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

Within the Eyes

Greetings all,

Here I am in lovely Baltimore amidst old friends after making several new ones this past week in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  My experience at the Monroe Institute is still so fresh in my mind I don't know that I can really interpret it fully.  I do know that it was the right choice for me in this time.

Guidelines was the program I attended.  It is focused on opening more deeply to our guidance.  This time back at the institute I experienced more during exercises.  I felt as if I could really open my mind and my eyes and see images.  I did see them clearly even if I didn't understand what they meant.  I call this progress.

Now I sit in the dining room of my dear friend Sherry Tuegel after a day of joint teaching.  We come from different traditions and yet our ways flowed into each other creating a deep synergy.  It is within the past year that I feel I really am relaxing into the role of teacher.  Knowledge needs a living mind or else it dies.  Teaching is way of wisdom for it grants knowledge a kind of immortality passing from mind to mind, and with each passing also a bit of the teacher moves on into the student. It is heartening to see the wisdom that I have treasured light up the eyes of another.

Today Sherry presented as part of her section of our class, eye gazing.  How often do we look directly into the eyes of another?  How often do our eyes slide over a person refusing to see them?  How often are we seen?  I remember years ago at an art fair I was shocked that one particular artist 'saw' me.  He looked right into me and I was recognized.  This frightened me.  For many years, I had protected myself by being unseen or mis/seen.  All the veils I had cast upon myself were ripped away in their gaze.  It is a startling thing to be seen.

Most times when we are seen by others they merely see a reflection of themselves or some aspect.  If they are generally at peace they will see their own good reflected back at them.  If they are unhappy with themselves they will see what they hate about themselves in us.  The illusion is that they think it is us that they find repulsive.  In actuality, it is themselves they cannot bear to look at.  To gaze deeply into another is to also to be gazed deeply into.  This is not comfortable for many.  I'll be honest I felt sorry for whomever drew me to gaze into.  People tell me I shape shift.  My eyes have done funny things in the past.  Once I glamoured them and someone looking at me saw me as if my eyes had gone all black with no whites or iris.  It only lasted a moment, and I have never been able to recreate that effect (I think spirit just wanted to show me it was possible).  At other times people have said that my eyes seem to look through them into their soul, and still others have seen their deepest fears reflected back at them.  I take no credit for that, I only reflect the energy that people bring.

After today's exercise my gazing partner told me they saw my eyes change.  The round pupil became a slit like the eye of a cat, or a jaguar.  Now I do have a spiritual relationship to the black jaguar.  He has been a guardian, friend, and giver of sound advice(sometimes I even follow it).  I felt honored that the jaguar would manifest visually through my eyes.  It also made a lot of sense of why some people could never meet my gaze, particularly if they'd been up to no good.

So why am I telling you all this?  Well they say eyes are the window to the soul.  After a week of exercising the visionary ability I am pondering the nature of seeing and being seen.  So many people come to me who want to open their third eye and become a seer.  I often say, "It's $50 to open your third eye...it's $500 to close it.  So basically I'll be making $550 today."  People want the benefits of perfect vision, but they don't want to look too deeply at things.  If they do they begin to see the cracks in the facade of the world.  How can we open our third eye if we refuse to really look with our physical eyes?  How can we learn to see with spiritual sight, if we cannot even look at one another?  Use your eyes, observe, really see what you are looking at.  Don't chase fantastical visions, but rather come awake to what is already before you.  You might be surprised at what your eyes can see.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Just One Word

Greetings all,

Yes it is an early post this week, as I will soon be in the wind.  My long awaited trip to the Monroe Institute is finally upon me and I can hardly believe it.  I've been in a flurry of activity to get ready and fitting last minute clients in before I am unreachable.

As I was packing up at the office yesterday I put on an album I hadn't listened to in quite some time.  It was sort of a Celtic tribute album that an artist had done to honor their Scottish ancestry.  Years ago I had made a mix tape of the album to play in my car on the way back and forth to school.  (Yes a mix tape, I know, so ancient).  There was one particular song that always struck me as very sad, and at the time I was struggling with my own melancholy.  To this day I remember one of the main lyrics, "Some are born to sorrow, some are born to pain, some are born to laughter and joy.  We were born to live again."  Of course being a depressive pity whore at the time I figured it meant some were just fated to be born to sorrow.  I wish I could tell you I snapped out of that phase within in a season but it has taken almost two decades and sometimes I still spar with the shadows of the "poor me" identity.  These days it doesn't stay around too long, but it still visits.

Imagine my surprise when as I was listening to this particular song and I heard the actual lyric.  "Some are born through sorrow, some are born through pain, some are born through laughter and joy.  We were born to live again." For years I had misheard the word through as to.  That one word changes the entire meaning.  Instead of something we are born to, we are born through experiences.  For some of us our becoming is through sorrow and pain, for others they are wakened by laughter and joy.  These are the experiences that lead us deeper into ourselves, not some rigid destiny that we just have to endure.

The power of just one word to change the entire meaning of a song is simply amazing.  What's even more amazing is the shift in perspective that had to occur to allow my filters to even hear the actual word being sung.  (If indeed that is the actual word, maybe I'm still not hearing the right lyrics).  This really hammers home the point that our perspective and preconceived notions have a very strong influence over our experiences, even to the point of altering our sensory perception.  For me personally,  it was a sign of growth.

So why am I telling you this?  Well perhaps you are filtering out the positive messages in the world around you. Maybe your pre-existing bias is coloring your senses.  Now this happens to us all, but it can be more or less extreme.  If you find yourself in the grip of powerful beliefs and emotions they will act as a gatekeeper for the senses, continuing to reinforce the status quo.  If you're happy with that then no worries just go back to your lives.  If you are unsatisfied you are going to have to do some work to deprogram yourself.  Meditation is one of the best tools you have to descramble those filters.  We all think that our thoughts about ourselves must be true, because we thought them.  However our self image is rarely founded on logic since most of it was formed in the earliest stages of our lives, long before we ever gave reason a chance.  So this week pay attention to your thoughts, start to wonder what they might be keeping you from sensing.  Remember a single word misheard can change everything.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Patterns Unfolding

Greetings all,

I hope you had a good week.  The summer is passing and this time soon after the solstice when the light is not quite yet noticeably less always brings a sense of melancholy.  This year especially I have been in love with the light.  I have noticed it in all its colors and splendor.  This season though like all seasons is part of a larger wheel and it is turning.

Summer it seems brings with it nostalgia for days gone by.  As time marches on for the personal clock my life it is in this season I think of my youth the most.  For me it is not so much a longing to be there again, but regret for the missed opportunities.  My youth while mostly untroubled (particularly in comparison to a majority of souls on our planet) was not a happy one.  I suffered a profound sense of isolation and loneliness.  It is only within the past few years that I have built any decent relationships with people. My life did not follow the pattern that most people's lives follow.  Hiding my differences had me coming to myself much later.  Sometimes I think that I was simply more aware of the illusory nature of the self that we present.  So many of us become our roles completely and we live under the delusion that they are the real us.

It is no easy task to find our place in this world.  Blessed are those who come to themselves early and stay true.  Lately I have noticed that many of the goals I set forth in the past few years have come to pass, and yet I feel largely the same.  Don't get me wrong I am grateful that things have been working out well as of late. As I strive though I have to ask myself if I am doing it because it excites me or because I think it will change me into who I think I should be.  I mean exactly when did being Thomas Mooneagle become not good enough?  The pattern of perfectionism continues to unfold for me and I have to work through it, or is that just another form of the delusion? Perhaps it is navel gazing.  Certainly previous generations would look at it as such.  They were more focused on action, but if action serves no deeper purpose why act at all?

One of the most helpful things I heard a teacher say was about their own mentor.  The Grandmaster I learned Tai Chi from was quite a character, and he loved to share the occasional anecdote about his teacher, a living Taoist Master.  (Except technically now he is a dead Taoist Master).  He told us one time as we were sitting in his office after practice that his teacher came to him crying and said, "Why am I so fucked up?"  So when I am holding myself to impossible standards and feel like a complete failure I try to remember this story.  If the Taoist Master felt like a mess odds are I'm due to feel like one too.  Which is great because so often I do feel like a mess.  I'm not sure it is something you get beyond, or if it is something you just learn to accept and honor.

Our lives are composed of patterns, both large and small.  Sometimes the tiniest motion can have larger consequences.  Knowing what patterns we are running in the calculations of our lives is key if we wish to stop living the same life over and over again.  We tend to run patterns in the same time or place we first encountered them, so things like nostalgia and even regret can be useful markers if we pay attention.

So why am I telling  you this?  Well, while we can't escape patterns, we should be more mindful of which ones we allow to shape us.  If we find ourselves repeating the same mistakes, or the same heavy thoughts and feelings then it is time to take action.  Sometimes a small movement is enough to shake the pattern loose or bring it into sharper focus.  So this week as the summer skies fill with the warm light take some time to reflect upon where you've been, where you are, and if you are going in the direction you desire.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

Behind the Eyes

Greetings all,

I hope you had a good June.  I can hardly believe that we are already into July, and that in less than 2 weeks I take to the road again.  It still feels a bit unreal.  Lately my months seem to fill up with happenings and I am grateful for that.  Recently I spoke at the Sanctuary of Eternal Truth.  I always love the Q&A portion of any talk.  I seem to speak more naturally when answering questions, and get to slip into my conversational mode.  You know like I do here.

Anyways one of the questions I was asked after the event helped to crystallize something I have been thinking about for a long time.  Somebody asked me if I ever felt like a fraud. They weren't doing it to be mean (at least I don't think they were), but my honest answer was, "Gods yes all the time!"  I mean I have blogged repeatedly about my own chronic self doubt so my answer should come as no surprise.  I don't truly think I'm a fraud, but do I sometimes feel like one, oh hell yeah.

My answer surprised the querent.  They wanted to know why I felt that way if I'm the real deal.  As best I recall this was my answer.  "Well when we see other people in our field doing what we do, we only get to see the end result.  We never get to see the struggle that goes on behind their eyes.  So we assume that they don't have one.  Which is of course total bullshit.  Almost everyone you ask if they are being truthful will admit to having self doubts and inner turmoil.  We tend to forget that especially when we're self conscious or feeling anxious about our own worth and abilities."

I used to have a friend that summed it up with this saying, "Never compare your inside with someone else's outside."  It's probably best really to stop comparing yourself to others in general. That way is the road to madness.  I know you will continue to do so because it is a very human thing to do, but just remember you have no idea what is going on behind someone else's eyes.  They like me could be quietly freaking out on the inside.

So are you comparing yourself unfairly to others?  Do you assume that person you look up to moved through life without their own inner self critic?  Does it help you to accept your own struggles to know that each of us has that inner voice telling us how much we suck?  What if we accepted that voice as part of the deal of getting stuff done?  What if we stopped penalizing ourselves for having that difficult passenger in our psyche?  What if we remembered that each of us has our inner conflict and burden that we carry?  Sometimes it will be lighter and quieter, and sometimes it will be louder and heavier.  That is life as a human being, so let's stop judging ourselves for having that inner judge.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle

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

Dark Gifts

Greetings all,

What a week!  I found myself back in the studio revisiting some old ways of working, and my oh my did the gifts flow from that.  Here is to hoping this week has gifted you with something of value whether it be tangible or not.

One of the tangible gifts I received this week was the orb you see above.  I had to consult with some people to find out the identity of the stone, but our best guess is gold sheen obsidian.  The spiritual  properties of the stone are quite revealing as to the focus of my journey at this time.  Some of those include: healing from the abuse of power, learning to use your own power to manifest more effectively, and scrying that reveals the core of a problem or pattern.  Receiving this as I move back into clay work is quite apropos.  I have had problems with authority.  Yes I know, shocking.  Without going too far into the backstory I had an extensive feud with an authority figure when I was in the process of getting my art degree.  I had four years of public humiliation and backstabbing by authority.  It really put a crimp on my creative output and belief in myself.  Subsequently I have had just about every obstacle you could think of come into my path as I have tried to make and sell my artwork.  It has been exhausting.

Dreams, I have often remarked, show us what is going on behind the scenes.  Sometimes they also hint at the future, but peering behind the scenes I find to be more valuable.  That was the intangible gift of this week, one I believe this dark orb helped to unlock.  I have been out of academia for more than a decade, but I have hundreds of school dreams each year.  I'm back there again and again without a purpose, feeling out of place, and always missing either a physical item or vital piece of information.  For you readers of omens out there, you may be starting to see where this is going.  Well pardon me if I am sometimes just a wee bit dense.  The latest back to school dream finally crystalized it for me.

So I'm back at the university post graduation, but I still have some work to collect that was fired in the kiln.  I try to sneak in the studio and the authoritarian adversary is there.  As I am trying to carefully extricate pieces off the shelf I accidentally knock one off and it shatters.  I am sad because it was one of mine that I thought might be good, but also relieved that I didn't ruin anybody else's work.  Upon making the noise Mr. Authority figure looks at me, and says, "You aren't being very amiable to me.  You know I am taking on a bigger role in the art community and if you're not nice to me your work won't go anywhere."  I look down at my work and I don't like it, I feel it is amateur and not good enough.  As soon as I recalled the dream in the morning I had a lightbulb go off over my head.  The reason I keep dreaming myself back at school is because I left a big part of my creative power and personal authority there.  My consistent doubting of my talents, skill, and worth began in that place.  I now know that somewhere in that place a piece of my soul essence and true power was lost.

Here's the good news, I've had shamanic training that's all about reclaiming lost pieces of the self.  I have the clarity and vision now to go back and retrieve those lost bits.  I've already seen a change in my studio work.  When I run into problems I am starting to see the cause and also the solutions.  The combination of the obsidian's energy, my decision to return to clay work, and my own spiritual work I've been doing has come together to show me what I need to do.  Right at the same time I've been invited to submit work for a juried show.  What an astounding coincidence....

Why am I telling you this?  We tend to circle around issues until they are resolved.  The mind will send us coded messages in our dreams. Many of us don't pay heed to our dreams or even remember them.  This was not a comfortable dream.  None of my school dreams feel good, they've always felt off.  I just assumed it was a general anxiety that most of us carry over from our days as students.  What if it isn't that for anyone?  What if we all left vital pieces of ourselves in the educational institutions.  What if the more we dream of school (assuming we aren't currently students) the more of ourselves we have left behind.  These dreams could be dark gifts from our lost ones.  I know what I intend.  I shall ride the wind into the dream world and mount a daring rescue.  I shall return with the prize of the light of my spirit.  What will you do?  Will you seek to remember what you have lost and sing it back to you?  Will you chose to forget and resign it to the dark space between dreams?  The darkness waits for us all, but perhaps it is waiting patiently as it lovingly holds what we treasure.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle