The Long Nights are Ending...and the New Year has Begun

Today the Golden Eagle appeared to me, on the side of the road. This is the sort of everyday miracle that reminds us that the transcendant is not other, it is not beyond us or apart from us. The sacred lives in each moment; each moment is a space that contains the infinite potential of reality. Each moment is both prosaic and sublime.

A hawk, perhaps a sharp shinned, perched on a power line in the biting cold of this Sierra Nevada winter morning....the morning of the last day of the calendar year. Suddenly, a huge form winged in and hovered, suspended in the air with wings outstretched for a timeless time...it was huge. Majestic is a word that immediately permeated my being.

Here was power, the power of the skies, the winds, and the storm. Here was the power of the sky fire, the lightning. Could this be connected to the Thunderbird? Sacred transformer, spirit journeyer, beloved of the sun god of the skies, I honor you. Are you calling to me?

My breathing stopped...even my heart skipped a beat. Was this happening? Could this be a golden eagle? It dwarfed the hawk, and landed as if it was the natural ruler of all it surveyed...all it could reach by wing. The whole world its home, the eagle flies in these desert mountains, among the clouds, above the sage brush and the ancient stones, bones of our Mother Earth, Gaia, Pachamama, sacred ground.

As soon as I could, I ran to the oracle to identify this visitation. It could also have been a juvenile Bald Eagle. But I knew in my guts that it wasn't. It was Golden Eagle. When I realized the truth, my whole being felt light, and I fairly vibrated around on my way. I went out into the purifying cold and hiked to a spot with a beautiful view of the Carson Valley. I offered the song of my flute in gratitude.

Eagle soars above, ruler of the skies. Eagle can signal us to find or acknowledge our path. Eagle can inspire us to heights previously unimagined. Eagle, spirit of the Upper World, beloved of the Sun, bringer of the bliss of illumination and enlightenment.

These are some words about its medicine, but keep in mind that the lessons of our spirit guides are individual much of the time. No written source can tell you the message coming from a totem at a given time. Meditation, prayer, and dreams reveal its meaning, often over time.

Many solar gods are equated with this symbol, giving the eagle associations with the lifting of depression or a more conscious awareness. 

Lofty ambitions that require great skill to achieve. 

An alternative lightning emblem. In ancient Greece, people placed eagles on temple rooftops to protect the building from lightning, as they felt this creature controlled the fire from the sky. 

Eagles are commanding presences. Whether they want to or not, they attract attention. Those with this animal personality have strong leadership skills and take swift action when it is needed. 

Among ancient Mediterranean people, the eagle was associated with the sun god, fire, and lightning. Zeus, the father of the classical gods, took the form of an eagle when he carried his young lover Ganymede to Mt. Olympus. 

For the Romans, this bird became a kind of totem for the emperor, who was thought to reincarnate as an eagle. Alternatively, this may also symbolize traditionally masculine characteristics like pride and fierceness developing. 

The eagle became a popular symbol of power among the Germanic people because the great bird was representative of Wodan, the ruler of the gods. 

Because the eagel could appear to fly so close to the sun, the Medicine priests of all the tribes regarded the large bird as a very special messenger of the Great Mystery. 

In India, the Vedic tradition also portrays the eagle as a messenger of divinity and as the bearer of soma, the favorite drink of the Vedi gods, from Indra. 

The eagle was the totemic form of Prometheus, who "stole" fire from heaven, like the eastern fire-lightning-sun hero, man, or angel embodied in the Garuda bird. Garuda flew to the mountain of paradise to steal the gods' secret of immortality. Later, he assumed the golden body of the sun. American Indians had a similar hero, the thunderbird or lightning bird. 

If the eagle has appeared to you in your dreams or visions and revealed itself as your totem animal, you may expect to receive renewed strength of body, mind, and spirit. At the same time, you will find your meditations becoming more profound and your visions more prophetic in content. If you maintain a harmonious and balanced lifestyle, you will feel a stronger connection with the Great Mystery than ever before in your spiritual pilgrimage on earth. 

Just as the eagle can soar high above the earth and rise above its companions and its competitors, you must guard against the powerful eagle vibrations causing you to withdraw from your family and friends and grow aloof from your community. If you listen carefully to your spirit helper, it will instruct you in the sacred responsibility of sharing your prophetic insights with others and show you how to become the most effective kind of spiritual teacher. 

This new year, it is a year of power, both on a global scale and a personal one for me. One of the first teachings I got from this visitation was to trust what I am becoming, and to fly a new path. Yes. I hear you, Great One. I hear you, Eagle. Let us journey together and see what lies beyond the misty mountains. What is in the West, where the Sun goes down?

What will be in this new year? What will you create? What heights will you scale? What will you hunt?

Let the blessings flow into us all like the golden light of the Sun, and may you be blessed by the wingbeats of the Golden Eagle. Ho, Ruler of the Skies! Ho, fire of the Sun! Ho, ruler of the storm! Ho, spirit lightning!

I welcome you, light of the Sun! The Long Nights are ending and the New Year has begun!

Blessed be. Naho! Namaste. OM shanti!

To Feel...

This post is part of The Pagan Experience, a group of writers of Earth-centered faiths. This is part of a series about the process of magic as framed by the five sacred elements - Air, Fire, Water, Earth, and Spirit. What does 'to feel' mean, on both a mundane and spiritual level?

To feel is to dive deep into the dark Waters of life, the swirling, hidden, uncertain, fruitful waters of dream and intuition, the waters of the Goddess's womb, the waters of our infinite hearts. Feeling is about surrender. We can choose to try to control our experiences at every moment, or we can surrender to the flow of existence, with all the folly and unexpected surprises that brings to us and simply feel.

When we give way to the all-pervading embrace of Water, we can truly explore the mystery of this Earthwalk. We are spiritual beings in fleshy bodies, having a wonderful adventure in time and space. These bodies are fascinating interlocking systems of stimulus and response, loaded with sensory perception. When we surrender to feeling, we inhabit our bodies deeply, and we experience our existence in a rich, full way.

The varied sensations we explore in Water are both sensations in our bodies and emotions in our hearts. As we explore our external world, we feel a variety of sensations - the warmth of the Sun on our skin, the joy of movement, the cool breeze, the pleasures of love, the delights of food and drink, the unforgettable smells that cue our memory so poignantly, the pains of injury, and on and on.

We feel these things so deeply, and we simultaneously experience a flood of emotion that is intertwined with the physical sensations. In many cases, an emotion itself involves a physical sensation. For example, after the day is done, you may be lying in bed, and you remember something stressful...and suddenly your chest is tight and a knot forms in your belly. On the positive side, you have looked at someone you love and felt a flood of warmth, softness, and joy that 'melts your heart'.

When we are immersed in feeling, we are connected to the Great Mystery, for it experiences the physicality and emotions of daily life through us. We are the mystery, a microcosm of the greater macrocosm that is the Mystery, a tiny part that nonetheless contains the whole. The Mystery looks out of
our eyes, sharing our wonder at the majesty of creation.

Living in flow, connected to all the feelings of body and heart center, we are also more deeply connected with others. To share the joy and pain of life with others is to have compassion for their suffering and bliss. It brings us to the understanding that we have so much in common - we all breathe the same air, walk under the same sun, howl at the same moon, and long for connection, belonging, and love.

"We live by the sun
We feel by the moon
We move by the stars

We live in all things
All things live in us

We call to each other
We listen to each other
Our hearts deepen with love and compassion

We live in all things
All things live in us"

-Stephanie Kaza (excerpt)

This kind of heart-centered, watery way of living in flow is a lunar way of being. The Moon is the progenitor of tides, both in the world's oceans, and in our hearts and beings. Women, especially, are cyclical beings who ebb and flow each month in tune with the cycle of the Moon. The Moon makes the waters rise and fall, and our hearts follow suit. When the Moon is full, we are full of energy and emotion, filled with inspiration and creativity. When the Moon is dark, we are reflective, immersed in dreams and visions. Knowing this mystery is a way of power - knowing when to work, when to create, when to rest, and when to dream in time with the Moon...these things the wise practitioner knows.

Surrendering to the flow of feeling is the next step in the process of magic. From a prior post: "Knowing what you want is Air - getting inspired by a certain scenario and daring to believe it's possible. Working toward it, manifesting it, is Fire, where lives the Will. Choose it, choose it, choose it again." 

With Water, we allow our work to marinate, to "cook" or ferment, if you will. We reflect. We let the working rattle around in our subconscious, making all the mysterious connections with our personal set of experiences, symbols, and archetypes. Often information then bubbles up like a spring from our unconscious through dream, vision, or intuition. It may be a missing link in our thinking, or the idea that changes our life, allowing the fullness of our vision to manifest in the physical world. The ideas and wisdom that come to us in this way express the deepest truths within us. We know their rightness, we can feel it deep inside.Some people make the mistake of thinking that working magic is a linear, goal-oriented, action plan type of endeavor. This is the narrative that our dominant culture teaches us - decide what you want, figure out how to get it, work hard, achieve. Right? 

Not so - we get inspired, we do a working focused on what we want (not how to get it), then we enter the passive, reflective phase. We surrender to flow and *feel* the work we have done, and the changes it is already working within us. That is the lesson of Water - feeling, surrendering, flowing, reflecting, dreaming.

There is an ebb and a flow to magical working. In Air, we catch a dream as it blows by on the wind. In Fire, we glow with intensity as we work toward our intention. In Water, we flow...we reflect. It is a passive ebb in the cycle of magical working. 

Working with Water is a practice of non-doing. After all, Water must be calm to reflect our image clearly. 

Blessed be. Naho!

Spiritual Strategy

The Pagan Experience 2015: Week 1 - Jan. 5- Resolutions- What are your intentions for this new year? How will you find the resolve to bring them into your manifest life?

I'm not one to make resolutions, truth be told. For me, that word has been colored by pop culture's practice of making somewhat unrealistic promises that are broken within a month or two. From my perspective, this sets up an atmosphere of self-judgment and absolutist thinking (black and white, succeed or fail). Not a very loving way to treat oneself, in my view!

Having said that, I do set goals for myself throughout the year. I'm always working on goals for my career, my personal development and my personal healing. Sometimes those goals morph, evolve or get discarded. I strive to accept this with grace and a minimum of attachment.

At the beginning of the year, what I like to do is envision the new year. Think of this as the difference between strategy and tactics. Strategy is top level - the big picture. Tactics are specific actions taken to achieve a goal. New Year's visions are strategy. New Year's resolutions are tactics.

Here is my vision for 2014:

• Maintain self-care routine - care for my body and spirit temple!
• Speak my truth and lovingly enforce boundaries.
• Release, release, release - the past, old hurts, all that no longer serves.
• Give to and serve others in full trust that my needs and desires will also be met.
• Grow my art - make music, write poetry and prose, make stuff.
• Continue to grow my priestessry, in all its forms.
• Keep growing my career.
• Spend more time outdoors.
• Continue to shape everything in my life to reflect the joy in my heart. (possessions, clothing, ways of doing things; walk in beauty!)

So basically? My list boils down to this: keep being awesome. Keep being me. Be even more me than ever. Be good to myself, to others and to the world. I honestly don't need any special resolve to accomplish my vision. I'm already doing this stuff - all I have to do is keep walking. Keep reminding myself that I deserve good things, that I'm worthy of success and happiness.

2014 was a big year. I got a lot of personal business taken care of. It was pretty rocky in patches. I defined my brand, and laid the foundations for what I truly want to do in life, both in my professional and clerical career.  I feel that 2015 is the year that I break out. Things are happening faster now, and 2015 is the snowball effect.

2015 is going to be the best year yet, and I'm ready. IT. IS. ON!!!

So mote it be.