Tag Archive | enlightenment

The Spirituality Of The Tarot

Mystic Faery Tarot by Linda Ravenscroft

An Increase In Interest

Over the past few weeks I’ve received an unusual number of emails asking for information about the tarot, their history and general overview. I’m not sure what has sparked this increased interest, but I’d like to know. Was it a TV show? A movie? A new popular book?

Whatever the reason, I thought it would be easier to reply to those notes in a post that hopefully folks can find through an online search. I hope this provides some quicker answers than waiting for me to get through my email.

A Basic Overview
They are called the messengers of the Divine, the window to Universal Law and the sacred symbols of the higher consciousness. Whatever their auspicious synonym, the Tarot has been mentioned in ancient texts for over 35,000 years.

One such text, from the Hermetic Kabbalah, tells of 108 stone tablets that lay beneath the ancient pyramids at Giza. 78 of these tablets are called the Exoteric Tarot, the remaining 30 are the Esoteric Tarot. This text goes on to say, that one day these tablets will be uncovered and will explain Universal Law and the soul’s path through the cycle of rebirth. Continue reading →

Releasing Hurtful Energy

Oct12

When You’re Hurt or Angry

If you live on this planet, you’ve gone through experiences where someone in your life has hurt you deeply. Either by a relationship that has broken up, or through a situation where you were targeted as an adversary. Or some other event that has put you at odds with someone or others in your life. We’ve all been hurt.

We can sit down and dream or visualize what we would like to do or say to others that will make us the victor in the situation. You can “see” them apologize to you for being so mean and hurtful. You can wish for them to try to make it up to you, so you can throw their shallow gesture back in their face. But dreaming of revenge and how you might hurt them back, only keeps you connected to them and the negative energy built up within you.

When we allow that hurt to eat away at us, it causes physical ailments to develop. When we hold on to that pain and anger, it creates strife in our own lives that have nothing to do with the situation we experienced. When we allow our character to change because of what someone else did to us, we are giving them more power over our lives and who we are. Releasing this hurtful energy is the key to creating a healthy, happy and positive life. Continue reading →

Sunday Homily: Look In A Mirror

Oct6

What you don’t like about someone else,
Look In A Mirror.

What Encounters Teach Us

Everyone one of us has had moments during a week, or in a single day when we feel like we’re wearing a sign around our neck that says “Piss me off”. Comments from complete strangers that push a button and cause us to feel hurt, attacked or self-conscious about something. And it could be about anything, even things that don’t even make sense later on.

Sometimes we say wave a hand and tell ourselves we’re being overly sensitive. Sometimes we actually let the comments get under our skin and truly get angry. Other times we pretend we didn’t hear the comment, ignore it, but play it over and over in our head.

As one of my very wise Shamanistic teachers once told me “It’s not all about you. You’re learning to be a Shaman, stop crying about your little hurt feelings and use your head and your heart to help those who are coming to you and screaming for compassion”. Yeah I didn’t like that comment much when he said it to me, but I’ve come to understand what he meant.

I’ve also learned that this perspective isn’t only for the “ministers” in the world. It’s for everyone walking a spiritual path. And maybe even those who aren’t. Continue reading →

Animal Sign

Sep26

When Animals Cross Your Path

Everyone has had an experience where an animal has crossed our path in the physical world and we wondered if it means something. How many times have you asked, or been asked, wonder what that wolf, deer, squirrel is trying to tell me?

Nearly all Shamanistic societies believe animals in the physical and spiritual worlds come to us for our own good to deliver messages.

When animals cross our path in the physical world they maybe bringing a warning or a message as guidance. They’re a “here in the now” kind of message that impacts our physical world.

But depending on the animal, they can cross their influence of meaning between the physical and spiritual worlds. Perhaps we’re not being as perceptive as we should be or we maybe we need to pay attention to a message from spirit that affects our physical choices. Listening to our gut feelings is an important part of living in balance and nature is all about balance. Continue reading →

Merry Mabon – The Feast of Avalon

Sep20

Celebrating The Fall Equinox

Mabon (May-bawn) is also known as the Feast of Avalon, the Festival of the Wine and the Festival of the Apple Harvest.

This year the Equinox will fall on Sunday, September 22, 2013 at 4:44 PM EDT.

On the equinox, night and day are nearly exactly the same length – 12 hours – all over the world. This is the reason it’s called an “equinox”, derived from Latin, meaning “equal night”.

Today we have better methods and tools to measure astrological events. So we know that this initial accepted idea of equal hours isn’t necessarily true. In reality equinoxes don’t have exactly 12 hours of daylight. But let’s not mess the holiday with that. It’s tradition! Continue reading →

The Full Moon By Name

Sep19

“Merlin In The Moon” by Springwolf 🐾

Have you ever wondered what’s behind the name of a Full Moon? Every month the moon graces Mother Earth with her bright Full phase. And occasionally she’ll pop in a second full phase in a single month too.

We know those occasional double full moons in a single month as a Blue Moon. But every full moon has its own name as well. You may have seen some people refer to the September’s full moon as the Harvest Moon, or the Fruit Moon. You might have even seen it called the Corn Moon. So which is it?

Well, it’s all of them really. As with most things, there isn’t a single definitive set of names to correspond to the full moon world wide. There are many.

Ages ago, cultures around the world kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full moon. So there are a multitude of corresponding names to each Full moon of a single month. Continue reading →

Remembering Today

Sep11

Patriotic Wolf – Artist Unknown

September 11, 2001
Never Forget the Innocent, Never Forget the Brave, Never Forget Those We Lost

Today is the 12th Anniversary of 9/11. Twelve years ago today I was at work in Reston Virginia. Our building was on a single road business complex on the edge of town. Behind our building sat large homes with rolling hills, horse fields and lush yards. It was a beautiful and peaceful view. At the end of the road deeper into the complex we knew were government agency buildings.

Being a small office complex, people got to know each other during morning runs, lunch time walks, or the bi-weekly soccer games that seemed to gather in the large empty lot across the street from our building. We knew who the government people were, generally what they did and which agency they worked for. My company held two office buildings in the park and throughout my career I worked in both buildings.

In the late ’90s the agency building across the street from us had a bomb scare. It was in the dead of winter and exceedingly cold outside. My boss and I came off the elevator from a meeting upstairs and noticed all these people standing outside freezing to death. Continue reading →

You’re Never Alone

Sep5

Choosing Your Feelings

Ever hear that phrase “You’re born alone, you live alone, you die alone”? I’ve come to dislike that phrase. And I’ve come to realize how untrue it really is.

I’ll start with “You’re born alone.”
I’m a Mom of a beautiful, smart and thoughtful child (well he is most of the time). But I’m fairly sure I was there when he was born. Within seconds he was being held by his father, caressed by me and loved even before he entered this world and took his first breath.

With very few exceptions on this Earth, the very moment we feel the air on our body and fill our lungs, we are touched and cared for with kindness and love. So how did this concept develop that we’re born alone? Continue reading →

Looking With Better Eyes

Aug23

Eyes of the Hunter by Charles Alexander
The eyes have been altered from the original picture

How We See, Creates What We See

Last evening I received a comment on the Once In A Blue Moon post here on my blog.

Comment:
You have a nice picture of a wooden chalice BUT it has a picture of a trap[ped] demon on the outside of the chalice. If you don’t believe me then look at the chalice close up!

It’s been a year since that post was published and this is the first time someone has mentioned anything like this. I’d like to share some insight about this perspective and how we see the world through the lenses we create with the energy we establish around us.

I looked at the cup in question (posted below). I asked my husband and son to look at the cup without telling them about the comments posted on the article. Continue reading →

Spring Appears On The SEPS Paranormal Podcast

Aug20

SEPS Paranormal –
Religion & Paranormal Investigation

The South Eastern Paranormal Society (SEPS) Podcast chronicles the Society’s investigations, and presents interviews, news and discussion from the broader world of the paranormal. Join paranormal investigators Paul Cagle, Gaz Davies and Sushi twice a month, as they discuss their investigations, share interviews and debate theories behind hauntings.

August 20, 2013 – Using Religion To Investigate The Paranormal
I sat in with SEPS’s Paul Cagle for the society’s bi-weekly podcast. We discussed the implications, good and bad, of conducting Paranormal Investigations with Religious perspectives.

You can listen to the PodCast on iTunes:SEPS or directly on the SEPS Blog. The show should be posted by the end of the week, if not sooner.

I mention a few articles in the PodCast and I wanted to share those as well.

The Complicated Connection between Religion and the Paranormal.
Statistics on Religion in America.
Buddhist Sects, Schools & Denominations.
What Is Paganism – For more information on Paganism, Traditions & Gatherings

From time to time I make appearances for lectures, workshops, book signings and interviews. We share the dates, locations and information about these events on the Appearance page here on Springwolf Reflections.

"Believe In Yourself, Even When No One Else Does."
~ Harvey McKay ~
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“Take a chance on faith. Not religion, but faith.
Not hope, but faith.
I don’t believe in hope. Hope is a beggar.
Hope walks through the fire and Faith leaps over it.”
~ Jim Carrey ☆ 2014
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“I describe myself as a simple Buddhist monk. No more, no less. And I am one of the seven billion human being. Basically we are the same… your emotion, my emotion, your mind, my mind.., same physical. So I always look [at it] that way. We are the same.”
~ Dalai Lama 2012 ~
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"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
~ Bruce Lee 1971