you neglecting the dimension of time in your life?  Are you valuing it?  Are you using it in a mindful way?  Are you gathering all your past selves to you lovingly?  What about your future selves? Do you feel burdened by the familiar paths?  Do you long to cut a new path across the valley of time? Do you spend your days feeling isolated from the vastness of your soul?  If so I suggest you pick an action whether it be prayer, meditation, or exercise and engage your selves across time both past and future. Check into to all those emanations of the soul across the timeline.  See how that feels, until next time.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Summer Rants

Greetings all,

I hope your week was fruitful.  I had an eventful one with the summer solstice falling on Thursday.  It meant for a second ceremony this week beyond my Friday prayers.

This week for me was all about self care.  I'd hit the wall as far as tiredness goes.  I have obligations that are usually easy to meet, a weekly prayer ceremony and quarterly drumming (sometimes accompanied by despacho).  I didn't know how I was going to be able to show up and be effective.  So I asked for what I wanted.  I took a meditation break in the afternoon rather than heading to the store to get flowers and other despacho supplies.  I was ready to let go of doing the despacho ceremony, but other people agreed to step in and bring what I needed.  I was glad that I went ahead and included it as part of the solstice ceremony, but I am equally glad that I honored my individual needs and delegated some of the tasks.

Lately when people have asked me how I have been I have one word that describes it,  tired.  You'd be surprised how often that response is ridiculed or down played.  I've been helping with caregiving this past month for not one but two relatives while trying to continue my normal work activities.  The reality of it is that I have one relative who is in the process of dying, the other  has a long recovery from a serious surgical procedure.  So my fatigue is both physical and emotional.  I haven't been able to follow up with self care like meditation, and plain old sleeping to recuperate. Amidst this I've had people say things like, "Well no one ever died from lack of sleep," , or this, "You don't have kids how can you be tired?", or my personal favorite, "You can sleep when you're dead."  Let me respond to those statements by saying, "Fuck you and may thousands of voracious fleas infest your genitals!"  I'm sorry that was inappropriate, maybe I'm just a bit emotional, maybe it's because I'm FUCKING TIRED!

I don't know who started the Cult of the Perpetually Exhausted, but I hope they died in a horrific accident caused by their sleep deprivation.  Now sleep isn't the only form of rest sometimes just sitting quietly with no plans or expectations can be wonderful.  For some reason our society has waged a war against being well rested.  If we aren't on the go and being productive we are deemed weak or lazy.  The go till you drop mindset has infected our workplaces and we even carry that into into our personal lives overcommitting to events and activities.  There are times when you do have to put in extra effort and push past limits, but in times past you'd expect to rest afterwards.  These days it is just onto the next overpacked scheduled task.

So why am I telling you this?  Well I've had less patience for people lately so I do apologize.  It's become taboo to take care of our own needs.  Good intelligent people actually feel guilty for taking any amount of time to rest.  This cannot stand.  Lack of rest and downtime might not immediately kill you (unless you operate heavy machinery regularly), but it does suck the life out of living.  I am lucky that usually my schedule is fairly flexible, but many of us don't have that option and no matter what people say it is slowly killing us.

How about you?  Are you a card carrying cult member?  Are you at war with getting rest?  Do you put your physical needs for downtime on the sidelines?  If you do, you're not alone.  Many of us have this habit, and like any habit we can change it with a little effort and consistency.  If others have unrealistic expectations for you, tell them.  I mean somebody should.  Think of it as doing them a favor, maybe they'll start to tend to their own needs a bit better.  So I hope this missive finds you well and well rested.  Take a summer nap and think of me.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

My face

Greetings all,

I may actually get my blog post out on time this week.  I feel so accomplished.

Well this week I was at my lowest I've been in many years mentally and physically.  I was exhausted in my body and in my heart.  A lot of people think that life doesn't happen to me because I'm all magical and mysterious.  That of course is complete bullshit.  I have the same struggles and challenges that everyone does (plus a few others that come with being 'special').  What I have been dealing with lately is the decline of a grandparent and the convalescence of a parent. That has been the backdrop to some longstanding interaction patterns that are unhealthy and in some cases toxic in my family.  You know what they say if you think you're enlightened go spend a week with your family.

In times of stress we don't think clearly.  Well at least I don't.  It is easy to shut down and become fixated on the current dilemma.  For me it is like a script in my head telling me what's going on and where it will lead.  Normally there is some balance with that, but in certain instances it is like our brains get stuck on the same station and for some reason they are playing the same bad song over and over.  The thing that I have noticed is that the voice dictating the script in my head has been repeating other people's projections of me (or if we want to get real technical my perception of their projections).  What was alarming about this projection was it was wearing my face, and masquerading as my identity.  I had internalized these projections true or not, and now they were ruling the roost.   So Mr. False Face was reading my internal dialog and it was pretty nihilistic.  So sometimes I forget that I have tools.  Luckily I also have many allies, and some are very persistent with getting my attention.  Long story short, I went to see my power animal and they shook me loose a bit.   After that journey I still had that inner monologue in my head, but I now had other counterpoint voices saying things like,  "I don't think that's true,"  or "Well that's not helpful at all," or  "You only think they think that about you, odds are that's not right."

Yes I have voices in my head.  I talk to myself, sometimes I crack myself up too.  I was telling another practitioner that was working on me that having multiple voices in my head was far preferable to having just one.  One voice makes it very easy to obsess and get stuck in an unhealthy idea.  To quote a favorite show of mine, "A delusion starts out like any other idea."  Having multiple inner voices actually helps me to hold more than one perspective.  This is a useful skill if you are giving intuitive readings, but it is also useful tool in general for discernment.  In this middle world we have to discern truth from lies, balance from imbalance, and love from fear.  We have to be able to examine our own thoughts, and having multiple points of view in your own head is a great start.

So why am I telling you this?  Well many of you may have noticed that I haven't been on my stride the last few weeks, or that my posts have been sort of morose.  This happens, sometimes life knocks us down.  The important thing is to find a way to get back up, or ask for a hand.  It is easy to obsess over what is not right in our lives or what is 'wrong' with us (or someone else).  It's okay to have those thoughts, but you probably don't want to have them on continuous playback.

How about you?  Do you have a monolithic voice dictating your identity and circumstances to you?  Is the voice kind?  Is the voice helpful?  Is it accurate?  Does it wear your face, but seem to act like a past authority figure you've encountered?  What if we opened up the internal forum for more voices of reason and feeling?  None of us are just one thing, so why should one voice speak for our psyche?  In the coming weeks encourage your various voices to speak up.  You might be surprised to find that what you thought was you, is really a masked figure from your past.  Thank them for their input and then pass the microphone.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Reflections

Greetings all,

I hope you had a great first week of June.  I've been kept busy between assisting family members with caregiving this week and also officiating a wedding.  However I did get out one evening to see a movie with friends and that was wonderful.

This morning as I was teaching my Tai Chi class I had an interesting experience.  The fitness room that I teach in has mirrored walls on two sides of the room.  One of those walls has doors leading to a supply closet  They were not quite latched so the mirrors were slightly eschew.  Now as I led class toward that wall I noticed I had no reflection showing, due to the angle of the doors.  I was seeing all the students but not myself.  This struck me as very strong metaphor.  

Often we don't see ourselves, only those around us.  For me personally I've struggled a lot throughout my life in envisioning a positive future for myself.  Having no reflection showing in front of me was a clear reminder that this is still an issue for me.  I got used to not looking too far ahead or making plans beyond the next project.  I don't see myself on the path before me.  That is of course one interpretation of this coincidence.  Another could be that none of us really see ourselves only the people around us, and it is through their actions that we form our self image.  Sometimes though we don't even want to look at ourselves, afraid of what we might find there.

There comes a point in life where many of us settle for just getting by, because the way our society is structured makes that very difficult.  Not all dreams should come to fruition, but there are deep yearnings in our hearts that when we deny them, we die a little.  I'm not talking of dreams of huge homes and fancy cars.  I'm speaking of how we live, relate to each other, and how we spend the bulk of our time.  Why do we accept so much less?  Is it because we don't think we deserve what our heart longs for?  Is it because we think we cannot have it?  Is it because we are afraid that if we get what we want we'll still be unhappy and it is better to not risk the disappointment?

I do apologize this post is not exactly up lifting.  Still even in darker musings there can be some wisdom and value to be found.  I have found that living through hard times has made me get very specific about what I don't want, which makes it easier to seek out what I do.  I hope that your time in the shadow land is brief, and that you learn something to your advantage while you are moving through it.  While you are there it can be tempting to just focus on getting through, but try if you can to envision where you want to come out of the tunnel.  Beyond pain there is more than just relief, there is laughter, joy, and love...always love.  I wish for all of that for you.

Peace and Blessings,

Thomas Mooneagle

Holding the Self

Greetings all,

I hope you are doing well.  I know this post is several days late.  Be thankful there is one at all.  The post is late because I've been overwhelmed lately.

So there has been some health issues in my family and I am stepping in a bit more to help out.  This has left me tired both physically and mentally.  At the same time it seems people in my social sphere are all going through some rough patches.  Last month I was feeling grief for the past quite acutely.  It has not left me, but I am currently also dealing with current issues.  In times such as these where things must get done, I tend to unplug emotionally.  It seems to be the way that I can cope with demands on my energy.  This does of course make me less receptive to holding space for others when they are feeling tender.

I don't think I am unique in this.  We all tend to dissociate from time to time if we feel things are too intense for us to handle and function, or we have  breakdown.  I've had those but only on the inside.  I kept plugging along on my have to do list whilst I quietly freaked out behind my eyes.  So in the past 2 weeks I've been less empathetic than I normally tend to be.  I've not had the energy.  I've come to a place where no matter what I do somebody is going to be super pissed and project their struggle onto me.  I can't help that.  I started to worry over it, and it was just more to carry.  So I stopped and put it down.  I realized I couldn't hold space for anyone else right now but myself.  This had nothing to do with any personal flaw or being a bad person.

Why am I telling you this?  Well there are times when we just don't have it to give of ourselves.  All we can do is hold ourselves gently up and acknowledge our limits without judgment.  We can't be all things all the time, nor should we.  Compassion starts with the self even when we can't show up the we think we should for others.

How about you?  Are you burned out from your own trauma, but expecting yourself to help others process theirs?  Are you past exhaustion but piling more duties on your plate?  Do you give yourself the space to hold your own feelings in compassion, or do you just do that for others?  Well at some point you will stop, and in my experience it is better if you make that choice consciously rather than having it made for you.  Be gentle with yourself, and forgive yourself.  Those around you will do so in their own time.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Underway

Greetings all,

I hope you are doing well.  This week like most has been full of ups and downs.  Despite the downs I am moving full steam ahead to set things up for the summer.  I will be on the road in August.  As part of my deal with myself to try and go someplace I've never been each year,  I'll be passing through some places in Wisconsin and Minnesota.  I will also end up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, because this eagle is about to go international.

How do you like my first shot at a DVD cover?  Personally I'd like those triangles a little longer, more isosceles and less equilateral. Still it isn't bad for just playing around.  I'm working on my first professional instructional DVD and I will be teaching workshops on the road.  For whatever reason this week I've just been knocking out tasks one after another.  I spent so many years wishing for things to change, to have my chance, and now it feels like it is happening.  The difference between now and then is how I act on things.

I remember years ago when the movie "The Secret" came out.  Like many people I was in a desperate space and wanted to manifest my dreams.  The formula was be grateful, visualize, and release.  Sounds simple and I don't want to knock that, being able to envision the life you want is important.  What so many of us leave out of it is taking steps towards that life.  Acting is scary, it forces us into places where we aren't comfortable.  It forces us to change up what we are doing.  For someone like me who wants reassurance that where I am going and what I am doing is going to work out, that's a big challenge.  I've learned though you have to start with or without that guarantee and though things rarely go to plan they usually take me where I need to be.  I'm still working on the where I want to be part.  My road twists and turns taking me to places I never anticipated and I'm the better for it.

I officially started my business about 8 years ago.  I wish I had known the things I know now back then, but that's life.  You learn as you go.  Here are some of things I picked up along the way.  The biggest thing is to just start.  Try not to get too narrowly focused (ah my old nemesis tunnel vision).  When people ask you if you do something that is bigger than what you currently do instead of saying no, say not yet.  Find a way to reach people that matches your interaction style rather than trying to force yourself into a standard marketing practice.  When you have an idea write it down before you forget it (because you will).  Write and write often to develop your personal voice.   Go out and have fun, because it is important for your well being, but all also because you may meet potential clients or experts that you need.

So why am I telling you all this?  Well the energy these days seems to be stirred up, and we might as well make use of it.  Dreaming is fine, but don't dream too long or you may find you've slept your life away.  Wishing is fine, but it needs to be the force that drives your decisions and plans rather than an empty ideal.  It's empowering to bring your ideas to life, so even if the big goals seem impossible start with some of the little ones that point in that direction.  I'm still far off from what I wished for years ago, but I'm closer today than I was then.

How about you?  Are you stuck where you are?  Have you let your dreams fizzle into half faded wishes?  Are you taking steps to bring your vision to life?  Are you paying attention to opportunities around you that may move you along?  Are you limiting yourself?  Well if you are I'd like to encourage you to get out and try something.  You don't have the bet the farm your first time out, but you can always start somewhere.  We're all underway to somewhere, and while we may not be in complete control we do have some ability to steer.  Try making use of it.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle