Celestial Reflections is the community blog of Celestial Healing Arts, brought to you by psychic-intuitive and healing facilitator LaVaughn. It is an open forum for the publishing of information and discussion of topics across a broad range of interest to the greater spiritual community.
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A number of new members have joined, over the last several days. There have also been some people attempting to join and having problems. More on that below the fold.
We had a few quiet days of integration after the full moon of the 16th. I heard more sirens than usual to indicate that the energy shake up affected many on the physical level, precipitating crises requiring emergency services. Many sensitive people were heavily fatigued and feeling a general malaise and physical discomfort. The world around me had a sense of being on hold or as if activities were being conducted on automatic pilot, and people were not completely engaged. Many had difficulty sleeping at night for several days. That should even out a bit now, as the moon is waning and less solar energy is being reflected into our night sky.
This morning when I stepped outdoors around 6:30, I felt the tingle of forward motion energy. Then, around 8:30, while I was washing dishes, I became suffused with a blissful calm and quiet joy that I felt move through me gently from my crown on down until I could not ignore the urge to sit and be with the energy in meditation. It was a feeling akin to anticipating spending time with a very old and familiar friend.
So I sat for about a half an hour and became aware that the light I was seeing and feeling was Universal and not just a private sensation of my own. I had an image of an old water pump that was in use at my grandmother's summer cottage when I was a child. I recall how the pump seemed to not be working after the handle was initially engaged, but after a pregnant pause, deliciously cold water began to flow.
Energetically, the full moon/eclipse was the priming of the pump, the last few days have been the pregnant pause as the incoming light prepared to emerge, and this morning it began to flow.
Comfort and grace would be the two closest words to describe what this incoming light brings. Take a little time for yourself today, to feel it. It is quiet and subtle, but immediately present.
I have this long list of power animals I've been intending to write about. I had no intention of starting with spider, but she has other ideas. Every time I've thought about starting this series, she has been dangling before my third eye. In this vision, she is large, about six inches across, brown, and slightly furry. She has made herself impossible to ignore.
Spider has not been a primary totem in my experience for some time, but for years she was ever-present. My journey with spider began innocently enough one morning as I was awakening. As the fog was clearing from my head and my eyes regained their waking focus, I saw something large, black and furry scurry across my pastel green duvet cover. I bolted from my bed and was on my feet in a fraction of a second. It normally takes me a good while to achieve perpendicularity. I am not a morning person.
The spider in question was really only about a half of inch across. It seemed much larger and more menacing when it was barreling across my blankets. But it was a muscular looking thing; black with orange striped legs.
I was working in a new age bookstore at the time. I'd been at work for several hours, that day, when a customer I knew well came in to browse. We chatted pleasantly, as I polished some of the silver jewelry, when I noticed an identical spider crawling across the top shelf of the jewelry display case. Black, furry, with orange stripes. I shrieked. My friend laughed and offered to remove the spider for me. He reached into the case and tried to grab it, making several vain attempts before finally cupping it in his hand and placing it outside in a potted plant. "Oh yeah. She's here for you," he said, with a knowing wink.
If you have not yet seen this video, you must. Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist. She got the chance to be her own research subject when a stroke robbed her of left brain function. In this lecture she describes her experience and the epiphanies that came with it.
I was reminded of this video, recently, when I happened to catch this interview with neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga on NPR's "Fresh Air." Gazzaniga has done extensive research with split brain patients, such as epileptics who've had the connection between hemispheres surgically severed to prevent seizures.
Both discuss, in different ways, the role of the brain in spiritual awareness and religion. I highly recommend laying a little time aside to give both of these presentations a listen. The NPR interview has audio available here.
Researchers are chipping away the mystery of the Shroud of Turin, and reexamining radiocarbon tests that undermine the case for its being the burial cloth of Jesus.
In 1988, science seemed to put that question to rest.
Radiocarbon dating by three separate laboratories showed that the shroud originated in the Middle Ages, leaving the "shroud crowd" reeling. Shroud skeptics responded, "We told you so." The Catholic Church admitted that it could not be authentic. Many scientists backed away.
I'm going to start posting profiles of different power animals, or totems, in no particular order. This will not be a complete encyclopedia, but a kind of ad hoc catalog of power animals as they come up in my reflective reality, or otherwise enter my consciousness. I've been having some rather unusual experiences with the spirit animal world, of late. This is something that happens periodically. In all honesty, it happens constantly. It's just that sometimes it compels my attention more than at other times. There are a couple of ways that this happens. One is that animals appear in my reflective reality, or what we call the physical world, in a repetitive or dramatic manner. Other times they appear in meditation or dreams. When an animal impresses upon me in this way, I do exactly what I tell my clients to do, in similar circumstances. I google the name of the animal plus totem. This brings up a range of definitions of their medicine.
What I'd like to do with this series is collate some of the definitions from around the web and other sources. These entries will be subject to edit and additional information as the need arises. And, as ever, I invite discussion and input.
In Karen Bishop's last update, "The Continuing Energies of August -- In the Eye of the Storm," we got an indication that things would get a little jagged.
But now enter the energies of August. Although a rocky road remains behind us, there will be much more smooth sailing ahead for us, if only for awhile. And know as well that in the months to come there will be immense shake-ups, much turmoil, and great change. During this time and the times to come, know that the more we remain out of the mainstream, or stay clear of what is falling, the less affected we will be. The key is to stay in our sacred spaces and provide our services from there.
. . .
On August 16th, we will experience a lunar eclipse and full moon. During this time, we will have the opportunity to experience and examine our shadow selves, what is inside of us, what our fears are, and we may feel and emptiness and rather spooky energy. It may feel that the light is temporarily gone and that we are only connected to a strange and dark space. We may not want to be alone then, and thus crave the companionship and connections to others.
I always find it ironic that whenever she writes most cheerfully of positive expansion, I feel like the cure is worse than the disease. Perhaps, I haven't mastered the whole staying clear of falling objects thing. I find this process awfully uncomfortable. (Think childbirth.) This month is incredibly intense. I don't know about you, but I'm in energetic overwhelm. My head feels all swimmy and I can't seem to get my thoughts clear. I also don't think I've ever hated the physical, 3d world, more.
Today is only the 13th and the full moon of the 16th is still a few days away, but the energy is noticeably beginning to build. We had some energy shake up a few days before and after August 1st, when we had a solar eclipse. Then we had a settling period, where many of us were recuperating from or readjusting to whatever changes the 1st brought. Now we are preparing for a new shake up, but in different ways.
The energy of the August 1st eclipse was solar and involved the sign Leo. Leo is fixed fire and is the sign ruling the fifth house of the zodiac wheel. Everything creative and fun that can be done in a human body is associated with the fifth house. Some of these are art, dance, photography, music, gambling, gardening, cooking, children, pets, love affairs. These are all physical. Astrologically, the sun represents sense of self and the physical self. So the physical element was strongly accented on August 1st. I noticed an increase of ambulance sirens during that time and one of the residents in the apartment building where I live died. My car died on the 1st, and a car can be a physical extension of the body. The fire energy of Leo is action-oriented.
Commercial news is something I avoid so I have no way of knowing what events were precipitated on the global level with the eclipse of the 1st.
For the last few days, my body has taken precedence over my mind and I've been unable to do much of anything physically. The low body energy drain has made it difficult to think clearly or in any kind of a straight line, which is extremely frustrating to me.
I've spent long hours attempting computer-related tasks that should take minutes, not hours. I've had all kinds of creative thoughts surfacing that I've been unable to link together into cohesive sentences. It took me three hours to write a book review today!
Interestingly, while I've had to yield to my body, I've pacified my mind with a book about aliens that take over minds and bodies.
When my biorhythms, or whatever, get back on track and my mind gets the upper hand again, I've got a lot of catching up to do.
I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.
-- Albert Einstein
I stumbled on this very compelling post in Wolf & Goddess, on science, atheism, and Richard Dawkins.
Yesterday Wolf and I were in a book shop and I saw Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion. The title scared me, I leafed through it with ill-concealed hysteria and asked Wolf if he found the title sad or threatening. Wolf is grounded in his faith (unconventional, he is no monotheiest) and moves easily past naysayers. I fear contamination. A guy, a clever guy, a scientist, publishes a book asserting God is nothing more than a dangerous delusion and I linger, fearfully - wanting to read it, and yet not.
It is like passing the scene of a car accident, not wanting to look and yet wanting to. You want to look and see people ashen faced and trembling, lighting cigarettes and saying "what a relief I could have been killed". You want to see survivors not corpses. I want to read The God Delusion and survive. I don't want to be contaminated with even more doubt.
What a sad few days. Losing Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes in one weekend. Not to mention thousands dying in an eruption of violence on the Russia/Georgia border. Things sure do feel intense, just now. Intense and sad.
Some helpful soul has posted this movie on YouTube. It seems to be out of print and near impossible to get, although I have a page set up in the bookstore, where you may be able to purchase it on VHS. But, unless and until it is issued on DVD, opportunities for viewing have been limited. It is highly recommended. Enjoy.
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