I've been thinking about the many conversations I have had and continue to have with people on this Spiritual journey and I've been noticing a few patterns: The epiphanies that arise from "the dark night of the soul", leading to a kind of rebirth; people who had psychic and telepathic experiences as children only to have them negated and repressed by their culture, family, or peers and now struggle to regain them;  and a kind of evolution that happens as we first focus on figuring out our own relationship to Spirit, then use what we learn to serve others, and then, ultimately, begin to teach.

It seems everyone is doing what they do because their path led them to seek connection with Spirit, figure out how to strengthen the connection that came naturally, or define and follow their life purpose. Or all of the above.

Once we hone the ability to heal, or perform divination, or manifest abundance in our lives, sooner or later we're led to offer those services to others as healers, readers, coaches.

And once we’ve done that for a while, we realize it is time to help people awaken to the truth of who they are, and walk their path to becoming their true selves. You may have started out as a healer, a sage, a magus – and you become a teacher.
 
A recent discussion about this work reminded me that a major influence in my writing Reclaiming Your Sacred Path was a principle I learned in the Harner Shamanic Counseling class offered by the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, which teaches the process for teaching people to journey to the worlds of the Shaman without the use of mind altering drugs.
 
And that principle, the purpose of the class, and of teaching people to act as Shamans, is to help you regain your own Spiritual autonomy.

Healing is not only taking away your headache in a Reiki session although that helps. True healing is helping you realize you are an eternal, divine being, empower yourself to release your erroneous beliefs about your limitations and imperfections and recover from trauma, and walk your path as the Spiritual being you are. 
 
Each of us is called to different practices along our Spiritual path. Some are drawn to devotion, contemplation and meditation, reaching for personal enlightenment.

Some of us are drawn to Magic – focusing and directing the one energy of the Universe to manifest abundance in our lives and solve problems for ourselves and others. There are people of all religious persuasions who practice magic, whether they call it that or not, because the principles of magic work regardless of your religious practice.
 
Some of us align with the many forms of Earth-centered Spirituality, and use our knowledge and skills to divine information, help to heal the Earth, and draw on Earth energy for manifestation.
 
And some of us are mediums, and our work includes facilitating communication between the realms and helping those who have passed over find their way home.
 
All of these are pathways of love and service. Yet some of them may evoke fear in many people. this is understandable, because there is one power in the Universe, and if it is used by the right mind to be of service - to help and do no harm - then it is used for light. If it is used by the ego mind for self aggrandizement and to gain by taking from others, then it is used for darkness.

But those who are aware of the power and beauty of their own Spiritual reality have nothing to fear. In truth, there is nothing to fear, because there is nothing stronger than your immortal, invulnerable soul.
 
The only thing to watch out for is the trickster known as the human ego, the home of our shadow. And on the show tomorrow evening, in addition to talking about pathways of service, we’re going to discuss difficulties common to people on a Spiritual path and how to work through them.

​Welcome to the Vernal Equinox, known as Ostara to the Pagan world – a time of energetic balance, a very important factor in our discussions tonight. So happy Ostara!
 
Here is how I understand where we are right now.
 
We are coming out of the dark half of the year, when we do our spiritual and mental housecleaning to prepare for our wonderful manifestations in the light half of the year. We are coming up to a Full, Blue Moon in Libra, also bringing balance, after the first Full Moon of the month in Virgo which rattled everyone’s cage.
 
In between we just had the New Moon in Pisces, moving into Aries to start the new astrological year.
 
We have been in a Jupiter Retrograde period since March 8, and though its meaning for you depends on its position in your natal chart, be ready for change, and think about purifying and detoxing mind, body and Spirit. And. Of course, Mercury will be going retrograde again on March 22. So buckle up. We’re in the shadow of it now, which explains why I lose my glasses on a daily basis and keep having to reboot my computer.
 
While Ostara brings balance to light and dark in the natural world, and in ourselves, we are clearly in a transition time -flashes of insight and growth occur and then we lose them – the structures we learned to depend on to give us our sense of who we are falling down around us politically, economically, and personally as our old habits, patterns and ways of being no longer offer fulfillment.
 
We can say it is because we are in a vibrational shift, but it can be hard to make sense of it all – things go wrong, fall apart, and we try to lean on each other for guidance. But as Einstein is said to have said, you can’t solve a problem at the same level of thinking at which it was created. And we are all at this level of form most of the time.
 
But there are beings who operate fully at the fourth and fifth levels of consciousness – call them angels, gods, ascended masters. And as we are in this transition time, more and more people like Esther Hicks, Jane Roberts, JZ Knight are able to bring through Spirit teachers who are able to advise and guide us, not to create a new massive celestial to-do list, but to remove the obstacles we carry within us impeding our path to becoming our true selves.
 
One of those people, Jenifer Yost, will be with me on Reclaiming Your Sacred Path tomorrow (Tuesday, March 20) at 6PM Pacific time. I am looking forward to spending my Ostara evening with Jen.  Please join us!

​Most of us are raised to believe that if we do the things we are told and trained to do, we will have the things that represent the “good life,” and then we will be happy, fulfilled, satisfied.

All we need to do to identify what represents the “good life” is watch an hour of prime time television and pay attention to the commercials.

Many sages and writers have pointed out that true Spiritual growth is actually the reverse of this process – if we can tune into and be who we truly and authentically are, and we do the things that are in alignment with our true selves, we will have the things we truly value.

One of the consequences of following the do-have-be strategy is when you get to the “be”, you may find yourself asking the title question –

What am I doing here? What is this life I have created?

And we may find ourselves questioning our work, our relationships, the enthusiasms we have been pursuing for years. Sometimes we come to this moment through an emotional or mental awakening or crisis, sometimes our bodies rebel with illnesses that our medical doctors can’t seem to figure out.

I think this is the dynamic of the mid-life crisis. It’s not for the sake of variety, it is a waking up, a snapping out of something that has held us for too long – living someone else’s idea of the good life, and coming face to face with the fact that our authentic self has another opinion and is asking for its turn at the wheel. The epiphany that there is more to us or something other than we have been led to believe.

In Reclaiming Your Sacred Path, I discuss using a cycle of divination, manifestation, and healing to walk your path. Divination means delving into your inner resources, consulting your intuition, your Spirit guides, Deity as you understand Her/Him, and reading the signs and omens around you for clues as to what’s going on for you. Manifestation is forming an intention and acting on that guidance. And healing comes from allowing.

Abraham-Hicks talk about the fact that there is one power in the Universe, an “eternal force, that gets in motion as soon as you have thought for something you would rather have.”  Once that motion begins, you have your epiphany – you see “the contrast between what you have and what you want."

Then, the process is one of setting an intention, asking for it to manifest, acting as if it is coming, and allowing it to appear. A Reiki healing session begins with this dialogue between you and the practitioner - what is your intention? How would you like the energy to help you?

The practitioner can do what the practitioner does – prescribe antibiotics, administer acupuncture, provides an energy healing treatment. But the healing comes when you allow it – by taking the antibiotics as prescribed, by relaxing and allowing the energy to enter your energetic circulatory system to heal and replenish mind, body and Spirit.
​
Our resistance, if any comes from our shadow – those unresolved areas of grief and trauma that lurk in our subconscious, which we must allow to come to the light that is the healing energy of the Universe. 

In his book Magical Aromatherapy, Scott Cunningham points out that prevention is better than intervention - if we work to maintain our resilience, and spot signs of trouble early, we reduce the need for dramatic action if something goes wrong.  Resilience has popped up on Reclaiming Your Sacred Path since we started in December, and this week we will discuss it in a different way.

My guest on Tuesday, March 6 at 6PM Pacific time is Dr. David Ramaley, a Naturopathic physician and Chiropractor. As you probably know, both those disciplines encourage – even require – that we take charge of our own well being, supported by those we consult. Dr. Ramaley will be discussing a number of ways we can do just that.

While this seems to be a conversation about physical well being (and it is), it goes much deeper. As I see it, taking charge of our own well being is really the same process as reclaiming our sacred path, our life purpose. It requires us to change our focus from what’s wrong to what’s possible, decide what matters most to us and act on it, and get support for the stresses of the journey. To paraphrase Hermes Trismagustus, taking charge of our physical and emotional well being is the “Below” and reclaiming our autonomous relationship with Spirit is the “Above” in the principle of correspondence – “As above, so below.”

Chances are, taking charge of the life we want (or not) in one of these areas will have corresponding effects in the other. So when we think about needing to be as physically well as possible to really pursue our Spiritual and aspirational path, we are correct. But it isn’t just about having the energy and stamina to do it – that’s part of it. But the act of taking control of what we can control, and releasing the rest, can begin in either dimension. The inspiration of an inner sense of purpose can motivate us to make the necessary physical and emotional changes in our lives. Making the physical and emotional changes then clears the space for Spiritual growth.

As I mentioned, this week on Reclaiming Your Sacred Path, I will be talking Dr. David Ramaley, Naturopathic Physician and Chiropractor, discussing his new book, Perpetual Energy. You will be able to call in on 866-451-1451 to talk with Dr. Ramaley.

Please tune in to the show here - http://boldbravemedia.com/shows/reclaiming-your-sacred-path/ - Just click the "Listen" button at the top of the screen at 9:00 Eastern time/6:00 PM Pacific time and we'll be ready to go.

If you can't listen live or you'd like to download shows to listen later, Please use the link below. All the past shows are up, and tomorrow's show should be available in a few days. They are also available on Apple iTunes Podcasts.

Last week's show with Ed Hubbard, Futurist, Entrepreneur, and Palladin and First Elder Emeritus of the Correllian Nativist Tradition of Wicca is now available for listening or download here: https://www.spreaker.com/show/reclaiming-your-sacred-path.
​
As always, please contact me at jon@powerandhealing.com or 425-922-5331 to discuss in-person or distance Reiki and Shamanic healing.