Free Yourself

We have the choice to free ourselves. Sometimes we forget the choice is ours.

TinyBuddha.com 6 Tips To Help Free Yourself From Fearful Thoughts

HuffingtonPost.com 12 Ways To Let Go and Free Yourself

Read Full Story...

The Wheel

(http://www.shadowscapes.com/)

The Wheel of Fortune Tarot

Affirmation: I am in the center of the wheel of change, the hub of whatever spins around me.

Tarot Card Meaning: Plan or Destiny, the weaving of life's threads coming together, fate, turning points, movement and change, patterns and cycles, an interconnected world. The hub of synchronicity. 

In the center of the wheel look for hidden knots that connect the world together. The Wheel symbolizes time and its mysteries.So while riding the wheel of destiny, make sure it a good one, seize the opportunities as you pass them by, learn and grow, take risks if need be, and embrace good luck and bad luck at the same time. 

More at BiddyTarot.com

The Wheel of the Year

The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by many modern Pagans. It consists of either four or eight festivals: either the solstices and equinoxes, known as the "quarter days", or the four midpoints between, known as the "cross quarter days"; syncretic traditions like Wicca often celebrate all eight festivals.

The festivals celebrated by differing sects of modern Paganism can vary considerably in name and date. Observing the cycle of the seasons has been important to many people, both ancient and modern, and many contemporary Pagan festivals are based to varying degrees on folk traditions.^[1]

Among Wiccans, the festivals are also referred to as sabbats /ˈsæbət/, with Gerald Gardner claiming this term was passed down from the Middle Ages, when the terminology for Jewish Shabbats was commingled with that of other heretical celebrations. See Witches' Sabbath http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_of_the_Year

Basing itself on this deep and mysterious connection between the Source of our individual lives and the source of the life of the planet, Druidry recognises eight particular times during the yearly cycle which are significant and which are marked by eight special festivals.

Of these eight times, four are solar and four are lunar - creating thereby a balanced scheme of interlocking masculine and feminine observances. The solar observances are the ones that most people associate with modern-day Druids - particularly the Summer Solstice ceremonies at Stonehenge.

Druidry.org Eightfold-Wheel-Year Druid Festival

The Wheel of Life

The bhavacakra (Sanskrit; Pali: bhavacakka; Tibetan: srid pa'i 'khor lo) is a symbolic representation of samsara (or cyclic existence) found on the outside walls of Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries in the Indo-Tibetan region. In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, it is believed that the drawing was designed by the Buddha himself in order to help ordinary people understand the Buddhist teachings.

The bhavacakra is popularly referred to as the wheel of life. This term is also translated as wheel of cyclic existence or wheel of becoming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhavacakra

The Wheel of Life illustrates in a popular way the essence of the Buddhist teachings, the Four Truths: the existence of earthly suffering, its origin and cause, the ending or prevention of misery and the practice path to liberation from suffering.

The Wheel of Life describes the cause of all evil and its effects, mirrored in earthly phenomena just as it is experienced by everyone from the cradle to the grave. Picture by picture it reminds us that everyone is always his or her own judge and responsible for their own fate, because, according to Karma, causes and their effects are the fruits of one's own deeds.

The circular composition of the Wheel of Life guides the viewer from picture to picture along the black path or the white path. It leads one through the twelve interwoven causes and their consequences to rebirth in one of the so-called Six Worlds. Projected on one plane, they fill the whole inner sphere the Wheel of Life. The meaning of this is to show the way out of all these worlds of suffering into the sphere beyond.http://www.buddhanet.net/wheel1.htm 

Read Full Story...

Prayer For Fortitude

Prayer For Fortitude 

I ask for the Grace of Fortitude to keep me steady in times of chaos and uncertainty. It is easy to be seduced into fear, and once fear gets hold of my thinking it is difficult  to break free of its influence. I ask that this grace keep me alert and surround me like a castle wall with a field of grace powerful enough to help me stay centered, whether in the privacy of my own thoughts or in my interactions with others. Let fear never take command of my thoughts, my heart, my actions, or my soul.

Pg 137 of Caroline Myss's book Defy Gravity: Healing Beyond the Bounds of Reason 

To Purchase on Amazon.com

New York Times best-selling author Caroline Myss draws from her years as a medical intuitive to show that healing is not only physical; it is also a mystical phenomenon that transcends reason. Inspired by ordinary people who overcame a wide array of physical and psychological ailments from rheumatoid arthritis to cancer Caroline dove into the works of the great mystics to gain a deeper understanding of healing's spiritual underpinnings. Based on these studies, she demonstrates how conventional and holistic medicine often fall short in times of need. Both systems rely upon a logical approach to curing illness when there is nothing reasonable about the emotional, psychological, or spiritual influences behind any ailment. Integral to this mystical healing approach is the engagement of the soul, which we experience through exploring our seven shadow passions, building an empowered inner self around our seven inherent graces, and learning how to work with the mystical laws that govern it. This knowledge holds the key to understanding what it means to defy gravity and break through the boundaries of ordinary thought. You can heal any illness. You can channel grace. And you can learn to live fearlessly.

Read Full Story...

The Power of Prayer

The Power of Prayer

I personally believe that you don't need to believe in anything outside of yourself to pray, regardless you receive benefits from praying. One listed definition of prayer is "an earnest hope or wish."

“Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.” 
― Mahatma Gandhi

“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.” 
― Meister Eckhart

“I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.” 
― Abraham Lincoln

Watch Science Channel-Through the Wormhole-Your Brain on Prayer 

Listen to NPR Prayer May Reshape Your Brain and Your Reality

Scientific Articles on Prayer:

Scientific American Scientist Fine One Source Of Prayers Power

Washington Post Article Researchers Look at Prayer and Healing

Read Full Story...

Happy Birthday Emmy Noether and Thank You

Emmy Noether

(1882 - 1935) 

Today is her 133rd Birthday!!!

In 1935, the year of Emmy Noether's death, Albert Einstein wrote in a letter to the New York Times, "In the judgement of the most competent living mathematicians, Fraulein Noether was the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began."

Known primarily for her profound and beautiful theorems in ring theory, Emmy Noether's most significant achievement runs deeper: she changed the way mathematicians think about their subject. "She taught us to think in simple, and thus general, terms... homomorphic image, the group or ring with operators, the ideal... and not in complicated algebraic calculations," said her colleague P.S. Alexandroff during a memorial service after her death. In this way, she cleared a path toward the discovery of new algebraic patterns that had previously been obscured.

Despite her intellectual achievements and the recognition of such mathematicians as David Hilbert and Hermann Weyl, Emmy Noether endured years of poor treatment by German universities, where for a time she could not even lecture under her own name. Weyl later wrote that, even when the Nazis prevented her from lecturing, "her courage, her frankness, her unconcern about her own fate, her conciliatory spirit, were, in the midst of all the hatred and meanness, despair and sorrow... a moral solace." Forced out of Germany by the Nazis in 1933, Emmy Noether came to Bryn Mawr College, where she soon collected many students and colleagues around her. She died there just two years later at the age of fifty-three. https://sites.google.com/site/awmmath/home 

-Because of Her Gender, Noether Spent Most of Her Career Working for Free

-She Fled Germany After the Nazis Came to Power in 1933

-Noether Died at 53 After a Routine Procedure in a Pennsylvania Hospital

-Albert Einstein Wrote a Glowing Obituary for Her in The New York Times

http://heavy.com/news/2015/03/emmy-noether-german-woman-mathematician-albert-einstein/

Washington Post Article on Emmy Noether

Read Full Story...

Follow The Yellow Brick Road

Follow the Yellow Brick Road...

Story telling is a spiritual necessity, and the symbolic components in any story provide the true richness of any movie, book, and myth. That's why we loved fairy tales. They taught us our values.

I have often heard that we have too few spiritually significant movies and television shows. That's true if we only search for those productions that are advertised as religious or spiritual. All good stories are virtually loaded with symbolic messages intended to be spiritual direction, if we care to explore and think about them. 

Screenwriters and other storytellers have the intent to instruct us in life's lessons as they see them, through symbolic messages. They are almost always a commentary on our culture or collective state of mind.

Javier J. Farias' book,  Spiritual Symbolism in the Wizard of Oz: The Soul's Journey on the Golden Path is an instruction manual on how to find the richness below the surface of any good movie. This is personified in our best loved most durable movies that meet the test of time. The Wizard of Oz is a profound and notable standout among the steady stream of spiritual instruction we can find in any movie theater.

Farias analyzes the MGM version of The Wizard of Oz, showing that no detail is insignificant in spiritual and symbolic significance as experienced by Dorothy and her companions. By following his process, you can analyze any movie, and he shows you how, scene by scene. You may not, ultimately, dismantle a movie to this level of detail but I encourage you to do it once. Take your favorite movie, one you absolutely love, to watch over and over again, with Mr. Farias' book in hand.

If you apply his techniques, you'll find out why you love the movie and why it is significant to your life. Who's your favorite character? The character's struggles and wisdom will show you what you aspire to be or what you recognize as your truth. Once you know how to look deeper for the message of the movie, you'll find joy in every one of your movie excursions. Full Story Here

The Emerald City

Emeralds

Emerald stones are one of the most valued stones... as from within them emerges the purest form of green ray energy. This heart chakra based energy makes them known as a stone of successful and abundant love.

By helping you to let go of negativity, natural Emerald crystals will create positive actions and outcomes, and give you the strength to overcome any problems in your life.

Within all of nature, in the plants and the grass and the trees you can see this clear green color, and the energy of the green ray. The energy of nature itself is embodied within stones that carry the green ray... like Emerald stones.

Emerald crystals emit the green ray... a vibration that will open the heart chakra and draw love into your life. This lovely stone has many excellent qualities, which is why it was chosen to be a May birthstone and is commonly used in engagement rings, as it has a strong loving vibration. 

http://www.healing-crystals-for-you.com/emerald-stones.html

Read Full Story...

Any Time is A Good Time For Change

What are you afraid of? What is stopping you? What is holding you back? There are many treasures that wait behind. Yes, it will take some work, it may be a bit of a inconvenience and may have some pain involved. Life doesn't get better until you make it better. Start with small changes, small changes within yourself and outside of yourself. Look in the mirror and decide to look at yourself with your heart, open your heart to yourself...and say "Here I Am, I Am Love" 

Read Full Story...