S. Kelley Harrell's Blog: Intentional Insights - Ancient Healing, Modern Shamanism, page 91

The Weekly Rune – Kenaz Reversed

Kenaz - Torch - It doesn’t take a weather man to point out the weather. Likewise, it’s no newsflash that the general climate is dark, right now. Usually a bright spark in an otherwise dark passage, Kenaz portends a breakthrough. Reversed, it encourages us to forget about breakthroughs and enlightenment, and just step into that darkness. Note that Kenaz is brightstave in the image.

Yes, a breakthrough will come. Certainly it will bring enlightenment. There will be an AHA! moment. For now, to focus on those things is like ordering our food before we know what restaurant we’re going to.  It’s nice to think about the possibilities. It’s fun to have something bright to look forward to. However, before we can really dig into the nourishment we need most now, we have to live a little more concretely.

We don’t deal well with shadow in western culture. In fact, we don’t really deal with it at all. Recognition of it generally stays under the radar unless it’s disrupting our lives.  Something I often tell my students and clients is, we can either generate change for ourselves, or Nature will do it for us.  And we all know what that rumbling, unsettling precursor feels like–stress, anxiety, resistance, general un-ease in all or most life areas. These things are symptoms of shadow. And for this week, Kenaz is heading the progression of these symptoms off at the pass.

Shadow is what we don’t know about ourselves. Period. The end. That’s all it is, yet we treat it like some big spooky truth to be avoided like the plague.  To each our own, though my take on life is we aren’t here to learn lessons. We’re not here  to spiral up to some greater manifestation of ourselves.

We are that already.

We are fine, as we are.

We are better than fine, we are enough.  So what’s left? What’s shadow about that?

We need to know that we are enough. That we don’t know this truth is shadow.

We are here to create ourselves as we truly want to be.

Where Hagalaz is unexpected external change, Kenaz is the internal inspiring flame. Thus, a direction toward change is made evident from within the shadows. Not near the shadows. Not at a reasonably safe distance from the shadows. In the shadows.

This week Kenaz is a tap on the shoulder to say, “You can do this now. The forces of All Things are with you to greet shadow on your terms, now.”

This doesn’t mean run screaming toward the abyss of yourself and throw yourself over for the glory of enlightenment. This stave brings the reprieve to generate change in life from an informed place, not a reckless one. Plan it out.  Gather your resources. Engage community. Do the self-supportive things that keep you uplifted, compassionate (for yourself as much as others), and sustained. Go to all the meetings, therapy sessions, healing circles, and barefoot-in-the-grass walks you need.

And when you’re in the heart of it and the anxiety starts to swell, remember this is who you are, and whatever you find in the darkness of yourself can be lit.

When I was actively involved in The Saferoom Project–a non-profit providing support to adult survivors of child sexual assault–we often spoke of preparing Emergency Kits in the better days, so that it would be there to aid us in the darker ones. Turn on the music that makes you feel great to be you. Read the books that leave you hungry for more life. Make notes about what you want from life, and how you can get it. Pack marshmallows and a flashlight, so that in the pit of it all, you can make funny –>shadows–< from beneath the blankets.

Because it doesn’t have to be heavy and oppressive.

Because all of you is enough.

Because once you see them, once you really become aware of what your shadows need, they aren’t shadows anymore.

Tread safely. Dream well.

The post The Weekly Rune – Kenaz Reversed appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.

Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude

My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.

I’m thankful for my spirit guides.

I’m grateful for time with my family.

I’m thankful for optimism.

I’m thankful for the Internet.

What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks?

This post is part of VikLit‘s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Participate by following the link and adding your name to the Linky list, then post your gratitude every Friday.  Easiest blog hop ever!

Click here to hop on… the hop, and thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment.

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Wordless Wednesday

Grandfather Mountain Swinging Bridge

Photo by Claire P.

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The Weekly Rune – Isa

Isa – ice- Isa visited almost exactly a month ago. At that time, it brought the challenging message of finding comfort where it seems there is none. This week, it’s emphasis is intentional immobility.

We’ve talked about how this stave presents a ‘ring pass not’ component–the idea that  we all have our limits, through which we cannot move until we find the momentum to do so from our deepest reserves. That’s still true at this time, though the emphasis isn’t so much that we can’t move, as we shouldn’t.

Times have been rather uncomfortable, lately. Collectively and personally, our stories have merged into a long narrative of constant, turbulent change, discomfort if not despair and grief, tinged with moments of elated bliss and quiet reckoning. What these all have in common is deep passion.  We’re not living superficially, right now. We aren’t feeling superficially, right now.  Everything is vital. Every moment counts.  This is the nature of passion, which is of course, recognizing the connection to All Things.

Understand that upheaval forces us to be present, and this is where Isa steps in, with cool, calm support. It’s urging us to just sit tight. Don’t rush; don’t even move. Just allow whatever awareness needs to sink in.

The thing is, we always have the right to say no to greater awareness, enlightenment, or whatever you want to call it. Historically, we’ve been told that when it visits, it’s uncomfortable, if not flat-out painful, that it makes us crazy if not sick, that we can’t say no to it, and that we can never go back to our lives the same. In reality, only the latter of those has to be true. We can’t go back to our lives the same. But we can say, “Reveal this to me in a way that I can readily work with.” “I allow this to come, gently.”  We have the ability and the freedom to set boundaries around how we become awakened, and Isa reminds us of that fact. It reminds us to be part of our awakening process, not just the one that awakening happens to.

Yes, this Rune brings reprieve, but that doesn’t have to mean inaction. It doesn’t have to mean subjugation. Use this aside to clarify the parameters under which we become more aware. Maybe that’s the awareness that needs to come–that we have some control over it, how it affects us, how we go forward with it.

I generally think of Isa as bringing a staycation of the soul–the sense of wanting wonder, yet being forced to find it in our own backyard.  This time it’s more of a retreat, and we’re its leaders, as well as attendees. —

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Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude

My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.

I’m thankful for mental health wellness options.

I’m grateful for the humanity of Robin Williams.

I’m thankful my lover is feeling better.

I’m thankful for Tribe.

What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks?

This post is part of VikLit‘s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Participate by following the link and adding your name to the Linky list, then post your gratitude every Friday.  Easiest blog hop ever!

Click here to hop on… the hop, and thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment.

The post Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Saturday Night in August, Eighth Avenue, ca. 1900

Painting by William Anderson Coffin.

Photo by ego technique.

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Mental Illness — A Life Lived Thirsty

“I’ve sent my brightest and bravest men to search for this [grail]. How did you find it?” the King asked.

The Fool laughed and said, “I don’t know. I only knew that you were thirsty.”

– The Fisher King

Like so many others, I’m saddened by Robin Williams’ suicide. As someone who has managed lifelong depression, myself, I always appreciated the laughter he brought into my life, as well as the human face he brought to coping with mental illness.

Despite that he was a celebrity with loads of money and opportunity, he never hid his internal reality. Williams was very candid about the fact that no matter what was going on in his life, addiction and depression always loomed. He lit every project he touched and made the whole world laugh for decades, while he wrestled himself in shadow.

It’s not a fresh story at all–talent rises to incredible celebrity, produces spellbinding art, often provides an equally entertaining personal life, then eventually goes up in flames. We’ve seen it before in Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Lee Thompson Young, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and so many others. We watch it play out in a daily serial with Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes.

Such is a sob story in which an adoring public doesn’t acknowledge any accountability or responsibility, yet we tune in to the entertainment news shows and retweet the gossip of their private lives. We can’t quit this dangerous brand of reality entertainment, and we don’t make the connection between a set up for failure and an industry that seems to crank out mental illness. We don’t see our own role in the cycle. We don’t see that it is a cycle.

In shamanic cultures is the animistic understanding that when an individual is sick, his or her community bears the wound, also. There’s no such thing as isolating someone for healing. Rather, attention is given to the entire collective, to treat the root cause of the wound, through every thread intertwined in it, all the way down to the individual. In this way, a village is healed. It’s not a new technique. In fact, it’s ancient, and cutting edge.

None of us are immune from mental illness. While we’re beginning to accept it as medical and spiritual illness, we also need to remember that it’s a collective one. We can’t expect the individuals of famedom to straighten their lives out when we get so much out of their downfall.  We can’t expect to create a culture of support for each other without seeing the places where we undermine it for ourselves, for our loved ones, for our idols. It’s all connected.

That’s the most challenging fact about the death of Robin Williams. We knew. His industry knew. He’s the one who told us, long ago.

It’s time to realize that suicide isn’t failure. It isn’t the failure of the person who died, or of loved ones to have intervened. Suicide is illness.

Likewise, depression isn’t a battle that we win or lose. Depression is illness, often chronic and invisible. More can always be done; however, depression brings a state of despair that convinces us otherwise. In that despair we’re all connected, and from that wound we have to create tribe in which we’re accountable to each other. We have to be able to talk about what we’re going through, what we’re feeling. We have to participate and listen along the spectrum of wellbeing and depression, not just when it’s turned grim.  If there’s failure in the factors of mental illness, it’s that lack of dialogue and community.

We need each other, and we need compassion for each other and ourselves, all the time. It’s easy to feel it for someone who’s having problems. However, we deal in invisible illness every day. We can’t wait for the luxury of symptoms, before we show that we care. We owe it to each other to realize we’re all thirsty, and that every one of us bears the cup. Actively participating in community isn’t a mindfulness task we learn to take care of ourselves. It’s a measure in compassion we engage to save our species from itself.

Specifically with celebrity, there’s dialogue needed in how we as a culture chew up and spit out artists who burn at both ends, geniuses who dazzle us at great personal expense, because they’re so gifted at acting through their demons that they make us forget our own, they make us forget they’re human. They make us forget they’re tribe.

I wish peace for his family, and a resounding barbaric yawp to his healing heart.

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The Weekly Rune – Ehwaz

Ehwaz - horse – In just over two years of  The Weekly Rune Ehwaz has only visited once. As a result, I find it deeply informative that it presents itself at this time. Concerned with all things totemistic, transportational, and trustworthy, this stave is about getting ready for the ride.

With Ehwaz, it’s fitting to examine all the ways in which the horse as a being and archetype touches our lives. It is beast of burden to humans, indicating that it works for us, and one hopes that despite hierarchy in that paradigm, the relationship is built upon care and respect. To humans, horse for a long while was how we traversed long distances, which we’d otherwise not be able to do, or would take a great deal more time to do.  In both of those ways that horses are meaningful to humans, there lies a deep bond, a trust that embodies the ability to be transported to something beyond ourselves, and to experience a return to our own wild.

Where this synergy really takes meaning is curious. In Old Norse mythology the horse was humanity’s fylgja, or “fetch,” one who leads us to wisdom. This connection calls to mind Sleipner, Odin’s eight-legged horse, who carried him to traverse the realms of the Yggdrasil–the World Tree, from which he gained insight into the Runes, the keys to the Multiverse.

Read that last sentence again, and think about what it really describes. In the Northern shamanic tradition is the path of the ordeal–a journey through physical provocation (usually involving pain, fear, certainly sensual deprivation) so that the soul can release from the mind and complete the work it needs to. Ordeal is always with purpose, likewise is its outcome.

The little trip Odin took through the wyrd was the greatest ordeal of his life. He sacrificed himself to himself, to acquire the mysteries of All Things, not just for himself, but to pass on to others, so that they don’t have to endure such an ordeal.

But guess what? Odin’s sacrifice doesn’t mean we don’t have our own ordeals. His resulted in giving greater tools for managing our ordeals. No one can walk our ordeal(s) for us. Sooner or later, we have to face our sacrifices and consider that we won’t get the wisdom we need from sitting on the couch.

Such is the transformational journey Ehwaz calls us to prepare for, now.  This is the time of initiation. The emphasis at this time is gathering what is needed for the journey. Just as attempting to find enlightenment without actually changing anything in our lives is fruitless, so is launching into change without preparation.

What’s coming will be big, and it will be wanted, though likely not comfortable. Take the time now to gather reserves. Call in the guides that can best help and support. Pull in the resources needed to stay focused, healthy, and disciplined. Be in community that facilitates soul change.  Through the day, practice mindfulness, recall the support in the Nature Spirits and Ancestors.

Ehwaz presents us with the knowledge that the journey is coming to us. It’s our choice to be prepared.

 

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Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude

My weekly gratitude post, in the Celebrate the Small Things [ongoing] Blog Hop.

I’m thankful for the realization of change, even if I don’t know exactly what it is.

I’m grateful to play games with my kids.

I’m thankful for the opportunity to take a breath.

I’m thankful for air conditioning.

I’m grateful to feel better.

What are you grateful for this week? How will you show thanks?

This post is part of VikLit‘s blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. Participate by following the link and adding your name to the Linky list, then post your gratitude every Friday.  Easiest blog hop ever!

Click here to hop on… the hop, and thanks for coming with me on this journey of self-empowerment.

The post Celebrate the Small Things – Gratitude appeared first on Soul Intent Arts.

Q&A – Reciprocity and the First Community

Kelley, I have been receiving guidance through this blog for a number of years even though I am halfway around the world from you. But here I am writing again to seek some answers because of an overwhelming feeling of neglect by the gods.

A few months ago I made some changes, moving towns and starting a new life and a good new job. It seemed as though things would finally turn around in my internal life, with me anticipating a sense of ‘homecoming’ on a soul level. But it has felt like nothing but the opposite. Even though I am grateful for blessings in my life, being where I am has taken me to a place of what feels like utter abandonment that manifests in different forms and very intense loneliness that eats away at my will to live. And so I am starting to wonder if I have been taking the wrong paths, if there is a blind spot I am not aware of. Frequently I vacillate between states of elation and sheer pain whose source I cannot even identify. I would appreciate any guidance. Your companion from afar, Liz.

Thanks for your note, Liz, and for being a longtime reader. When I pose your intention to my guides, I see a proxy of you standing on a beach. I often see this scene as a status report on where people are in their creative visions of themselves, where they’ve come from, where they’re going. All of this is indicated by drawings in the sand. Behind you, I see all sorts of wavy lines, swoops and swirls in the sand, some elaborate drawings that connect to each other. It all stops at your present point, and before you the sand is totally clear. The proxy gazes toward the afternoon sun as if she’s expecting someone.

I ask her what she’s looking for, and she says, “I thought there’d be someone here.” She doesn’t indicate someone specific, or even a particular role. Rather, guides, helpers, community to help her know how to go forward.

I turn back to the lines behind her and ask if someone was with her when she drew those designs. She says, “Some of them, but not many.” She turns back to the shoreline ahead of her and says, “I just thought for this part of it, there’d be others.”

Indeed, there is a deep sense of having expected community, or at least a trusted individual or two, who at a soul level could help you sustain the momentum. As well, when I look at the drawings from your past, you have carried yourself quite a lot. You haven’t had much in the way of solid community to support your heart’s desire, and changing job, moving, and starting over as it were, hasn’t been able to provide that.

I also feel compelled to say that you aren’t alone in that lack. It sounds funny–you aren’t alone in missing community. You would think that need would be enough to unite the many of us who do end up trying to be everything to ourselves. We live in a culture busy informing us that we can’t be everything to those we love. The fact is, no matter what the limitations, it’s not realistic that we can be everything to ourselves.

When I work with clients who are struggling alone into spiritual emergence, the first thing I tell them is to delve into the Nature of their home space. You are not newly emerging spiritually. You are very sure of who and where you are, though that clarity doesn’t change the fact that you still need collective support, accountability, responsibility, celebration, and inspiration.  Also, when creating sacred space for rituals, I always tell students the act isn’t just to show gratitude to spirit helpers or to invite them in for a visit. It’s to create a portal for them to reach into our lives for those few moments, and to actively participate in our lives, to help us create the space.

This reciprocity is what’s needed for you now. You don’t have to do it all, and you’re not expected to. Find ways to bring your spirit guides and Nature Allies more into your every day. Whether it’s setting up altar space for them, putting little reminders of them in your car, or on your desk at work, bring them in. If you are already in frequent contact with them, what about the literal home spirits of your spaces? The spirits of the animals that frequent your yard, the spirits of the trees that grow there, the spirits of elements that are plentiful in your region… Bring them in, as well. Prosperity can’t happen some place other than where you are, and you are in constant companionship with the home spirits and Nature Allies of your spaces.

They are your first community. Begin working with them, and see who pops up along that shoreline to walk with you.

Best to you, Liz. Thanks for sticking around for the long haul!

–

Please submit Q&A inquiries to kelley at soulintentarts dot com. Include your birthdate and location, along with a brief intention for a Soul Reading featured in Intentional Insights.

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