Insights

Grounded vs Ethereal Perception

Psychologists have long been aware of the power of perception as driven by the mind.
This aspect of our humanity is employed in Rorschach Tests and other tools of interpretation.

Some of us are very grounded, in touch with our physical existence.  We tend to be highly literal in our interpretation of what we see, hear, and experience.  The larger connections that we might experience are then perceived as physical beings having a spiritual experience.  But others possess a wider range of vision and imagination, sometimes with a gift for other kinds of experience.  The mystic leaves us feeling as if we are spiritual beings having a physical experience.  Both perspectives are true, but it is a matter of degree to which we are accessing our higher realm of being.  Our aptitudes may describe our experience, but they do not define them. For all of us, knowledge is on a need to know basis.  We must have faith in ourselves that we are where we are meant to be on our own path, and enjoin with others on theirs in compassion rather than judgment.  It doesn’t serve our own growth to dismiss knowledge we ourselves don’t understand as a failing of another point of view.  This work is challenging in this light for its practitioners and others encountering it for the first time.

The circumstances in which my work occurs is itself highly focused.
Timing is high holy days, geographic alignment points of the sun, moon, and earth convergence known as the Summer and Winter Solstices, when the rising or falling of the sun relative to the earth’s horizon reaches its zenith or azimuth and the process becomes momentarily static as its course reverses from our point of view.  These dates have been tracked by humanity for ages and marked by stone fixtures set by ancient humans that still remain intact today.

Locations are in energetically open or charged locations aligned naturally or by human design to receive abundant light from the sun or moon at times of highest intensities relative to our calendar year.  These locations may be a point of contact with unseen entities which may congregate and thrive under these positive, life affirming conditions.

Presence is at the heart of this phenomenon, and a debate continues as to whether entities are indeed a reality, and a presence as we understand them.  Science seems to offer us some explanation for how they are possible, but no insight into why they would exist.

Intention is the focus on a direct result, offered as a gift, a question, or supplication.  Many practice this as part of their personal and public ritual of prayer within a faith-based lifestyle.

Technology is comprised of the new tools with which we can process old information, create new information, and manipulate the combination of the two.  This is apparent in the field of photography where digital images, electronic binary facsimiles are now endlessly malleable without incurring the expenses of physical materials, time, and waste.  Once tedious manipulations in the darkroom are now possible at the sweep of a cursor and the click of a mouse, and endless layering with the tools available within a program or a stack of interfacing programs.

Aptitude for visionary interaction may be innate among certain individuals.  That includes other people, as well as unseen entities that may be influencing us on the earthly planes.  Some humans have great gifts of imagination, and are celebrated in their cultures as artists.  In our modern society, this is a trait that is less encouraged to develop, and although many of us have the tools, we may no longer have the teachers and mentors to help us develop them.  Science has usurped this knowledge in this day and age and many are left to seek more earth-based cultures to learn the ways of the shaman today.

I choose the path of the mystic.

The Mind vs The Heart Perception

This work is the convergence of aspects of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies, brought to bear with intention in spaces of high energetic potential.  These spaces are capable of consciousness expansion.  As such, we see different facets in the medium of reflection.  Because I am working with the spaces from my heart, I may perceive something different than someone who is approaching it from a mental aspect.  This is a pitfall of sharing the work only as photographs, without the benefit of experiencing the preparation of the space, the location, timing, and intention to precede it and preparing the viewer for the possibility of a deeper experience.

I believe that we have always experienced these revelations internally before now, subconsciously informing our myths of the world.  To introduce a camera or other tool of record into the process is to miss the real point of the work, and the possibility of its reach as a healing modality.  It is a two way street, a doorway where we are capable of interacting, and engaging with other entities beyond the limits of our station in this world.  In this way, the photographs fail us as they are merely a record of a point in time, and not the experience of the continuity of the interaction in its true context.

Photographs are an artifact of the work, not the work itself.  The real work requires an investment of ourselves, not merely as witnesses, but as co-creators of our reality.  As dreamers of the world.

Tests, Sacrifice and Change

This work tests us. It throws up roadblocks as well as opportunities.

Many who take on this work make sacrifices toward their own expansion.  We may leave our job, lose our savings, leave our homes for another.  It is not unusual for there to be friction within our immediate relationships as we are changing, growing larger from the inside out, and pushing beyond the comfortable confines of our old life into a lighter way of being.  The curious thing about these changes is they do not feel so much a loss as a transition into something important in a way we couldn’t have imagined before now.  This is a gift of consciousness known to anyone who is touched by a muse, a guide, or their better angels.

Change is a part of the work, first in ourselves, and then within the reach our heart as our will begins to manifest the life we most want to live.  This is our soul speaking through our heart.  It has always been there, but masked by our mind’s ability to help us adapt and thrive in our current setting.  When we make the shift toward a heart-based consciousness our choices can seem baffling to others, but make perfect sense to us a part of our awakening path work.

For some presence is enough to make a difference.  This is the root of the image of the mystic, the holy man on the mountain peak, the shaman in his cave, the Buddha beneath his tree.  We may begin to see the world as an illusion, but one worthy of our best efforts to make a change for the better with our life.  This may be as simple as the act of sitting in meditation, changing the vibration of a space to activate changes that are desperately needed, but which seem beyond the reach of any solution we might accomplish in our ordinary lives.  Intention directs us to acts of service, even if there appears to be no outward progress that others can see.  This blindness is their burden, not that of the light worker.  It falls to others to make the effort to enrich their own journey, and for us to show them a life that is working, and offer a hand up when they are willing to meet us on our own path.

An Innate Understanding

There were those among them who were born with the gifts of access, encouraged that they would sustain the relationships of respect and honor, bringing them prosperity and plenty without depletion, a stone age people who survived and thrived without written language or modern medicine.  Their relationship with the the living landscape and the spirits of place informed and guided them.  They created temples, mounds, chambers, circles to bring focus to their relationships.  And they assumed roles as living temples themselves; mobile, changeable, teachable, evolving, awakening, leaving memories in stones, and records in crystals to be retrieved by other generations.

I arrived in this lifetime to witness the vast destruction of the planet and it broke my heart, and nearly killed me. I survived by putting this pain aside. In a dewy field of grass I prayed, releasing my pain to the night sky and earth below.  Then I forgot myself and my path for the next thirty years. I became a caretaker to others in need, I studied life and living things, I raised horses and cattle, made art that supported others.

Thirty years later I have found my modality in sacred landscapes with the blessings of the spirits of place.

Today I am still a caretaker, but also a Gate Keeper and a Storyteller.  I am blessed to use my gifts toward a larger focus, part of a shared path of remembering our story in these challenging times.  It is an honor to share this path, the walk, and this age with you.

Thank you for listening.

Questions

Where do we find connection?
In “The Garden”, the sacred landscape, in awakened spaces, anywhere we are awake ourselves and know the language of connection.

How do we recognize it?
Consistency within context; Timing, Location, Alignment, Intention, Presence, Energy

Why should we trust ourselves, you, or this revelation?
We are capable of different kinds of awareness and consciousness. Different degrees of opening allow us access to wider and deeper views of reality. Expanded consciousness is where affirmation lies. When we elevate our vibration, expanding our consciousness, things appear to us that were hidden before, and like all evolutions, when we arrive the fruits of the work seem as natural an extension of our awareness as a vine makes its rose. These expressions of the spirits of place are apparent to those who are already there, yet remain hidden, mysterious to those who are in a more grounded space. A person must be willing to make the leap into their own expansion, knowing that once arrived, the mystery of the hidden transforms into their new reality. For those who are unable or not willing at this time, doubt serves a valuable purpose until their time of transition arrives. For them, this time may only be in the future. For many, this describes their experience of the world, and will define their future within it.

Is it possible to feel skeptical and still find a way in?
The role is to create sacred space, an energetic bubble accessible only to entities of the same elevated vibration. These entities, energies are sensitive to resonance, and connection and revelation is more likely with a receptive, sympathetic vessel to move within.

What are your expectations of your reader?
To approach this information with an open mind, a willingness to see past the cause and effect of physical existence into the wonder of convergence of consciousness and synchronicity.
A willingness to be inspired by the breadth and depth of this world, and our own lives.

How Does this Link to The Rose and The Vine?
The Leaf is a collection of personal imagery relevant to my path and awakening, whereas
The Rose is a collection of archetypal entities, universally known and recognized. The Vine is a collection of offerings for specific purposes, whereas The Rose and The Leaf are made to honor the entities and the spirits of place that are appearing in auspicious sites.

Why The Rose?

We grow Roses in our gardens and I collect them throughout the year. Once I was guided to ask what I can do for the space I was taking care of. That night the answer came to me in a dream; I was to bring Roses to the Altar space. Roses vibrate at five times the rate of humans.  I have carried them in ever since.

On saying a prayer there one day I said,

“If there is something that you want me to share, now is the time. Show me what you want me to see…”

Afterward I took a photograph, and after sitting with it later I saw something distinct and beautiful in the smoke offering. A woman, torso, arms, breasts, her head tossed back and hair flowing, smiling at the camera as if to say “Welcome Home” to a long-lost friend. I call her Mary, Queen of Roses.

The title The Rose is the name of my secret garden which opened itself to me.