Temple of Why

Breathing in the times of change

Now is a great to access nature for healing. Walking in the cooler weather is easier and more comfortable and the colors of Fall are all around us.

I go out and take some deep breaths and then start to look for colors in nature. I breathe in the green of the grass and focus on exhaling through my heart. I see a beautiful orange pumpkin and breathe in the orange color into my sacral chakra, then exhale through my chakra. I usually spend three breaths on each chakra and more on areas that seem to need attention.

I look for red to breathe into my root chakra and then again, breathe out through the chakra. Yellow leaves are breathed into and out of my solar plexus chakra clearing old stale emotions hiding there. The blue sky clears my throat chakra I usually spend a bit of time on my throat chakra, I have issues with my thyroid and have had trouble “finding my voice” sometimes in the past. I exhale fully through my throat chakra.

I look for indigo in the shadows of mountains or stone walls and breathe that into my third eye and finish with lavender in my crown chakra.

If it is a nice sunny day, I breathe in beautiful fire energy of the Sun through my crown chakra to energize my chakra and store energy. I breathe out of my crown chakra back into the heavens sharing my positive energy with the angels.

My last effort is purposely exhaling deeply in nature, the trees and other plant life use my carbon dioxide for their healing. I thank nature for healing me.

I always feel better after breathing in the times of change.

Nature’s Mind

I emanate love

I emanate peace

I emanate healing

If you are reading this

You feel love

You feel peace

You feel healed

YOU ARE HEALED

You now emanate love

You now emanate peace

You now emanate healing

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Alignment back with the Earth – the True Path

This resonated with me so much today that I am going to copy from the book I am reading by Gregg Braden:

P 233

“…the Hopi eloquently remind us that each time humanity strays from the natural laws that affirm life in this world, our choices are mirrored in our societies and the systems of nature around us. …when earth quakes, floods hailstorms, drought and famine will be the life of everyday, the time will come for the return to the true path…when prayer {intention infused with emotion based on the outcome} and meditation are used rather than relying on new inventions to create more imbalance, then humanity will find the true path {back to Earth}.” “The words of the Hopi serve as simple reminders of the quantum principle which states that to change the outcome of events already in motion, we are invited to shift our beliefs regarding the outcome itself. In doing so, we attract the possibility that matches our new belief, and we release the present conditions even those already under way.” ~ from The Isaiah Effect, by Gregg Braden

Return to the Earth, the true path. What is happening in the world is a direct reflection of what is occurring in our collective minds. It is so important to watch our thoughts and don’t become a part of what is occurring in the world. We must look to nature, to the Earth, refresh and cleanse our bodies and minds.

A return to the true path.

When one heals we all heal together

Healing is what our bodies do when presented with tools and options for getting better. Even pharmaceuticals are not healing our bodies, our bodies are using the pharmaceuticals to heal itself.

Healing prayer or healing intention has been the subject of scientific study for decades often proving that people who were prayed for healed better, quicker with better outcomes than those who were not prayed for. Still the consistency of outcome is still illusive. We haven’t quite figured out the formula for making prayer or intention work all the time.

We have concluded that beggars prayers seldom result in the desired outcome, but what if we turned out attention away from asking for a desired outcome from outside ourselves and work to internalize that health or recovery from illness is a possible outcome all the time. And let that be our focus. And envision health and the feeling we get from being healthy be our intention.

Our bodies are one with the Earth, we are made from the same elements the Earth is made from. It is animated with energy just as we are, what if we focus on the health of the Earth and an extension of the health of our bodies. What if we become the tool to heal ourselves, sewing health into our bodies consciously. We can envision sewing up ailments with energy, cleansing our internal organs, washing them with water and washing away disease and hanging them to dry in the air as we sleep. Envisioning how we will feel waking in a body that has been repaired as we sleep that gives us a new opportunity for health. What if before going to sleep, after consciously repairing our body with our thoughts, we think about how we are going to feel the next day when we get up and feel better? What if we think about how great that feeling will be and go to sleep with that seed planted in our minds?

Thinking, feeling and the emotions associated with being healthy become our only focus. We then become our own tools for healing when we see it as another option, another opportunity, another path we can jump to that does exist if we take it. When one heals we all heal together.

Like attracts like? Our sacred responsibility?

Does the universe seek to fulfill conditions we think about? So rather than creating our reality are we creating conditions to attract what will become our reality? Subtly different, but different none-the-less. In the Universe nothing can be hidden, no one person’s thoughts or actions are more of less important than another’s. We are all made of the Earth and the Earth and the Universe – Unee – responds to each of us the same. So how is the outcome different? Perhaps we create the magnet that like attracts like. We put out negative doom and gloom thoughts and we attract those conditions to fulfill the conditions we were thinking. We put out positive uplifting thoughts and perhaps the magnetic action we have created brings positive conditions back to us.

The power of intentional thought – once called prayer – was well documented in the 1980’s when focused intention was placed on a desired outcome. Collectively people focused on the same outcome could attract the conditions for that outcome to occur. We are not talking beggar’s prayers that rely on an omnipresent figure to grant or not grant the request, we are talking about creating the conditions to attract what is the desired outcome.

Has this power to create the conditions we wish to experience been dormant? Were the ancients, the indigenous peoples more connected to this current in the Universe, connected to Unee than we? I think perhaps so. I think we have learned to give away our power to unseen Gods we couldn’t function with out, to priests claiming only they had the power, to anyone, but ourselves. Likely conditioned into us, but we were also willing participants. We wanted someone else to perform for us maybe so we weren’t responsible for the outcome.

But we do have the latent power to create the conditions we want to be our future. We need to remember and to be intentional using our intuition and our thoughts and accepting that we have a sacred responsibility. We individually and collectively create the conditions that become our reality. It becomes so very important that we learn to discipline our thoughts, feed our minds carefully and be always conscious that like attracts like and our thoughts are magnets for our future.

Turn off the news, think the world you want to see let that be your new current event.

Church of the Earth Top 10 “not”commandments

Commandments were written at a time when social mores were defined more by religious authorities than civil authorities. The 10 commandments addressed societal concerns in a legitimate attempt to protect and preserve certain social conditions that were causing harm in the society. Ok, that is laudable. So are they still relevant today?

I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt not have strange Gods before me – here one has to assume a “God” is necessary. Written at a time thunder and lightening and other climate related events were thought to have been caused by a God angered by human behavior one could understand why making sure everyone sang hail to the chief could be understood. Now we just check our weather apps.

Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain – again, stood to reason if you thought crops failed or there was a drought because God was mad at people, you may want to show him ample respect.

Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day – Still paying homage to the big guy here and making sure he is happy. Similar to how one might treat a Roman Emperor or Egyptian Pharaoh, King on England even – and we know what happened if they weren’t given their due.

Honour thy father and thy mother – common sense unless your parents are awful people. Does this really have a spiritual application though? Is this imperative to one’s spiritual growth? Only perhaps from a Karmic perspective, if we are the one’s that are awful people we may be building an account of bad karma.

Thou shalt not kill – it’s against the civil law so just not a great idea

Thou shalt not commit adultery – just generally not nice, makes for bad karma, but no real spiritual application

Thou shalt not steal – again, against the civil law and not a great idea, who wants to get arrested

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour – can also land you in jail especially if you lie in court. Why would you do this?

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife – especially if the neighbor’s wife doesn’t want to be coveted, I think this one is past its prime

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods a materialistic society is based on coveting thy neighbor’s goods, doesn’t make one happy to have more toys, but generally not terribly spiritual in application.

The 10 Spiritual Recommendations of The Church of the Earth

Meditate daily
Sit with trees, learn their attributes, take them to your meditation
Sit with plants, share energy with them, study the effects on you and your plant
Learn the characteristics of certain animals, adopt some of them to overcome your shortcomings
Be conscious of the elements Air, Fire, Water and Earth begin to understand how you can work with them and incorporate them into your daily practice
Seek like minded friends, share spiritual practices
Do not create a hierarchical structure in a group, form a community that shares it’s gifts
Spend your days trying not to create karma
Abortion is a woman’s decision, it is her body growing a new being, do not interfere
Stay out of politics in your spiritual life, poltics and spirituality do not mix

Church of the Earth

This makes sense to me. Mother Earth and her energy are real, the energy of the Sun is real, Air is real, Water is real. We can tap into the energy of all those elements at will and feel their effects immediately. Water washes us, Fire warms us, Air fills our lungs, dries us and blows away negativity, Earth grounds us, nourishes us, protects us.

Get in touch with nature, it’s demonstrative energy and spirituality. Working at being aligned with nature’s flow is authentic, true spirituality. We don’t know her, certainly not well enough. We don’t work with her in a conscious way to reap the benefits she can provide and give back to her to benefit all.

Get to know trees spiritually and how they can help, sit by and in water consciously and see the secrets she reveals. Let the breeze blow by you and through you and breathe it in consciously and deeply with intention. Make a fire outside meditate on its transformative power to burn away. Give it your past hurts, bad relationships, regrets. Write them down and let her burn them up.

Start here and you become a member of the Church of the Earth at the Temple of Why. At the Temple of Why – ask questions, question what you believe and why you believe it and let go of what doesn’t work any more. Let go of what doesn’t ring true anymore or maybe never did. Move on. There are so many ways to connect with Earth and, for once, to have a meaningful spiritual practice. Be in rhythm with the seasons, with the moon cycles and consciously aware of the elements that are around you always.

If you think about it, religions have nature as their foundation too. They use water to baptize, fire to confirm, the breath of God to bless and oil to anoint. They have just added manmade conditions and laws so someone can be in charge and enforce the rules. We don’t need them.

We don’t need a deity, do we?

Haven’t we moved past the “my God is better than your God” phase? Maybe not, but maybe we should. I think we all agree there is a life energy of some sort out there that defines living versus not living. Most deity based religions state that God is in us and around us, so life energy would be somewhat universal. I think we get into trouble when we try to identify too strongly with and become too attached to “our” deity. Maybe if we genericize the deity and just agree that there is a life energy it is a place to start.

You can have a “personal relationship” with this energy, how could you not if it is in you and around you? It would treat everyone the same or else you would have to curry favor with it, not very deity like. And what of worship? again, life energy is in us and around us so kinda seems it is there whether we “worship” it or not. Maybe we are worshipping for our benefit? So that would seem to be able to come off the list.

Does the deity bless certain people and not others? I think some people think so, but again I would think a deity would treat all equally otherwise we are attributing human characteristics to a deity. If the deity treats all equally then how or what we do when approaching the deity i.e. worship them, is irrelevant. The deity acts for all.

Deity seems a human construct to help personalize non personal interaction with life energy. Religion would seem to be a man made construct to satisfy the attributes man has given to a non-human deity. Religion drives conflict and it is a manmade construct.

Spirituality with out a deity is so much more. Spirituality is alignment with the flow of energy from a life energy that we all exist as a part of and can not be separated from. We are a part of nature so to align with nature is to align with the flow of the universe and the life force energy of the universe.

Prove me wrong.

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Meditating with Plants

I started a new practice just because the idea presented itself. i was sitting in my office studio and had just watered my plants. I was looking at them and the thought occurred to me to pick up 2 vines from my pathos plant and meditate with them. Maybe the plant called me, I don’t know. So I sat with one vine in each hand started thinking about giving and receiving energy. I sat with the plant and dropped deeper into meditation.

10 or 15 minutes later I started to notice myself palpably feeling calmer. I felt like energy was gently flowing back and forth between us. I relaxed and just enjoyed feeling connected.

The next day sitting in the music room I was feeling anxious. I was tired from not getting enough sleep and have been a bit tense and on edge from work and from being at home for almost 4 weeks with our Great Dane who is recovering from knee surgery. I seldomly allow myself the luxury of a daytime nap, I am too much of an action driven person. But I reclined on the divan and noticed my big peace plant next to me. Again, maybe it was calling me. I decided to gently hold its leaf and meditate with it. It hasn’t been doing well, it is large and pretty old for a plant at 15 years old. I am not sure how long plants live? I have been wondering if it is nearing the end of its life span. So I gently sat with it and sent it healing thoughts and absorbed what it was sending me. I do think it is not well, I did pick up what felt like mini pin pricks or light electricity zaps. I told it it was an old friend and I would sit with it. Again I felt a sudden relaxation that was different than when I normally meditate, it was a release.

I think we can enhance a nature based spirituality by incorporating plants, trees and other aspects of nature consciously into our daily practice.

I am curious to see if I notice any visible difference in the health of my plants by sharing energy with them.

Trees in Daily Practice

I have just started a new practice to help me connect more closely with nature and the resources available to us. Trees have been an important part of Druid and other Pagan practices, but there is not a lot of documentation on how they were used. Generally different types of trees were used to make wands and other magical tools. Groves of trees, especially oak, were often the site of rituals and other services.

I believe we can share energy with certain trees to help us with challenges we are facing in our lives. James Redfield’s Celestine Prophecy is a good book to reference on sharing energy with plants and trees. Certain trees are associated with unique properties that can be incorporated into our practice. Respectfully touching, sitting and leaning against or standing by certain trees can support us in ways unique to the individual species of tree.

Here are some characteristics that can be accessed in communion and meditation with individual tress:

Apple: To increase abundance and prosperity

Birch: Helps heal our deepest wounds

Catalpa: Used to enhance creativity and embrace uniqueness

Cedar: Helps break spells, provide clarity and focus

Cherry: For increasing love and sweetness

Elm: Believed to enhance psychic abilities and to help to achieve justice

Maple: For enhancing balance and learning to go with the flow

Oak: For strength, courage and deep roots or enhancing groundedness

Olive: For divine healing

Pine: Releasing guilt, healing

Sycamore: Sharing energy may enhance love, fertility and protection

Walnut: For health and healing

Willow: Helps us learn to bend and not break, to be flexible

Sit with a tree, hug a tree, breathe with a tree and think of their individual qualities. I find they enhance my sense of well being and I gain a greater appreciation for nature.