Healing Circle

via Healing Circle

Love-Evolve-Revolve.

Diary of a Dog Fiend.

The world of occult magic is dizzying and baffling in it’s complexity. The Babble-on of ten thousand voices, information overload; a web of competing systems and ideas. In a churning  ocean of sometimes meaningless language we must navigate primarily through our own experience.

Creating a coherent model takes time and a continual flow of contact with the angels, demons and godforms of your imagination.

Praxis accelerates the many faceted process called initiation. The gathering of data is less important than developing a relationship with your own higher selves. Each star must find its path. The rising of the kundalini serpent is the aim of the adept.

We are all initiates, marked by birth and sailing on the bark of Ra to the end of time.

Magic is the engine of culture. Whatever consciousness is, it works itself into the future through artists and visionaries: culture changers.

Every action causes a…

View original post 89 more words

Nine Of Swords: When Trauma Won’t Sleep

Nine of Swords // Hermetic Tarot // Godfrey Dowson

Cruelty and Despair is the title of this card. Deep aniexty will wake us and refuse to let us sleep. There are single nights that can carry themselves like a century of terror and pain. These nights can expand to weeks and months and years.

What do we do as a person who suffers in this way?

Western Medicine may offer us sleep aids in the form of medication and also the benefits of Cognitive Behavior Therapy. These are perfectly reasonable avenues and if they are available to you and work please take the relief and get your sleep.

There are other questions we may need to ask ourselves that are more difficult. If we suffer from the lingering effects of date/stranger rape/physical harm it is likely that our partners, parents, and friends expect us to ‘free’ ourselves, to ‘get help and free ourselves’. We are expected to achieve our well-being on our own. Sure, people offer to ‘help’ or ‘support’ but when it comes to the long haul the expectation falls back on the one who was harmed.

In the end it is true as Alice Sebold wrote: You Save Yourself or You Remain Unsaved.

This often means asking questions you don’t want to confront or making changes that are fundamentally unfair. Whether you are dealing with a crime or with emotional woundings from limited or cruel caretakers ask yourself if you are making too many compromises in order to maintain relationships:

Are you pretending in order to make your partner comfortable?

Are you fufilling family obligations that have no other reward aside from avoiding punishment?

Is your therapist prepared to move you beyond sleep aids and anti-depressants or is this the solution despite your desire for natural sleep and serotonin production?

Do your friends listen to you? Your partner?

If you see metaphysical practitioners do they focus you on forgiveness when you are not ready or willing?

Are your practitioners and friends punitive or rejecting of your anger?

THINGS TO HELP YOURSELF:

Sam-E is an over the counter medicine that really does help regulate mood and sleep cycles.

Get up at the same time everyday no matter how much sleep you lost.

Keep wi-fi devices out of your bed.

Get the TV out of your bedroom.

Avoid excessive caffeine and sugars.

Get out of bed rather than toss and turn.

Recognize how many things your mind is throwing at you. Often you are in pain because of a big trauma but your mind throws everything at you from what Sally said in the third grade to the person who cheated on you ten years ago. Recognize this.

Breathe and focus on getting a good nights sleep before falling asleep.

Once you hit the bed, your mind should be focussed on sleep rather than problems.

Let go of people who dismiss you, bully you, don’t listen, or otherwise confuse and gas light you if this is possible.

Sleep alone if it is best for you.

Use lavender on your skin or in a difusser

The only time to use a wi-fi device in your bedroom is when you are listening to whale songs or other healing frequencies.

HELPFUL HERBS:

Passion Flower

Kava Kava

Skullcap

Mugwort

None of these will solve your problems, but every effort we make to help ourselves will lead to greater efforts to help ourselves and to find practitioners, friends, partners, and actions that hold and affirm our humanity and value.

You are loved. Period.

FOR PRACTITIONERS:

If you are dealing with those traumatized by crime or the deep wounds made by limited or cruel caregivers it is imperative to recognize the cyclical nature of the traumatized mind and emotional systems. The above may be helpful to your clients in taking care of themselves, so please share.

There will be periods of time when your clients are operating at optimal levels of ‘productivity’ and enjoy a sense of ‘well being’ and then there will be times when this is not the case and their worst ‘symptoms’ are on high.

THINGS THAT HELP:

Remind clients/patients that they do not always feel so bad.

Remind them that the perpetrators are to blame, that ‘being there’ is not a crime or a reason to harm.

Remind them it is not their fault.

Remind them again.

And again.

If your client has ‘triggered out’ in your care it IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to know what to do and to return clients to the present moment. It IS YOUR JOB to ensure their safety before they leave your care.

If you are dealing with ‘borderline’ individuals make sure you are qualified to take such clients and/or that you desire to do so. Not all therapists/metaphysicians accept ‘borderline’ clients. If you choose to do so, make sure you have the tools.

If a client triggers:

Allow them to use their own words to describe their state of mind.

Remind them they are safe and are heard.

Breathe with them.

Offer water and take time out from talking.

If they need to yell, let them.

Offer a pillow for punching.

When the wave of physical distress has passed ask them to name five red things in the room. Then five yellow. Then five blue. (or whatever colors are prevalent in your office)

Breathe with them some more.

Ask them about the temperature of their body. (A ‘trauma hole’ can cause the body to register temperature in odd ways, asking will help both of you to assess where the client is within the re-experience).

Once the body has relaxed ask these five questions, five times over in rapid succession:

What color is your shirt?

Who is the president?

What year is it?

What is my name?

What month is it?

These questions reorient the client/patient to the present moment.

As a practitioner you have every right to decide the kinds of clients you are willing to accept. If you do not feel comfortable working with PTSD, C-PTSD, or Borderline clients then do not do so. It may be a question you ask off the top when you are approached by those seeking help.

Have a list of practitioners willing and educated in doing this work to refer to those who are seeking help you do not have to offer.

If I may be of assistance to you as either a client or a practitioner seeking consultation on upgrading to Trauma Informed Approach you may text or e-mail your request.

THANK YOU to ALL of you who take the time to care for yourselves and others and who are always looking to exceed limits and grow as individuals and practitioners.

Text: 270 331 9229

E-mail: michelleembree1@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cosma (21)

Thoth Deck // Artist: Frieda Harris

Cosma or Cosmos is The Great All and All. It is the whole beyond our comprehension. Whether or not we feel freed or lost by the realization that we exist in a continuum of infinite progress and regress, of endless expansion and suppression, depends upon our acceptance of a non-linear experience.

We do not climb ladders or clear bars, we do not become better and better until we are reabsorbed into something grand and peaceful but rather we continue to experience and re-experience and experience and re-experience.

We are the fall and we are the falling, we are the sun and the moon, we are the clock on the wall which is nothing other than an infinite jest, the most complete joke known anywhere on the body of time.

Cosma is that body. A landscape of time and place of momentum and position. The flow of time is an illusion like all other illusions and we comfort ourselves in birth and death, in experience and re-experience.

You are the leader, you are the healer, you are the condemned, you are the drug addict, and the mentally deranged. You are the lover and you are the beloved. You are the hero in a real sense and you are the monster that all believe to be the hero.

You are the one. You did it and you suffer it. You did it and you rejoice in it. You are the light and the shadow. You are the good and the evil. You are the killer and the savior.

When we go very deep we know the worst of us must be stopped and the best of us must be valued beyond what we most fear in ourselves.

When we go very deep we know the worst in us must be stopped. Think about it and return again to the empty heart, the new life, The Great Fool.

We know the worst in us must be stopped. We may love the worst in us the same as we love the best in us, if we like, but whether you love it or not: THE WORST IN US MUST BE STOPPED.

Whether Cosma feels like freedom or it feels like a never ending scream through nothingness depends entirely on how willing we are to pick-up our course, square our shoulders and say: YES. I WILL STOP YOU. Yes. I will.

Welcome, welcome to the full real and back to the beginning (as if such things exist) back to The Great Fool and this time you are committed to making value of what is the very best of you personally and of your human kind.

May you choose the wisdom that brings The Great All and All to an alignment wherein greater satisfaction and beauty may rupture and flow like lava taking everything in its path.

 

 

The Call (or Judgement) 20

Book of Keys // The Call // Artwork by Michelle Embree

THE CALL 20

You have come a very long way by this point. You have struggled through circumstances and limits of self. You come to see the different sides of yourself and hopefully you have noticed your relentless contradiction.

You have covered long and diverse territory and now comes The Call.

This voice raises you up from the worst places you have ever been. It pulls you out of the fog of your worst insistence. The Call comes from some distance though the voice is clear and rich and terribly real.

This Call comes for your talents and gifts either long known or only now emerging. The Call comes at the precisely correct moment, precisely the correct intersection. You are neither ahead nor behind. The Call comes and it wakes you in the places where you have developed within yourself. You are neither ahead nor behind though you are not yet finished.

The Call comes and you know for certain that you are the only real obstacle left.

The Call brings with it the challenge to step into your greatest strengths and talents. The Call brings with it the challenge to manage and overcome anything left within you that seeks sabotage. The Call brings with it the challenge to be present.

With The Call comes true challenge. You are now no longer focussed on the power of your rivals but the ways in which that power will be spent in action against itself.

The Call comes to announce the challenge to become fully realized and to act on that realization.

You rise now along with what you will. Every Major Arcana behind you will be represented in small ways as you proceed. You will be required to use the lessons you have learned and the tools you have gained as you pass through each again.

This is not a test. You are needed in full integrity and prowess.

GET A READING. Text: 270 331 9229. Click below to read the website. xxo

www.michelleembree.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SUN (19)

THE SUN

Embodiment of the Solar Consciousness

 

Ask The Sun

The Sun, above anyone

To tell you the reason

It circles the skies

To tell you the reason

Fire needs Rain

Ask The Sun

The Sun, above all others

The reasons inherent in a thing

 

To come to a decision

To bring action to the decision

To bring the genuine spirit into action

To bring about the action of alignment

To bring about navigation of course

 

The Sun brings with it dark shadows

A sharp contrast for all that can be measured

The Sun teaches us paradox and retreats again

The Sun feeds life and serves The Moon

Standing by in reflection, a promise kept every night

 

The Sun analyzes and retreats

The Sun feeds and retreats

The Sun heals and slips away 

The Sun protects and stands down again

 

The Sun knows the force of the power of itself

And gains the highest regard as a god

Of restraint– a god of self mastery.

 

The Sun rises to give us well-being

To bring us to decision

To motivate us into action

To illuminate our work for our own corrections

The Sun rises to offer us light and food

The Sun sets to honor the dreaming hours

 

Look carefully at those things that will not wake.

 

The Moon (18)

The Moon from The Book of Keys Deck; Michelle Embree

THE MOON (18)

Embodiment of Lunar Consciousness.

The Moon is companion to Emergent Change.

This is the light that taps the seed at the moment it breaks ground.

The Moon, the Lunar Consciousness, has the sight to see what is yet to be.

The Moon welcomes what has struggled into survival.

The Moon welcomes what will grow to face The Dawn.

Our stark contrast between positive and negative.

Our insistence that reality polarize itself for us, is challenged by The Moon.

Institution is challenged by The Moon.

Hierarchy is challenged by The Moon.

Caste is challenged by The Moon.

All that depends upon sharp contrast is challenged by The Moon.

Challenged by how the shadows fall, how darkest can hide a thing.

 

What has been making its way to the surface is ready to make a crack in the soil.

What has been intuited all along will find form.

The Sun bows to The Moon to prevent the death of all things.

The Moon is required same as The Sun, as Saturn, and Jupiter.

The Moon is required same as any star, any planet, any god at the table.

The Sun bows to The Moon to turn all things from death.

Make no mistake: The Moon is required.

 

The Moon may indicate a difficult stretch of road.

Heavy emotions may take form.

This is the right light for these emotions to surface.

This is a gentle light, a quiet moment on a hill top.

A cycle that returns again and again.

 

Mind the qualities of the cycles you return to on faith.

Mind the qualities of the cycles you return to by habit.

Mind the qualities of the cycles that trigger your intentions.

Mind the qualities of those things you defend again and again.

 

Honor the constant of change

Deceptions be revealed.

Honor the constant of change.

Tend to the welcome

of Night Bloomers

And Morning Birdsong, too.

Change is your Great Gift.

 

xxo all the very best to all of you as you move through this life xxomichelle

THE STAR (17)

“Grace is the moment you go utterly free of your past and experience complete  thankfulness for the opportunity of every second of your life.”

THE STAR

The Daughter of The Firmament, Dweller Between The Waters

We are eternal beings and this is understood, perhaps, most deeply in The Star.

We may see The Star as Persephone. We may see Death (13) as the point where Persephone begins her descent into the underworld. She falls through the veils and loses all those ideas she had about how she identified herself.

We are not our job title nor are we the title that comes with being a maker. You are not a writer or a painter or a football player or a gardener. You are not your gender. You are not your marital status. You are not your religion or your lack thereof. You are not your health or wealth or even the functioning of your body.

You may lose any of these. Eventually, you will lose all of these. Who remains?

Persephone falls through the veils in the descent of Death (13) and learns her truth through the next three cards. She gains her strength as Temperance (14)  to begin her ascent back to our 3D world, and meets her choice between the lower natures and her highest self in the Devil (15), she chooses her true-self and all the facades fall in the Tower (16).

Persephone is no longer who she once believed herself to be and she returns to this world–our world–of delight and despair, of dualities and inversions, of deep pleasure and deep fear. Persephone returns as the Star (17), the great healer on and of Time.

In the Star (17) we recognize our lineage. We appear to ourselves as who and what we really are, because all we knew ourselves to be has been removed. Veil, by veil, layer, by layer, we have relinquished all false selves to the ethers and become strong and proud in the truth of ourselves.

The Star (17) is the other side of the Devil (15), she is the Morning Star as it appears in the sky–she is the devil liberated from the bondage of ego and she chooses to live in the great light. The Star (17) chooses to appear in this 3D world as her truth of spirit.

Not all who travel here will make it beyond this portion of the path, beyond this chapter of the hero’s journey. Those who do, walk forward in the humble service as healers and listeners to both the roots of trees and souls of humankind.

The Star (17) is the end of summer, the crest of a wave that crashes into the bloodstream as experience. She becomes a permanent light at this point. A guiding light known as Polaris, the North Star.

As herself, the Star becomes a fixed light that guides others from the torments and illusions of the underworld. She spans all of time as we stumble through this 3D world, this dream of density that serves up great majesty and great travesty.

The Star (17) calls us to engage our own release from ego, from the weights of illusion and distraction and stone cold lies. She is a mighty gem in the care of the sky itself and she calls us each to grace by our own choices and our own willingness to become humble in our service.

Grace exists in the moment we go utterly free from our past and become struck through with the humility of the gratitude we feel for having had the opportunity of all the big mistakes we have made, of all the wrongs we have endured. Grace is the moment you go utterly free of your past and experience complete  thankfulness for the opportunity of every second of your experience. Grace is the recognition that you do not die.

You are medicine. You are foundation. You are memory and you are futurism. You are light and you go on and on and on forever.

When you hit Star level in the game you become in service to all those around you as you pursue your own fulfillment and gratification.

You move to your own ends and serve each as you do. When you hit Star level in this game you belong to the Great All and All so completely that neither sacrifice nor indulgence can exist. You move toward the moments and the objects of your desire and you serve the good of each person you meet. That is all you have come here to do and you are now liberated to do so. Your own light heals you now.

Look up at your world differently now. Look at all the personalities and games, look at all this drama and searching. Look and be in Joy. Be in Love with it. That is to see as the Star sees.

Guide yourselves home now. Guide yourselves home. You are the Star, the fixed light in the sky. Guide yourselves home now and serve those you meet on your way. That is all there is here in this dream of density and it is more than enough. So. Be. It.

Big Love and Good Luck in your game. xxo

 

THE TOWER (16)

The Tower (16)/Rider-Waite-Smith deck

Key: Revelation

The Tower follows the Devil for good reason.

The Devil is a creation of culture. He is a late arriving player in the story of Christian mythos, but a profoundly powerful figure nonetheless. He is created for cultures with much to hide. The presence of The Devil in cultural mythos indicates a culture bonded by a need for secrets and the lies they inevitably become.

Secrecy is the bond of The Devil.

The Tower reveals every secret—1, 2, 3—The Tower reveals lies and inconsistency. The Tower snatches viels as it crashes walls and opens doors.

If you have something to hide, The Tower will free you of that weight.

If you have lived informed by a lie, The Tower will free you of that weight.

The Tower will free you, ready or not and it falls chaotic because it’s collapse is based in necessity.

The Tower reveals those parts of yourself or behaviors (or other persons or circumstances) that you would avoid seeing if given any chance to do so. The Tower is what must happen in order to bring alignment, to bring about balance.

The Tower breaks the bonds of secrecy and calls the Devil’s bluff.

The Tower snatches up the viels of night and tears apart the contracts of man.

The Tower is the greatest of all dispellings. And it will come. Does come in time.

Collapse is a gift.

Or as Joan Jett put it . . . CLICK . . .

THE DEVIL (15)

“Egyptian” Tarot (?) Artist Unknown To Me

The Devil.

Lord of the Gates of Matter.

The Devil leads the final third of the Major Arcana.

As The Great Fool we have followed a path of experience and change and we have developed our sense of self and our patience for material practice and discipline.

Now, as we enter the third and final phase of the Major Arcana, we meet the master of 3D reality. Here, now, we are introduced to the lord of matter and his brilliant hall of mirrors.

The Devil is the permanent and indefatigable king of the underworld. That is of course, this world of veils and illusions, of inversions and retro-fitted logics. Make no mistake, The Devil is always in the mix here in this world where roses and poppies bloom; where fish multiple themselves; here where fruits become wine and fantasies become flesh. The Devil, be assured, is always around. He sits and enjoys as we struggle to solve the riddles of ourselves.

What do you see? When you look at the rest of us as a mirror how do you see yourself? What do you reflect? The Devil will sit patiently with us in our conundrum. He will sit and wait until the sun explodes and he leaves to start another kingdom in matter somewhere else. The Devil will always patiently wait for us to realize our much too safe hypocrisies because he has, literally, nothing but time.

Look, here’s the thing: The Devil wants to teach us the nature of paradox. He wants to teach us to

Thoth/Artist: Frieda Harris

take control of who we are by noticing the way in which we claim our intention to hold value over our action.

Your actions are your intentions manifest. Your actions are how you communicate intention and the truthfulness of yourself. Actions are the only truth. What you say or think or intend is worthless without action.

You are the person you perform. You are your behavior. And you are accountable to every act, every thought, every word. You are the one in choice.

The Devil wants to teach us to create a world or better, worlds unto worlds unto worlds. He wants to re-teach us magic and magical creation—all things rise from a tension located within the sublime paradox. And The Devil wants to teach us this alchemy, but we are still too childish to control our own power. We are still coming into it, like babies finding our toes.

Pay attention: until we learn accountability, we are barred from the magical kingdom. We are banned from creation in matter.

 

One wisdom The Devil can impart to us now is the knowledge that there is no linearity. History is a deck of cards shuffled endlessly. We return again and again to the mirrors we call forward.

The devil is our greatest ally when we understand to whom we are speaking and for what purpose. The devil is here to teach us to free ourselves from delusion and the punishing distractions that tell us all the things we cannot have and all the ways we are inadequate.

The devil teaches us the mandatory skills, and drives us to fortify our resources and to ruthlessly reflect upon our truths. To see our mirrors as ourselves.

The devil will always throw you a curve ball– a monkey wrench. Always. We must learn that our bondage is an illusion and we may lift our chains of our own accord.

The Devil/Rider-Waite-Smith

Look at the picture in the Rider-Waite-Smith Deck to the right. These souls are bound only by their own limit. They stay because they are not strong enough to be on their own.

The devil teaches us self- mastery and leads us to the places where fear can no longer grip us. We might as well go ahead and learn the hard and surprising lessons of his kingdom because the devil doesn’t believe in lost causes— so you get your lessons whether you drop the course or not.

Be strong. Be truthful. Be blessed.