Woman Spirit Rising: Multi-Traditional Women’s Healing Circle

This multi-traditional women’s healing ceremony is hosted monthly by Flash Silvermoon, Priestess of the Rainbow Goddess Tradition. Flash is joined by a circle of women who are priestesses of various traditions. Together they use their spirituality, creativity, and deep heartedness to create peace, healing, and justice for ourselves and the planet.

You can join them in the circle once a month -- live on air or by listening to the recording afterwards. These circles are powerful and instructive for women at all levels. Listening to them brings the wonderful circle energy right into your home where you can co-create with them.

"If you want to participate and not just listen, you will need a burning bowl or smudge bowl with sage/cedar or your favorite blend, a lighter, paper, and pen," says Flash Silvermoon. Be sure to open your window a bit whenever you are using smudge indoors, or use a smokeless smudge or gem elixer.

You can access links to the current and previous shows on Flash Silvermoon's webpage. Some of the past topics have included:

• Psychic Self Defense (November 2012)

• Ceremony for Transformation (December 2012)

• Honoring Our Heroines, Mentors, and Keepers of the Flame (January 2013)

• Love (February 2013)

• Peace with Justice and Healing (March 2013)

• How we Nurture Ourselves and the Planet (April 2013)

• Opening the Heart, and Creating our Spiritual Mother in honor of Mother's Day (May 2013)

The circle rotates others in and out and has included the following spirited wise women: Gwendolyn Holden Barry, Cyndie Lepori, Judith Kahealani Lynne, Ruthann Amarteifio, Pandora Lightmoon, and Gabrielle Alizay. They offer you a template for weaving your own circle and a safe space of spiritual sisterhood no matter your skill level. All are welcome to listen and enjoy the fine energy that they raise.

Mudra of Peace

This is another Vessels of Peace practice. 

The Mudra of Peace is an outward symbol of your inner intention to presence peace in and for our world.

To begin, stand in front of your altar or outside in nature or wherever you are guided to be and take a few seconds to center yourself.

Breathe slowly and rhythmically through your nose throughout the practice, coordinating your movements to your breath. If you know the yoga form of audible breathing called ujayii breath, feel free to use it.

1. Breathing in, bring your hands together in prayer pose out in front of you about 8 to 9 inches. Breathing out, bring them toward you and rest them, still in prayer pose, at your heart center, bowing your head slightly towards your fingertips.
2. Breathing in, slowly move your hands upward, still in prayer pose, until they are above your head.  Breathing out, stretch your arms into a V, as if doing the sun salutation, and look slightly upward and out.
3. Breathing in, with your arms still stretched in the V, slowly bring your hands towards each other, palms facing, until they are about 6 inches from each other. Breathing out, slowly lower them to 8 to 9 inches in front of your heart center again, bringing the base of the hand/wrist area together to form a V or vessel shape. Your hands are not rigidly straight but curved slightly so that the vessel is softer, as if lovingly cradling that which it holds.
4. Breathing in, bring your hands, still held in this vessel pose, slowly towards your heart center. As they are almost to your heart center, begin to breathe out and let the right palm turn inward against your heart center with the left palm lying on top of it as if enfolding the vessel and its contents into your heart center.
5. Breathing in, keeping your hands close to your body, turn your palms back towards each other, forming the prayer pose position at your heart center again. Breathing out, close your eyes and bow your head towards your fingertips in gratitude. 
6. Breathing in, let your hands gently move apart out of prayer pose until they are down by your sides, palms facing out/forward. At the same time, let your head come up, looking out again. Breathing out, stay in that position and whisper or repeat silently one round of the peace mantra "Peace, Om Shanti, Salaam, Shalom."  As you do this, have the intention and awareness that the healing power of peace that comes form the global heart is streaming out through your palms into the world. 

Repeat this sequence at least four times, more if you are guided. When it feels complete, spend some time in quiet contemplation or meditation.

Working with the Vessels of Peace practices will strengthen your ability to choose peace in all your thoughts, words, and actions and will act as a catalyst for the process of partnering with the Divine Feminine.

(Source: Vessels of Peace Journal [online], 9/17/2006, Merging with the Global Heart through the Mudra of Peace, by Lynda Terry, author of The 11 Intentions: Invoking the Sacred Feminine as a Pathway to Peace)

Blessing for Peace

As a new Vessels of Peace practice, this blessing called itself forth as a whole prayer. Each line of the prayer was drawn from the sacred feminine blessing presented at the end of each intention in Lynda Terry's book, The 11 Intentions: Invoking the Sacred Feminine as a Pathway to Peace.

May Saraswati help you discover and express your own unique embodiment of peace.

May the sacred flame of Hestia warm your heart with peace and light your way.

May the healing presence of Kwan Yin deepen your peaceful connection to others.

May you hear Gaia's song on the winds of change and let your heart sing with her.

May you open to the wisdom within you and experience Sophia's peace fill your being.

May the blessings and promise of Mary awaken Her infinite love within you.

May you be still and know that you are Divine.

May the peace you share with others reap the golden harvest of Lakshmi's grace.

May the courageous spirit of Kali Durga reveal the full glory of your power.

May Shakti's power flow through you like a river and carry you to joy's peaceful shores.

May Her grace flowing through you uplift and transform the world.

(Source: The 11 Intentions: Invoking the Sacred Feminine as a Pathway to Peace, by Lynda Terry.)

Make Healing Water: Medicines of Light

With earth changes in full swing, along with economic and political changes, many people are feeling the effects, even if they do not live near Japan, New Zealand, Haiti, or other affected areas. Once again Tom Kenyon and the Hathors offers us healing and respite from the chaos.

This is a simple and beautiful heart-centered method for making healing water, called Medicines of Light. Here is an excerpt from Tom Kenyon's website post:

"The central message here is that all human beings have the ability to create what the Hathors call Medicines of Light. And this type of medicine has an inherent capability and potential to protect and heal us not only from radioactive poisoning, but also from the effects of neurotoxins, as well as bacterial and viral infections.

Obviously, if you are dealing with a serious situation such as radiation poisoning, exposure to neurotoxins, and/or epidemics of bacterial and viral infections, you will want to avail yourself of all medical remedies. In other words, this method is not meant to replace medical or public health solutions, but is meant to be an adjunct, something you can do yourself—for yourself."

The instructions for this method are posted on Tom Kenyon's website (http://tomkenyon.com/medicines-of-light).

Color Your Love Mandala

A group of us gathered to color this Love Mandala from Arielle Ford's Soulmate Kit and within a year all of us had received the love we were calling in. Here is how you work with it...

"Treat it as a sacred ceremony. Do it at a time when you have an open heart and a clear mind. Color each small area with crayons or colored pencils, use different colors for different qualities, while vocalizing and meditating on the qualities you want in a soul mate."

You can create your own ceremony around it, here is what we did...

To clear our minds, we gathered around a nice meal and took time to catch up, laugh, and chat. To clear our hearts we did a simple clearing meditation. Then we set our intentions and began coloring. We talked as we colored; some of it was light conversation and some of it was clear intention.

When we were finished, we admired the mandalas and took turns speaking the qualities we had colored in. At home, we each hung our Love Mandala in a special place.

Within months, love began manifesting for each of us. We laughed as we remembered the Love Mandalas.

Download the Love Mandala.
Read more about manifesting your soul mate, from Arielle Ford.

(Source: The Soulmate Kit: How To Prepare To Manifest and Meet Your Soulmate, By Arielle Ford)

Law of Abundance Checks

This is a fun practice that will help you shift your focus and energy toward abundance.

Every new moon, write a check to yourself from your checking account for the amount of "paid in full" and sign it "Law of Abundance." There is no need to date the check.

We like to put the check in the Feng Shui wealth (abundance, fortunate blessings, ability to receive) area of the room or house. According to the Intuitive Feng Shui Ba Gua, this is the far left corner when you are standing in the main entry and facing into the room or home. You can also place the check on an altar or other meaningful place.

New moon dates can be found online through any popular search engine.

Enjoy the results.

Prayer for Peace -- St. Francis of Assisi

We've heard it a million times before, that working with prayer can be powerful, so many times that perhaps we forget just how the energy evoked by a prayer said from the heart can move in our lives. Prayer can bring healing, clear blocks within us, help us let go, and transform us. Prayers are essentially our calling out, our opening up, to simultaneously receive and offer assistance.

Try working with prayer, speaking it from your heart twice a day.... starting your day with the prayer and ending your day with the prayer. Give it time and see what happens.

Here is a lovely prayer for peace, the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. There are other prayers on this blog or you may have a favorite prayer of your own.

Prayer for Peace, Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen

Listen to this prayer sung as a duet with James Twyman and Tina Malia.

Lord's Prayer - Aramaic Translation

Lords Prayer, from the original Aramaic

Translation by Neil Douglas-Klotz in Prayers of the Cosmos

O Birther! Father - Mother of the Cosmos

Focus your light within us - make it useful.

Create your reign of unity now -

through our fiery hearts and willing hands.

Help us love beyond our ideals

and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures.

Animate the earth within us: we then

feel the Wisdom underneath supporting all.

Untangle the knots within

so that we can mend our hearts' simple ties to each other.

Don't let surface things delude us,

But free us from what holds us back from our true purpose.

Out of you, the astonishing fire,

Returning light and sound to the cosmos.

Amen.

Flow with the Stream

Water overcomes obstacles by yielding, by letting go of how it gets past the obstacle -- whether it flows over, under, or around the obstacle. Here are a couple meditations that will help you be more like water when you need it most.

1-Minute Letting Go Meditation
Imagine yourself standing by a stream.
Step into the cool water.
Feel the cool water on your feet.
Sit in the cool water.
Feel the cool water on your skin.
Feel your skin become the water.
Melt into the water.
Become the water.
Open your eyes and breathe.

(Source: Sunemaura O'Brien, www.sacredearthcenter.org)

Stream Story Meditation
This is a Sufi teaching story by Awad Afifi.

Awad Afifi the Tunisian was a nineteenth-century dervish teacher who drew his wisdom from the wide expanse of desert North Africa. He once shared with his pupils a story that began with a gentle rain falling on a high mountain in a distant land. The rain was at first hushed and quiet, trickling down granite slopes. Gradually it increased in strength, as rivulets of water rolled over the rocks and down the gnarled, twisted trees that grew there. The rain fell, as water must, without calculation. The Sufi master understood that water never has time to practice falling.

Soon it was pouring, as swift currents of dark water flowed together into the beginnings of a stream. The brook made its way down the mountainside, through small stands of cypress trees and fields of lavender-tipped purslane, down cascading falls. It moved without effort, splashing over stones-learning that the stream interrupted by rocks is the one that sings most nobly. Finally, having left its heights in the distant mountain, the stream made its way to the edge of a great desert. Sand and rock stretched beyond seeing.

Having crossed every other barrier in its way, the stream fully expected to cross this as well. But as fast as its waves splashed into the desert, that fast did they disappear into the sand. Before long, the stream heard a voice whispering, as if coming from the desert itself, saying, "The wind crosses the desert, so can the stream." "Yes, but the wind can fly!" cried out the stream, still dashing itself into the desert sand.

"You'll never get across that way," the desert whispered. "You have to let the wind carry you." "But how?" shouted the stream. "You have to let the wind absorb you." The stream could not accept this, however, not wanting to lose its identity or abandon its own individuality. After all, if it gave itself to the winds, could it ever be sure of becoming a stream again?

The desert replied that the stream could continue its flowing, perhaps one day even producing a swamp there at the desert's edge. But it would never cross the desert so long as it remained a stream. "Why can't I remain the same stream that I am?" the water cried. And the desert answered, ever so wisely, "You never remain what you are. Either you become a swamp or you give yourself to the winds."

The stream was silent for a long time, listening to distant echoes of memory, knowing parts of itself having been held before in the arms of the wind. From that long-forgotten place, it gradually recalled how water conquers only by yielding, by flowing around obstacles, by turning to steam when threatened by fire. From the depths of that silence, slowly the stream raised its vapors to the welcoming arms of the wind and was borne upward, carried easily on great white clouds over the wide desert waste.

Approaching distant mountains on the desert's far side, the stream then began once again to fall as a light rain. At first it was hushed and quiet, trickling down granite slopes. Gradually it increased in strength, as rivulets rolled over the rocks and down the gnarled, twisted trees that grew there. The rain fell, as water must, without calculation. And soon it was pouring, as swift currents of water flowed together - yet again - into the headwaters of a new stream.

Aswad Afifi refused to say what the story "meant," how it should be interpreted. He simply pointed his students to the desert nearby and urged them to find out for themselves.

(Source: unknown)

Energy Building

These energy building practices help you call in love and light, from the sky or earth, to fill yourself up and extend that love and light to other beings.

Energy Building
There are three basic steps to this practice: bringing in the light, arm and body patting, and clapping and chanting. Do each part for a few minutes. (Source: James Twyman)

1. Step 1: Imagine light coming in through your crown and in to your heart. Breathe in and say to yourself "light be in me." Visualize your heart on fire (full of light) while holding your breath for 3 seconds. While exhaling, say out loud "light be as me" and visualize the light going in all directions and blessing everything in its path.
2. Step 2: Hold your arms out, palms down. Start patting from your shoulder down to the hand, then flip your hand over and pat the other side of your arm. Then pat the other arm. You may also pat your body, dance, jump, etc. Be creative.
3. Step 3: Chant "Hi" enthusiastically while clapping. This means "yes" in Japanese. Feel the energy of Yes.
4. Step 4: Repeat steps 1 and 2.
5. Step 5: Chant "Hu". This means the power of God. Feel the power of God within.
6. Step 6: Repeat steps 1 and 2.
7. Step 7: Chant "open", while visualizing three great streams of light coming down into your body.

Ground and Let the Energy of Mother Earth Fill You
When you are full of love and light, it seals and protects your aura and there is no room for negative energies to enter. You are also in a better place to extend this love and light to others.

1. Stand or sit comfortably with your feet flat on the floor.
2. Holding your hands at waist level in front of you, touch your fingertips together with your fingers pointing away from you. This acts as the "third leg of the stool" and helps to ground you.
3. From the bottom of your feet, send your roots down deep into the earth. You may visualize your roots like the roots of a tree.
4. Consciously set your intention on grounding.
5. When you feel grounded, let go and let the energy of Mother Earth rise up through your roots and into your body, filling you up.
   

Call in Your Energies
When we do spiritual practices, especially healing, we are "putting ourselves out there," extending ourselves (including our energetic selves) out into the world. This can sometimes leave us vulnerable and over-extend our energies.

To rebuild your energy core, call in your energies.

1. Visualize (or feel) the extension of your aura, way out there.
2. Quietly to yourself, call in your energies with your intention.
3. Visualize (or feel) your aura coming back in toward you until it is only a foot or so around you.
4. Hold that feeling and hold the energies in around you consciously for a few minutes or as long as you feel comfortable.

Bring Yourself into the Present Time Mantra

If you ever find yourself "lost" in the past, try this mantra to bring yourself into the present time. While it is useful to know about past lives and learn from past events, it is not helpful to dwell in them for long periods of time.

A useful visualization for this is to think of your life (or lifetimes) as a gauge where the pointer can move through different times, years, or ages. This mantra will help you keep your pointer in the present time by bringing you back from where ever you are to the present time.

First, speak this prayer aloud:

• Help keep my pointer in the present time.

Next, speak this mantra aloud while visualizing the statements. Fill in the brackets with the current year and date and information about your location.

• It is [year]. It is [month and day]. It is [season]. I am in [continent]. I am in [country]. I am in [state]. I am in [city]. I am at [street address]. I am sitting in [location] on [piece of furniture], which is on the floor, which is on the Earth.