Laws of Abundance

Recipe Card (can be a visual of an actual recipe card for blog or content on website)   Preparation: Take stock of your current situation to know where you began. 1 Full cup of gratitude 2 hours of meditation 6 spoonfuls of daily practices (x2) A hearty handful of boundaries A sprinkling of laughter Stir Clockwise while smiling and holding a vision of living a life you enjoy.   Repeat for no less than 10 weeks, then revisit your current state, your vision, and account for progress. Celebrate your accomplishments and continue until you allow purpose to set in.    **********   Making a recipe card like this might sound kind of funny for something as ephemeral as Joy or living a Joyful Life.  But what if Joy wasn't something elusive? Most of us chasing Joy think of it like the wings of a butterfly.  Something beautiful that you cannot touch. And like those wings, if you do touch them, they are destroyed.   What if it was something you could actually touch and not only feel its tangibility- but build beneath you like the firm foundation of a house?  I'm here to tell you that you can, and the recipe is quite available to you with a little bit of commitment to the discipline of the practice of know thyself.  First to my butterfly wing analogy, the reason many people think Joy and enjoyment are elusive, and that experiencing joy (like touching butterfly wings) destroys it, is because most people are chasing Happiness.  Happiness is an external fleeting thing that depends on factors outside ourselves.  And the other side of the Happiness coin is sadness.  Take, for example, you place all your expectations for happiness on a relationship with a significant other.  And you are in that relationship and everything is all perfect in your life because someone loves you and accepts you and wants to do things with you.  This is Happiness you say.  Then one day that person says I'm leaving, or that person dies, or that person changes because of some factor outside of your control and the relationship ends.   Now you are sad.  You are sadder than you ever were before the relationship because for awhile you had The Thing you thought made you happy.  And in a way you are right.  You touched the butterfly's wings and it couldn't fly anymore, and it died.  Now you have no more feeling of Happy - you have the memory of it, the longing for it.  But you no longer have it so that attachment to this past state of Happy you lost now makes you Sad because it is draining your today (like a leak in a boat).     I watch this play out with my partner every time he speaks of his past fiance who left him because he stopped fulfilling her narcissist needs.  He has this attachment to that belief in that with her, when he was in the peak of his health, in the peak of this happiness having all these activities with this other built purely on external circumstances that He was Happy.  And maybe he was Happy.  For a moment, because he bought her the right ring, he took her to dance in the right place, he provided everything she needed so that she could get on her feet, save for a house, make a down payment and leave him when she didn't need him anymore.  And then his Happy came crashing down, when the lie was revealed and she left him because his usefulness to her ended - putting him in a pit of depression that caused him to harm himself with alcohol and other choices due to the severe sadness felt after the high of Happy.     Now today, he isn't in that depression anymore, we are in a healthy relationship of exchange co-creating together, but I can still see that attachment to a past version of himself when he believes he was Happy.  Because in that past he had health (and no liver disease) and he had for this brief moment some combination of external factors (fleeting as they were) that made everything "Perfect."  So now, this attachment to a past version of himself when he was quote/unquote Happy inhibits his ability to fully experience his present moment and the amazing life he and I are creating.  He is working on it, and acknowledges his attachment challenges, and having physical limitations is a real obstacle,- which is why finding our inner source of Joy (and thus resilience) is so essential.    Ok, let's talk about Joy again and how it is different from Happiness.   Joy is not ephemeral and intangible.  Further, Joy is not Happiness.  Happiness is external and its opposite is Sadness.  So the happier you are, when the source of that happiness leaves you the sadder you get.  It is cause and effect and the hermetic principle of rhythm.  One extreme always swings back to the other like a teeter totter or those sets of silver balls that click on your desk.   Joy is built in your life from within and is not dependent on external factors.    My recipe card is not facetious. It is true.  Just like laying a foundation and building something - you go through a specific set of actions consistently with commitment to yourself for the sake of yourself, and you can build a joyful life and create a tangible indestructible foundation of joy in your life such that when something awful happens you have the resilience and fortitude and unshakable joy in your life that you will recover and likely thrive in spite of the awful thing versus being thrown in a pit of despair and sadness.    So let's walk through this recipe.    Gratitude - One Full cup of gratitude. "Thank you for everything you have given me, everything taken away, and everything I have left."  Gratitude is cultivated by practice but it bears the best possible fruit.  Scientific studies show that it rewires your brain creating new neural pathways such that it shifts your perspective.  Story after story shows people not only surviving awful situations but thriving through them because they have gratitude.   So you MUST have a gratitude practice to create a joyful life.   Meditation - clearing the mind and connecting to source. We must clear away monkey mind so that we can know who we are and what we actually want free from the trappings of all the shoulds and programming of the collective consciousness.    Meditation is a learned practice as well, and there are so many methods - active, passive, moving, silent - they ALL HELP.  Every single one of them.  The key is you must do it. Study after study shows meditation as a game changer in anyone's life who applies themself to it.  Same as gratitude it creates new pathways in the brain that allow stillness and new ways of perceiving and being which all equal new thought patterns and ways to access our joy.  The recommended daily allotment of Meditation is two hours a day.  But commitment to a meditation practice, even if a few minutes a day is an essential element to a Joyful life.  6 Daily Practices - I call these Rituals that help you learn how to manage your own personal will and power.  Your will to not be pushed and pulled by the forces external to you for good or ill.   In my practice as a Guide in the Lineage of King Salomon with the Modern Mystery School International we teach Spirituality as a science.  When you take the Empower Thyself Class & choose the path of Initiation we give you six daily practices to complete every morning and evening that combined with meditation will provide you the means to strengthen your will and thus understand how you are choosing or not choosing (i.e. exercising your will) in this life and how that is adding up to the fruits of what you see around you. For me the six daily simple practices gave me the means to understand how much of other people's stuff I was taking on as my own.  I learned by doing the daily practices that I didn't need to take on these things as my own.  So I was able to energetically learn how to hold my boundaries without guilt or shame so I was able to let go of so much that was not serving me and start to consciously choose things that bring in more enjoyment to my life. It empowered me to no longer be a victim of my subconscious (i.e. to get out of my own way).  Boundaries - which brought me a hearty helping of boundaries.  Initially, like everything else I'm talking about here had to be practiced until they became real and more natural for me to set.   Boundaries take will. They take the desire to set them.  They take an acknowledgement and a discernment that we do not have to engage with the drama others put in front of us on giant platters.   Boundaries take an acknowledgement that even though we can do it, it doesn't mean we should.   Boundaries are not walls that block everyone out.  But they are an acknowledgment that you do not have to take on the thoughts or ideas of others or do everything that they want you to do.  One can start by putting boundaries on your time.  Time blocking for meditation, for exercise, for fun time, for family time.  These are something you can fake until you make them because practicing will give you the results to realize you can.  And the first time you set a boundary it will feel weird and uncomfortable, but it will result in something freeing, releasing you of the other things pulling on your energy.  Laughter is a practice that brings lightness to your life.  It truly is the best medicine. So find ways to laugh at the world, ourselves, together and with others.   Laughter has always been a natural instinct of mine and I've been lucky enough to surround myself with those who have phenomenal senses of humor.  But also my teachers I have chosen Know laughter is an essential practice for a joyful life.  So they purposefully add it as a tool to their teaching style because of the light it generates from within a human being.   So, actively seek laughter. And practice laughter.  Especially if times are tough.     Clockwise to stir it all together.    Clockwise is the energy of building.  So I say always work your magick by stirring in a clockwise direction.  This makes for great recipes in the kitchen as well!  Blend all of these

"Critical thinking is the ability to analyze, evaluate, and reason through information logically. It's about questioning your and others' assumptions, recognizing biases, and seeking evidence before forming conclusions. Wisdom, on the other hand, transcends simple logic. It calls upon the spirit, not just the mind. It seeks the Light — the knowing of a matter. It discerns the unseen and weighs the good of every situation beyond mere logic. Truth is only ever found in immutable reality, but what often serves us better is understanding — a deeper grasp that wisdom provides, aligning with the eternal rather than chasing fleeting facts." – Sovereign Ipsissimus Dave Lanyon     In the past year, I had a hip replacement, got engaged, moved into a new home with my fiancé, and walked with him through the ups and downs of his liver disease. I continued running a law practice, took the Florida Bar exam — twice — and wrote two books. At the same time, I continued my mission as a Guide in the Lineage of King Salomon, initiating those ready to walk the path of progression. People say if you want something done, ask a busy person. I might just be that person. But for the first time in my life, I also had to let some things go. I quit some commitments. I stopped doing things that no longer aligned with the quality I expect of myself or the service I offer others. Because when everything piles on, even the strong have to reevaluate. So this year, I chose to attend only the required Professional Integration Days (PIDs) with the Modern Mystery School International, — not to pursue more training, but to honor my current bandwidth. I came in feeling a mix of pragmatism (yay, boundaries!) and a little FOMO over not diving deeper into the higher-level teachings. But from day one, something was different. This wasn't just another "recert." It was real Light, real Teaching — the kind that delivers weeks' worth of transformation in just a few days. And one of the biggest insights that landed for me? The art of getting things done isn't just about doing more. On the surface, it seems simple: take action, get results. That's Hermetic Principle #6 — Cause and Effect. Action leads to reaction, which leads to outcomes. Kabbalistically: Idea → Thought → Plan → Action = Result. Magickally: you place the ingredients in a container, add the right energy, and something new is born. But here's the nuance: you can accomplish a lot through sheer will. But at the end of the day,do you have anything meaningful to show for it? Have you gained wisdom, or just collected gold stars? If I had focused only on being a good lawyer, I'd probably be a partner in a firm by now,and miserable. I'd have achievements and accolades, sure. But a hollow life. Thankfully, something deeper stirred in me,a knowing that just being "successful" by society's standards wasn't enough. I wanted more. I needed joy. Fulfillment. Purpose. And when I didn't have those things, I numbed the ache with food, alcohol, and distraction. Some people thought I should be grateful and settle. But I couldn't. The mundane was never my calling. We don't come into this world with an owner's manual that tells us our purpose on page 42. We fumble, experiment, search. And if we're fortunate, we encounter someone with a key,someone who helps us fumble more efficiently, and begin to uncover our own answers. From a young age, I knew there was something greater. As a little girl talking to Jesus in my heart, I felt it. That drive led me to Catholic confirmation, then to studying Buddhism, and later to a degree in Philosophy. All gave me glimpses, but never the full picture. What stuck with me from that academic journey was my advisor, Mr. West, who told me: "These people,CEOs, world leader,they have degrees in philosophy. Logic and reasoning can take you anywhere. The others are just hoping someone will tell them what to do." And he was right. That skillset carried me through law school and beyond. But critical thinking alone doesn't lead to fulfillment. For that, we need wisdom. And true wisdom doesn't live in textbooks. I found the key,my first real key,in May of 2014 at Healer's Academy in Toronto. I had no idea why I went. I had no plan to be an energy healer,I was a lawyer, a senior project manager. Where was that going to fit in? But something called me. And when I came home and gave my first Life Activation, everything changed. It changed her life. And that changed mine. In that moment, I discovered something far beyond the mundane: I had the power to help someone heal. To step into more joy and wholeness. And for the first time, I felt real fulfillment. The kind that isn't logical, but undeniable. The kind that propels you forward through every obstacle. That's when everything in my life began to shift. My partner at the time left. My home no longer felt like home. My job felt empty. The distractions lost their pull. So I did what felt right, I kept serving. I did mystic fairs. I gave rune readings. I coached. I opened my own business. I started teaching. And though my calendar was packed, my heart was full. Service became my soul fuel. I chose the Ritual Master path. Learned new modalities. Served more people. And when I saw the power of initiation changing lives, I knew: I couldn't keep it to myself. I had to become a Guide. With each step, I became a bigger version of myself. Not because I wanted to be "bigger" — but because I had to grow to hold the energy of the work. To live the magick. To be the living embodiment of the teachings. Not as a performance,but as a demonstration. A beacon. So here I am, 14 years in, returning to Toronto for my 12th Professional Integration Day. Grateful. Fulfilled. Wise.Not because I know everything, but because I've been willing to act, fall down, reflect, realign, and keep going. I've learned that fulfillment lives on the other side of service. That wisdom is forged through aligned action. That getting things done isn't just about doing,it's about doing the right things, in the right order, for the right reasons. This isn't just productivity. This is purpose-driven, soul-aligned action. And that is how we become wise.  Need help refueling your actions with the right flame? I can help with that. Reach out to me and lets align your path with your purpose!  

Our current circumstances are the result of the fruits of our choices.   Yes, the news may say this about the President and his administration doing that, and everyone has opinions. But what are you doing with your life?   Are you making choices to better yourself? A student called me the other day, upset and angry at the world, spouting, "There needs to be more light!"  And I said, "Then you need to become THAT light."  I told them that being angry and negative is just adding more anger and negativity to the world.  They heard me and applied for the Ritual Master path in the Modern Mystery School. They then chose to work on themselves to bring more light and higher vibrations to this world. We need more light, but it can only start with first bringing this light to the darkness of our hearts and daily lives.   Are you making choices for yourself to better yourself? Turn off the TV and the radio, get off social media, and sit with YOU for a second.  What do you want?  What brings you joy? What unburdens your heart? Do you want to make your home, neighborhood, and family more peaceful? Do you want to be less stressed out? Do you want more abundance? Do you want purpose? Or do you want to enjoy tea in the morning while listening to the birds without racing your mind? Do you want to find your proper, indestructible, happy place?  We all have a choice. Even if it is a situation in your life where you feel the odds are against you and all directions appear to be rivers of poo. YOU still have a choice.  The Choice can be to continue and sit in misery or we can choose how to face adversity. And we can also decide how we face the possibility of JOY within our actions.  I once lived a life where I constantly chose to limit my joy. Because of my belief system, it had to be hard to produce results (as in non-enjoyable).  Now, hard work is important, but not at the expense of your health and family and living a joyful life.  We also cannot sit back and wait for things to knock on our door and for others to create happiness and abundance for us. We must take personal responsibility and action toward our goals.  But that doesn't mean choosing the path with the most painful obstacles or the path you have deemed "responsible" is the best.   I once chose a seemingly "responsible" path to become an attorney. I didn't choose this path because I was excited about the work.  I chose it because it was good, honest work that I knew could be well paid for, and I had the necessary skills. I knew I would be good at it if I could achieve it. So, in a way, I didn't choose to be a lawyer - I chose a path of achievement. Thus, when I completed my law license in Minnesota at 23, I looked around and said, "Is this all there is?".  I didn't like being a lawyer.  But it was a hard-to-achieve and honorable profession, so I dove in head first, working myself to almost a full head of grey hair and chronic fatigue by age 27.  I was well paid in a successful profession and ultimately miserable, but to the world, I was "successful."  Inside, I was full of anxiety and despair. I began drinking every single day to manage the deep-seated anxiety and dissatisfaction from the weight of other people's problems.  So, I chose to run away from it.  I left Minnesota and ran to Seattle, Washington.  I thought life on the West Coast would be different, that lawyers there would be different, that everything would be different.  But wherever you go, THERE YOU ARE.  I was still me, and instead of choosing my joy, I kept choosing the path of what the world told me success looked like. I needed a change and began searching for a new career.  It wasn't surprising when I found myself taking the job as a project manager. Yes, it was a new career, but it was still wholly based on achievement, and I was ready to put on my work boots and fully (get things done) again! And I was good at it. I got the same sense of accomplishment and superficial pride because I was doing lots of work - but it was other people's work.  Not my work. I was drinking less, but still too much. I was at least meditating with my Buddhist practice regularly. I achieved a state of OK, of just getting by, of occupying myself with the mundane. But I was still choosing to suppress my joy because I was ignoring my motivations for living.  I was on the path of what I SHOULD do out of fear and scarcity and programming - and honestly, a complete unwillingness to face my negative ego that kept me a codependent functional alcoholic pretending that this is what life should be.  Then, I found something that opened my eyes so wide that I couldn't continue to ignore my power to choose joy.  I found access to my source of power, my will, my courage, my higher self.  I found the ability to articulate what I enjoyed and what I wanted to create for myself. It was there all along, but I had buried it deep and ignored it for so long that the sound of my desire, intuition, and clarity was foreign, hidden, and masked to myself. My negative ego was louder - the voice said, "That's stupid. That's a waste of time. That is mumbo jumbo superstitious nonsense."  But then the voices began to fade once I took the risk and CHOSE to try the tools offered to me on the Path of Initiation within the Lineage of King Salomon as taught to me by my guide in the Modern Mystery School International.  I am so fortunate to have had a good friend who chose to keep inviting me to try this path for years. Five-plus years, to be exact. First, we were roommates, and then we were neighbors. She kept inviting me to do these weird things, and this class was called Empower Thyself.  And I thought, "It costs money, and it's two days, and it's silly spiritual bullshit that isn't going to help me with anything."  But actually, it was exactly what I needed to do to break out of my programming.  What is the definition of insanity?  To keep doing the same thing the same way and to expect different results. That is what I was doing, making me tired and miserable.   I am grateful to my friend who chose to stick with me and keep inviting me to this path because it took me a while to choose it.  But when I took the leap and received a life activation and attended Empower Thyself, I learned daily practices that could help me see clearer, dampen all the shoulds, and hear my true self when I said, "I want and desire to take this action, for the sake of my joy." I received an initiation that increased my willpower, so I had more strength to start making healthy choices like meditation over happy hour and complaint sessions with friends and colleagues.  Choices like yoga and working out to move my energy rather than eating a crescent to push it deep down within.  I started making choices like travel and taking trips to write about my experiences and the food I encountered for the pure joy of it.  I spent my money on myself instead of my codependent relationships (and trying to make other people happy). And I started making more money. I saw a way to use my skills as an attorney to help people the way I enjoyed. I started introducing people to the tools of the mystery school lineage and offering Life Activations, which positively impacted me and those who chose to receive the energy healing modality I learned to perform. My life started to take on meaning. I was no longer getting by and surviving.   I gained resilience, and my cup overflowed with joy—so much joy that I could share it with others.   Choice. We all have a choice.  Free will is the fundamental principle of our existence as humans.  We choose our reaction to the world.  We choose our actions.  We decide how we spend our time and energy creating and who we are around to experience that creation with.   I acknowledge that we can find ourselves sometimes in challenging situations. Still, with some exceptions (of people enslaved and/or human trafficked or actual victims of violent crime) in every situation, we have a choice.  However, most of us today believe we are victims of our circumstances rather than take personal responsibility for them.   If you don't even know where to start, I can help with that! Reach out, and let's clear the muck and activate your life, then onto the path of progression to figure it out for yourself. It is a choice for you to love yourself and make your world, starting with YOU—only better.    

"Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. "  For reason, ruling alone, is a force confing, and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.   Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;and let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes." - Kahlil Gibran The Universe was like, "Nope - you don't get what you want." And I was like, "What the fuck?!"   Last year at this time, I hit a shocking and painful  wall in my life.  I had leaned in hard to my spiritual training to reach a certification that  I truly desired, and  had  spent a massive  amount of time, energy and money in the process of trying to complete..  I was attempting to put down roots in Florida, but still standing in Seattle, and traveling frequently to Michigan and Toronto.    The year before,  December of 2022 I had officially moved to St. Augustine, Florida,I I had found a nice guy I liked spending time with. And,  over most of 2023, this "nice guy" and I moved towards becoming serious, By Fall, we agreed to be with each other in a committed monogamous relationship.  I, however, was still deep in the throes of my training, which meant spending much of my time flying between Seattle and Toronto.. .  Unfortunately, despite the grueling hours, long nights and money spent, I failed my final exam and did not receive my certification. As I returned to Florida, there was not a part of me that was not exhausted. I was processing failure and grieving what I thought was meant to be mine.  - I was ready to step back and redirect my attention. I was finally ready to settle deep into my beautiful beachside hometown in Florida, and pivot my desires into the arms of this relationship that had been placed on the backburner for too long.  Or so I thought -It wasn't long after, I found out my nice guy was also seeing someone else and wasn't so nice after all.  The days after, I went into shock..  All I wanted to do was go home.  and cozy up to my boyfriend. And the Universe responded with an abrupt and harsh NO.  - Again, what the fuck?!    Not to mention, this wasn't the first time I had been cheated on. "How could this happen to me again?  This pattern? This betrayal? What is wrong with me?" I began to think…but then I chose something different.  I resisted the temptation of fully drowning myself in self pity and victimhood, - Instead I called in help. I reached out to some very wise and trustworthy friends, and asked for a reality check.     One of those friends  told me about a story of a woman who had died recently of something entirely preventable.  The woman had been   so focused on other people: pleasing them, helping them, doing for them, busying herself with all of their needs first,  - she did not take care of herself.  She ignored her basic needs and neglected her body as it began to tell her something was wrong..  AND IT KILLED HER. . . The preacher at her funeral said words that chilled me deep into my bones.  "Get YOUR house in order.  This woman is dead because of something entirely preventable.  She was taking care of all of you, but forgot to first take care of herself. She chose to not first get her house in order before providing assistance to others, and paid the ultimate price. Yes, we should seek to help others, but we cannot pour from an empty cup."     They were words my very weary mind, body and soul needed to hear. My house was not even close to being in order and I was exhausted from all the travel and fruitless endeavors.  My car had been stolen, my arthritis was angry, my house had ants, my dog missed me, my boyfriend left me, and my businesses was suffering.  I had failed to ground myself into this budding new home,because I was so busy running all over the country  pursuing something that actually  wasn't my dream. I began to really ask myself, "What is it that I actually want?" And the answers came. I I wanted a nice cozy, simple life with a man who enjoyed spending time with me.  I wanted to be healthy and available to be of service to others with my light work and my law practice.  I wanted to be figuring out my joy and passions again. I  wanted to bask in the sunlight and sit on a beach.  Was I doing any of this? Nope.  And I was in deep despair and grieving so many things.  My house was not in order.  I made a vow to myself and placed these newfound prayers and intentions into my daily meditation..  I finally admitted a truth I had been hiding and distracting myself from - I wanted a partner. I wanted a home.  I wanted to find my husband.  My person.  My mate. Someone who I could truly co-create with and share my life with.,  I was going to have to prioritize cultivating a sense of home. No more standing on the fence between two or three vastly different area codes.   I began  the application process for the Florida bar exam and I started dating again with the intention of finding my husband.  I declared my boundaries and got clear on what I wanted and didn't want. And everyday I worked towards clarifying these desires, boundaries and intentions.  I took a hard, honest look at my life and the choices I was making that kept leading to the same patterns and outcomes. I realized I was chasing goals, certifications, and achievements that lacked real meaning or passion for me. I was stuck in "achievement mode" — going through the motions for the sake of accomplishment alone, not fulfillment. In my relationships, I was settling. I had set myself up for disappointment by choosing partners who reflected the same unhealthy patterns back to me. These patterns weren't just happening to me — I was actively choosing them. First, I desire a true life partnership — a husband with whom I can build a meaningful, fulfilling life — and I will settle for nothing less. Second, achievement for achievement's sake is no longer my priority. My goal is to serve humanity while also living a life that brings me joy and balance. This means putting down roots in Florida, traveling less for work and more for pleasure, and focusing on work that lights me up — empowering others through teaching, lightwork, and authorship, rather than leaning heavily on consulting or lawyering. Fast forward to the present day.  It is December 2024 and we are on the dawn of the New Year -  just in time to set new intentions, I spent the past weekend in a class called Self-Leadership.  The class was focused on how, through awareness of ourselves and our emotions -  we can learn how to start detaching from the obstacles that we create. How we can start being more integrous with ourselves and take the actions we want, toward healthy productive desires that progress us to a better version of ourselves, and accomplishing what we want in life.  How to stop the victim mindset and self pity, and as a result of being able to detach from the "story" or the "negative emotion" or the perceived "thing that is stopping me," we find freedom.  As I was listening to the content over the two days I had an epiphany about just how sneaky our negative ego truly is.  The content was all things I had heard before.  In fact, I had heard it in several different places, Hermetic classes, other seminars (albeit not with the spiritual lens).  But it wasn't until this moment that it finally fully integrated into my body and I was really able to feel and understand it's profound truth. This revelation came one year after declaring to myself and the Universe that it was my time to put my house in order. .  And in this gorgeous present day moment,I take a long and very comforting sip of tea as I ponder on the teachings of the leadership course.  I curl up on the couch inside my beautiful 2700 sq. ft home in St. Augustine, Florida. My partner, my soul mate, and a man I could someday call my husband sits down on the couch with me and places his arm around me. This is not just my house, but our house. Over the past year, we have built a home together. We begin to discuss the trickiness of the negative ego and relish in our shared desire for self improvement.    I tell him about how I have recently been struggling with time management and realizing the roles the negative ego is playing in this.  "My time has become messy for two reasons.  1.  My own lack of boundaries. And 2. My own attitude and belief about a lack of time," I say as he listens intently.  He agrees, and adds "It is the sneaky negative ego that says time is not there. It's the sneaky negative ego that says you don't have enough, or that you are not good enough." I recognize that same negative ego that had me running myself ragged for other people's goals a year ago, has me doing it again just under a different disguise with work. We are our biggest obstacle.  Always.  My body lights up as I absolutely adore having a partner to share my life and epiphanies with. This was just a dream one year ago. But it was a dream that was my (and no one else's) true heart's desire and the Universe generously and abundantly gave to me.  Today, I am filled with joy and gratitude as I don't just have a house, but a home. No more chasing three different cities or dead-end relationships. I sit in the center of love and comfort, surrounded by my parents, friends, and this amazing life partner, who I adore and who adores me. A man for the first time in my life, I fully trust.  I reflect on my original intention - Is my home in order? In many ways yes. It has been an incredible year and I have come so far, but there are things that I would like to improve upon. As I look ahead, I realize I now want to deepen this understanding and continue my work in getting my home in order. The concept is still new and I am always a work in progress.  We are

I personally love Thanksgiving - if you've ever read my blog, Paprika Angel you will see my love of food and travel but also the time and energy I have spent preparing this meal for friends and loved ones and sometimes strangers for years.  With minor exception I pull together 10 or more people to feast extravagantly every year, even if my funds are short.  I always have found a way because I love to prepare and feed and make offerings at this time of year from a place of love.  At one of my in person legal educational events last year, my door prize included a Turkey Day kit and the who won it said.  "Oh, I don't celebrate Thanksgiving." and was offended by my gift.  I stopped in my tracks, not to apologize, but for my naivety and surprise - as some still believe and or are wholly ignorant of what Thanksgiving as a National Holiday is about.  So we are going to go down a little gobbler day history less here to reclaim any misconceptions of Thanksgiving back into the light.  There were no docile aboriginals showing up at some saintly puritan pilgrims' feet offering them maize and turkeys. Our mythological buckled hat pilgrims straight off the Mayflower likely did not sit down at any table anywhere, let alone with the natives of the region we now call New England.   There is however a 1st hand account in a letter form from around that time of the first English settlements of Prospectors (not religious pilgrims but gold hunters seeking riches in the new lands) that a "harvest festival" of sorts occurred over the course of weeks involving the hunting of wild game (deer, wild turkeys, bear) and the sharing of cranberries, gourds and tubers by the local native friendlies.  Likely, the "settlers" were starving to death on their own with no knowledge of what was edible in the inhospitable places they chose to set up camp, and having no supplies from England left over, the aboriginals may have felt sorry for some of them and shown them what to do.  Or for the sake of trading for weapons to gain strength over another nation, they brought the prospectors food.    The original table is a myth taught to school children.  Just as the belief that the original settlors came in the name of religious freedom and that Columbus discovered America.  The actual first settlements in what is now the United States America were all about gold and riches.  The actual first settlement in the United States in St. Augustine - and that was under the guise of saving souls by the Catholic church but it really was about the protection of Spanish gold from South America.  But if there was truly to be a first North American Thanksgiving it would be the priests and Spanish military landing at what is now called St. Augustine and meeting The Timucuans, a truly kind and docile native people of Northeastern Florida, who took immediately to the prayers and symbols of the Catholic priests, and all of them celebrated together the mass and feast of St. Mary at El Nombre Dias (there is still in a cross in the ground today where this happened).  They all prayed together, Timucuan, Spanish sailors and soldiers, Catholic priests - and they offered thanks and praise to god and the great mother, and they shared in a feast of shellfish provided to them by the friendly natives.  But as England and Spain were rivals in the prospecting of North America for gold and riches, this story of a true first Thanksgiving (coming together in gratitude and prayer to the universal force that loves and protects us) is not in the common mythology of the United States.  In fact it is buried in the annuls of Florida history as Florida did not become a state released from Spain until just before the US Civil War.  So, let's move forward in time a bit to when we have a thriving New England after the Revolutionary war when we are an independent nation open to those seeking freedom of religion, opportunity to farm, and asylum from persecution. It was during these times that we have huge influxes of Puritans who had Thanksgiving as a time of prayer.  Entire days devoted only to giving thanks to God for everything in creation.  For a long time this day of prayer and observance was the equivalent of our modern day Christmas celebrations because in puritanical christian practice the giving of gifts and worshiping saints like the Catholics and Lutherans was looked down upon. Puritans were very austere and labeled any festivals as negative, wasteful, and involving satanic invitations.  So instead they prayed and gave thanks and this holy time generally occurred around the beginning of November - the early parts of winter and the late stages of Autumn when it was important to count your blessings and prepare for the meager months ahead by working hard to fill your stores.  Pigs and Poultry would be slaughtered and salted and prepped for winter storage.  So there would be a time of feasting as things that couldn't be stored had to be used up to prevent waste.  It was out of necessity and practicality in a pre-electricity society.   People today can barely imagine going without the internet for a couple of hours let alone not having running water and electricity.  Something we take for granted with the evolution of humanity and technology, is how fragile we are without the  technology tools we have built.   This time of year it was necessary to feast so we did not waste.  The last hurrah before the lean times when people died of exposure and diseases of malnutrition and lack of sanitation. But they still paused to give thanks and pray and embody gratitude.  In Viking society even before our young country of the United States this concept of gratitude, prayer and nourishment was built into the bedrock of the culture (as Vikings were farmers and life was not easy).  You see it in the Rune stones - Fehu translates to cattle which is the rune of abundance and mobile property. Wunjo translates to winning and joy - and it is the rune of gratitude i.e. having/having enough.  And finally Algiz which translates to Elk Sedge or stage is a run of protection, boundaries and prayer because the man who prays and acknowledges what he has is protected by the Gods.   Alright, back to the US and our Thanksgiving story.  I'm writing this on the eve of the 2024 U.S. Presidential election so I think it is poignant in this time of massive emotional divisiveness  to explain  when and how Thanksgiving, the National holiday of gratitude, unity, and celebration of shared blessings came to be. Civil War.  Can you even imagine if war was outside your backdoor?  Cities burning, young men across the entire country dead and maimed by the millions.  Families lost their homes, their means of making any income, there was no usable farmland, just fields of blood.  People are starving and grieving.  Any issue we are facing today, pales in comparison to the aftermath of the United States civil war.  And it was then that the Federal Government and Abraham Lincoln declared the need for a Great Healing.  A coming together to give thanks for what we had been given by God and together as families and a hurting nation.  Gratitude is the foundation upon which the United States was rebuilt upon.   Gratitude is the strong foundation  that allows us to build in spite of the  greatest atrocities and destruction..  This is what saved Holocaust survivors.  And Thanksgiving as a holiday is the core of our nation's gratitude practice and abundance mindset.  It was initiated as a National holiday to create healing and to mend the divide between neighbors, so we could all come together as Americans again.  Not as Northerners nor Southerns, not based in color or creed, or economies, not separated by ideologies , but together, as Americans - united in the spirit of acknowledging blessings  and breaking bread.  Every thought is acted upon.  By you or someone else.  This is a Hermetic principle and a truth of the universe.  How many people today have said death to Trump!  Or Kill Kamala!  Or some version of hate directed at those who hold differing views?   Where are we going with this?  Hate begets Hate and is acted upon.  We can see this in our Nations history.  I bring this up not because I hold any political viewpoint but because I am on the side of humanity, love, unity and reason for us to come together. Let us come together to solve our challenges. Let us come together and hear differing perspectives. Let us find nourishing common ground and stop  playing the blame game.   How do we come together? With the greatest healers of all time - prayer and gratitude.  Gratitude and prayer.  Whatever that looks like to you.  Whatever God, Gods or forces of universality you choose to worship.  Look at your fellow person, your family friends, neighbors, city dwellers, statesman, countrymen and country women.  And give gratitude for this country  of opportunity of freedom and abundance we live in.  War is not at our back door.  Our daughters can go to school.  We have running water and electricity and almost everyone can have a cell phone and access to the Internet.  YES there are problems but we have the technology, the infrastructure, and the resources to fix them!  There is no lack.  Lack is a fiction built by ideologies that come from hurt,shadow and negative ego.  As within so without.  If we are victims internally, we are victims externally.  If we choose abundance and healing internally we will create healing and abundance for ourselves and others externally.   So. this is why Thanksgiving is such a special day and such an opportunity for us all.  It is a day in our collective consciousness dedicated to the GREAT HEALING energy of gratitude.  The power of gratitude is phenomenal. An action of gratitude has a rippling effect on the collective. . Like thoughts attract like thoughts.  By us all coming together in gratitude we can create an enormous  healing force of magnifying love.  We can collectively create a shift in the consciousness to healin

Forgiveness - the big F word. It sounds so simple but is the most difficult. Why is it so important to forgive? And how do we actually forgive?  To forgive is to release the hold a hurt or injury has on your physical and metaphysical self.  The release cuts the cord to the negative energy that is binding you to an old self and way of being.  If you can  let go of the attachment to the pain and lower frequency emotion, you will allow  space in your heart to heal. And by healing from the heart you increase your capacity to love yourself and others. You raise your frequency to a higher vibrational state and attract more positive things and people to yourself.  This is why forgiveness isn't for the person you forgive. It is FOR YOU.     Forgiving ourselves and others is absolutely necessary for us to be able to grow, shift and evolve.  And evolution/evolving is essential to living your highest life. If we trap ourselves in a box and refuse to change and grow, we lose access to so much abundance. .   Our energy is instead occupied and used to hold on to the past.  And then we get physically or mentally sick. We become  sick and tired and then we get angry because we are sick and tired of being sick and tired and then we start to blame everything outside ourselves for the illness taking over our lives. When the perpetrator of all of it is the person in the mirror.    Our refusal to evolve. Our fear of change.  Our attachments to the status quo. Our inability to forgive ourselves for our mistakes are all chains. If we  choose forgiveness we can liberate ourselves. .  Flush it down the proverbial toilet and free up all that energy to actually live our life. And living life is worth more than the need to hold on to the hurt.   But how? That is the big question.   As this is not an act we can think ourselves into. Overthinking exacerbates the challenge, it roots the pattern of regret and resentment, anger or feeling wronged, and  triggering thoughts that  "something is wrong with me,I'm broken, and unlovable" Thoughts create our reality.  As within so without. So an intercessor of sorts is needed - our will, our heart that is connected to source - and our surrender to just that.   Sweet surrender!   By enacting the will to release it to  God/Jesus/source - (whatever you name your universal power) and ask it to carry this hurt  away from you.   Surrender and activate the  strength of your positive ego and the collective consciousness of the masters of light behind you to make it happen. We can call in Gods and Goddesses of forgiveness to help us, like Quan Yin, Jesus Christ, Holy Mother Mary, Buddha.   So how do you forgive? Invite help from your source, activate the light from within you and your divine masters, surrender, radically accept that you cannot change the past but only the future, and then release! A year ago my brand new car was stolen. I meditated with Buddha and Jesus to reach the place of nonattachment. To forgive the thieves who took my car, as well as, some irreplaceable items near to my heart. I prayed for forgiveness for the  thieves. "I forgive you," I would pray. And then I would  say to myself, I forgive youfor leaving all the things I left in the car that disappeared with it. In the end it was stuff, but much of it was irreplaceable tools from my healing practice.  This took  focus, but in the end, it was easier to forgive than to accept the injury INTO my life. I held gratitude for the car and renters insurance to compensate me for what was lost and moved on.  I let it go, and it gave myself new   space and energy to focus on. I focused on what was going right in my life and forgave what wasn't.    The  example of losing material stuff is an easy one.    Emotional forgiveness is much harder.  A knife into the heart from someone you trust is one of the hardest wounds to heal and forgive.  But it is also possible and when you reach that place you will stop the pattern from moving forward in your life. I speak from a place of great experience. I have been devastatingly betrayed at least 5 timesby past romantic partners The first time it happened I thought I had healed and moved on but I hadn't  and it stunted my growth from age 22 to 45 years old.  I played it safe (or so I thought) during those 23 years of life. I built walls so high around myself that I never thought I would be hurt again  I cautiously entered relationships with men who didn't require me to be vulnerable. And I wasn't vulnerable. . I did not ever want to trust again because I never healed the first wound in my heart.. So, I settled for being in a guarded castle.  And as a result, I invited in people to be romantic partners that felt no responsibility towards my heart and then replayed the same betrayal again and again. It was not until I took full personal responsibility for my choices and forgave myself that that specific  knife in my heart could finally be removed and that space could start to then heal. The key out of my self imposed cage was forgiveness.  And then immediately, as if by magic, my person who I could trust and form a healthy relationship   entered my life.    With forgiveness came radical acceptance of myself. Self love. Self respect. There is nothing wrong with me. I am not perfect by far. But I did not do anything Wrong. I was just afraid to be hurt again - so much so, that I CLUNG to my walls of security too hard and perpetuated the hurt upon  myself again and again. That is the lie of our negative ego. Stay Safe!  Don't let go! It will get better if you just hold on to this hurt! This is the way you protect yourself.Instead, the opposite happens. You have to let it go. You have to forgive yourself. You have to forgive those who hurt you. Forgiving doesn't mean condoning or accepting the behavior or allowing the hurt back into your life. Forgiving isn't being a doormat. Forgiving means you radically accept the situation and let go of the need to change the past, so you can change the future. Don't condone it, but forgive it.  Let go, so you can let in. "Forgive them Father, they know not what they do."  Injuries of the heart, like betrayal may be the hardest to get over. But at the same time because Forgiveness is an act of the heart, and therefore is  an act of love, surrendering to its great Force can make it the easiest.  So, upon my release and actual acceptance and forgiveness of myself. My choice was to then radically love myself.  My choice was to allow myself  to y do more than yearn for a relationship. Give myself the ability to abandon my false sense of security for actual security.  Then and only then did the wound dissipate in my heart and I was able to live freely and attract my highest good.  I Love  is the intercessor. s It is the force flowing through us. Become  the container with an open  heart - to receive it and then give it away.  Love is not selfish. We are simply a conduit for its magic.  And now a  quote from the gospel of Mary Magdalene "What binds me has been slain, and what surrounds me has been overcome, and my desire has ended, and ignorance has died. In a world, I was released from a world."   Without going on a tangent I want to note that in the Gospel of Mary, she explains the release from the 7 stages of the negative ego that bind us to our mundanity, our pain, our mediocrity, and keep us from evolving to our higher self and highest potential.  The key is  Love. The key is  forgiveness. The key is  surrendering to the force of the power greater than our  Monkey Mind. She continues "I was released from a world, and in a type from a heavenly type, and from the fetter of oblivion which is transient. From this time I will attain to the rest of the time, of the season, of the eaon, in silence."  The chains that bind our heart and keep us trapped in pain are of our own creation. . And therefore, the will to set ourselves free is in our control. Forgiveness done right is powerful!  In opening our heart to the force that is love, we receive more than we could ever "give." Forgiveness  disconnects us from that which injures us and allows us to reconnect to a true source of light.The power to love and be loved in return, is the beautiful gift of forgiveness. Forgive and watch how your life changes.  If you still feel stuck and are in need of additional support - I can help with that! I would love to help you on your journey to love and light. Reach out to me through my website angellatterell.com and book a call.  

Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude.  What really is gratitude? I speak about it all the time. I share with students, clients, and colleagues - gratitude is the foundation of an Abundance Mindset and living a joyful life.  But why?  What is really happening with a gratitude grounded life?  Simply put, gratitude is the practice of appreciating what one has. On the next level it is the practice of appreciation for what one has, what one is given, and what one has lost.  But it is more than that. It is a practice in being aware. To appreciate what one has - one must be first aware of what they have.  To appreciate what one is given, one must be aware that they are being given things.  And to appreciate and hold gratitude for what has been taken away or lost - one must have an even greater awareness of cause & effect and other subtle hermetic universal principles at work - so you can see the quote, unquote "loss" for what it truly is. So if one is actually grateful, and truly holds appreciation for everything in their life (even the unpleasant stuff), then you are in a place of high vibrational awareness, clarity and discernment.  Holding true sight and acknowledgement of what is going on around you and the ability to access wisdom and discern what is actually happening at any given time.   So, in short, gratitude = awareness.  Awareness = discernment. Discernment = wisdom. Wisdom = Discernment.  Discernment = Awareness. Awareness = gratitude. And thus, we have a positive thought cycle occurring which allows us to live a joyful abundant life in flow with the universe even if our circumstances are filled with opportunity and challenge.  In fact, we are more likely to seek opportunities and challenges because we have awareness, because we know that those difficult things we face are the fertilizer for the joy we grow.   A joyful life is not one without difficulties or sorrow.  We all experience loss and grief in life because life ends. We lose loved ones to death. This is the only certainty in life. That this physical life ends. And along the way in our life we have people we love, and they grow old and die, or they are young and die from illness or tragedy.  These are huge losses.  But we continue.  And those of us who learn in life how to continue and thrive are those who realize and are aware that this cycle in the physical body is not about learning how to survive - because that is the one impossible task. None of us get out alive. This experience in the physical body is about learning how to live and to see the glory that is everything we are given, everything we have, and everything we experience—even the losses. Jesus said to his disciples when you can truly SEE, then you will enter the kingdom of heaven. He was talking about discernment and gratitude. True awareness. When you can truly see what life offers you are capable of gratitude, and when you have awareness, gratitude and discernment - you enter the kingdom of heaven—a joyful life. What is more heavenly than to be able to look at a shit storm in your life and say Thank You Universe for this opportunity. I am so grateful I had this experience.  I've been reflecting on gratitude all month. At the end of August I had the opportunity to be faculty for an attorney retreat and intensive where we engaged in some serious learning about different life insurance vehicles and annuities interspersed with meditation, personal development, and fun outdoor activities.We pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones in order to learn and shift ourselves and our practices for the sake of being better advisors to our clients.  For me, I was also there holding a container for everyone to meditate and grow within, while keeping the focus on gratitude. Because with gratitude we can learn better, we can accept change better, we can live better.  It is an essential element to anyone's life but especially for times of change, growth, and obstacles. And in order to change how one does something, or accept and adapt to a forced change we have to expend energy - we have to move out of the groove we have been in to shift into a new one.  No more autopilot.  Time to expend effort little by little every day until we get to the new phase of our becoming.  Gratitude helps us with this because when we start with awareness and recognition of everything we have in our environment to support us (even if it is just out own wits), and we see just how good it is, then we do not have to expend energy worrying about the lack and attracting more lack, we aren't running away from anything, we are moving towards something. And if that which we focus on expands it continues in the positive manifestation zone and we manifest that which we desire to bring about, versus that which we are trying to leave behind.  As an attorney, I find it exceptionally important to always be finding ways to hold gratitude and create containers for my clients that allow them to move toward things. Lawyers in a traditional sense are called upon only when there is a problem. We are the solvers. Or the ones that must help people through an unpleasant situation, or we are the ones causing the unpleasant situation because we manage litigation in a win-lose system. Winning in the law is determined by whether or not the proper procedure is followed - which for the average person is not winning. People want wrongs righted, justice served - but the law cannot really provide that - legal "justice" is not moral justice or God's justice - is simply checking all the boxes in the proper order and following the proper rules.  What the law can provide however, are strong containers of prevention and protection to ensure to the best of our ability that bad things don't happen, and worse things don't happen when bad things do occur (especially in the case of dying). But for me that isn't enough either - I don't want to just prevent something, I want to create containers for my clients that also grow in abundance alongside providing protection.  And what I learned in my attorney summer camp experience in August was the missing piece on how to use planning to build actual abundance and wealth for families. A true abundance manifestation goal versus just the mindset of planning with the end in mind and using that to expand on opportunities through prevention and protection planning. Now my understanding of life insurance, its strategic use in retirement planning, saving plans and investment, as well as the access to an extremely knowledgeable team of resources that I can consult with to guide my clients, has opened up a huge new gallery of wealth building containers that every family can take advantage of. And it gives me great joy to be able to offer a direction that is truly an Abundance building methodology. As I write this it is Fall Equinox.  Mabon in the Wiccan calendar.  A day of gratitude and appreciation, bringing balance into our lives as we harvest the fruits of our efforts and give thanks for them.  This autumn I am holding immense gratitude for my new partner in life and everything he has brought into my life, as well as everything he has given me, and alongside this relationship those things which have been lost. I hold gratitude for all of it - and for all of the growth I've experienced as a result of being in a real relationship with someone willing to do the work next to me. It's not all roses and sunbeams, and his health is far from good, but I wouldn't trade this time to be in something else with someone else. I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to experience something so real with someone so willing & capable of being themself with me. This relationship that brings me such great joy also reminds me of the short and preciousness of life. I've never been one to sit by the wayside and not squeeze the marrow out of life—but since Covid I have to admit that all I've done is work and fit my relationships in inbetween. When sitting next to my partner and knowing that with his particular health challenges, that our life together is more likely to be truncated than not - it adds an urgency to living. Death is a reality for everyone, and I spend a lot of my time reminding people of that because I am an estate planning attorney - but when it is on your own doorway - it is no longer a philosophical conversation. It is happening. And this is where gratitude is my foundation now, more than ever. The kind of appreciation that keeps me in full awareness so that I can truly see, discern, and live in the kingdom of heaven right now in this physical body enjoying my life in the present moment, for what it is. Jesus said Come to know what is in front of you, and that which is hidden from you will become clear to you. This is gratitude. Clarity. Awareness. Discernment. Recognition. "Whoever has (something) in his hand, (something more) will be given to him.  And whoever has nothing, even the little he has will be taken from him."  So, your homework this month is to determine what you have through the practice of gratitude. Build your foundation to live a joyful life by creating and cultivating your garden of appreciation for every aspect of your life - even the hard parts.   

"Do as I do, be as I am. " Jesus Christ "When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too."  Paulo Coelho (author of The Alchemist) Sometimes we forget who we are.  Sometimes we think, is this all there is?  And if that is true, what is the point of all of this?  We all can feel stuck.  Trapped even. Unable to get out of the web of the choices we made to get to this point. And then when you are so wrapped in that silky meshy mess, panicking that the gross scary spider is going to come and get you that you lose sight of everything but the panic! The fear! The NEED to get OUT before the monster gets you! Then before you know it, this is what your life is - survival and fear. Trapped in a web and trying to get out.   No longer are you actually going anywhere.  You are just GETTING OUT. But "getting out" is not a destination.  And OUT! Is driven by fear which has us thrashing around so much that we just wrap the web even thigh around ourselves so it is now even harder to achieve. It is like one of those Chinese finger traps,you played with as a kid - the harder you pull against it, the tighter it binds you.  But if we stop thrashing and fighting and fearing The Monster (the unknown).  If we breathe and take a moment and ask ourselves.  Where am I? Who am I? Where am I going? What do I actually want? Where do I want to go? What do I WANT to be doing right now? (in the positive, the answer can't be ESCAPING or ESCAPISM behavior). If all options are on the table, what would I actually choose to be doing to spend my time if I wasn't so scared and spending all my energy beating back the tides of change, fear, and all the things I don't want?  If you could articulate in the positive a destination. I want to be writing a book.  I want to go to the gym twice a week.  I want a job that fulfills me. I want to have a conversation with my partner. I want an abundant family. I want to laugh. Do you see where I am going with this?  What can you articulate in the positive?  What do you aspire for yourself?  And yeah maybe your mind will say it's a pipe dream.  But you know what?  It is YOUR pipe dream.  And if it brings you joy and light - why is it silly to aspire for that, and to do that, instead of just surviving? instead of just "getting away from THIS."   Because running away is not a destination.  Getting away is not a goal. It is running from the monster.  Running away from the monster is not running to something at all - it is getting you lost deeper in the woods and going right into the belly of the beast.   If you feel trapped and depressed or scared of what is to come.  What if you were not spending all of your time on surviving, on beating back the fear, or trying to get away?  If you hate your job and every night you come home and drink a bottle of wine - what is that doing?  That is just numbing the pain from the job you hate.  Is it getting you a new job that is fulfilling?  Is it raising your vibration to a place where you can see a new alternative?  Is it giving you anything but escape?  Yeah you are surviving the pain.  But is that a life?  Surviving and enslaved to something you hate?   Our negative ego is a real motherfucker.  It makes us believe that running away is a solution.  It says STAY SAFE!  Don't leave this box. HIDE! Outside this box is failure - is the inability to pay your bills. Outside, is the eternal question, are you dying alone?  Because it says you are not good enough.  You don't deserve nice things.  You are not capable. No one likes you.  That is for other people.  Other people write books, other people take fabulous vacations, other people get graduate degrees and careers they actually enjoy.  It is an insidious record that keeps playing over and over again - that keeps you thrashing in the spider web you spun yourself. Keeps you making choices that keep you trapped in a cycle of fear and miserable-ness and not progressing toward something that will actually bring you satisfaction and joy.   And here is the secret.  It is not in some new age book from the early 2000s called, The Secret or even just positive thinking, or in that next social media influencers webinar about the 10 steps to financial freedom and happiness.  It is none of those things.  It is in the most simple (but hard to practice) axiom of Know Thyself.  Know thyself as God. Know thy own needs and wants. Your thoughts create your reality. Hermetic Principle #1 - All is Mind.  99% of your success in creating a change in your life comes from how you feel about the situation because every feeling creates a thought, and every thought is acted upon. So if we feel good about where we are going, and are actually consciously choosing where we are going, and know in your heart of hearts that where you are going is what you actually want to do - then you will follow that gratitude filled feeling, into a gratitude and hope filled thought, then apply consistency and discipline to carry out actions daily (little bits every day) that get you somewhere new that you actually WANT to be.  And after some effort you will find yourself free of your bondage and looking forward to even more amazing things as you take action in the present moment.  But until YOU CHOOSE an actual DESTINATION that you want and desire then you will never ever be able to get there. Because no one ever gets anywhere when you are running away from your life.  This is your life.  You only get one.  What do you want to be spending your precious minutes on?  How much time and energy have you spent  beating back the fear?  What is the worst that could happen if you paused and surrendered to whatever you are avoiding and chose what you actually want? Then and only then do you realize just how futile and useless the fight that fear is.  How irrelevant - and that all your writhing and drama and gesticulation was just an ugly dance that you can stop. And finally,with clarity and simplicity you can step out from by deciding with discernment and your will to set your mind, your thoughts, words and acts toward the true desire you have in your heart of hearts, for the best and highest good.  Then you will be free of the bonds of the web you wove. The box you stapled yourself into and you can live as the god/goddess you truly are and start creating your reality.  And THIS is the magick that Jesus spoke of and embodied as a Hermetic teacher. This is why he was able to create miracles - and was trying to teach us to do the same. "Do as I do. Be as I am."  "Everything I can do, you can do and more."  Jesus Christ was a Hermetic Teacher.  When he was alive there was no such thing as Christianity.  There was Judaism and Jesus was ethnically Hebrew and he is referred to as a Rabbi but he wasn't Jewish either. In the annals of time and translation rabbi simply meant teacher.  And Jesus was just that - a teacher of Hermetics. Hermetics and any Hermetic principle is from the mind of God. It is the understanding of God's mind without human pollution.  If it is Hermetic it will benefit people and always be good.  Because God does no harm. Hermetics creates clarity which simplifies life - thus increasing our potential to act as God in this life.  Whereas the human mind creates complications and traps us in fictions and stories. And ultimately this is what Jesus was teaching - and like good humans we have complicated his words and made a religion out of him which separates what he could do from what we can do.  Which is the exact opposite of his teaching.  "Do as I do. Be as I am." In other words "Act like the God/Goddess you are.  Master your mind by doing the will of God."  Jesus was and is one of the greatest teachers for humanity in all time - and as a master of light he mastered his negative ego completely in this physical life and as a result could create miracles. He used every single one of his gifts as a human being for its intended purpose in its intended way.  And although he was special (because he had a unique mission to bring the ray of love and compassion to this planet for all of us to experience) his message to all of us was that HE WAS NOT SPECIAL. In that everything he could do, we can do.  Our job is to LISTEN to him, to take him as an example of possibility and to start living that possibility.  And through his teachings become the teachings - just as he was.   Now he did some amazing party tricks (though turning water into wine back in the day just made the water safe to drink) he also defied the laws of physics, cleared negativity, and cured the sick.  However, the potential to do all of this is within us as well. And humans have created miracles again and again.  The examples we have from the gospels (albeit told through the lens of religion, politics, two hundred or more years, translation from aramaic to greek to latin to english) are examples of a clear will (desire from a place of purity) applied with the rules of Hermetics and the power inherent in this existence as a fully actualized human being connected to spirit acknowledging our power as God - you can have a major impact on this physical world. You can defy the laws of physics.  You can create miracles.  You can just simply live a joyful life.  But it all starts by setting your will in motion and remembering that you are god.  You are a powerful being that can affect your reality through your feelings, thoughts, choices and actions.   With Jesus we weren't supposed to start a religion.  We were supposed to discern.  To learn. To follow in his footsteps versus follow him.  If we say "Jesus take the wheel!" you abdicate responsibility for your life and that is in the exact opposite of what he was getting at for us.  Did we ever hear of Jesus saying "Father DO everything FOR me?"  Yet we do this all the time with Jesus, with our jobs, by blaming other people, by pouring our sorrows into a bottle or any other substance.  We abdicate our responsibility and we run away to our hidi

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."  Maya Angelou It is the day after Independence Day.  I'm watching the street sweeper brush up the remnants of yesterday's fireworks shells on the neighborhood streets of Jacksonville Beach, Florida.  The detritus of the party is all that is left after America's red, white and blue holiday. Last night thousands of people poured past the front of my house to go to the beach to watch the fireworks and celebrate freedom and independence.  Thousands of explosions small and large rocked the beach and I was in the middle of it.  A far cry from the remote shores of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where I have spent the last 10 years celebrating the holiday with my sister and family.   But nothing is at all like the past for me this year and it has me examining my attachments really closely and getting super clear on what truly is conscious choice and surrender.  Because somewhere in between that lies True Freedom in this lifetime.  True freedom isn't surrendering to the current and going with the flow that others set for us. A lot of people think that is an easy life - just let go! Don't choose, let life take you as it may - everything happens for a reason etc…That's just floating.  Delegating your personal responsibility for your life to others so you have the excuse "I was just going with the flow!" or "I had no choice!"  You did though.  You chose not to choose in that situation because something in your programming, that artificial intelligence of your negative ego, has you so afraid to do so. whether you believe you can't have nice things, or you are so afraid to fail, or who knows what your damage is, but if you never examine the baggage you carry, you will never know.  On the other side, is someone like me.  Controlling every single aspect of everything in your life with an exacting plan that everything must go according to, or else. Achieving the objective of the moment. Because achievement of the next thing is the highest good. Except sometimes, er, well, a lot of the time, my objective is misinformed because it comes from my subconscious programming and I am not aware of that, until it's too late.  If you try to control every little thing you are so busy controlling you can't see or hear the signs that there is something better or that a higher path could open up, paved in opportunities. Except in these situations I honestly believe I am acting from conscious choice when I double down in stubborn determinism and radical self reliance "to make it work!" to "achieve the gold star!" to "take care of the problem!" But as my recent move from St. Augustine to my partner's house in Jax Beach proves - NO, I'm not always aware of how my thoughts are creating my reality.  And I made a lot of things harder on myself by just assuming I had to do it all myself because that is the way it has always been.   Meanwhile my partner is left wondering why I didn't trust him enough to ask for help. And I realized I didn't because I assumed I couldn't and I was afraid of retribution for asking at all.  So yeah - I didn't trust.  So here I am - surrendering to the change and the shift - all beautiful things coming from being in partnership with another but I was completely unwilling to look at how I approached a situation with him on my team, or even being on a team period. Huh. Was that conscious choice from my higher self? I couldn't let go of control and my subconscious programming for two seconds, I reacted and went right into "do it all yourself" mode. But I won't do that specific thing again.  Now that I see it and can be willing to let it go.  I can learn from it and be aware in the future and not do it that way again. No shame, no blame or guilt.  Yes I was emotional when the situation was brought up for me to look at it. But most of it was from the release of all that stored shit in my subconscious and it wasn't directed at anybody, as much as it was messy.  Literally my suitcase of unexpressed emotion was strewn all over my partner's living room.  And luckily he's very patient and held space to let me work it through. So how do we know if we are surrendering our attachments and living and choosing from the collective consciousness of the higher selves and ascended masters i.e. the positive ego, free of the negative ego and shadow self?   We can't sit there and analyze every action. Or can we? No, we can't - that analysis paralysis would be using our lower self to attempt to solve the problem that got us there in the first place. We have to use discernment.  And this is where training comes in and the invocation of the Adept Initiate.   "It is by will alone that I set my mind in motion."  Every human being, myself very much included, is far from perfect but the path to know thyself allows us to get clearer and clearer every day such that we begin to know ourselves as the creator of our reality and to be able to tap into the will of God and the universe - and with that understanding of the higher good we use our mind as a tool versus us becoming a tool of the mind.  Monkey mind gets in the back seat where it belongs in a seat belt strapped in.  We sit in the driver's seat with a GPS from a higher power and are capable of managing our thoughts, words, and deeds towards the best and highest good we know at the moment.  How do we get here? Through daily will strengthening exercises.  Through daily boundary setting exercises.  And learning through doing - achieving the understanding of where I begin and end. Understanding my true needs and wants and where they begin and end. What my wants truly are and how to choose, not out of fight or flight but from nurture and love for self and others.  All of this combined with meditation so there is actual space for mental clarity and the light of God i.e. enlightenment, whatever you choose to call it, to come in.  From that place we can begin to experience True Freedom.  Freedom from triggers, from self defeating patterns, from digging ourselves into deeper holes when we think we are solving problems.  And when we know ourselves better there are less surprises and we can surrender to the positive will of the universe, letting go of our crap and allowing help to come in when it is offered (among other things.) As I just shared in my example today, by no means is the path of the adept initiated in the lineage of King Salomon a magick pill that makes you perfect and cures all ills in life.  But if you are willing to do the work it is exceptionally rewarding and leads to the ability to enjoy limitless freedom and joy in this physical existence - improving your daily life gradually with proven repeatable methods.  If you are interested in learning about these practices and the path of an adept initiate offered in the Empower Thyself program please reach out, I can connect you to a practitioner in your area.   Alright my friends, until next time, do your best until you know better, then do better!  And if you need help along the way - I can help with that!  

"Love God and then do whatever you wish."   St. Augustine  This is the quote for the spiritual experience of the sun tarot card in my ultimate guide to the Raider Waite Tarot book. I had to laugh as I read it this morning sitting down to write this podcast.    I decided to write about the sun card because it is the solstice, and the sun symbolizes rebirth and daily renewal.  And surprise! This month and for the rest of this year I am in a process of change and renewal yet again.  I'm currently writing this on my deck in St. Augustine, Florida.  Inside my little house in the woods surrounded by magick and elemental beings are boxes ready to be packed and put into storage.  I'm moving.  Again.  I just put the last of my Seattle life into a storage locker at my good friend's condo and now I am putting my St. Augustine things into storage until November when I hopefully move into my new house that is currently being built.   "Birth is not a momentary event, but a permanent process.  Our aim in life is to become completely born…living means being born every minute." Erich Fromm.  The process of rebirth for me has been going on for years.  But more intensely these last 2 since I was called to step up in my spiritual practice and make this move to St. Augustine. I keep laughing because it really seems to keep getting more intense when silly me thought it would chill out by now.  But relocating your life and business across the country is a process. All good things - meeting the love of one's life, co-creating a new home together, establishing a foothold in a new city, building a new community, taking yet another bar exam (I could do without this step but it's a right of passage in my profession) - these are all major things.  As is exiting a place (Seattle) where you built a life for the past 20 years.   What I'm learning in part is surrender.  Allowing the will of God to flow through me. Allowing the highest good to flow through me.  And not being an obstacle to my own birthing process.  Not being an obstacle to my own greatness and purpose.  I will, thy will, I say.  Let my greatest desire be that I fulfill my contract with God.  The purpose I made for myself when I was spirit before I had amnesia caused by this physical density.    So, I am attempting to understand with my higher self my needs and wants.  Then holding the vision for them to be met. And thus arranging my priorities to ensure that energetically, and then physically.  Versus clinging to my past self and fighting the process.  I surrender to the process of rebirthing.   So I shared the quote that I read and laughed out loud when looking at The Sun card.  There are no coincidences that St. Augustine himself is speaking to me today.  Love God i.e. love yourself and all beings and allow the will of god to flow through you.  Then do what you want.  Well, when the will of god flows through you - you become an agent for the best and highest good.  December of 2023 marked one year of my leap of faith to move to St. Augustine.  And although it was a month of upheaval and unmet expectations for myself and others it was actually really great - because I put my house in order.  I had to sit down with myself and decide the priorities for Angel's life. What was it that I really desired and wanted in my life? Yes, I want to do God's will but I'm not a robot.  I'm a human being with needs and wants and one of our 4 basic needs is love.  I decided that the most important thing to me in my life was to find my life partner.  Someone I could spend my life with who would love me for me, and I would love them for them in return - and we could be a team.  Team us.   I also decided that I was going to fully let go of Seattle.  That I was going to ground my light here in St. Augustine. I was going to plant my energy in this soil and build my life here instead of traversing the country every other week or month and running myself ragged in the process.    The result of this decision? Within 2 months I was registered for the Florida Bar Exam, I found a location for my light center at the Center for Spiritual Living, and I was in a relationship with a person that I love and who loves me in return, who actually wants to spend their life with me as a team.  Not someone in it for some sense of immediate gratification but actual loyalty and commitment to building a relationship and all the co-creation that goes with that. And as a result of all of that, here I am.  Moving and rebirthing myself again.   But not chaotically.  I'm executing (with assistance) the vision of grounding myself here in St. Augustine and the universe is supporting me because it's in alignment with my purpose.   How do I know? Because I trust my higher self, I trust the tools of my spiritual practice and the law of the universe I am watching at play around me. I'm far from perfect, or a perfect situation but I'm doing my best and I am holding gratitude for everything given and taken away.  So let's talk about The Sun card and the summer solstice for a second.  The Sun = the active principle.  As the moon stands for the collective unconscious the sun stands for the collective Consciousness.  Being able to be free from autonomous programming and making actual choices authentically from our free will.   I'm going to take a step further and say that true choice from our freest of free wills comes from our positive ego that is connected to the holy spirit i.e. the collective consciousness of the ascended masters (these are those who have mastered their negative ego and now live to support those of us in the physical world i.e. Jesus, Buddha, Quan Yin, Isis, Osiris, Odin, Freya, Lakshmi, Ganesha, any archetype from any culture..the ascended masters are numerous).   If we are connecting with our higher self and making discerning choices for our nurture and wellbeing out of love for ourselves and others we are truly living from free will and influenced by the conscious positive collective consciousness.   On the other side, if all we are doing is playing out a record of our story fueled by programming from our subconscious (our stored repository of unexpressed and repressed emotions i.e. that suitcase full of crap you had to sit on to close and hide under your bed).  Are you really living fully? If you are motivated only by fear, jealousy, stress, pain, or the avoidance of pain your negative ego says is necessary to survive?  Is that truly a choice? Or are you choosing to be a slave to your masks, your negative ego, and unmanaged emotions? I'd say so - choosing to stay in the prison of fear we build for ourselves because we are afraid to try something different, or think it will hurt is not living.   Life is filled with a myriad of opportunities to fuck up.  That's the point! To learn by failing forward and making mistakes.  Picking yourself up when you fall down and saying "well, maybe I won't do it that way again."  But a lot of us (and I have been guilty of this myself) say "I have no choice!" I have to stay here doing this thing this way because if I change I'll die.  Our negative ego is so caught up in our fight or flight mechanism we really do equate change to death.   But that is a lie.  Change is rebirth. Growth is freedom. Failing is movement. And if you are not moving forward you are going backwards and you are letting your subconscious rule the show.  Instead we should go arms open naked on a white horse into the sun of a new day smiling because if we fall off it was one hell of a ride.  Now - the solstice!  The sun is at its peak! This is the time of action.  Of light. Of celebration and growth.  We have all the vitamin D and all of the time and energy to accomplish all of the things! Now is the time of Joy and Illumination.  Of healing by shining light on that which was hidden.  And it's the time of the masculine energetic active principle.  So see what there is to see and be in the now making choices from your positive ego for the best and highest good.   And that is your assignment this month.  Do or do not.  There is no Try.  Go forth!  Be in the now.  Get 'er done.  Live your life.  Fail gloriously and celebrate the victory of doing something differently than you did before.    I love you all.  And as always if you need any assistance with this assignment or anything else - I can help with that!  Until next time.  Go frolic in the Sun and live joyfully.    

My partner asked me the other day, "Do you ever envy other people?" and I had to think about it for a second.  His health has been a significant challenge recently and our relationship is strong but new - so I've been in a place of "well fuck, universe, thanks for sending me the love of my life and threatening to take him away just as quickly."  It's been a real practice in gratitude to stay in ACTUAL gratitude for the time I have with him - because I am here watching him suffer from severe pain & distress as his organs rebel for some unknown reason and his body fills with fluid.  So, in some ways the answer to his question is yes.  In fact, hell yeah! I currently envy all those people who take their health and their partnerships for granted.  I envy his ex's who used, abused, and didn't covet every minute they had with him while he was healthy but instead threw the time away. As here I am picking up the pieces of their heartbreak mess as I stand beside one of the strongest, bravest men I've ever met. But at the same time - even though I am jealous of his ghosts, I'm not envious of them. I'd never want to be in those past women's shoes (i.e. not self aware, actually taking for granted such a gem of a man in their life). I know that it would be nice to have been in their time and place - adventuring, dancing, living an active life - but would I have been ready then? Would he have been ready for me then? Would we have been ready then? It's best we are here right now, the people we are right now, facing this now with the strengths we both have together. In this now. I know many people who are doing really well and I'm honestly happy for them.  I hold no envy or yearning to be in a different place than I am, with a different person, with a different life.  I hold gratitude that I finally met this man that I can share space & time with, and just be me with, and feel safe with and give my loyalty to. Someone I can create even more love in this world with. Someone I can be a better person with, and dedicate myself to doing just that.  We both share this desire to help others, making the world a better place because we were here. And I just want to enjoy our life together no matter how much time we have left. So no - I don't envy anyone else.  I do not want to be anyone else. I am very satisfied and happy in my life and I am extremely capable of experiencing and generating more joy even in the face of knowing the one who I am most attached to could leave me alone in this physical life sooner than later. Every single day is precious. We just do not have the luxury of taking it for granted anymore.  There is a poem I read when teaching to empower thyself that I shall paraphrase right now - essentially it says that God is not "I was" because you cannot find any joy living in the past.  And God is not "I will" because you cannot find any joy worrying about the future.  God is only "I AM" because you can find all possibilities in the present.  All ability to create, live, love and enjoy is here right now.  So that is where you will find joy.  (Sing) "I close my eyes only for a moment and the moments are gone. All my dreams pass before my eyes a curiosity. Dust in the wind. All they are is dust in the wind. Don't hang on,nothing forever but the earth and sky. It slips away and all your dollars  won't buy another minute. Dust in the wind. All we are is dust in the wind…" (read) "Where for I perceive there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be better after him?" Ecclesiastes 3-22. I'm writing this podcast on May 1st, Beltane, May Day, the 1st day of summer in the ancient Celtic and pre-Celt calendars. Beltane is a day of celebration for creation, passion, fertility because here in Spring - is the TIME to start the creation process because the divine masculine and divine feminine energies are at their peak.  Father Sky and the sun are perfect to send their rays and mature our plants & endeavors and mover earth's womb is ready to grow them. She as divine feminine will gestate the seed in her fertile womb so that in a few months a harvest shall come.  Two things are going on here. The earth is ripe & ready and the sun's rays are about to peak into crescendo.  And the hermetic principle of gender - the universal rule that masculine and feminine energy is needed in a relationship to create (otherwise known as divine union). The holy marriage of opposites results in the perfect harmony necessary to spark and nurture creation. And now is the time for this creation. We are made in God's image - The Elohim. Elo & Eloha - divine masculine & feminine in divine union creator gods.  And this is why when we are in balance both within and without we are more effective in creation.  Also, now in the wheel of the year we have this peak moment to invest our energy in creation of things. In agrarian times it was dictated by necessity because if you didn't plant those seeds now you'd have nothing to harvest in the Fall and your family would starve. But today when we've delegated our survival to others (i.e. grocery stores, electric companies etc) we can still use the wheel of the year and those energies to our advantage.  "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven; a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant, a time to pluck that which is planted, time to kill, and a time to heal, a time to break down, and a time to build up, a time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, a time to dance…, a time to keep, and a time to cast away, a time to rend, and a time to sew, a time to keep silence, and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time of war and a time of peace."  Ecclesiastes 3: 1-9 So real talk, I'm quoting the Byrds Turn, Turn, Turn more than the bible passage here because I've heard the song more than I've ever read the bible passage. But when the tune popped into my head in relation to both now as in May and Beltane, and the NOW in my life & relationship & impending mortality of significant others I decided to dive into a little bible study sesh. And then I quickly moved on to reading about the origins of Kansas's song Dust in the Wind (as it shares a similar origin to Turn, Turn, Turn) and then I digressed.  And truth is I've always been a sucker for a depressing sad song in a minor key.  But what is most important is to recognize that on this earth and in our physical life as a human there are cycles. And we can use these to our advantage OR we can fight the current to our discontent. Now there is no dogma here, I am just suggesting that we go with the template given to us by nature as we are a part of that. And. Being in the present and having ideal situational opportunities to support our creation is a good thing.  So this is why I was super vulnerable as I sat in the hospital chapel on Beltane morning. I posted my personal prayer on Instagram for all to see.  I vowed to myself that no matter what, myself and my love are going to create a joyful life together.  I hold no attachment to the length (I hope that it's a long time though) I just hold gratitude that we were given the opportunity to fulfill that wish for each other, of being each other's person, for the rest of our lives at least.  So let's go back to divine union and the principle of masculine and feminine for creation I dropped on you a moment ago.  As this could be quite controversial in today's world.  But I want to be clear about what I'm talking about energetically.  First let's look at biology - flowers and thus fruits & seeds - they have masculine and feminine pieces that are stimulated by birds and bees (yes I know I'm literally talking about the birds and the bees here) and then after the flower blooms fruit grows and seeds are created which eventually become a new plant.  So we have passive - flower, active - pollinator.  Passive - feminine, active - masculine.  Ok, so in mammals we have the seed/ovum - passive and female.  And then the sperm - active and male.  The two join and you get a baby mammal after some time. Father sky, mother earth - sunlight and raine nourish seeds in the womb of earth. Active & passive masculine and feminine again.  The hermetic principle of gender plays out again and again in the universe - likely even in the mineral kingdom and in the realm of physics (perhaps opposites attract?) but I'm just not versed enough in those subjects to make a good analogy there for you.  So what's my point? Honest, the most important takeaway for you this month other than being forced to listen to my singing is gratitude. Do not envy others.  Do not yearn. Look at what you have and love it. Be grateful for the people you have, for the moments you have created. For the love you have and are creating in that moment.  Be present in your life and love it. Yes, I'm repeating myself. Love your life. Even if it is hard right now. But right now is all we have - and here and now is where we create that which we desire. But we can't know what we desire unless we are present and acknowledge what we already have.  So gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.  It is all temporary anyway.  At least in this physical life.  Love is eternal because it is a force of the universe. Divine union is eternal because it is also part of the universe. Hermetic principles are eternal because it is how the universe works and the universe is eternal.  Spirit is eternal. But all we are in this physical life is dust in the wind.  So now is all we have.  Enjoy it. No matter what. And for everything there is a season,and a time for every purpose under heaven.  Your homework this month is to do an envy index. What are you coveting of others? What are you yearning for? What do you wish you had that you see another with? Then check yourself. Are you happy for that person? Or are you in a dark place of jealousy or anger even? And tell yourself th

"When your determination changes, everything will begin to move in the direction you desire.  The moment you resolve to be victorious, every nerve and fiber in your being will immediately orient itself toward your success.  On the other hand if you think "this will never work out," then at that instant every cell in your being will be deflated and give up the fight. Everything then will move in the direction of failure.  I want you to understand the subtle workings of the mind.  How you orient your mind, the kind of attitude you have, greatly influences both yourself and your environment."   This quote is from Daisaku Ikeda, former president of Soka Gakkai International, the largest and most diverse lay organization of Buddhist practitioners in the world. And it has been on or by my desk for at least 10 years. And I'm pretty sure that I first scribbled it down over 20 years ago when I first moved to Seattle, Washington in 2005.  Now after 13 years of studying esoterics and metaphysics it still rings true it just has so many additional levels of meaning and truth.   Forbes Magazine recently stated that - "intention is a critical factor in achieving success…It provides a purposeful and strategic approach to navigating life's complexities and a guiding force propelling you toward a future of purpose, genuineness and success." the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy shares that  Intention is "mental directedness towards objects, as if the mind were construed as a mental bow whose arrows could be properly aimed at different targets."  The key here that unlocks the Power of Intention is the alignment and purposeful direction of your thoughts and actions toward a desire that you really want to achieve in your life. A prerequisite then for this alignment is you must know for yourself what you desire. What do you really want for your life?  Where do your passions lie? What gives you a sense of true fulfillment? If you do not know what you want and desire in the heart of your hearts then it is really going to be hard to align your thoughts and actions to make that desire happen. And you never unlock the true power of intention.   The definition of intentional according to Webster's dictionary is "Done on purpose; deliberate." Synonyms include "Conscious, Willed and Purposeful."   In my esoteric and Kabbalistic training we are taught that the Magickian or Alchemist uses their imagination to clearly identify and describe their specific desire, and then they must set their intention, concentration and will upon the appropriate object.  None of this saying "Walk around your life like a zombie doing whatever everyone else says you should do."  In fact, it is specifically the opposite.  Intention is "thinking ahead and making choices based on personal beliefs, values, and goals."  Not acting on impulse, but planning ahead to choose things that create a positive impact for your life and the things you value.  Okay, okay, Angel, you might be saying.  Great, be more positive. Be more intentional.  Those are great buzzwords but how do I do that? But that's just it.  I'm not telling you to BE MORE positive, or BE MORE Intentional.  That would be me "shoulding" on you.  Instead I'm giving you an equation that if you choose to follow it for yourself - your thoughts and actions will be the cause that results in the effect of an intentional life.  And that intentional life of thinking and doing on purpose with purpose will result in you achieving more of what you actually want, desire and desire, which will result in you feeling more fulfillment and joy and gratitude for what you have and have been able to accomplish.  Which will fuel more gratitude, and more ability to to be intentional.  It is a positive cycle of cause and effect which will in turn result in you becoming positive and living a more joyful life.  No shoulding needed. Because you will be doing it. And that is the most important thing.  So let's review the equation that allows you to unlock the Power of Intentional creation in your life.  Step one and the foundational piece is that you need to get clear on what it is you want and desire in your life.  What do you really want for you? All studies and literature on this point to you identifying for you what brings you joy and passion. (not simply what brings you momentary pleasure) But what are your values, what gives you a sense of fulfillment?  What feels purposeful?  Now if you are at this step (step one) and already stuck, don't worry.  Start small. Identify a very short term clear achievable thing you would like in your life that you personally would feel good about if you accomplished.  This can be very selfish (or may feel selfish and that is ok, we have to start somewhere). So this could be taking a weekend trip to a place you want to see.  Or paying off a credit card. Balancing your budget. Cleaning your garage. Going to the gym two or three times a week.  If you allow yourself to hear what you want to do for yourself the answer is there.  Feel out your desires, your intuition and higher self are telling you every day what you actually want.  Another technique to get there is to attend a meditation or listen to a meditation app.  This act of meditating is going to create space in your monkey mind as in it's going to quiet the noise so you can actually hear what your higher self is saying.  But meditation aside - just ask yourself what do I actually want?  And be honest with yourself.  Stop denying your inner voice and desire.  Listen.  You know the answer.   You must get past step one in order to harness the power of intention.  You have to have an appropriate and specific objective to focus on.  A place to point your mental bow and arrow.  And you really have to actually want it or else you will not be able to focus on it or determine to create it or achieve it without desire.  Once you have step one.  The thing you desire to achieve then you can begin step two, which is the alignment of your thoughts toward the achievement of the objective.  If you go back to season one episode two or three I speak to this.  The 4 worlds.  1. Idea 2. Thought 3. plan  4. Action.  This is always the path to intentional creation.  In this case Idea = Your desired objective (identifying what you want, specifically). Thought = alignment of your thoughts.  "I am going to create this and I am committed to taking steps to do it.  I am determined and won't give up."  Then 3. Plan!  Yes, what are the microsteps and daily intentions you are going to take until you reach what it is you desire?  What is your daily routine going to be?  How are you going to prioritize your time and perhaps even block your time to ensure you have the time to do the things necessary.  Then finally Action = which equals action is alignment with your thoughts and doing the things you have planned to do such that it results in the thing you desire.  So, this is your equation to harness the power of intention.  Alignment and purposeful direction of your thoughts and actions toward a specific desired objective.  Now, intentionality is a practice like any other skill. It will take practice before it is second nature and then it is never going to be autonomous programming/ habitual because it is specifically the opposite of automatic/without thought/habit/subconscious doing.  Because you are specifically choosing to be intentional and choosing a disciplined set of daily rituals to move your life in a positive direction and accomplish not only goals but personal development and progression.   So, it is going to take the specific application of daily consistent effort, but it will be effort that brings you joy and satisfaction and stress reduction versus jogging on the hamster wheel of purposeless action.   So, let me tell you about the power of intention. Once upon a time I was a very unhappy lawyer working in the corporate realm.  I believed in nothing woo woo like energy healing and I even thought things like power of intention or positive thinking were a pile of huey. I read the quote from Daisaku Ikeda (I was practicing buddhism at the time) and thought how nice it would be to have something to be determined about. I was stressed out, tired all the time and suffered from chronic anxiety and itching because I had a body wide candida infection and no idea.  The doctors I talked to were like "shrug. There is nothing wrong with you.  You must have chronic fatigue."  I was 27 years old and tired of being tired. I had no purpose.  I had accomplished everything I was supposed to do in life (college, law school, a job in a law firm).  But as a reward I hated my job, was sick, bored and generally meh about the whole thing that was my life.  There was nothing I enjoyed doing besides drinking and listening to music with my friends - but that wasn't making me happy or feeling any better. Then a friend introduced me to the practice I now do and teach in the Empower Thyself class & initiation.  And I completely ignored her for like 4 or more years.  Because I am a hard head stubbornly attached to my suffering like many logic and achievement driven attorneys I know.  But I eventually caved because I needed a change so badly.  And I saw a change in my friend who took the class.  So it couldn't hurt right?  Well, it could.  I saw the loss of what I considered a crazy investment of money and time into some spiritual, mindful, wellness, blah, blah, blah, bullshit.  But I cringed and took the chance and invested my $ into the process.  And most of what I learned in that first weekend I dismissed as complete Fooey. How could daily affirmations and intentional statements and some meditations help anything I was facing?  I had medical problems and career problems and satisfaction problems.  But I did believe in testing things to see if they worked.  I paid for the class after all.  I might as well try what I paid for and put it to use.  So I started doing the daily rituals and asking f

It is time to go down a rabbit hole, my friends. The Rabbit and the Hare are both symbols of abundance, fertility, the womb, the moon, rebirth, and the goddess - and in this month of Ostara (Vernal Equinox) and Easter, when I am releasing this 3rd installment of the 3rd season of my podcast in the 3rd month of the year the symbol of the triple goddess, the trilogy, and the triple rabbit known as the Triskele (spelled out T R I S K E L E) is front and center in my consciousness.   The Triskele, the symbol of the triple rabbit or three hares, features three rabbits running in a circle and their ears join in the center to make an equilateral triangle. This symbol transcends religions found in Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and Celtic/Nordic traditions. It's found on a cave wall in China and drawn on rocks in Germanic and Celtic stones, and found within Christian churches in the British Isles. Like many symbols, it has been adopted by religion, but not really religious, as religion is really the new kid on the block - symbolism goes back much further into the primordial origins and archetypes of humans. Symbols are the sacred geometric building blocks of the universe - circles, squares, and triangles. All things are built on, and with these 3 shapes and sacred geometry is the stuff upon which all material comes into formation. I told you we were going down a rabbit hole and here we go - if you look at the Triskele in Celtic illustrations the rabbits running in circles are often replaced by spirals - the spiral is the Fibonacci Sequence and the pattern that fractals, flowers, snails, trees, crystal and all life grows in. In other words, the triple rabbit is the fibonacci sequence, the sacred geometric pattern of all life.  So, my three rabbits running in a circle with a triangle in the center represent life itself. The kingdom of heaven is embodied in this flesh, for I am the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Amen. (singing a little) "Jesus Christ Superstar… do you think you are what they say you are?" I share this Andrew Lloyd Webber lyric to make a point - Jesus, our celebrated riser from the dead at this time of year (symbolizing the resurrection of the earth from winter and all the cycles of rebirth and fertility that come at the vernal equinox), DID know EXACTLY what he was and was trying REALLY REALLY hard to get the rest of us humans at the time to listen. We are spirit embodied in this flesh. The glory and power of divine energy is held within this physicality. Thus, all the power of a god to manifest miracles can come forth from within each and every one of us. Spirit is symbolized with a triangle, as is fire. The fire of alchemy, the transformation from muck to gold. From this mundane flesh to spirit. To be enlightened is to sever the attachment to this physical body, being ALL that we are and are meant to be in this life. Yes, our physical bodies are built from sacred geometry; just look at the double helix of our physical DNA and then at the glyph of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. But that just means our spirit is currently contained in our flesh, not that we are only this flesh and blood.  Our journey in this lifetime, and what Jesus was trying to teach us, is that we can create miracles in our lives if we believe we are and choose to truly know ourselves as God. We need to know ourselves as divine beings capable of manifesting the life of purpose we want to live. But no one but ourselves can know yourself as this divine being. But once we choose to know ourselves as divine, as spirit, as a creator of our life - ignorance of our larger universal power cannot be taken away. The fundamental knowledge of the self as divine spirit opens the gate to the kingdom of heaven (not some place in the clouds with angels playing harps). Still, you reclaim your crown as the sovereign of your life and create a kingdom of joy, light, and abundance for yourself, your family and your community. And this is how we are going to create peace on earth. Like the church hymn. "Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me." Shambala is a world where humans have actualized themselves, awakened to the possibility that they are the creator God of their life and are living that daily. They are treating themselves as a God and thus treating others as a God. If you know and love yourself as a divine and worthy being, you can know and love another as a divine and worthy being. Even if that divine being makes choices that harm you. You can forgive those who harm you because they know not what they do. They are ignorant that they are God and that they are harming another god. They are ignorant that they have a choice in what they are doing. Okay, some of you may now think I've fallen off my proverbial rocker with this rabbit hole. I've gone from three rabbits running in a circle to sacred geometry, Jesus Christ Superstar, and You are God. Yep—and now we are going to talk about the Easter Bunny. Jesus Christ, Angel. Yep, Exactly.  In my research about rabbits and hares, in an attempt to find some creative take on talking about Abundance Mindset or fertility, I went down a small hole little road about the Oschter Hare, i.e., The Easter Hare or i.e., the Easter Bunny to which many today attributes to the myth of Ostara or Eostre turning a bird into a rabbit and the rabbit laying eggs to show its gratitude to the goddess. This legend is pretty recent (like the late 1800s), but as synchronicity would have it, one article I read quoted a story from an April 13, 1911, Warren, Minnesota newspaper. My mother is from Warren, Minnesota as was her mother and father, my maternal grandparents George and Agnes Sabol. My grandparents were both from prolific Catholic families with 12 and 13 siblings at once. They were farmers of the midwestern plains, stoic and practical - but seeing the date of 1911 I wondered if either of them (George or Agnes) saw the article when they were growing up and if either of them ever believed in the Easter bunny. Ironically, Warren is the name of a home for rabbits - I learned this as a little person reading Watership Down, which isn't a book for children. However, I was not a normal child, and I picked up most of what Richard Adams was lying down with his rabbit allegory.   The quote from the 1911 Warren, Minnesota newspaper article reads.  "The Easter Bunny is said to have been a bird which at one time drew the chariot of the goddess of spring and was turned into a hare. Every year, however, at the coming of spring, the hare remembers and in commemoration of its original bird nature lays eggs as an offering to spring & youth that it symbolizes."  I never really believed in the Easter Bunny, but I did enjoy the tradition of the basket and the chocolate that was found there on Easter Sunday morning. I'm still not a fan of Cadbury eggs to this day (too sweet) but Easter Candy makes me think about my grandmother Agnes and going to church. (I'd always stuff my pockets with easter candy when brought to church on easter, and the chocolate would melt and get all over my hands, to my grandmother's great dissatisfaction). My grandmother loved to sing hymns. I think when she sang in church, it was one of the few times she felt joy in her life - because at that moment, she could connect with God within and without and be in the light, free from the sorrow of a life pockmarked with abuse, alcoholism and pain caused by untreated stomach and emotional maladies. I loved to watch her sing even if I hated being in the church because I knew it was her happy place, and nowhere else was.   I've spent a lot of time thinking about my grandmother Agnes. When you are a really young woman, and you watch one of your primary caregivers so miserable that they drink themselves to death, it sticks with you. And I know now that she suffered from the side effects of being sexually abused as a small child and other untreated trauma. But sorrow is not the only thing I learned from my grandmother Agnes. I knew the power of planting seeds and nourishing the world around you. She was a master gardener, and her plants were prolific. She was the living embodiment of The Empress archetype or the abundant mother goddess Lakshmi, as everything she touched grew abundantly, and she fed her family from her bounty. On an income of nothing but social security, my family never had food insecurity. There were vats of sauerkraut, beets, asparagus, fresh beans, carrots, tomatoes, radishes, lettuce, and raspberries all summer long, and pickles and canned things all winter. The men brought home the venison, and the women waited in line for government cheese and agricultural subsidies. We were financially poor but we were neither hungry nor lacking, ever. There was always enough money and prosperity to give to the church and to celebrate all holidays and birthdays. All of our needs were met. And we always sang. Sang in church. Sang when picking the beans. Sang when making a lemon meringue pie. And when singing, she knew joy, and we always had enough. And this is true abundance - joy in knowing you are spirit, resting upon gratitude and celebration of what you have even if it is not perfect, even sometimes if it is very far from ideal. When we can have true gratitude for everything we have and celebrate it and our life, we can be in a space of true joy and flow abundance in all aspects.   In some ways, it is just that simple. It is a rabbit laying eggs to celebrate spring and show gratitude to the goddess when it remembers it was once a bird. It is recognition that we are something way bigger and greater underneath this flesh. It is remembering who we truly are. We are spirit. We have never been born, and we will never die as spirits. And by remembering who we are we tap into the universal knowing, into the flow of life itself, and we start to create and love and experience joy - and thus take steps to nourish ourselves and others holistically - not just our physical b

"There are no happy endings in Love.  Because as long as love exists there is no ending but transformation. Love is the force that transforms eternity."  Sovereign Ipsissimus Dave Lanyon  (Angel singing all you need is love) "Love is all you need." The Beatles Yet, love is not enough for a relationship between two people to flourish. Long-term romantic relationships require effort applied to the appropriate object (the relationship) in order to work long-term. And the appropriate object is not the other person in the relationship with you - that results in the desire to change the other person, or fixate on them for good or bad, and it creates dependency on them like a substance. (now you want to love and care for and be kind to the other person but that is not the focus point of your effort when in a romantic relationship).  So, let me backup for a second. Let me describe what I've learned about relationships hermetically.  Imagine that a relationship is a pyramid (a triangle). The two people in love and in relationship form the base of the pyramid so man and woman or man/man, woman/woman are at the two corners - then at the top of the pyramid is The Relationship. It is a 3rd entity, a "child" so to speak created by the two beings in relationship, through the exchange of masculine and feminine energies. The Relationship itself is an entity and it is born of the two making a commitment to themself and to the other to always better themself (because we are not perfect) and better the relationship (because its made of two imperfect beings - so needs effort and nurture and improvement of those two beings to thrive). The only way the relationship is going to work is if there is TRUST - consistency of actions and repeatedly doing what you said you were going to do for and with the other person, and for and with yourself in relation to that other person. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY - recognition that as a human being you are not perfect and that you are always seeing, hearing,doing things thru a filter of your mind/thoughts/programming and that you are going to do your best to acknowledge and take responsibility for your mind/thoughts/programming in all of their imperfections. COMMITMENT - commitment to the relationship via the discipline of being a better individual through personal growth and development. Discipline to know thyself better and be better in the world through the positive actualization of your purpose. Finally encircling all of these, ideally there is a shared understanding of value in something between the two people - family, faith, spirituality, purpose. Maybe simply the recognition that all humans are just that, human, and we all deserve to be treated as such.  Returning to the point - If you are committed to making yourself better because you Love yourself and respect yourself as a divine being then you can respect the other human in the relationship the same way, and then work with that person to nourish the relationship like you are raising a child. Resting this nourishment on the foundation of Trust, Honesty, Personal Responsibility, Commitment and Care - you can love and flow love in this cycle because the channel for that love to flow is held open by those foundational elements I described and the archway they create. (and if one of these elements is missing then like a dam the flow for your love gets blocked and the child/relationship will suffer). If you can't see yourself first as the central sun of your universe, making your own world with your thoughts, actions and perspectives, all of the foundational elements are challenged.  If all you see is the world acting upon you, standing in need, or in victim or blaming other people for not treating you right or giving you what you need, then you are not able to take responsibility for yourself as the creator of the central source of awareness in your universe. It is essential to recognize that every relationship with every single person, place or thing in your life starts in your mind.  It lives first in your thoughts and those thoughts are colored by that mind.  So let me put a pause on the relationship between two people, for just a moment so we can understand this extremely important point.  First let's just define what is a relationship period, and how relationships work in your life.  A relationship is simply a connection you have with a person, place or thing and it can be positive or negative. It does not require there to be affection, for example you can have a relationship with your car, your computer, your house, your city of residence. You can also have relationships with pets and with people - family, friends, colleagues, employees, your favorite barista.  And then you have romantic relationships with your spouse, lover, partner whatever label you choose and state of commitment you are in.  Everything you do is in relationship and every relationship is colored by your thoughts and thus your mind (because this is Hermetic Principle #1 ALL IS MIND). It is an oversimplification but no matter where you go, what you have or who you are with THERE YOU ARE.  You cannot leave yourself out of any relationship, or else you would be dead and there would be NO RELATIONSHIP for you (you can have relationships with dead persons but that is a whole other topic for another day). You are the CENTER of your relationships not because you are the center of everyone's universe but because you are the center of your own universe.  And all relationships with everything in your life first take place in your mind. Your thoughts affect every interaction and connection you have.  And these thoughts come from your mind. You act on what is inside your head for better or for worse. Thus, if we are going to improve our world and our relationships (which are our world) we first have to clean up our thoughts/mind so we can start to discern what really is going on inside us and thus truly see what is happening outside of us. In addition - how we treat ourselves is tantamount to how we treat others. So we have to take responsibility for how we love and care for ourselves, and know ourselves first before we can really know what it is to love another person, and understand better what is happening in the relationships we choose to make. And we choose all of our relationships consciously or subconsciously, we are 100% at the epicenter of every positive or negative relationship in our lives whether those are with people, places or things.  So the Key to us having healthy positive relationships (and a good life because our entire life is made up of relationships) is having a good relationship with yourself. Knowing Yourself. Taking care of yourself. Loving yourself. Taking responsibility for yourself. If you first know thyself - you will have good relationships with persons, places and things because you'll realize that your external reality is a reflection of your inner reality (Hermetic Principle #2 As above so below, as within so without). And you will start to actualize the reality you desire to live in and experience actual joy and purpose. OK so with that all reviewed let's go back to the main event. My bold statement that Love is not enough for a romantic relationship to work. I'm definitely statistically accurate in the United States with marriages currently having a less than 50% success rate. But this is not a podcast about legal trends or even the cause of divorce (but I will note that the #1 reported cause of divorce is infidelity, The Destroyer of Trust, one of the 3 foundations necessary for nourishment to flow to The Relationship).  Alright so if love, or loving the other person is not enough, what is?  Well that is just it. It is the focus of your attention on the appropriate object, and in the case of Your relationships what is the one common denominator?  You.  You must be committed to knowing yourself,  and creating positive growth of the self so that you are able to capably understand and discern that you are actually in a relationship, and be the person that allows that relationship to grow and sustain.  Let's use an overly simplistic thought example.  If you think "this person is harming me." Then that is your reality. But are they?  Are they stabbing you with a knife? That would be objective harm. Are they saying no to a particular request? Is that NO harm?  Maybe you just do not like the answer and it "hurts" you in that you feel something you do not like.  But what is that actually?  Maybe they are preventing physical harm by saying no?  What is the objective reality of the situation? What if you analyze the inputs from around you, and within you, and acknowledge what is happening? Can you discern reality? Or are you experiencing a fact pattern that the negative ego mind is putting directly into a proof to make the other person wrong for their boundary i.e. saying no and because you don't like this, you label it bad or harm?  Now let's take an example from my life. First I want to be really vulnerable about my life. If you were to look at my track record of relationships you would see a pattern of me experiencing a pattern of major betrayals of trust.  One partner I have "loved" after another in my life has significantly lied to me, usually around a core issue of fidelity at major points in our relationship, or I have been left suddenly (in most cases because they chose another). I actually, until recently, had a lot of shame around this. I felt like there was something wrong with me. All I've ever wanted was a devoted partner to share this life with but all I found was one heartbreak after another. (long sigh)  Boohoo tragic me. That is until I owned the pattern as a reflection of how I treated myself. I was subconsciously setting myself up to fail by choosing relationships that would result in the very outcome my little person and anxious attachment abandoned me was trying to avoid.  It was me who kept leading myself to situations where I was

When we are born and take our first breath, our soul enters this physical flesh, and we become animated. We enter this density and forget what it was like to be a spirit. The only thing that keeps us tethered to that experience is our soul - and as we learn things from this physical experience through our five physical and spiritual senses, our experience as spirit gets further and further away. We start building many programs that display our personality and become masks we wear. We project ways of being upon ourselves like a drive-in movie theater screen. For example, if this happens, it means this is about me or another person. I'm not worthy of love because…, we can't have nice things, that way of life is not for me… or in front of my parents, I act this way; when dating, I'm this way; when at work, I am this way. You have so many autonomous programs and various masks. When you are an adult, you forget entirely who you are. You also get super attached to this rental vehicle of physicality (some of us call it a meat suit) we walk around in. We believe this is all there is - perhaps diving into hedonistic pleasures that physicality has to offer us headlong to cope with the sense that this is all there is. Drinking, eating, sexting your way through life, putting more in, in an attempt to fill the void in your heart where a sense of purpose should be.  Or you may bury yourself under another identity - mom, soldier, project manager, content creator, influencer. I don't know whatever form of busy floats your boat and how you associate every aspect of yourself with that job or role. But you can't be that role, job, or version of yourself forever. The flesh gives out, our beauty fades, we get injured, we get fat, we lose our strength, our hearing, our sigh. Either way, our purpose can never be found simply in the job we do because we are more than this body and this physical experience.  We are spirit. (Pause) We have never been born, and we will never die (as spirit). But this physical body will most certainly die and fall away - that is the one certainty of this physical experience we are all having. Death.  Wow. Angel. What a way to start out a new season of your podcast on a bright note. I am reminding everyone that they die. This is the truth, though. My job as an estate planning attorney is precisely this - I remind people of their mortality and get them to prepare for it so they do not leave their families a big, stinking, expensive mess when the physical inevitability occurs. It is never too early to plan, but it can always be too late. "if you are having trouble with planning, I can help! Feel free to shoot me an email for more information. Stay tuned until the end of the episode for contact info." But the point of this podcast today is to talk about a smaller kind of death and rebirth. The type of death held and symbolized within the Rider Waite Tarot card (Death), in the Rune stone Eihwaz, and in the cycle of the Phoenix. Renewal through the conscious choice to let go of your shit. Flush it down the toilet and start fresh. Or the willing submission to the holy fire of transformation - by letting go of the old so there is room for the new.   Let's briefly talk about the Phoenix in case you need to familiarize yourself with this mythological being. Per my Signs & Symbols sourcebook, the bird symbolizes alchemy because it is reborn for its ashes after voluntarily combusting. Keyword here. Voluntarily. There is a whole process - where the Phoenix goes around the world collecting aromatic wood, herbs, and spices so it can build its funeral pyre in a date palm tree. Then it lights itself on fire and is reborn upon the next day's dawn.  While alive for 500 to 1500 years, the Phoenix persists only on aromatic wood smoke, thus not harming anything to eat.  Let's focus on the voluntary submission to the purifying flames, thus bringing rebirth as an archetype for us to explore. More importantly, the ritual. The slow, intentional gathering of the right spices, wood, and herbs, building a nest in a particular place, and performing the act in a specific time-space order for the magickal creatures' transformation. What is critical to this ritual is the intention. The willingness to let go of one life/to die because out the other side is more beauty, joy, and freedom.  Now, not every change/little death in our lives happens this methodically. We may be forced to renew an aspect of ourselves because something is destroyed or stolen or a relationship with a person ends suddenly. Proverbial band-aids are ripped off in our lives all the time. I lost a lot of things this last year - so many that a part of me is tired of being resilient - but I didn't lose myself. I found more of myself than ever in the process of losing.  This last year, I found myself robbed in a foreign country, far from home. The violation of that theft and losing all my healing tools became a gift. This is how I approached death. Intentionally and purposefully, I released the attachment, giving me the power to be reborn, just like the Phoenix.  It was late summer; I walked out the door of my hotel in Mississauga, Ontario, at 8 am and looked at the empty parking space where my Luna (my moon rock colored 2023 Toyota 4 runner) was supposed to be and thought, "Where is my car?!"  Yes, My car was gone, not misplaced nor towed, but STOLEN!   Can you imagine my heartbreak when I realized I was suddenly being given the spiritual lesson of "examining my relationship with my car."  It has been said that "to affect reality, you have to acknowledge the actual reality of a situation."   Interestingly enough, I had spent the previous two days listening to Sovereign Ipsissimus Dave Lanyon teach on the hermetic of relationships. Therefore, I was in inappropriate headspace to face the immediate reality that my car had disappeared. This isn't any car. This was my 45th birthday present to myself - and it was gone! Along with a lifetime of collected tools in the lockbox and my suitcase holding all my gear for the "Warriors of Light Martial Arts Retreat" that I was headed to in a few days.   Surprisingly calm, I returned to the front desk of the hotel, reporting my stolen car. Not being a citizen of Canada, I also realized I needed to learn how to call the police. I sent my friend ahead to class to let them know I'd be delayed due to car theft and set about calling the police, insurance, and Toyota to start the tracking of my vehicle - and then the realization of all the things I had lost began to trickle into my brain.  A huge part of me just wanted to sit down and cry - but I knew denying the loss and getting angry about it wasn't going to change the fact that my car had been stolen. Based on the security footage shown to me by the hotel manager, the skilled and savvy thieves likely had it on a shipping container to Sudan.  Losing my car was an extreme violation. Losing my Life Activation Wand was a heartbreaker. Losing my favorite "Trampled by Turtles" sweatshirt, my adored watermelon patterned dress, and my go-to sneakers was a HUGE bummer. But I immediately and voluntarily surrendered to the things I had an attachment to - it was just that, THINGS. No amount of emotional theatrics and painful gesticulation would bring them back. I could shake my fist at the sky and call in holy hellfire upon the thieves and their descendants, but that just seemed dramatic, and I had things to do, places to be, and a life to live, which would be a major inconvenience.   And at the end of the day, I was OK. I was OK, mentally and physically; no one had harmed my body or family or dog - it was just stuff.  My colleagues were surprised at how calm I was. Luckily, for the next 3 days, I was in a class called "Know Thyself," where I got to meditate with Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed and make art. It was the best possible way to recover from this massive violation.  I share this example from my life as my version of "The Phoenix Story" because although having everything stolen from me was not my choice, my reaction to the theft was my choice.  And like the Phoenix, I submitted willingly to the transformation. And this is what made the difference, as it allowed me to upgrade everything about my life and healing practice, which was 100% because I intended to release the attachment and will enable the renewal to occur. On a brighter note, I got the red version of the car that I had initially wanted but had to settle for Moonstone gray.  Change happens in our lives regularly. Deaths happen in our lives as we allow ourselves to evolve. If we get stuck on the old way, the attachment holds us back and causes pain & suffering. If we release the attachment - we can be reborn, fly onto greater heights, and experience joy from the process.  So here is an exercise for you to embrace change and intentionally allow alchemical renewal into your life.   First, identify and create a space to sit and meditate. It doesn't have to be perfect, just quiet, clear of clutter and debris, and in view of an altar.  Second, create an altar if you don't already have one place, two white candles, a rock, a feather, and some incense, or a diffuser with the lovely essential oil you enjoy smelling.   Third, which is a bonus rather than a necessity - collect some palo santo. You can purchase this at your local spiritual or earth magick supply store/crystal shop or order it from Amazon. Now, in the intentional environment you have set up for yourself, light the candles, burn the palo santo (just a little bit so the smoke wafts over your face and body), burn the incense, or start your diffuser and sit and meditate to get clarity on the things you want to let go of, on the things you need to release.   What are you carrying around as baggage weighing you down? Who do you need to forgive? (remember yourself). What past things are you attached to and sad about or experiencing some emotion that you can now do nothing about? While yo

S2 Episode 6: Rising Above the Rhythm of the Universe Part One: November 2022 "Are you ok?" my good friend asked me on the phone a couple of days ago, and I couldn't answer him because I was holding back the tears of my grief. My greatest temptation took a huge piece of my heart with it. I didn't want this post about Rhythm to be part two of Angel's traumatic relationship loss story, but I had to let that go because this is the story that happened, and it is a fine example of the pendulum swing in my life. It is also how I used my practice of service to others and meditation to neutralize it. I have been awake but living a nightmare. The nightmare began the day I found out about her. The nightmare most recently came in the form of a social media profile picture. There, my alleged life partner was walking down the aisle in unholy matrimony with her, the other woman, his gut-wrenching secret, only three short months after I found out about her and thus, ended us. This nightmare evokes a soul-crushing "what the fuck?!" That moment, upon seeing the picture,I knew I had dodged a bullet of crazy. That the drama train left the station without me on it, I should be relieved, say good riddance, sayonara – I'm moving on without that weight of irresponsibility strapped to my ankle. But the emotional me, the part that loved and believed in what their best friend shared with them, is crying her eyes out. A wounded and broken child experiencing betrayal of the most profound kind, the knife turning yet again in a deeply broken heart., "I don't want my choices to affect you," he said when I found out about her. I wanted to stab him with my ceremonial Athame. But instead of committing premeditated murder, I told him I would be removing myself from this fucked up "friendship" so I could heal and no longer be subjected to his selfish and hurtful choices. So the Law of Rhythm states, "Everything flows out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates." -The Kybalion Because I know the hermetic principle, I haven't acted on "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." Oh, I want to unblock his wife on Facebook and tell her all the ways he's lied to her, that her marriage is based on falsity, and that I curse them both to a life of unhappiness and complete lack of joy. But that action would result only in a dramatic rhythm swing reaction to the other way, bouncing back at me worse than any fury I can deliver in their direction. Because that is the law – every action has a reaction, the tide goes out and the tide goes in. This is the Way. Humans experience great joy; humans experience great sorrow (that is, if they have the capacity for it). Now I've been grieving this relationship since August despite my best efforts to move on. And why? Because I didn't neutralize, I instead hung on to the attachment. I thought our civility, our friendship, was fulfilling a need of mine – and maybe, because of the continued lies on his part, I had some twisted hope that he'd come back to me after this misguided episode with the psycho bitch he cheated on me with. I just had to bide my time and do my work, and it would all work out. Instead, this was likely an extended denial of my grief at losing my lover and best friend without closure, explanation, or apology. I burned all his gifts to me in the temple at Burning Man, but it didn't cut the cord. And I kept getting pulled back in. So my poor heart was broken multiple times because I was unwilling to cut the cord. Then I think of the joy and elation I experienced in the relationship. Laughter and dancing, sharing of Tarot, and Rune spreads the feeling that someone truly listened and understood me and accepted me no matter what. He was holding me up and supporting me unconditionally. I never had that ever before in a relationship. A person willing to do their work, or so it seemed. Until it got hard, and they started drinking again. Pendulum swing, great joy, great sorrow. And even though I volunteered to give up my a normal life, for one of service and true joy, the ripping away of that, my greatest temptation, took a massive piece of my heart with it. And my grief is as if someone died. Because they did. the man who was my best friend and honorable lover is dead to me. The man that exists is a scared, hurt child, incapable of loving anyone. All he could do was deflect, lie, and deny culpability. Energy not worthy of my time, my effort – we are not in alignment. I have to feel the grief without giving in to the rage and drama monster that wants to come out. And I have to declare boundaries to prevent myself from swimming into the toxic forgiveness pool to stay this man's friend. Part Two: January 2023 Since writing part one, I've learned a couple of things. One "Love Bombing" is what a narcissist does to reel you into their world and enlist you in their menagerie. Narcissists use people, and then they cast them aside when that need is fed, or you are used up, and they can't get what they want from you anymore. My ex love-bombed me. Because he is a narcissist, and I fulfilled a need. He immediately enlisted me in his children's life. After all, he needed someone like me to care for them because he was functionally and emotionally abandoning them. I thought it was because he trusted me that he was so vulnerable, bringing me deep into his life so soon. But, no, I was just an easy target. I gave him the keys to how to manipulate me in our first 24 hours together, and he used them all. Since cutting him off, he's tried to keep the lines of communication open – Communication for a space to vent, someone to loan him money, or a place to run away from his crazy new bride. On New Years, he asked me if he could store all his stuff with me so he could leave his wife, "the past few months have been tough for me," he said like the pathetic man-child he is. I could laugh at his level of ego; if I hadn't moved on, I would have been pulled right back onto his crazy train. But I let his pendulum swing without me in the equation. I told him he'd have to leave his wife without my help and this situation was not for me to be involved in. His lesson is to now manage his karma. Shockingly, I have not heard from him since proving my narcissist theory. I'm discarded now because I offer nothing more to him. I'm not useful to his story of the victim. As I'm now clear of his toxic tentacles, I've mourned the death of the person I was in love with. I'm now free of the swings of emotion, reclaimed my power, and neutralized the Rhythm of this negative vibration in my life. How? prayer, meditation, ritual, truth-telling, patience, energy healing, service, literally moving across the country and starting over. Vitamin D is a cure for a lot of things, and the sunlight, quiet and rest of my new home in Northern Florida have given me perspective. But mostly, it's been the time, honesty, and forgiveness of myself that broke the pattern. So lovely humans, I hope to post another podcase before five months go by again. But in the meantime, please take the principles of Rhythm to heart. We cannot escape the tides of fate, but we can neutralize the drama train, the pendulum swing in our lives, by choosing to be above engagement. It is a ride we can step off. If you would like to learn how – I can help with that! Reach out. I would love to work with you.

THIS summer I got stuck. The stickiness began with a devastating event. An event that first shocked and then struck and then stuck my soul - Have you ever been caught in some twisted limbo? Stuck ping-ponging between extremes of hot and cold, love and hate, quiet and loud, soft and hard, easy and difficult, fast and slow? When I started this second season of the Laws of Abundance, I thought it might be easy to use examples from my life about the seven primary Hermetic Principles. AND in some way that's true, the laws of Hermetics are at work ALL of the time around and within us. But what I found this summer is that I got well -  STUCK. (say with emphasis). I was stuck traveling between poles, between places of polarity.  So polarity is the hermetic principle that says two things - like hot and cold are of the same nature, they just vary by degree.  We can see this most easily with hot and cold simply by looking at a thermometer.  Both are temperatures that we experience - it is just the vibration of cold is very different from the vibration of hot - but both are experienced and known as temperature.  Interestingly enough when cold is at an extreme it can burn us, just as hot at an extreme can burn - the only thing different is how it feels when it is happening.   So let's extrapolate this to Love and Hate.  Both are emotive forces that cause great passion between two individuals. Love is one extreme with its own flavor and degree of passion associated, and Hate is on the other side of the scale, also resulting in a form of passion, albeit usually with a very different result than love when one gives in to it.  But both (like hot and cold) are the same in nature, they just differ by the degree. In my life recently I've been on a bit of a teeter totter of polarities.  Quiet and Loud as I spent time in the country and the city.  Bright and Dark - the light in the Pacific Northwest versus the light in the South or Middle of the United States.   Since I talked to you last my life trajectory, my relationships, my physical locations all shifted. I am literally a different person than I was in May. And in the middle of it I've been in a state of agitation, rest, trial, accomplishment, transition and love. I've experienced some of my greatest fears, greatest challenges, greatest connections, as well as betrayal and now am on a path to my greatest joy through service! (make sure you add feeling here)      So what happened? The million dollar question… Well, I went from my one-year anniversary with a person I thought was my life partner to finding out my other half had made the ultimate betrayal.  Some time after our last trip together in April he started another relationship with another woman.  For four months he lied to me and kept her hidden. I may have never known if it wasn't for the other woman reaching out to me in a jealous rage.  Needless to say, our relationship is over, and I am dealing now with the polarities of love and hate. Of truth and lies. Of anger and forgiveness. Im processing many things on the spectrum of my emotions that occur after being so connected and honest with someone – giving them your heart and then finding it tossed aside in their own self-centered choices. However, I still have my own choices. The choice to be angry, to lash out, or even hate!  Betrayal is a very rough feeling – especially after being vulnerable and finally willing myself to trust another. Trust does not come easy to me. It is something I really have had to learn and lean into.   Leaning into the negative vibration now and lashing out because I am wounded however, is not helpful to my life, my purpose, or my mission. Love is the force that, if it flows through me, heals all within me and others. There is a quote about polarity from the Kybalion  "Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled." Hermetics teaches that things seemingly diametrically opposed to each other is merely a matter of degree. In other words, opposites are the same in nature, they just differ by degree. AND that degree is created through vibration. So, in my current situation if I focus on the betrayal, the negative vibration, I bring myself down further. Because victim is not the vibration of love and healing. It is my wounded wailer on repeat – oh woe is me the world is filled with haters and assholes out to harm me.  No bueno.    On the other hand,  I can focus on the positive about this situation. The clarity, the timing, the way this information came in. In my case my relationship ended the moment I came back to the world from my spirit quest, my initiation as a 3rd step Ritual Master in the Lineage of King Salomon. There were no bones about it. When I went to the mountain I was in a relationship with this person – when I came back it was obvious that I could not be, and that the relationship itself was a hindrance to my purpose and path that I had committed my new self fully upon. It still hurt like hell. But it was clear.   There is the story of the Last Temptation of Christ. And this last temptation for him was one of a Normal Life. Just marrying a lovely girl named Mary and being a carpenter for the rest of his days. Christ chose differently, we all know. He didn't lead a normal life. He died and left this physical existence and went on to become a Master of Light, teaching us the energy of love and compassion (among other things religions have done in his name but that's another story). I am not Jesus (but he did say "everything I can do, you can do and more")   In June the opportunity to apply to 3rd Step came up. I had not answered the call with a yes before, as honestly, I was VERY attached to my possibility of a normal life and scared to sever my attachments to it. But as 2022 progressed, I was feeling empty from any regular pursuits and knew that being in service to a greater cause than myself was and is my true source of joy and satisfaction. AND as a result, and my guides literally yelling at me to stop dragging my feet. I quote "Angel, stop fucking around!" were the words that came through from them. So I applied, and sure enough was accepted and in August – despite a lot of inconvenience and looks of "why on earth" and "what are you doing" from normal rational people, I undertook the spirit journey that is the 3rd step initiation and have since entered my new life of full commitment to this path. Holding the light of showing others the way to find their own path, light, and true self. So, the powers that be in the hierarchy of light are not sentimental beings. They saw my commitment, saw obstacles in my path and removed them. OR, at least, gave me the clarity I needed to get them out of my own way. In this case the big hairy elephant and remaining attachment in my living room was my relationship. An albatross eating my energy as I spent so much time holding space for something that could not be contained. I'm not going to go into specifics of blame, I actually recognize both sides of the energy that resulted in the effects. His choices. My choices. We all have to do our work on ourselves and make our own choices. And in this work, I'm currently choosing love and forgiveness as the means of moving forward. I hold compassion for the jealous woman who turned her anger and harassment toward an innocent person as she clutched to an unsafe relationship and the person who betrayed both of us. And I hold compassion for the man who must self-sabotage and avoid leaning into joy because of his sincere lack of self-worth and insecurity.  I do my best to get out of my own way here and recognize it is now my job and my commitment to hold love despite the severing and betrayal  Love flowing through me is the highest vibration I can hold, and living that vibration is the only way to be of service to others.  Looking back at my summer, I can now see how all the all of the discomfort I felt in Seattle and in my own skin was preparation for this. My own intuition was screaming for me to hear it. In this process and the visit to my family in Michigan this summer I have found ways to rest and take care of myself that I hadn't before and to know that I am destined other places than the city I currently live in. But my movement to new places is unattached to another – it is only attached to my purpose. I made a commitment to work for humanity and the hierarchy of light, I chose the un-normal life. I am in the world but not of it now.  And because I can recognize the nature of things, I can choose the degree that I experience polarity in all things – even devastating heartbreak.  If you have difficult things you need to let go of, release or change in your life. Reach out. I can help with that!   The energetic tools of the lineage of King Salomon work and will  release even the most painful of wounds if you choose a path of healing.    

Everything on this earth holds a vibration. We can't see them but atoms are little solar systems rotating around a sun, just as planets and moons are rotating around their planets and suns, and galaxies. They are all in movement all the time. This movement that has a resulting frequency is Hermetic Principle of Vibration. In some ways it the acceptance and acknowledgment that every THING is always in motion.  And you are now like - Great, right. Thanks, Angel. What does this principle of Hermetics have to do with me and my life? Scientists and physicists yes, but me? Well, if everything is in motion, then we are in motion, if everything has a vibration than we have a vibration, and thus our choices can affect our vibration significantly. Take for example my choosing to drink herbal tea vs. coffee (i.e. caffeine) in the morning – one literally starts my heart palpitating and my skin sweating – the other soothes me into a nice meditative space where I can engage in ritual, meditation, and chanting. Ritual meditation and chanting then have me going to a higher mind state than say, starting my day on social media. And thus when I actually move into my second part of the day, the part where I sit in front of a computer. If I've meditated, things flow smooth. If I've simply caffeinated and ingested headlines and social feeds I'm already scattered and my vibration is already jumpy. My day is more likely to tilt into reaction and go off course than if I right my sails into the flow of the higher self.  So let me tell you a little story a situation that arose this month.  (It's so easy now to look back and see how I literally spun myself up) Mercury retrograde, plus Jupiter in Aries, plus Lunar eclipse in Scorpio. Sitting on the couch crying over things I can't identify; grief is welling up within me as I let go of old stuff I'm carrying and mourn changes, and also, I'm in a unproductive thought loop about needs and wants in my relationship. I want to talk to my partner on the phone before he's unreachable, and I'm in Canada and we are on different schedules and, and, and…. The more I think about the distance the bigger it gets and I'm having a full-blown anxious attachment trigger episode with myself. Now, I know this is in my head – my partner has done nothing to deserve some of the frustrated thought loops currently dancing in my mind – it's my disappointment bear again, it's my wounded wailer crying over injuries that have not been perpetuated but certainly will be, and before you know it I'm very worked up and now I'm crying about my needs not being met. Even though there is absolutely no external stimulus to create this situation. I've done it to myself with my thoughts.   Yes, I'm in a relationship where distance is a constant, but I generally find that ok because I've got so much going on, I need the space for my purpose. And my needs are met. But now that my vibration has shifted, and things feel icky – because my thoughts are worked up, and my vibration is not of the light – it is of complaint and fear. I've spiraled myself into a literal emotional tizzy.  Now here's the thing. I know how to get out of it – but this particular week I don't, I give in to the tsunami of emotion and feeling – I journal, I allow it to pass through me – but it doesn't go. Some fear wants attention, so I take the bait, I text my partner, he doesn't respond as I wanted in fact, he responds to something from the night before but my spiraled and wound up wounded wailer steps in and freaks the fuck out "WTF! How could he! Never again! doesn't he know what I'm going through!"   Bad news bears, dear listeners – so when he finally calls me, I'm an aggravated mess incapable of properly communicating anything. And he is very confused and defensive at me being a crying blob of inarticulate emotional vomit. I don't blame him – and ironically, I used the very thing I wanted (at the very beginning of this episode) to try and calm me down (his voice) to spin out further.   Vibration. It's real. And it can get very real if you don't manage it and your thoughts.  So, five hours later after chanting, after ritual, after a good talk with a calm friend who reminded me to mediate before doing anything else – I managed to bring myself back up to a higher frequency. Not say anything more in my moment of weakness – and to calm the fuck down about the literal nothing I had made into something. Vibration. It's real.  Chanting Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō raised my vibration. I read some encouraging quotes about why meditate, I did some rituals and grounded myself, and then and only then did I talk to my partner again. He did not deserve my onslaught of failed self-care when he was just trying to fulfill what I asked of him but I was so jacked up on my inner drama I couldn't do anything but be reactive (to literally nothing). So, I share this to demonstrate 1) even I turn into a spazzed out mess once in a while (and let me tell you it was exhausting)  2) to give an example of how a human can change vibration based on our thoughts and actions because 3) our thoughts have vibration because 4) everything has a vibration and this is why things like meditation, mantras, activations, energy healings can actually help you in your life. Because they can instantly change your vibration. In my example from my life, I indulged in my drama and where did I get? Tired and upset and regretting that projected it upon my partner – which in hindsight was completely avoidable.  How could I have avoided it? Changed my vibration before engaging. Using the tools I teach and know. Specifically, meditation. Specifically redirecting my energy. I could have called a colleague and gotten an emergency cord cutting instead of leaning into the emotional rollercoaster. I could have sat down and chanted for my partner's happiness, held gratitude. I didn't though, so I let my negative ego win a round.  As a Hermetic principle, a law of the universe, and thus a law of abundance, understanding vibration is essential. Like attracts like – so positive thoughts gather positive, and negative gather negative – they become clouds that will swirl and rain on your parade. Now in my example – this was just about a single week in my life, because I have tools and practices to change my vibration.  But what about a person who lives their life like this all of the time? In emotion, in the past, in a state of drama? It's going to color everything – leading to more drama, more negative vibration, more bad reactions – and eventually maybe the persons life will be sad and lonely as all were persons are driven away. Or they believe the world is just filled with assholes & narcissists. But as I've said before, if the world is filled with assholes the most obvious one is yourself. As in likely YOU are the biggest asshole.  I digress.  You can oversimplify vibration to a law of attraction. I wouldn't though, but for the sake of understanding you can go there. As a law of Hermetics – just know that this is how the world works. Our thoughts have vibration, our food, what we choose to engage in, music, rocks, minerals, etc they all have vibration. Matter of all kinds has vibration. Every single thing has a vibration.  And as a human we can change our vibration in three ways… We can meditate We can change our habits (which include our thought clouds) perhaps that glass of wine ISN'T a coping mechanism. What if you chose rose tea instead and raised your vibration – instead of lowering it with alcohol? Stressed? Go for a run, go work on a project, go do yoga instead of calling your friend for a bitch fest – the complaint picnic will only erase fortune and lower your vibrations.  The Third way - we can go get help. Come get a clearing and a healing from me. It's what I should have done upon the moment I was spinning.  And these are all within your control. And honestly, we all need help from time to time. Jesus, Buddha, Muhammed, they all had teachers why shouldn't we?  And actually, with a teacher and with a practice – (a path, you might call it) you have a way to work towards a better, higher vibration for your day to day. Not just a lurching here or there. But everyday consistently raising your vibration such that someday its so much higher than before – and your new bottom is so much higher than where you were before you started climbing.  So dear listener, I will end here today with a quote from the Kybalion and a quote from Ipsissiumus Dave Lanyon, a hermeticist extraordinaire . "Every thought, emotion or mental state has its corresponding rate and mode of vibration. And by effort of the will of the person, or of other persons, these mental states may be reproduced, just as a musical tone may be reproduced by causing an instrument to vibrate at a certain rate. By knowledge of the principle of vibration, one may polarize his mind at any degree he wishes, thus gaining perfect control over his mental states, moods, etc."   Dave Lanyon quote "Hermetics is always absolute. Stop using the mind, use the heart. Will sets mind. Not mind sets will." So my dear friends please reach out and ask me about the tools and practices I have to help you raise your vibration. They are very real and can help any human being regardless of circumstance. In the meantime, drop into your heart, start with loving yourself, raising your vibration within yourself, and the rest will follow. 

So, it finally happened to me. COVID. I've never been afraid of it, been moving about the country traveling all over the place for the last two-plus years and finally, we came full circle, and the trip we were supposed to take in 2020, we took in 2022 in New Orleans – and COVID shows up to crash the party. Now it's not a shocker to me that I got sick. I haven't been sleeping well or resting at all. I've been overworked, and stressed about various things with my partner's kids, with my job being super successful, but me not having the right amount of help or systems in place. I placed all my self-care cards in the proverbial vacation bucket. "I'll get rest later," I said. I'll take a break later. Well, when vacation finally came so did illness, walking right in the wide-open door.  Ok Angel, what does this have to do with a law of abundance or Hermetics? Everything. Because our life is a reflection of the cosmos, and our inner life is reflected in our outer world. Recently my very good friend called me to say "Angel, you look like chaos." I knew she was right. I was trying to do too much all at once, to be too much for others and not showing up for myself with basic self-care practices. Not setting boundaries with my time. I was not taking time to clear myself or ground in any significant way – and I lost touch with myself briefly. I was tired, irritable, and stressed out, and no wonder most of what I attempted failed. My inner world responded messily.  Now the principle of correspondence, as above so below, so within, so without – as the axiom goes isn't just this simplistic, yet at the same time, it is.  What the principle of correspondence means is that ALL the universe – every single thing in it, from the heavens (the stars and planets) to an anthill on earth, or a microbiome inside my gut all follow the same set of rules and none of them deviate.  Look at how Atoms work. A nucleus that is circled by an electron. A solar system is a sun/star/a nucleus circled by planets (electrons), so the tiniest thing is similar to one of the biggest things I can imagine.  The law of correspondence tells us that there is a rhythm, an order, and a set of rules, like cause and effect, vibration, polarity that everything follows, nothing escapes this cosmic ordering, nothing is outside of the seven hermetic principles, live them and experience the best alignment in this life with our purpose and oneness with them.  This is all a true magician or Alchemist does. Align with these principles and rules of the universe and use them to manifest hermetically for the best and highest good.  The hermetic path is likely never the easy path. It's the longer, higher road with the rewards that can't be counted selfishly. But also, it can be the healthy path, the calm path, the path where chaos cannot come spoil your party because those doors are not ever open.  I do my best. I live mostly in integrity. I live mostly attempting to step forward on a hermetic kabbalistic path in my life. But I am not at all perfect (albeit perfection is simply the act of staying on the path and practicing every day). I get stubborn, I have attachments. I let my fear of mind control decision-making when I get worked up. And then I've got to learn things the hard way – with some proverbial beating on the head with a baseball bat to get the message.  But the beating comes because the laws of the universe dictate it. Cause and effect always happen. Inner worlds reflect on the outside.  So in my case this time around I got really sick on my vacation and anniversary fun times with my partner in New Orleans. And then I spent six days in quarantine on a calm serene beach in Vero Beach, Florida recovering. Life could be way worse. I'm lucky my partner said book a room here, my intuition said, "be right on the beach!" no compromise. It was just two nights to decompress after New Orleans and to prep to visit my father. And then it became many. And I had nothing to do but spend the time with myself, resting and taking care of myself as I let the ocean waves calm down my being and the vitamin D and sea air clear me.  I materialized this retreat. My heart's desire was sun and sand and quiet to hit reset for myself. Get clear for me. Get to spend the conjunction of Neptune and Jupiter in Pisces by the water baptized in the large, dreamy sea of the cosmos.  It ate all my extra resources for a while. All the extra abundance I made in March working too hard. But that is also completely in alignment because I don't have the systems yet to grow sustainably and now, I'm back home building those systems while setting boundaries for my time.  Success is meaningless if I am broken or if I'm sick. If my partner and I cannot spend time together. If I can't see my family. Over attachment to certain outcomes can also not be a good thing but the most important for me is to hold a vision of being in a flow that allows me to be the one in the best space – me meditating, me clear, me without chaos so that then everything I touch is also clear, is also clean, is also functional, also follows the rules of the universe so it works for the best highest good of the whole.  I can't save it all for vacations. I can't put off living my life for later. Work is necessary to achieve anything but that work also can't be all-consuming because it's done without proper order and structure. The universe has a structure. The Hierarchy of light has a structure, so my life needs a structure (NOT rigid control of every detail out of fear) but a structure for my time and energy. My businesses need a structure for their success and sustainability. The cycle of abundance needs to be recognized – as I grow, I share my abundance with those who take on the tasks I need done. I can't hoard the money because then I'm hoarding the work, and then I'm drowning, and then I'm sick.  In my rune readings recently, Sowelo keeps appearing. This is the rune of the sun. Victory. It looks like an S roughly. In Ralph H. Blum, The Book of Runes, he speaks of this rune as wholeness and offers the Gayatri prayer.  You who are the source of all power, whose rays illuminate the world, illuminate also my heart so that I can do your work.  This corresponds to the saying "I will thy will." In that, I will the highest purpose for my life to flow through me.  I am willing to get out of my own way and become a conduit of the laws of the universe, let the laws flow through me. As Jesus said, "I can of mine own self do nothing." Meaning by our own self we truly do nothing; things flow through us if we allow them.  Thank you for joining me on this exploration of the principle of correspondence in my life. I hope it awakens something in you to dig deeper into these principles, these laws, and where they are at work within you. And for the dear listener who loves to control, especially when life gets out of control, I challenge you to find FLOW within your structure (don't clamp down, release and let the wind blow through the scaffolding you have built so deftly, see what happens!! maybe you can even jump out of your Tower and fly)  And for the listener who neglects all structure, or who even blames structures outside themselves for all the things - can you start telling yourself the truth? start taking some responsibility for the things you are setting in motion? Can you be more intentional with what you are setting in motion? How might you allow structure into your flow? As always, need a little push - I can help with that!  Until next time, live well.