A Spiritual Conspiracy

I received this in an email and just love it and feel it to be very, very true.

A SPIRITUAL CONSPIRACY

On the surface of the world right now there is
war and violence and things seem dark.
But calmly and quietly, at the same time,
something else is happening underground
An inner revolution is taking place
and certain individuals are being called to a higher light.
It is a silent revolution.
From the inside out. From the ground up.
This is a Global operation.
A Spiritual Conspiracy.
There are sleeper cells in every nation on the planet.
You won't see us on the T.V.
You won't read about us in the newspaper
You won't hear about us on the radio
We don't seek any glory
We don't wear any uniform
We come in all shapes and sizes, colors and styles
Most of us work anonymously
We are quietly working behind the scenes
in every country and culture of the world
Cities big and small, mountains and valleys,
in farms and villages, tribes and remote islands
You could pass by one of us on the street
and not even notice
We go undercover
We remain behind the scenes
It is of no concern to us who takes the final credit
But simply that the work gets done
Occasionally we spot each other in the street
We give a quiet nod and continue on our way
During the day many of us pretend we have normal jobs
But behind the false storefront at night
is where the real work takes a place
Some call us the Conscious Army
We are slowly creating a new world
with the power of our minds and hearts
We follow, with passion and joy
Our orders come from the Central Spiritual Intelligence
We are dropping soft, secret love bombs when no one is looking
Poems ~ Hugs ~ Music ~ Photography ~ Movies ~ Kind words ~
Smiles ~ Meditation and prayer ~ Dance ~ Social activism ~ Websites
Blogs ~ Random acts of kindness...
We each express ourselves in our own unique ways
with our own unique gifts and talents
Be the change you want to see in the world
That is the motto that fills our hearts
We know it is the only way real transformation takes place
We know that quietly and humbly we have the
power of all the oceans combined
Our work is slow and meticulous
Like the formation of mountains
It is not even visible at first glance
And yet with it entire tectonic plates
shall be moved in the centuries to come
Love is the new religion of the 21st century
You don't have to be a highly educated person
Or have any exceptional knowledge to understand it
It comes from the intelligence of the heart
Embedded in the timeless evolutionary pulse of all human beings
Be the change you want to see in the world
Nobody else can do it for you
We are now recruiting
Perhaps you will join us
Or already have.
All are welcome
The door is open
~ author unknown

Goodbye...

We had our burial today... dug a hole under the walnut tree in the backyard. We love that tree, it provides me with such beauty and comfort year-round. It provides food for the squirrels, shade in the summer, and opens up in the winter to allow the sun to warm the house. Il Tonino's placenta is buried there.

The hole was dug. First we thanked and sprinkled in tobacco and cornmeal. Then I placed the placenta in, cord side up. Next the ashes were poured in. Then the milk that I had pumped. Next we placed in 2 crystals -- jet and rose quartz. We covered the hole with the dirt, and then marked it with a heart-shaped rock that Il Tonino had decorated.

Rest in peace, baby S. and watch over us with love as we remember you with love.

Happy Solstice

As a family, we try to incorporate rituals into our lives, and we are getting better at doing simple things to celebrate the passing of the seasons. We gathered on the table a glass of water, a candle (fire), fruit (earth), and a crystal (air/energy). Our rose quartz egg signifying our family is in the center. We smudged everything and each other and said blessings for each of the elements and for the light and the dark and what we are thankful for.

We want Il Tonino to grow up with these simple rituals, and learn what they mean. He loves to do the smudge (fire wash). He drank some of the water during the ritual and we had to keep him from blowing out the candle and eating the fruit. Typical three year old, LOL!

Fire Wash

A few days ago Il Tonino signed "fire wash" while pointing to the white sage smudge stick. Every once in a while he'll ask to be smudged, but that was the first time he'd called it "fire wash." We think that is a brilliant and very apt description.

He'd had a tantrum shortly before that and after the smudge was totally calm and happy again. A good reminder of the power of nature in connection with our minds-bodies. I love it that he is so in tune with that, and hope he doesn't lose so much of it as he grows.

You Shall Have Joy, Dammit!

The thing about having in-laws who are Mormon is that it can occasionally be amusing. Note I said occasionally, sometimes it is annoying.

The other day Urban Shaman received a care package from his mother in the mail. It contained some very cool, very hippie t-shirts, some DVD movies, books, and the following crap literature.

Finding Faith in Christ. With an enclosed booklet entitled "The Plan of Salvation" accompanied by a DVD.
Yes, so very important. Except those of us who live in the household at which the package was addressed are not even remotely practicing, let alone interested in this type of thing. Both Urban Shaman and myself grew up attending Jesus-oriented churches, so it is not like we are ignorant of this, it's just that we have chosen a different way of believing in and expressing our feelings about... you know... all that sort of stuff. I honestly wonder what they think when they see pictures of us all decked out at the Oregon Country Fair or having gone to Brazil for the spiritual workshop. Oh yeah... they probably think "holy moly, they need The Plan of Salvation!"

But that isn't all. Luckily a piece of more amusing crap literature was also present in the box.

And They Shall Have Joy. But wait! It's *gasp* all in American Sign Language! With real deaf actors! Wow.



Yup.

Chalk Art

Yesterday the Urban Shaman took Il Tonino outside to play. We have sidewalk chalk and Urban Shaman got inspired and drew all over our patio. Totally reminds me of the book The Cosmic Serpent (which I loved). Il Tonino thought it was great fun to follow the snake from head to tail and back.

Now I kind of hope it rains soon because I have no idea how to explain this to my parents, lol.

Voices in My Head

I like reading posts on Erin Pavlina's blog, and getting more spiritual insight from the things she posts about.

Well today she posted about How Should You Communicate with Your Spirit Guides? In it, she defined the three different ways that people receive communications from the spirits --

For one, you may get an image in your head, a form of clairvoyance. You may hear a thought come back to you like, “Yes, my child, you are indeed loved.” That’s clairaudience. You may get a warm tingly feeling in your stomach or chills up your back. That’s clairsentience. Alternatively, you may get signs, symbols or synchronicities in your life, which is their way of letting you know they received your message. Interpreting them isn’t always easy, but you do the best you can.

When I read this, I realized that I have had clairaudience my whole life. I will express distinct thoughts or gratitude, and will immediately "hear" a voice respond to me and get a warm fuzzy feeling. I even get this from my deceased grandfather sometimes.

I asked the Urban Shaman which type of communication he mostly gets, and it is also clairaudience.

Don't you think it is totally fascinating that 2 deaf people use clairaudience to communicate with spirits?

Mantras

Yesterday I was driving home from the grocery store, and was just thinking about random things. Then I caught myself thinking, and started repeating one of my mantras. Then I realized that I haven't done that in a long time, because I haven't needed to do that in a long time.

I started "waking up" in 2000. At that time I, like most people, had many thoughts going through my head all the time, and had a hard time stilling my mind. Many of those thoughts were not so positive, or were very ego based, or were a lot about judgment (of myself and others). I remember reading about meditation, and the work needed to still your mind of these thoughts. I think it was something about your thoughts being like "a drunken monkey" going all over the place, I'm not sure if I'm remembering that right. In order to help calm the monkey, mantras were suggested.

So I made up my own mantras, and would recite them in my head whenever I found myself thinking thoughts that were not in my best interest. I had to make them up because simply repeating "Om... Om, om, om" was a sure-fire way of quickly getting bored and jumping back onto the drunken monkey track.

One of my mantras was "beauty before me, beauty behind me, beauty around me, beauty within me." This was simple enough, yet just complicated enough that my mind would have to actively be involved in the mantra in order to keep repeating it correctly -- in other words there was no way I could say the mantra correctly, over and over, AND let the drunken monkey dance about.

Another mantra that I enjoyed that was especially helpful when I was feeling down is "breathe with me, live with me, birth with me, die with me" and sometimes I would add other variations to mix it all up like adding "love with me, laugh with me" etc. It would always help me feel better, and stop that damn monkey.

So back to driving yesterday -- I realized that I had not said any of these mantras for a long time, because the monkey rarely comes out to drink and dance anymore. And that is a very good thing.

New Earth

It took me 4 months, but I finally finished reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. I have to say, the beginning of the book was hard for me to get through, not because it was boring, but because the concepts were too basic for me. But I'm really glad I stuck with it because the further along I went into the book, the more it resonated with me, and by the end I was getting some really good information that has only served to expand my awareness and help me increase my vibrational state.

This is an exciting time. I see such a duality in the world right now -- economic troubles, environmental disaster, crazy egoic dysfunctions *cough* Bush *cough*, unhealthy states of being and doing, etc. It is enough to tie anyone's stomach into knots. But at the same time I see a huge glimmer of hope, lights at the end of the tunnel. So many people are waking up in various ways and individual points of light are becoming brighter and brighter in this world. Pretty soon it will be enough to light up the whole world that is right now looking rather dark. It is something that I can feel in the core of my being, and I know others feel it, too.

So I am feeling really positive and good right now, but am not this way 100% of the time, although I am more often than not. Of course, it is after my period, and I'm always happy-go-lucky after my period, and then more withdrawn and darker before. Such are the cycles of life, the waxing and waning.

I don't really have a point to this post. Just putting some of my thoughts out there.

From Without, and Within

These last few years I have felt this internal push to change my eating habits for the healthier and to become more environmentally-friendly in my life. I believe that these changes come from my spiritual side, and also strengthen my spiritual life. I didn't decide to do these things for convenience or social status, but more from an innate necessity. At the same time, our world is one of global consciousness... we are all not only connected physically, but also mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Thus all great ideas and changes arise both outside of, and within, ourselves from our global consciousness.

I find the more I clean up my diet, the lighter I become. Health issues which used to plague me have decreased greatly (migraines, acne, allergies). But truthfully, even though better health is enough, in itself, to want to continue this, I find this need to 'make myself lighter' is as much for the greater good as it is for myself.

Similarly, the more I approach living eco-friendly and sustainably, the lighter my environment becomes. I am taking in less resources and trying to reduce, reuse, and recycle the resources I do consume. Thus I get closer to living in harmony with mother nature, rather than separate from it. What I do to or for mother nature, I also do to and for myself.

Today's world is such a mixture of lightness and darkness. In order to not let the darkness take over, I find it so important to 'hold onto the light'. If there is any purpose to my life that my higher self has dictated, it is to hold onto the light. How do I do that?

Important things are to keep a positive state of mind, express gratitude, and be kind. Being positive is not possible 100% of the time because I am human like everyone else. My lower self has to deal with this world and the problems that sometimes crop up. But being positive more often than not is key. And not beating myself up about the times when I am not, but to take it as a learning experience and move on.

Gratitude... I find it easy to be thankful for the things I have in this life. However, remembering to express that gratitude is the hard part, when we get distracted by day-to-day living. So I'm starting to use simple reminders. Whenever I eat, I try to express gratitude for my meal. Sometimes I don't remember until I'm taking the very last bite, but that is okay. Late is better than never. Another way I remember is that I have all these cloth wipes for our family cloth system. One particular cloth wipe is totally different from the others. Whenever I happen to get that one, I must say 3 things I am thankful for. May seem kind of odd, but it works well.

Being kind... just something I strive for in my daily interactions with any living being that I come across, whether human, animal, or plant. So thus, I work at holding onto the light. And in turn, more light comes into my life. In eating healthier, I allow my body to grow toward its full potential. In being sustainable, I am giving my love to the earth, which in turn, gives back to me.

When we trash the earth, we trash ourselves. Similarly, when we trash our bodies with junk food, we ... well, we trash ourselves, too. My mom and I recently had a little tiff about the way I eat. I basically told her that based on what I know, I can't go back to eating in a mainstream way. She replied that the social aspect of eating was far more important to her than the health aspect. That floored me. Maybe it is a generational thing -- people my age are much more likely to have a variety of eating habits and be more flexible about that kind of thing. Could it also be that humans, as a whole are evolving? Each generation is closer to the light than the last. I am so excited when I think of the possibilities for Il Tonino and other children, present and future.

There are 4 pillars of our lives, just like a table has 4 legs. We have our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects. If any one of them is lacking, we are unbalanced. How we walk, talk, eat, and love in this world affects all of those aspects. Thus the lighter we walk on this earth, the more positive the thoughts and words that come from us, the healthier we eat, and the greater we love, contributes to a more profound life that benefits not only us but all that is around us.

What you do for yourself, you do for others. What you do for others, you do for yourself.

In love and light. Gaia Hippie :)