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7 Signs You May be a Rainbow Warrior

Gary Z McGee
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7 Signs You May be a Rainbow Warrior

“Upon suffering beyond suffering, the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again.” ~ Crazy Horse

Your skin may be white, black, brown, red, yellow, or whatever other stereotypical color you wish to marginalize skin color with, but your heart is red. It bleeds red no matter your race, nationality, or creed.

We are all united in red, and the red nation has the potential to rise again and be a blessing for a sick world, but only if we can get over our pseudo power and false pride.

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The heart is greater than money; but it is also greater than patriotism, nationalism, and dogma combined. The human heart is greater than any perceived color. It is all colors and none.

“When birds fall from the sky and the animals are dying,” says the Hopi prophecy, “a new tribe of people shall come unto the Earth from many colors, classes, and creeds. And who by their actions and deeds shall make the Earth green again. They will be known as the Warriors of the Rainbow.”

Here are 7 ways you may be a rainbow warrior.

1.) You are eco-centric as opposed to egocentric

“We have the opportunity to build a Rainbow bridge into the Golden Age. But to do this, we must do it together with all the colors of the Rainbow, with all the peoples, all the beings of the world. We who are alive on Earth today are the Rainbow Warriors who face the challenge of building this bridge.” ~ Brooke Medicine Eagle

You are eco-moral and soul-centric. Your sense of right and wrong goes beyond the myopic and parochial perspective of good and evil and is based firmly in your understanding of healthy and unhealthy. Having individuated your ego, you are holistically conscious and compassionate. You are determined to use eco-centric strategies in order to bring balance to an egocentric world.

You understand that human beings once lived in healthy accord with each other and with nature for millions of years, until they mistakenly went from living in an egalitarian, cooperative (eco-centric) way to living in an exploitative, competitive (egocentric) way. Your eco-centric/soul-centric method is the rainbow bridge leading us out of the unhealthy and unsustainable quagmire and into a healthy and sustainable providence.

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2.) You are a spiritual chameleon par excellence

“We are explorers and the most compelling frontier of our time is human consciousness. Our quest is the integration of science and spirituality, a vision which reminds us of our connectedness to the inner self, to each other, and to the earth. ~ Edgar Mitchell

You are the personification of a spiritual reconnect between nature and the human soul. You practice a kind of new-syncretism: a mixing, matching, and borrowing of elements from a variety of spiritual and philosophical traditions to create a personalized path that works in accord with the greater cosmos.

For you, the natural world is the realm of the spiritual and the sacred; indeed the natural is the spiritual.

You take the good from all religions and blend them into a healthy soul-soup fit for spiritual consumption. You learn from the bad in all religions and then leave it all behind in order to create something more spiritually flexible.

Like Bradford Keeney said, “The extent to which we are stretched between extreme absurdity and higher spiritual exhilaration determines how far we will walk on our sacred pilgrimage.”

For you, higher spirituality is a compassionate regard for the diversity of human imagination.

Like Daniel Quinn said, “There is no one right way for people to live. There never has and never will be.”

There is only healthy and unhealthy, and a belief in spiritual diversity is one of the most important ingredients for a healthy interdependent planet.

8163664_orig3.) You blur the lines drawn between nations and cultures

“As Native Americans, we believe the Rainbow is a sign from the Spirit in all things. It is a sign of the union of all people, like one big family. The unity of all humanity, many tribes and peoples, is essential.” ~ Thomas Banyacya, Hopi elder

You do not limit yourself to one tiny corner of the world. You are a global citizen, a cosmopolitan par excellence. Borders cannot contain you. Cages cannot imprison you. The world is your sovereign country and you do not limit yourself to the close-minded pettiness of nationalism.

You ridicule and poke fun at the petty myopia of patriotic pride, striving instead for a sense of interconnectedness with all the nations of the world. You bridge the gap between nationalized one-upmanship and compassionate relationship, revealing that cooperation must trump competition if we are to survive as a species on this planet.

You get much joy out of transforming boundaries into horizons and borders into flexible zones of human and environmental cohabitation. You have independently broken away from culturally conditioned, one-right-way, tribal thinking in order to unite the World Tribe as an interdependent whole.

4.) You count coup on tyranny

“If you really wish to put an end to war, poverty, hunger, and territorial disputes, you must utilize all the world’s resources as a common heritage of all of the world’s people. Anything less than that, you will remain with the same problems you’ve had continuously for centuries.” ~ Jacque Fresco

count-coup-and-keep-ridingYou are an unapologetic eco-warrior. You are willing to break the outdated taboos of rigid systems of human governance, especially when they are unhealthy and immoral and don’t work for human beings. You count coup on any and all unhealthy, unsustainable systems of human governance, and you count coup often.

You have squeezed every last drop of slave’s blood from your mind, body, and soul; knowing that had you not done so, had you not challenged the entire notion of slavery, you would have just become another prisoner, boss, master or CEO in a violent, exploitative, dog-eat-dog system.

But if all the blood is painfully squeezed away, a free person emerges. A free person is the personification of a prism, and when a free person sees the light nothing can prevent the rainbow warrior from emerging. The laws of men cannot control you. You work within the realm of cosmic law which is dictated by nature and not a matter of opinion. You are judge and jury.

Then again so is everyone else, so you strive to be a good guide toward what is healthy and what is not healthy for human beings in this world. Like Derrick Jensen wrote, “We are the governors as well as the governed. This means that all of us who care about life need to force accountability onto those who do not.”

5.) You plant seeds of sustainability in an unsustainable world

“We are seeds as well as parasites to the earth. We can either give or take, depending upon our perception of growth.” ~ Zephyr Mcintyre

the_rainbow_flower_by_feardomizedEco-theologian Jay McDaniel speaks of “green grace” and “red grace” as ways to experience a sense of healing in relation to suffering. Green grace arises from spiritual contact with the earth and a sense of awe for the world as a miraculous whole.

Red grace is symbolic of blood and reminds us that we too have a hand in the suffering of the world. Using both red and green grace, you have learned how to tend to the soul of the earth.

Your hands are dirty from digging up corrupt seeds and replacing them with seeds that have the potential to flourish. Your hands are bloody from pulling unsustainable swords out of unhealed wounds.

You are the personification of moderation, walking the path of the Middle Way and Golden Mean, and using the golden ratio to balance all things. You agree with Alan During’s “ecological equivalent to the Golden Rule: each generation should meet its needs without jeopardizing the prospects for future generations to meet their own needs.”

6.) You are an Infinite Player

“The pupil of possibility receives infinity.” ~ Kierkegaard

While other people are playing finite games that indirectly and directly destroy the world, you are busy playing the infinite game of life for the sake of healing the world in order to continue play.

While the world is busy falling apart, you are busy putting things back together again. You’ve made a sacred game out of it, connecting like minds, disconnecting unhealthy minds, and reconnecting cosmic mind.

tumblr_lxlsj12vyB1r4eqg7o1_500You realize that cooperation must be primary and competition secondary if the sacred play of life is to continue for human beings. But you also realize that the only absolute is change, and so you are, paraphrasing Picasso: busy learning the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.

At the end of the day, you know all the rules but the rules do not know you, and so you are free to move about the chessboard of life checkmating outdated and tyrannical power structures that limit human potential and then replacing them with updated loving structures that lead to human flourishing.

7.) You are the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse

“When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.” ~ Cree Prophecy

You have taken it upon yourself to clean up the unsustainable mess of the previous four horsemen: Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. As Providence, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse, you are standing your ground and reclaiming agency in the face of a terrifying ecocidal mania.

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You are connecting the cultural, moral, and ecological dots necessary in order to get people to a point where they don’t have to cannibalize our only earth.

You have recovered, and you are helping others recover, from a collective disassociation so deep that it has been delusional to the point of psychosis.

You are no longer paralyzed nor hypnotized by the ruthless-as-a-dictatorship destructive economy that would rather crucify the world than relinquish its power. You have woken up. You have broken free. You have gone sane. You are a Phoenix rising up from the ashes. Your ego has been trumped by Soul, and there’s no turning back.

“Don’t turn away from the hand stretched in pain of your Mother. Her name means freedom, Her body earthgreen, Her blood clear water, her voice is birdsong. Rainbow warriors, the future lies within your hands.” ~ Eyes of Fire, Cree wise-woman

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An Expression of the Divine: The Gift of Giving Birth

Lauren
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An Expression of the Divine: The Gift of Giving Birth

“Many of our problems in US maternity care stem from the fact that we leave no room for recognizing when nature is smarter than we are.” ~ Ina May Gaskin, Birth Matters: A Midwife’s Manifesta

After the long turn of the clock and the seasons that have passed while we meditated on the enduring art of pregnancy, the process of giving birth can be nothing but a shock to the system.feminine-rebirth-creation

Transforming this surge of energy and sometimes violent act of creation can become a rebellious spiritual act that can result in anything from utter chaos, to an expression of the divine. Many women even experience an ongoing orgasm and the ability to transmute the pain of birth into something resembling heaven.

With all the fear that surrounds the birth process however, the experience is often anything but. Modern medicine’s distrust of the unknown combined with interfering patriarchy of the self-assured doctor has brought women further and further away from connecting with their bodies at the crucial moment. Birth is a tribal ritual; an act of such commonplace wonder that often it passes us by. This fear of the unknown extends so far, and cowers so deeply, that birth becomes much less of an art and more of a robotic reflex; women discouraged from making sounds, moving from one position or expressing anything but compliance to the doctor’s wishes. The sacred feminine becomes buried, and is eventually drowned out altogether.

The well of information can run incredibly deep when it comes to birth and is often overwhelming, especially when we are new to it. But when all’s been learnt off by heart and the house has been prepared and scrubbed to perfection, the gift of birth calls on us to be like the river and go with the flow. Witnessing each moment as it passes as we would in meditation actually becomes easier within the process of birth, and it is for this reason, (as well as the obvious fact that you are giving birth to life) that giving birth is a spiritual gift.

It may pass us through a point of no return if we only let it and is the most creative act the human body, mind and spirit is capable of expressing, marred only by the ego’s fear of pain and its associations to suffering. The outward appearance of suffering is perhaps the reason that birth has been so plagued with negativity throughout the ages. The curse of childbearing is what religion would have us believe is the metaphorical purpose of birth.

A moral punishment that reflects on the feminine inferiority and her historically limited reason for being. The fear of birth perfectly mirrors the fear of woman; that which the civilizations of the last two thousand years have been unable to fully comprehend, let alone nurture, and is still trying to dominate.

In giving awart-of-giving-birthay our power during birth we give away our ability to trust the universe, and so disconnect with our own divinity. Just as nature becomes sealed behind a wall of glass, so does the power of our bodies, and a whole different spectrum of our beings. We become cut off from the whole.

So how do we combat this and reclaim some empowerment when faced with such a testing and life changing time? Just like any fear, the answer surmounts to the same. Not listening to anything but our inner voices – that goes for women as well as anyone involved in the birth process – and coming to terms with our fears of what lies beyond.

As Pam England suggests, birth art and locating our fears about birth well before the actual due date can liberate even the grittiest birth traumas from their nesting places and let them fly. The breath is another way to release trauma; as we might with yoga, holding asanas for longer periods of time can be greatly helped by life-giving pranayama, directed at the knottiest of muscles; any tensions that aid pain can be slowly teased out by the miracle of focused breathing.

Affirmations also aid the birth process, and like any manifestation can turn a threatening or alarming situation on its head and bring us back home. The recesses of our minds also need assurance on the safety of our surroundings, and women have been known to give birth in the most frightening of circumstances. As if surrounded by a bubble of light, the rebellious act of birth in all its animalistic appearances is ultimately a protected act. It is a place of no-mind; it just happens and there is no rationalization or judgment of the mind that can stand in its way. It is purity in its highest form; the opposite of ego.

The rebellious act of birth is finally, above all, a commonplace one. Humans give birth alongside animals, insects and marine life everyday, as well as the thousands of other women around the world; quietly, modestly, violently or with relish. And so in joining in with the multitudinous and ongoing expressions of life we become closer to our purpose; to create.

The rebellious act becomes a humble one; an everyday occurrence that also happens to be the highest miracle in existence.

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Work With Your Body Instead of Against it

Nikki Sapp
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Work With Your Body Instead of Against it

“The body and mind are inextricably connected; and the former is a physical manifestation of the latter-what we feel, what we repetitively think of and believe about ourselves-what we deserve: health, life and ease or struggle and a slow death.” ~ Amy Jalapeno

 

Our bodies are so good to us yet we often fail to recognize this. Our legs and arms help us to move, our hearts pump blood, and our lungs breathe in oxygen, without even the slightest conscious thought that they are doing so, and we so often take these things for granted.

In fact, if anything, instead of appreciating our body for the amazing machine that it is, we talk negatively towards it. We critique, judge, and compare our bodies against this version of the “perfect body” we have concocted based on what society has told us we “should” look like.

bodyimage1We compare our version of health against what we see in the magazines and on TV, only to become completely ashamed and disappointed in ourselves that we just aren’t measuring up. Many people use this criticizing of themselves as the motivating force to start a new healthy lifestyle.

They attempt to fuel their change by the hatred they feel towards themselves. They punish the unworthy and “not good enough” selves by going on diets or by forcing themselves to exercise. The underlying belief is they are not worthy, they are imperfect, or even that they are unattractive and they need to struggle and try to be something that they feel will make them more valued and accepted as a person.

But, is it possible that all this comparison and critiquing of ourselves is actually the LAST thing that is going to bring about a feeling of health and well-being in our physical form? Is the negative self talk and belief that we aren’t good enough actually the one thing that is ensuring that our bodies stay exactly that…not good enough?

“Every negative belief weakens the partnership between mind and body.” ~ Deepak Chopra

Our body is an ever-evolving process of our beliefs about it. Since we are not our bodies, but the conscious awareness that is driving it, we have the power to change our bodies by changing our beliefs.

In order to effectively work WITH our bodies to bring about a healthier us, we must first change our perspective of ourselves. The subconscious beliefs that we have formed over time about what our body is or what it is not is what feeds into every cell of our body.

bodyimage2If we think of the body as our pet or our child we can see how the constant criticism of our bodies can never lead to better health. If you tell a child how bad he/she is, how he/she is not good enough, needs to change in order to be like so and so, or looks terrible, what attributes do you think the child will begin to act out? The child will live up to your expectations of him/her, and also our bodies will do the same.

Yes, maybe we can hate ourselves in to changing short term. We may start a diet only to quit after a couple weeks, or we may start a workout program only to give up on that too. But the body can never truly give us the long lasting results we desire if the subconscious belief is that it is not good enough.

Our physical form will naturally go back to reinforcing whatever belief we have about it. As with all things, we must shift our perspective to acceptance and gratitude before our external reality will start to print out what our internal self believes.

So even though loving ourselves or appreciating our bodies may be the last thing we want to do when we feel like we need to change something about our bodies, it is the only thing that will bring about the changes we desire… and make them stay.

A complete acceptance, honoring and appreciating everything our body does for us will shift our energetic vibration into that of love, which is always a much healthier place for each molecule of our body to reside in. And not only will we see better results in how we look, but we also will notice changes in how we feel.

If the belief is that we are healthy and that our body is working for us in the most effective and efficient way possible, our body will begin to act out these attributes, which means less illness and sickness.

“You’ve been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” ~ Louise Hay

Although we are not our bodies, they are the vessel we have been given to inhabit while we are here. The way our bodies feel and how we feel towards them plays a huge part in our overall life experience.

When we feel good about ourselves, we naturally live a better, happier and more fulfilling life. Accept yourself exactly as you are now. Appreciate your body for everything it does for you. Tell your body you love it and you honor it.

When we get in touch with our bodies and we love them, we find that we naturally want to start eating healthier more nutritious foods… not because we are punishing ourselves but because those foods make us feel nourished yet light.

We may also naturally want to exercise or look to more holistic forms of medication because we have become in tune with how we feel that we realize that these things make us feel better.

In the complete acceptance and love of who we are now and what we look like now, we find that our body becomes our friend and ally versus something we need to punish and control. It begins working FOR us, and the results we desire happen as a natural result of changing our beliefs and ideas about it.

Change your world, not your body--the social impact of body love | Jes Baker | TEDxTucsonSalon

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When Cultures Clash: Dissolving Fear of the Other

Lauren
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When Cultures Clash: Dissolving Fear of the Other

“The world doesn’t change in front of your eyes, it changes behind your back.” ~ Terry Hayes

The human ailment of not being able to accept the ‘other’ spans countries and ideologies alike. To categorize differences under labels such as religion and culture with the assumption that we will all leave each other well alone only seems to exacerbate them, for we will always come up against those who deeply uproot, even threaten our beliefs and attachments to them.

So surely a more healing way then, is to focus on ways to deal with other’s fear and ultimately begin to work on the fear within ourselves. As every traveler will know, these differences inevitably come up when arriving and spending time in a foreign country, and expose just how deep those roots really delve, particularly when those differences are worlds away from our own perceptions.

This applies to every country, and can often be called nationalism, or prejudice, but the one thing we can always rely on is that one will always come across it and probably be the target of a fair few assumptions and harmful stereotypes that the people throw our way.

It is a tough but fantastic lesson in confronting the ego within oneself, but also the conditioning that helped shape it. It’s not an accident that they say traveling will make you wiser.

For one thing, living in or visiting a foreign country shines a light on other’s conditioning perfectly. When others are acting on what they have learnt from an outside source rather than from their inner voice, you can spot it a mile off.

Just witnessing the unraveling of this painful truth in others can be enlightening for oneself. You become blessed with an eye for locating the moments you are acting from your own conditioning, and are able to work towards becoming a more genuine and authentic person.

loveThe first essential step, as with any energy vampirism, is to block their negativity towards you. Before you can begin to understand it you must get that bad stuff out of you and study any personal wounds it touched. Many are able to do this seamlessly, but for others it will trigger old feelings of inferiority, and there’s nothing like feeling inferior as being a guest on another person’s patch of this earth.

With extremely different cultures to our own we need to educate ourselves about them. We need to understand the roots. For example, in certain religions, particular things are central that, though linked to general good manners and polite conduct, are worth knowing about in order to see things from other’s perspective and can explain how others are seeing you.

Cleanliness, mindfully not wasting food and water, not raising your voice in public and dressing modestly are but to mention a few. It doesn’t help anyone to compromise your own beliefs – for example eating meat when you are against it – for the sake of ‘respecting’ another’s culture… which incidentally IS a big part of many cultures across the globe.

But being aware of the important factors can avoid making unnecessary waves. Understanding that others believe in these things out of good intentions as well as their upbringing. They want to be good people and believe that this is the way to do it.

One way to help build bridges and loving kindness is being an example for other travelers and ‘visitors’. An example in Turkey, where I currently live, is that it is good to share any food when eating in public with people (especially children) around you. Knowing that this is important to the people, and it being a nice thing to do anyway can help shatter other’s stereotype of ‘your’ people.

In seeing you do this will add to their positive experiences. If they see a foreigner doing something ‘bad’ they will never forget it and use it to fuel their fear, probably spreading it to others, whereas if they see them doing something good it will cause them to change their perceptions, possibly forever.

Getting deeper into the murky territory of when others simply believe that ‘my religion or culture is right, and yours is wrong’ can become more challenging. This usually reverts us back to our primal fears on a subconscious level; of our own ‘sins’ and being held accountable for them. Disgust at human behaviour reflects our disgust at ourselves and in many people’s religion or upbringing, this intense aversion has been put in place to keep them from temptation.
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One such example is the eastern European and Middle Eastern belief in the ‘evil eye’ and is a feared form of energy vampirism. Understand that certain cultures have this belief in such bad energy, and that they are doing it coupled with a greeting because they are defending themselves against the unknown.

The stranger in many cultures is constantly feared – both amongst their own people and when confronted with a foreigner. It is also employed readily to protect family members; particularly younger ones and is taught from an early age so that one may be able to deflect other’s ‘evil eye’, which can encompass anything from being upset when left out of an exchange, to the non-verbal communication to stay away – this person is not one of us and is to be feared.

Having compassion for that person’s belief and an understanding of the good intentions behind it is the next layer after not taking it personally. Mirroring, not what another is doing in response to your presence in fear of the unknown, but doing the opposite to them in order to draw attention to the negativity within their actions is the next.

This is difficult because like attracts like, and this can be a rebellious act. However, as long as the anger and personal feelings within oneself are fully dissolved and dealt with, it will always work.

cultural-gap-unknownSpeaking the language of love and raising oneself above their negative vibrations will drown out their negativity. It’s almost like a trap we set one another; falling into other people’s projections onto you helps no-one, and it is the ego that wants to pull you in to prove itself right.

Blocking this effectively and reacting to it with light is what most religious prophets as well as leaders such as Gandhi are said to have done, and is actually a very high calling when mastered properly. It is a rare gift of those who have mastered true interaction. It is the only way to melt another’s darkness on the spot.

This can be especially effective when working out who is a true ‘believer’ in their own fear, and who is not. Children or those who have yet to be fully tarnished with the conditioning of a society or culture can also help the older ones in recognizing their own prejudices.

In very closed societies the sad thing is the influence over younger generations, and speaking openly and directly to those who are being dominated and taught other’s fear makes an unbreakable connection with those who – though outwardly may play the part – may inwardly have yet to make up their mind.

They will be influenced by and remember you. In this way you are not influencing them to ‘think’ one way or another (the temptation that might lead them astray) but speaking directly to their own free will and offering a more open minded, and loving approach to the unknown.

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Manifesting Our Desires: The Ancient Art of Witchcraft

Lauren
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Manifesting Our Desires: The Ancient Art of Witchcraft

“And when we introduce an intention in the fertile ground of pure potentiality, we put this infinite organizing power to work for us.” ~ Deepak Chopra

We are all familiar with the ancient practice of witchcraft; either through the history books of folk religion and paganism, or through the negative and sometimes violent connotations of modern witchdoctors, child abuse and scandal.

Whatever its taboos and labels, the broad spectrum of witchcraft and our associations with it often miss the one vital connection that lies at its midst: the art of manifestation.

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The accusation of witches; both historically and in the present day across the globe as it is with blasphemy is often caused by jealousy and begins as small-scale arguments within tight-knit communities.

But do such malicious magic users really exist? If, like Deepak Chopra states, an intention has that much power as to spring forth into the realms of reality and realization, then it’s certainly possible.

In modern day Turkey as well as many other countries in the region, the majority of people still recognize the good luck charm of the Ancient Egyptian ‘Evil Eye-Protector’ to protect against looks of jealousy as well as desire, or ‘liking someone that little bit too much’.

These charms protect the household, or are worn as amulets to protect against negative energy for infants and children in particular or generally from having ones energy drained.

The problem of exorcism and the beliefs circulating in many Christian African churches – whether instigated by charlatans looking for a quick buck or not – still inspire the imaginations of those fearful of the Devil and his grip on the innocent.

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Can negative intentions really have that much effect on us or are external factors only welcomed when the law of attraction has come into play?

“Malicious magic users can become a credible cause for disease, sickness in animals, bad luck, sudden death, impotence and other such misfortunes.” Says Wikipedia on the subject, as well as to point out that witchcraft may have originated as a fiction of the Christian faith – “Works such as Milton’s Paradise Lost were described anew by romantics who suggested that they presented the biblical Satan as an allegory representing crisis of faith, individualism, free will, wisdom and enlightenment.”

As we all know, religion and its hand in power and money has, for centuries, obscured the true message of most faiths, instead striking fear into the hearts of the worshiper in order to bring about servitude and manipulate the common people.

It’s no wonder then that witchcraft has been a convenient accusation to send a further ripple of fear through communities, setting people against each other and in the opposite direction to spiritual trust and love for one another.

That said there’s no harm in protecting oneself, through energy shields and energy preservation. From noting when a person is draining you, to outright steering clear of energy vampires and those with a curiosity in the ‘dark side’.

Unlike the beliefs of the Turkish, I doubt that a single glance can cause illness in babies or the elderly, and it is probably these beliefs that attract such problems in the first place, rather than the accuracy of the fear.

Negativity aside, there is another possibility when it comes to the historical claims made against thousands of men and women in the dark ages of England and America, as well as the countless examples of neighborhood, hedgerow and ‘sociable’ witches that proliferate many storybooks and personal encounters.

universe-vibrationManifesting our intentions, either by accident, or by careful spell casting and/or ritual in relation to astrology and moon cycles, appealing to the right God or Goddess and using the right cocktail of herbs and crystals is an ancient art that probably dates back to the birth of man (and woman) kind.

Whether witches were simply people more in touch with their inner voice and spiritual potential, or special folk who had a unique calling to nature and understanding of alchemy and star-gazing, their wisdom has served many a satisfied customer from thousands of years.

And as with many religious rituals, the crucial factor of manifesting anything lies – not in the words spoken, quality of athame and goblet, nor clothes or lack of them worn – but in the intention behind the spell. And it is in that, and that alone that cuts the diamonds from the rough in terms of a successful magical practitioner and the degree of good karma they might be making.

We always have the option to use, or ‘manipulate’ the energies around us to our advantage, even when they are seemingly harmful. An ‘attack’ may be a reminder to protect ourselves more heavily, but more often than not, attracting that which we would like to bring about is as simple as asking the universe for it in or out of ritual, doing visualizations, and positively trusting in the inexplicable but purposeful design to turn itself to our favor. The lighter the attachment to the outcome and the degree of humor we lend the whole process the better.

For those who are entirely new to witchcraft and the role it might play in our lives, here are six signs that you may already be a witch:

1. Your wishes often come true. When I was pregnant with my first child, when I got my first piece of writing published, when I wished upon a star as a child and longed for more books on the subject of witchcraft: Each are examples of when my ‘magical’ belief in wishes actually turned into the act of manifesting my desires.

It only happens when the intention is positive and from the heart, without any fear of failure or aching for a specific outcome. If it regularly happens to you then you may already be a practiced witch.

Tree-of-life-green-Celtic-web2. You’ve always felt a deep connection with nature. From early on you noticed you were drawn to the countryside and were quite at ease with spending long hours by a river or in a field. In fact, you miss it and can feel unsettled when ‘away’ from nature for a long time. You prefer the countryside to the city and like walking or spending time with animals.

3. You are able to tell when someone is lying or not. You reveal other’s truths to them whether you mean to or not and can often upset people or make them uncomfortable by the ‘pureness’ of your presence.

You will always uproot a liar and can see straight through any small talk to the heart of the matter. This can often be difficult as you have this gift to help others but can often take on others energy, just as an empath might.

4. You have or desire anything but a ‘normal’ career. Making money in a 9-5 mundane job is your idea of hell unless it is ritualistic and pure in intention, connects you with the earth or leads you to help people. Earning your keep by exploiting or tricking people is not on your agenda and you hate working for people who have this kind of attitude.

5. You have a good sense of your past lives or reincarnations. Prophetic dreams, flickers of ancient memories and déjà vu are all signs you have been here before if not many times and are an old soul. While we might all be ‘old souls’ you are more connected with these incarnations and the veil between you and other worlds/differences in time are thinner than your average person.

6. And finally: Psychic ability. Knowing who’s on the other end before you pick up the phone, seeing people’s auras and intentions better than they can, even having an inclination to future events or seeing ghosts, you are drawn to one or more divination tools or have simply had such gifts since you were a child.

Image Source
Blue eyes
Tree of life
Celtic wisdom tree
Witch of Charm

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