Elizabeth S. Eiler's Blog, page 2

Into the Newness

Have you ever had a friend or family member whose need to please others made him or her manipulative? When someone we love tries to draw us into a scheme rooted in his or her own insecurity, sometimes our first instinct is compassion – or tolerant annoyance – or irked humor. But it’s hard to say “no” to loved ones.

Why? Because we have a deep-rooted need to please also – a desperate desire for love and affirmation even at unbalanced personal cost. See how the Law of Attraction has brought us friends and associates who hold up mirrors to our own weakness?

So, when family or friends attempt to impose another person, situation, work, or responsibility on you and it doesn’t feel right, take a deep breath and consider a few things.

1. We hurt each other out of our own brokenness. What is the motive behind the request/command/pleading? I suggest it’s fear of inadequacy. Fill in the blank with I’m not good enough. I need help with this because___________. If I can’t satisfy everybody ___________. Don’t let anyone find out ___________. If I turn this project down it signals ___________.

2. Real love shows respect. Don’t hesitate to step up and respect yourself when others fall short. When they're jeopardizing relationships out of desperation or inappropriate guilt, they're not loving themselves either.

3. Getting angry is okay, but be quick to forgive. Include yourself in that forgiveness, because you wouldn’t even be struggling with the decision if you weren’t coming from your own place of weakness.

Since we have attracted those with a similar resonance, we should examine these challenges for growth lessons. Wanting to please a loved one, I recently overrode my intuition, stated desire, and a Spirit Guide emphatically shaking her head. I paid the price but managed to also get my money’s worth!

Busy, stubborn, lost focus, expediency – there are lots of reasons why we don’t acknowledge our inner guidance systems or hear Divine direction. Ultimately experiencing self-betrayal – because I coulda/shoulda/woulda said NO – I also experienced God’s rescue. Suffering physical and emotional consequences of my “good-natured” acquiescence, I was lifted up on the third day.

Seventy-two hours after my misguided decision, I experienced the direct intervention of Christ. I was given another chance to thrive by living my truth and His. So sometimes, our loved ones come bearing the gifts we most need, disguised in thorny packaging.

As I was released from pain, my hyle, psyche, and pneuma were in alignment – the body, mind/emotion complex, and eternal spirit. The smoke of daily life and social politics cleared, revealing a fork in the road. A new path diverged out of the old and I was diverting onto the new way.

I recently entered the Crone or Wisewoman stage of my life and have had strong urgings from my past monastic lives. I wanted to rededicate my life to God the Pleuroma and the Christ. But how to return to the cloister in this lifetime as a married spiritual eclectic?

The Daily Word yesterday said, in part: “Letting go and letting God means surrendering my human identification and turning control over to my true, divine nature. When I let go of the need for recognition or approval, feelings of love and self-worth fill me. I open the way for spiritual ideas to flow forth to bless, inspire, and prosper me.” (Daily Word, A Unity Publication, Vol. 156. No. 6, page 56)

Letting go of the need to please, allowing the Godself to say “no” through our intuition, allows the loving inflow of Spirit to direct our lives. I’ve always approached my writing and energy work as a ministry to the Light. Here is a new emphasis on also honoring the Light within me by using discernment, making the choices my spirit/pneuma dictates. Isn’t this a way of permitting God to answer our prayers?

This has been a year of exposure, facing harsh truths, seeing below the surface and being shaken. My life and work are taking new directions as 2019 dawns. Paradigms are shifting for all of us.

Take up your part in this evolving consciousness: Self-examination, recognizing ourselves in others, and learning to respond with strength, integrity, and love. When we heal ourselves, we heal the world. When we honor and love the Truth within us, we do the same for the Source from which we came.
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Elizabeth Eiler is a metaphysician and spiritual teacher sharing contemporary inspiration and insight through her writing. Explore Books by Elizabeth Eiler

Rise, Lovely Women of Autumn!

“The Autumn Woman is beautiful with the blazing fire that becomes of young, unfinished things. She is the priestess who raises her arms high in the forest and commands the great and the small in turn. She is well-versed in passion and its many workings, and where she bestows a single finger-touch of love, there is a wellspring behind it...” – Singing Woman: Voices of the Sacred Feminine by Elizabeth S. Eiler, Ph.D.

Seeing a late September and October surge in Reiki clients, I pondered why autumn was such a challenging season for women. To me, it’s the most glorious season, every morning a panning for gold and a shower of crimson kisses blessing the mossy Earth.

Bears and women both give thought to hibernation now, one in a cave of dreams and the other in her womb of creation. Great things will emerge with the spring sunshine.

But this is also a time of darkness - the sun dipping early beyond the horizon, restless storm clouds, and the more intimate blackness behind our closed eyes. This is where the light of the world dims and we confront our naked Selves. Change is upon the landscape, and our flesh-enshrouded spirits experience it, too.

Autumn puts us face to face with the inevitability of time, passages from one stage to another, and what we fear is the end of beauty and relevance. Nature wants us to see that the ripened fruit, the seeds covered in their blankets of loam, are really just the beginning. Life is an ever-turning wheel, and what grows old under the sun will engage in the renewal of all the Earth.

There is a piercing loveliness in fall and winter, and in the women of these seasons. Autumn women are glorious in their vibrancy, strength, and full-fledged beauty. Love and leadership are their hallmarks, and they color the world with the creations spilling over from their bounteous spirits. They encourage us.

The winter woman is the epitome of grace. Her wisdom is distilled and fine, her visage a delicate tracery, a windowpane carved with diamonds. She inspires us, holding our catalog of knowledge and experience. Closer to Heaven than Earth, she is our spiritual maturity.
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These should be joyous passages through the mysteries of feminine power and light. As the great wheel of our existence has turned beyond the age of patriarchy, we are making them so again.

Far from invisibility, being fifty with a proud head of silver hair has made me stand out, defiant in my authenticity. Grey and silver hairs weave a crown of achievement no younger woman could wear! Being fearlessly genuine, while still embracing style and femininity, shows a strength that startles people – particularly my fellow women who are still living in fear and a desperate chase after youth.

I learned through the spring and summer of my life that fully realizing my spirit and its potential means first pleasing myself. This is making my own decisions and declaring from within how I will look, act, work, dress, love, and exist. The woman who arrives at autumn filled with self-determination, confidence, and the prized wisdom of experience is a force to move the world!

We are the teachers, healers, counselors, political leaders, social scientists, and environmental activists. The art, writing, scholarship, music, and vision of our vigorous silvering sisters are fully ripened fruits. Ours is the fuel of next steps and new beginnings.
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We can make October a month of healing for the inner children who still peer behind the eyes of women. Jump into leaf piles and carve pumpkins.

Clutch mugs of cider around a campfire and chill your blood with ghost stories. Be mindful of all there is to love in every moment.

Ground with our planetary mother and wrap her maternal love around you. Rake leaves slowly, stopping to mark the passage of geese overhead, inhale the aromatic blend of juniper and rosehips, feast your eyes on the thousand shades of ochre¸ russet, and bronze. Let the relentless flow of this brilliant season sweep you into nature’s current of time and tide, and be swept away with your smallness and paradoxical greatness in the universe.

Most of all, don’t fear maturity or hold it at bay. Welcome with love and acceptance that your time has come to be wise, a full cup, and more deeply spiritual than at any other stage. The truths of the universe are delivered to us, the women whose laughter and tears have etched rays around our eyes.

What a miracle is womanhood! Emulate the maple leaves that flutter in radiant hues, dancing with the currents that greet them, following the year across the sky. Blaze up, a hearth fire of copper and gold around which the home and family find centering and meaning. Clothed in dignity and gladness, shine your wise love into the world.
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For more spiritual writing about the journeys of women and our divine interconnections, enjoy my new release, Singing Woman: Voices of the Sacred Feminine. I hope its pages will raise love in your heart and bring you a fuller sense of your power, wonder, and sacredness. Order Singing Woman

Hamsters on a Wheel: The Disconnect Between Job and Spirit

This summer saw yet another woman friend pummeled by the fists of corporate America – one among many. A brilliant woman with unique gifts, her crime was getting sick and using her sick days.

This sounded eerily like another friend persecuted at work after her assistant was cut from the budget, leaving her to perform physical maneuvers dangerous to her health. I remember colleagues so stressed from staff cuts and management changes, they developed anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, and alcohol problems.

So many beautiful and gentle spirits are crushed in the often hostile and unforgiving landscape of the office block. A saint wouldn’t have lasted two weeks at my last job – if for no other reason than she wouldn’t lie, spy, or sell out her ethics. The message is this: Too many of us try to follow career paths that lead through a rigid tanglewood of hierarchy, patriarchy, ego inflation, and greed.

What would happen if you could tune in to your own drumbeat, following whatever lights you up? This is the message of the volcanic goddess Pele who keeps showing up in card readings and spiritual circles, even as Mt. Kilauea erupts with historic ferocity. We are urged to be authentic, because therein lies our power! A woman’s career should be a natural progression of her personal passion – magma arising from a sacred core.

Pele says, “Women are boiling over inside! Just as lava builds islands and reshapes the landscape, so the fiery passion of women can birth a new order.

“There is too much demand for subjugation of the individual for a corporation’s goal. This is at the cost of workers’ health, spirituality, family, friendships, personal identity, home life, education, and expression.

“You need less stratification – exploding of office hours, working from home, melting the dress code, and all around less regimentation. Honor the individual by letting all work according to their strengths, preferences, body clocks, and health.

“Let all speak and be heard! More work can be done on a project basis and not just strict 9-5 work hours at an office. Give a person a mission and let her fulfill it as only she can.”

Work is a mismatch for a lot of people. Some of us are bold, visionary souls who need to make their own way by becoming entrepreneurs. Personal autonomy, creative authority, and freedom became requisites for me after umpteen years of being a shadow figure in the background of large companies.

However, as a society, we also need to make “jobs” a better fit for workers. We must focus on our humanity to do that. Some defining keywords are dignity, respect, individuality, and personal morality. Nobody should have to choose between their personal ethics and their job duties.

Performance should be based on the work product generated – at any hour of the day or night and regardless of office attendance, apparel, or how many friends you make at the office. Allow people their own style, whether that is group participation, working alone, etc. Hire the best people and then let them be their best – not identically dressed clones of one artificial model.

Service is humanity’s focus now. Each of us is a container of Divine wisdom. Accessing that knowledge enables us to be of service in the world. This means self-care, care of others, extending compassion.

People live their whole lives on a quest for money. Can we learn to magnetically attract money by following our bliss? Perhaps having “a job” is very secondary to you. It may be a means to an end to allow education or the pursuit of other dreams. Possibly, you are more focused on making a life than making a living.

Many Lightworkers have reincarnated after cloistered lifetimes as religious clerics, ascetics, etc. This can make it hard for us to balance spiritual work with the need to earn money. Many such people took vows of poverty in their past lifetimes, and these commitments and ideas about money and the sacred have carried over into our current identities.

As we hunger to combine spirituality with work, we have to embrace a new paradigm. Continuing to honor old vows that serve no purpose in the present lifetime block us from receiving the financial abundance available now. Release old patterns and learn to thrive as spiritual people of the Age of Aquarius. Begin to see income getting as life purpose, resulting in less fragmenting of our lives and more things becoming whole and entire.

If you acknowledged that money can be sacred, and that sacred work can be properly rewarded with money, how would this change your life? Could your spiritual mission of helping, healing, and beautifying become the productive focus of your days? Would you be prosperous by doing what you love? Could you live a full life all day, every day – not just on weekends and in the snatched exhaustion of after-work evenings?

In challenging economic times, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed at the cost of starting a business, but this is where the feminine ideal of inclusiveness comes into play. Networking circles, communal living and business arrangements, collaboratives, and collectives make business ownership possible and profitable. Small start-ups can thrive together through joint advertising and events, consignment sales, offering gallery space, bartering for business services, and providing referrals.

When we stop settling for lowest-common-denominator lives and demand a more satisfying experience, universal forces swing into motion to make it happen. Whether your mission is to change a company from within, mentor people and corporations in compassionate success tools, or become an independent business owner, move forward in an enlightened way.

Financial success, personal satisfaction, spiritual attainment, and healthy societal contributions can all be achieved by the same route – seeing life as an entire mission. Harnessing our full power and potential behind a unified goal brings the force of authenticity into our lives – the enthusiasm for being whole.
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If you'd like to read more about the Feminine Business Model and spiritually authentic women's leadership, get my new book: Singing Woman: Voices of the Sacred Feminine

September - Weather and Women

Autumn’s advent has been a subtle thing – creeping up under the rain-soaked grass and laden hydrangea boughs. The days are still warm and long, sometimes mixed with a jungle-like quality that saps the strength from my bones and leaves me motionless.

But the change is coming, the wheel making her inexorable turn a little early this year. It’s as if the floods, storms, weeds run riot, and debilitating heat have been too much, and fall has been declared in some official quarter of the Earth.

So, the year is aging and the dog days of summer are evaporating on sidewalks like morning mist. I’m aging too, fifty this year and grappling with what it means to be entering an early autumn stage of living and thriving. Just like women welcoming silver into their hair, September days are not about death and dying out. September is about celebration.

There’s a glorious lack of reserve at this age that we see mirrored in the year. Get out the red, orange, gold, purple, and maroon! Deck the halls and dress up. It’s time to throw a party, drinking the vintage of everywhere we’ve been, the distance we’ve covered, and the full fruits of abundant living.

This is a time of preparing, being ready to face whatever storms may come, storing away in the larders of our homes and hearts enough love and supply to experience bounty in the leanest months. We have an autumn to decorate our world, winter bringing the cold and sleepy hibernation of bear medicine and sacredness at the fireside – and finally another spring.

September women create stability and anchor meaningful tradition – but just because we beat the rhythm doesn’t mean we don’t dance, too! Glorious and freer than at any other time in our lives, we can whirl and stomp and kick up the dust when it pleases us. No one can rewrite the choreography of life or change the backdrop scenery like a woman with experience.

Coming upon autumn in the Indian Summer is the same. The richness and texture, the full-fledged beauty and sensuality are borne of a full span of days and nights on the Earth.

So, the wheel keeps turning. There is always continuity, renewal, purpose, reward, and mission. These are golden-edged days for living full out, singing at the top of your voice, and opening wide to the cycles of the universe. Give thanks, my friends, and just keep turning.

Watch for the autumn release of my new book, Singing Woman: Voices of the Sacred Feminine, full of life-affirming wisdom and spiritual teachings celebrating women with practical applications for modern life. elizabetheilerbooks.homestead.com

Reborn At Last!

Gentle reader, it’s been a long hard winter – and when the groundhog saw his shadow, we knew we were in for some late blizzards and bitter nor’easters. But long-awaited spring has arrived at last in my little piece of paradise – and not without pathos and a watering of tears.

At the very end of the old year, I turned fifty and my father-in-law turned ninety. We had a rollicking celebration that lasted from an afternoon open house to a big family dinner. It was the first birthday party I ever had, Queen of the Day with a crown to prove it!

But our joy was marked by sadness. Our sweet old Jack – German Shorthaired Pointer and well-loved little boy – started falling the afternoon of the party. Within sixteen days, he had gone to Rainbow Bridge, his precious body devastated by spinal cord cancer. The shock and pain of his sudden illness and death seemed unbearable for our family.



Sometimes I felt like a death mask, a stone effigy of a woman stretched out upon a tomb, wide-open eyes staring forever into an abyss. Tears filled an ocean that floated me away from all the loved ones who surrounded us.

I was angry at neighbors who use Round-up, wondering if they had caused Jack’s cancer. (Per veterinarians, canine cancer is largely from old age plus genetics). My other aged Pointer was sick with grief, and I entered the bargaining stage of any great loss, pleading with God and frantically promising one thing and another.

It was a journey of despair, denial, outrage, and un-nameable emotions that grief churns in our bellies and our hearts. And gradually, with my husband and our dogs, we woke back up to life.

There were whole days without tears, moments of laughter, and remembering that became actually happy. Reassurances from the Angels, peace from God, and healing connections with Jack brought about a quiet spring within us – a rebirth from ice and frozen ground to softness, the first yielding, and finally a shoot of green.



Cabin fever has given way to a life out-of-doors this week – hours digging, composting, planting seeds, gently shepherding bright annuals into their new homes in pots and planters. The green of new life springing up from the old, sap rising to fill the willow wands with vitality, and the caress of a sunlit breeze are heaven on Earth.

At fifty, I’m a fully-fledged Wisewoman at the height of my power and purpose. I dig my fingers into the warming soil like roots, and I nurture life, remembering in my heart all my loved ones who have crossed into eternity before me. With the expansiveness of a Wisewoman spirit, I can spread myself upon the sky and touch them still.

When reminded how short our embodied lives are on Earth, each day reveals blessings that shock us in their intensity. The blazing sweetness of a hug, the miracle of a marigold seed dying in the good loam and pushing up gold between new leaves, the gentleness of a pup resting against me in loving innocence – what a beautiful world it is.

So don’t wait for darkness to remind you how gorgeous the sunshine is, or death to come stealing across the golden boughs of life. Be as fully alive as you can possibly be, right now! Our earthly pains pass away, the wheel turns and all is born again, and while our feet are planted here, we must love all we can.

See everything with the wide eyes of a child. Remember, even as you look forward into the new day. It’s spring, my friends! With the vines and flowers, we too may throw off old husks and be renewed.
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Elizabeth S. Eiler, Ph.D. is the author of Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals and Other Nations: A Lightworker’s Case Book. Her upcoming book, Singing Woman, is a glorious spiritual exploration of the beauty and power of women, the Sacred Feminine, and living in harmony through higher guidance and authenticity. link: Visit her website for book excerpts, poetry, videos, and more.

Reiki I Bigger and Better

Reiki I classes teach basic hand positions for self-treatment, intending students explore the practice experientially on their own. Here is an expanded view of Reiki I, offering creative ways and reassuring pointers for the beginning practitioner.

JUST DO IT: The most important part of your Reiki self-healing practice is that you do it! Be faithful to yourself, setting aside even 5-10 minutes a day for self-healing. It’s easy and convenient to give a treatment while lying in bed before going to sleep or getting up.

INTENTION: Always set an intention or give an instruction to the energy when you work with it. Some ideas: Heal, Calm, Peace, Wisdom, Love, Cleanse, Recharge.

GO WITH THE FLOW: The hand positions taught in Reiki I are a guideline for getting complete coverage over your body. Remember, however, that Reiki is intelligent energy and goes where it’s needed!

Twisting into uncomfortable positions can stop the flow of energy. Feeling you need privacy to position yourself can prevent you from doing a session. If you have mobility concerns, you might be overwhelmed by the positions. This practice can be easy and adapted to anyone. Don’t worry and let it flow!

If you can only comfortably or conveniently reach one part of your body, you can stay with this position as long as you want and get a complete session. Sit in a chair and place your palms against your thighs, or lie in bed with hands across your chest or abdomen. If you have a headache or a specific pain to address, and it’s uncomfortable to touch that part, visualize energy moving from your hands, along your body, and into the area of concern. As long as you feel Reiki flowing, you’re getting the session you need.

AMPLIFY THE ENERGY: Adding crystals to your Reiki practice beautifully incorporates their healing electrical energiess. You can use a specific crystal for each chakra as you move through the positions, either holding it in your hand, laying it on your body, or laying out a line of chakra crystals nearby.

A basic set for the chakras can include: Root (black tourmaline, black onyx, or red jasper), Sacral (orange calcite or sunstone), Solar Plexus (citrine or yellow quartz), Heart (rose quartz, green fluorite, or pink calcite), Throat (blue quartz, blue calcite, or lapis lazuli), Third Eye (amethyst, celestite, or clear quartz), Crown (clear quartz, selenite, or hemimorphite). Clear quartz or selenite work eautifully for all the chakras.

Other crystals can be used for specific concerns as needed. Some ideas for Reiki I include:
• Ruby in fuchsite for emotional healing,
• Ametrine for relationship harmony,
• Celestite or angelite for connecting with Angels and Guides,
• Selenite for musculoskeletal issues or auric field clearing,
• Lapis lazuli for help speaking your truth,
• Apache tears to release retained emotions or heal trauma,
• Amber for maternal love and healing the inner child.

MEDITATION: Activate a flow of Reiki while you meditate or do yoga, and it will greatly deepen your practice, encouraging intuitive wisdom, holistic releases, and energizing your manifestation process.

Reiki I is an intimate healing practice meant for personalization to your unique needs. I hope your time with Reiki will be a great blessing of sacred intention!

Check out my new book site! http://www.elizabetheilerbooks.homest...

Life with Dogs - Richer View, Bigger Moments

A shared existence with dogs gives my life a texture and depth it might otherwise forever lack. As the new parents of a rescue puppy – brought in with our old pointers, precluding a dogless future – Ben and I have had reason to ponder these things. Potty training, chewing, crying, squabbling with the older dogs, lack of sleep, and the exhaustion of constant supervision can make even the most experienced and devoted dog parent wonder if it’s worth it. Well – it is!

I’m reminded continually of how many details of living would wash over me unfelt, unseen without my dogs. They have a way of bringing us into absolute presence. A canine’s total investment in every moment of his experience can’t help but reach into our chattering human thoughts and distractions with a sweep of clarity.

Dogs are masters of repurposing everyday objects into vessels of joy (a sage example in our consumer culture). A stick becomes a toy. A neighborhood ramble is an adventure. Birdsong is a symphony to be attended with relish. Background sounds of creatures’ calls, creaking branches, and misty breezes stirring banks of leaves are marked by our dogs as we might turn over the pages of a book.

No scent is overlooked. Roses and peonies are smelt full-face, the warm smell of ripe tomatoes in garden plots like a floating incense. Burning leaves, the markings of other animals on their travels, pipe smoke drifting down from a front porch, dinners steaming on kitchen stoves – how much we miss without a dog to stop and sniff and cue us to take notice.

There’s a record of human life that plays through streets of houses mostly without an audience. It’s the pricking of a dog’s ears, the changing expressions in his eyes that make us hear the flap of laundry on a line, an argument on a back step, laughter of children, a piano lesson plinking through an open window. The warm furry beings at our side take note of squealing brakes or sirens portending distant calamity, and they shake off the frisson of unease that touches their spines and ours at the same moment.

So many elements of the world around me would be unnoticed, brushed aside without a dog. Take the consistency of mud, for example, great shiny expanses of it or tiny dark hummocks poking up among the clinging roots of grass. The way it forms to a paw, curls beneath toenails, or splashes a swaying underbelly are all remarked with laughter, rolled eyes, and thoughts of towels and mopping floors.

There’s ecstasy in an errant wind setting leaves to dancing that causes puppies to caper after them in abandon. The mysteriousness of crouching bushes and the lure of the skittering darkness beneath the deck reach me with a delicious memory of childhood in them. Dogs share with children (and inner children) the capacity for supposing at magic and chasing down wonders.

So yes, abundantly and unabashedly, it’s worth it ten thousand times over to lose sleep (or a few throw pillows) and gain the companionship and perspective of a dog. Of course, their greatest gift is an unswerving ability to love without condition, lavish affection and comfort whenever needed, and assuage all vestiges of loneliness. Teachers, children, Angels, magicians – they are all of these at once and more in their deep and wondrous souls.

How blessed we are. How vast is the ocean of mysterious love in the heart of a Creator who allows us these companions.

Finding our Way – Lessons from the Sky

As another weekend of protests broke out across America, I exercised my new puppy in the backyard. While relishing the peaceful cocoon of home, I understood a need – an obligation – to reach beyond it and touch the chaos in some meaningful way.

Great flocks of geese flew courses across the snowy, ice-locked neighborhood, broad wings incising the grey air like swords. The messages of the travelers: Keep moving. Be watchful. Stick together.

I did a card reading to further illuminate these ideas. There were impressions of the past meeting the future, bodies of water, and need for beauty. Here are the lessons brought forward.
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In the first full year of Aquarius, we are tasked with facing events from the collective past of humanity. Our job is remembering human history, both the bad (the Holocaust, the rise and fall of nations, the Spanish Inquisition, world wars, dictators, extinction of species) and the good (peacemakers, space flight, curing disease, human rights, wildlife preservation, feats of artistic brilliance). As we keep moving, societies must decide if we go back, trek again over well-worn roads of suffering and ruin, or if we take a higher path, perhaps one written in the air, guided by the hand of Spirit and not yet paved by the hands of humans.

Writers, artists, and musicians preserve the soul of a culture through their body of work. We turn to the arts for a penetrating expression of societal soul. Painting, photography, graphics, poetry, and literature are ways of being watchful, holding up a mirror to the world. A bold, unfettered review of human life shows us where we are and where we want to go.

Another part of being watchful is taking a broad view, and our watery world is a potent example. The Earth is 71% water. The human body is 60% water. Human blood is 92% water. We have to remain mindful of the vibrational malleability of water, influenced by words, emotions, and music among other things.

I wonder what effect the Canadian seal slaughter has on the ocean, screams of fear and murderous clubs on the shore, innocent blood running in rivers to the water’s edge. This is the water we drink, bathe in, and sail across.

Read everything to broaden your perspective and continue your education. Literature and newspapers, history books and poems all convey wisdom and expose us to truth.

Never miss an opportunity to help a person or animal, injecting compassion into the world. Look for ways to be an active participant in fighting darkness with light.

Sticking together through challenges means starting with common ground, and we share nothing so much as the Earth beneath our feet. We are all subject to the disastrous effects of pollution, climate change, and the removal of cetaceans from the seas through slaughter and imprisonment. Wildlife preservation, clean air and water, solar and wind energy, and sustainable living are concerns that can unite a broad cross-section of people.

To keep moving and stick together is to bring everyone up alongside – another unique function of the arts. Art speaks to us at the soul level, cutting across politics, religion, social class, nationality, and language. A photograph or letter can convey the very essence of human longing and suffering. A song can make hope tangible and rally the spirit.

Poetry is prayer. Song is meditation. Music energizes physical healing. Color heals emotions. Dance releases endorphins. Put creativity, beauty, and high vibrations into everything you do. Take care of vibrational influences.

Balance watching the news by playing harmonious music in your bedroom at night. Fight injustice but make time to relax in meditation and prayer. Create an island of peace from which you can sail out into the world renewed and inspired.

Be watchful and aware of humanity’s past, and find creative ways to express your feelings. How did the present evolve, and how do we want to keep moving into the future? Be watchful for common ground, opportunities to serve, and ways to heal. The unifying principles of the arts, and our shared fate on this planet, can help us stick together, not turning back but forging ahead.

Sticking together with like-minded people, sharing determination and being creatively courageous has changed and will continue to change the world we know. So learn everything you can, make a haven of peace to attend your wellbeing, and continue the forward momentum of social evolution and spiritual enlightenment.
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In her latest book, Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals, Dr. Elizabeth Eiler shares more spiritual lessons of the animal kingdom for harmonious living and planetary responsibility. Visit Elizabeth Eiler Books

Creating in Gold - Autumnal Paradox

"THIS MONTH, NOW, HAS TWO FACES. YOUTH AND AGE DANCE TOGETHER."

Under a September full moon these past few nights, the duality of autumn’s energy has become apparent. Even as I think about the glorious release and white-light cleansing bath of the perfectly round moon, I am reminded about what remains.

We are also called to match our vibrations with things that grow ever green, season-less and enduring. This is a month to begin appreciating the warm, mature hues of reddening maples and at the same moment marvel at the fern captured in amber, preserved forever in a fan of youth.

Comings and Goings

This week, I attended the visitation for a beautiful and vibrant young woman taken too soon. In the midst of darkness, there was light. In the hospital, I felt sadness from her soul. Beside her casket, I sensed only joy. As tears – our holy water of devotion – flowed around her, a golden-white light of joy beamed above her casket. She had come full circle, this lovely woman, who parted from us in a season when it seems that spring will last forever, until the morning that it’s gone.

September 23rd is the one-year anniversary of the passing into Light of our sweet dog-child Oscar. His beautiful body has gone a year from the Earth, even though one day his sacred ashes will be returned to her bosom. His gentle companionship and soft touch at my side is missing, but our love and beautiful memories endure.

Even so, even now, Oscar is more than memories. He changed the people he brushed against in life, leaving Oscar-shaped spaces filled with his echoes and imprinted with his nature. He is both a legacy and a continuation, my beloved dog who, like each of us, dances to the turns of the wheel, burrowing and flying, going out and coming in – all at once.

"YOU ARE ON THIS EARTH TO THRIVE, FLOURISH, AND BLOOM..."

Burgeoning and Receding

A psychic medium, I did a card reading for September, throwing a little late summer light across the page for my clients. The cards could have been turned over for the Spring Equinox with their pictures of mossy green stones and lush climbing roses. It was a message that this month, now, has two faces. Youth and age dance together.

“Our Angel card shows that the full fruits of creation are offered this season. Keeping the faith, holding positive visions, and believing our collective efforts make a difference - these are like water for the orchards of our manifesting. As we approach Autumn, the time of bringing in the sheaves and being thankful for an abundant harvest, keep your dreams of abundance in sight.”

As the tree outside my library window began to blush faintly with coral and peach, and squirrels filled their larders for winter, the Angels spoke of flowers opening. “You are on this Earth, in this place now, to thrive, flourish, and bloom with the unselfconscious beauty of lilies of the field. Open your arms with joy, and claim your share of all good things.”

The Lovely Paradox

As we approach the time of battening hatches, laying in wood for the fire, and gathering in the fruitful harvest that’s ripened under the summer sun, we sit and think of people and places long past, prepare for the blanketed quiet of winter. We celebrate our successes, completions, and acquisitions. We gather close about ourselves and our loved ones the warm wrappings of accomplished goals and full pantries.

And yet, for those who partake of Bear Medicine, the storing away for winter’s hibernation is like an artist replenishing his pigments, laying in a stock of new canvases, and polishing the windows that will let in the pale cold light. Autumn colors are the harbinger of great plans being laid, new dreams begun, thick-husked seeds being buried in the good soil that ultimately will breach all barriers.

Creation happens in every season, but all the more poignantly when seen and felt against a backdrop of endings. But what really ends that is remembered forever? The crimson glory of a September maple grove may fire a lifetime of inspiration. The whispers of falling leaves and clattering of acorns on stones are as much a song of promise as a lyric of farewells.

Picking up the threads of a book I began to write four years ago, planning a course on crystals and minerals for my November students, thinking already of next year’s gardens, I know what I’m beginning to gestate in my autumnal womb of creation. I have a glimpse of what I will have made, to be revealed when I throw open the curtains upon the first spring day.

And so, my friends, as you rake the leaves and prune back the roses, think not only of what is passing but of what is being born. Allow yourselves the first imaginings of newness, now when you approach a season of early dark and indoor hours, when time and space are provided for experiments and dreams. Autumn blessings to you all!

Celebrating with Nature

Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals by Elizabeth Eiler


Readers and friends, I'm so pleased to share an editorial review of Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals that shows the spirit and energy of its pages are shining through!

REVIEWED BY SUSAN SEWELL FOR READERS' FAVORITE - FIVE STARS

"Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals by Elizabeth S. Eiler, Ph.D is a beautifully written work mediating between the souls of animals and the souls of mankind. Using her intuitive gifts, Ms. Eiler converses with the ascended masters as well as animals. The messages received are enlightening and helpful in this era of changing perceptions. Spiritual, historical and scientific, Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals bridges ancient and cultural beliefs of what once was a balanced harmony between man, nature and Source Energy, and explains how the balance needs to be restored. Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals teaches that all souls are part of One Soul. The messages from the beautiful souls of animals help us understand them and give us the insight on how to care for Earth and her inhabitants.

"Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals was very well written. Although the subject matter was a little unusual, the writing was clear and easy to understand. Reading Swift and Brave: Sacred Souls of Animals was a very pleasant learning experience. I found it to be educational and enlightening. I was also happy to find the seven appendix's information to include organizations to help animals and how to go vegan, along with a glossary of the goddesses referred to in Swift and Brave. These are quite helpful to a novice. "