Diary of a Heretic

There seems to be a pattern emerging of late with various disasters occurring around the new year/January period. Last year it was the Haiti earthquake, the previous year it was the Victorian Bush Fires and this year the floods in Queensland and in Victoria. This recent disaster seems to be riding the tail of the last lunar eclipse which occurred during the Summer Solstice on December 21st.

Lunar eclipses are points of reference in times of change and the energies can be quite unpredictable and often associated with natural and man-made disasters. The total lunar eclipse on the 21st December 2010 was an extremely powerful trigger. According to various astrological reports this eclipse was conjunct and parallel to the nodal axis and coupled with the longitude conjunction to Pluto, acerbated the flooding particularly as its declination was also overhead Northern Queensland. In addition to the Australian floods there have also been devastating floods happening in other parts of the world, Brazil, Pakistan, Germany and Sri Lanka.

The state of Queensland has been hit by record flooding since Christmas, when tropical cyclone Tasha hit the coast on December 24 2010 near Cairns. Precious lives have now been lost and many people are still missing. This has been reported as the worst flooding in Australian history and a similar scenario is currently happening in Victoria.

It is going to take a while for everyone to fully process what has happened and it will take some considerable time to rebuild the homes and the hearts of the people that these floods have affected. Australians are however, tough and resilient people and I know that they will have the determination to restore their lives and their homes. Let us all now unite in thought and deed and send assistance and healing in whatever form we can, whether that be through donation, energetic healing, reiki or prayer.

Janine Donnellan

“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging” ~ Joseph Campbell

There’s no doubt that this has been a particularly difficult year, and I am relieved like so many people that this annus horribilis is coming to an end. This year has been a year of challenges, a year of facing my fears and getting my life in order for a complete change in direction next year.

2011 will no doubt bring about new challenges and no one knows whether these challenges will bring about a change for the better. In numerology 2011 will be a 4 year which is associated with hard work and building strong foundations. This will be a year where we need to be more practical, organized and efficient and any success will only be achieved through endurance and discipline.

Even if 2011 does not seem to be what we want, I believe we have a new opportunity to lift ourselves to new levels of consciousness, spirituality and responsibility – lets us use this year as an opportunity to make a difference to our lives and our precious planet.

I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of Axis Mundi and Spheres Of Light to wish all our readers, members, contributors and sponsors a very Blessed Litha, and a safe and happy holiday season.

Janine Donnellan

Many people these days are searching for direction, their purpose in life, their spiritual path. We are living in a time where there are so many spiritual paths to choose from and trying to find the right information can become quite difficult, but that is all part of the journey of the seeker. Anything worthwhile requires much work and research, but the most important prerequisite to finding your path is the willingness to be open and honest with yourself.

Of course the more answers you find, the more questions you’ll have. Each of us finds our way to our spiritual path through many different doorways and those that are new to their path are encouraged to read as much as they can in order to find the pathway that feels right for them.

These days you will find plenty of online resources and books to stimulate your curiosity, and if you are like me, you will have invested a lot of money buying books in search of new knowledge that will bring you closer to enlightenment. I actually need a few more rooms in my house to store my ever increasing library.

I am pleased to announce that Axis Mundi is introducing a Book Corner where we will be conducting book reviews of favourite and new books and hopefully some author interviews. So feel free to send in your suggestions or feedback. Happy journeys and may your own spiritual path bring you much joy and happiness.

“To be a star, you must shine your own light, follow your own path, and don’t worry about the darkness, for that is when the stars shine brightest.” ~ Author Unknown

There is a belief that we are all spiritual beings having a human experience that is unfolding perfectly from a cosmic perspective – with no accidents, coincidences, or mistakes, blah, blah, blah. Well I am sure that the person who came up with that initial concept must have lived a very ordered life or was a high ranking ascended master in the “know”, because my life has been anything but perfect over the past 12 months, and I would certainly hope that this calamitous episode was through my own mismanagement rather than from any grand cosmic intervention. After all we do have free choice and will and at some stage our stupidity must neutralise a portion of the cosmic stratagem coming our way.

Actually the thought of a higher being preplanning the events that would add to my pain and unhappiness borders on unmitigated evil. I am retracting that statement as I look to the skies for free falling thunderbolts. Ok I concede that destiny plays a part in getting us from A to B but sometimes the process is delayed because we have a tendency to deviate from the plan or occasionally have a stopover. Anyway my recent stopover, the hiatus I had to have, gave me a moment of clear vision to get me back on track. You see I have some major goals I want to achieve in this life and yes they may be ambitious but if I don’t aim for the stars and give it my best shot then I am going to get stuck in a permanent hiatus.

This is my journey and if I want it to be a productive and an enlightened experience then I have to take personal responsibility for my own transformation. My Spirituality therefore is a word that describes my own relationship with my self and I can harness the power of positive thinking and the creative energy of my own thoughts to manifest whatever I desire. There are no limits.

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day. ~ Bob Marley

Strange energies have been transiting my life of late, so much so that I decided to take a giant leap down the rabbit hole into the topsy turvy world of my subconscious mind. In that wonderland world I am being forced to face my uniquely peculiar and anthropomorphic demons, in order that I can reactivate the creative processes that seemed to have been lost while I juggled the relentless mundane realities of life.

All these new pathways of understanding that are moving me into different directions, and taking me to unfamiliar places, have made me realise that there is no turning back. I’m not really sure that an exit does actually exist in this strange world of paradoxes, even though at times I long to return to that safe warm place of ignorance.

I am deliberately choosing to continue to walk this new dimension as a seeker, for it is indeed a scary and a beautiful journey of discovery. Of course at some higher level of understanding I knew things would be different and transformative, but I had no idea how difficult this process would be.

In the cycle of life you are constantly being faced with choices which require you to walk through pain and sorrow as well as love and joy. If we embrace the darkness we find the true, deep reasons why we need to progress along the unknown path. Once we strike out on our own, take risks and simply get on with it, then wonderful things in our life start to open up.

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” ~ Alice in Wonderland

It appears that 2010 is a year of transition for many of us. So many people I know are going through life changing situations, either leaving jobs, moving house, starting new businesses, ending longstanding relationships or just trying to simplify their life.

I am currently going through a somewhat painful “birthing” process into a new creative phase of my life and while I can appreciate how exciting and challenging transitions can be, this transition has become a rather protracted dark night of the soul and is forcing me to re-evaluate my life’s purpose and my spiritual values.

The hardest aspect of living through a transition is learning to let go of the past. Sometimes we get stuck in spiritual limbo because we’re holding on to memories, old relationships and wounds or outmoded aspects of our current life that make us feel secure and comfortable.

Recently I conducted a ritual to cut away the residual energy of old relationships and aspects of my life that are not in my highest good. I thanked those people and experiences for the lessons I have learnt over the years and then I sent them my love, healing, gratitude and blessings. Sometimes we need to cut these energetic ties that hold us back from moving forward in our life, hopefully there should be no further harbouring of ill feelings only a willingness to accept that change is an essential and inevitable part of our spiritual growth.

I know that this transition has still a few more months to go but thank goodness the winter is finally coming to an end, and the warmth of the new sun is growing stronger; over the next few weeks we will be moving into spring and we will be experiencing a new energy, a new hope and a reawakening of the earth. It is comforting to experience our own life as part of this seasonal pattern, shedding the old and beginning the new. The dramatic passage from winter to spring makes a good time of year to put old patterns of behaviour to rest, heal wounds and welcome in personal change.

“Transition is the natural process of disorientation and reorientation that marks the turning points in the path of growth…transitions are key times in the natural process of self-renewal” ~ William Bridges

Running the gauntlet is an ancient form of physical punishment wherein a man is compelled to run between two rows – a gauntlet of soldiers who strike him as he passes. Well the recent lunar and solar eclipses has had me feeling like I have been running such a gauntlet. The solar eclipse in Cancer in particular may have seemed rather uneventful to some, but the neglected aspects of my life have been literally shaken loose and major issues have now been rising to the surface to be dealt with.

I have been in this strange state of transition for the past year and at the moment I feel like I am between a rock and a hard place. According to some psychics, it appears that we are all living in between the old and the new. On one hand you may be in the process of dealing with past aspects of your life (finances, legal matters, relocation, relationships, etc), and on the other, your new life is coming more clearly into view and is patiently waiting for you to make the full transition. Insights of new opportunities may be popping up in your mind and you may be feeling intense pressure to get a whole lot of things done; you know how it goes, “There is so much to do, and so little time to do it in”.

At the moment I am heading towards a complete change in direction and the effects of these eclipses are propelling me forward to my ultimate goal at break neck speed. The Universe in the meantime is enticing me with glimpses of my new reality. This new life is what I have dreamed about for years, and yes it will be an exciting phase but this integration won’t be complete until I have finally cut loose all those encumbrances and then who knows what will happen.

“I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.”
~ Douglas Adams

The Spectre of death has cast a dark shadow over my life for the past month. I have now attended three funerals, the last being my father-in-law’s last Wednesday. With the Winter Solstice near upon us it will be a time of sadness and reflection.

I can’t help but think how strange it is that these synchronicities of death and life weave a powerful connecting thread that links us to each other and life’s eventful circumstances. At SOL’s recent full moon circle we invited Arachne and the Sisters of Fate into our ritual and we focused on being the proactive weavers of our own lives. We even had a spider officiating which served as a reminder that it is our choices that construct our lives and that we should be mindful of the decisions we are making as they not only affect ourselves but the people around us.

The web of life represents our future and destiny and we have the means to weave and join together our ever-changing realities, and we can consciously bring them into harmony or dissonance, according to our free choice and will. Perhaps this should encourage us to create and make something beautiful of our own extraordinary substance and essence, as the spider does in spinning his unique web.

In a spiritual context, the thread also represents the silver cord that attaches to our soul and provides us with the link to our higher knowledge. You many not realize that we are the channels for the expression of our higher soul or self, and with this divine guidance we can construct a magnificent web according to our own thoughts and ideals and then merge them with those of our higher purpose for the good of all.

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” ~ Ted Perry, 1971

Samhain has arrived this year with mixed blessings, death has come knocking and in the space of a couple of weeks I have attended two funerals; the first one for a mother of a dear friend and this week for a beloved Uncle. On the positive side there have been two births during the month, a reminder that life and death are the two poles around which we alternate over and over again.

Perhaps the hardest of all facts to face up to in this life is that sooner or later one’s physical and mental state will eventually give way to decay, disease and death. All creation is subject to this dreaded process and everything about us is dying by degrees – disintegrating before our very eyes.

We take these revolving doorways of life for granted, but they mark the boundaries that make each life experience unique and special. Our lives unfold in stages, allowing us time to blossom into our full potential. Unfortunately we have the illusion of a gradual transition between one phase and the next, yet the course of our life is never linear. Each cycle in life creeps up on us and we look in the mirror each day not noticing the growth of wrinkles, then, as if by magic, the veil suddenly lifts and one day we face reality and are shocked. Today was my moment of truth, as I was applying my make-up on the train I suddenly realized that I was looking my age.

Truth is the only armour which can really protect us from ourselves; if we can honestly assess our lives in relation to the eternal rhythms and patterns of nature then there is no real harm, we can console ourselves that in fact we are sharing a common experience with all manifested beings.

As we now energetically and spiritually move into the colder months, we are reminded that the approaching winter is a time of dormancy; a time to reflect on the aspects of our life that no longer serve our highest good, a time to release that which holds us back from reaching our potential, and it is also a time of preparing for our next transformation. As we progress through those dark aspects of self, may we all acknowledge the voices from our shadow that lies hidden in our emotions and our soul? May we apply the alchemy of transformation by honouring our essential self and appreciating what truly is uniquely special and sacred in our lives and in our hearts.

There is no death of anything except in appearance; and so, also, there is no birth of anything except in appearance. That which passes over from essence into nature seems to be birth, and that which passes over from nature into essence seems, in like manner, to be death; though nothing really is originated, and nothing ever perishes; but only now comes into sight, and now vanishes. It appears by reason of the density of matter, and disappears by reason of the tenuity of essence; but is always the same, differing only in motion and condition. ~ Apollonius

Have you noticed that the pace of life is speeding up? Change seems to happen more rapidly and as a result more and more of us are living in overdrive. There is so much more to learn, more challenges to meet and more tasks to accomplish. Yet the time to fit it all in seems to be getting less and less.

For the past week I have felt like I am running on empty and this acceleration of time seems to be putting me under additional stress to the point I am wondering if I will be able to cope with this rapid change without burning out or breaking down.

There is a theory that we are headed toward what is called a “singularity”. This is the term that mathematicians give to a point when an equation breaks down and ceases to have any useful meaning. The rules change and then something completely different and unexpected happens. The faster the world changes around us, the more we are forced to let go of any preconceived notions we have of what the future holds and then we are forced to live in the now.

I guess that to live with continued acceleration and all that it brings will take more than simple life management skills, it will involve a complete revision of our thinking about what the meaning of life is really all about.

The truth is that we are only half-awake and we need to fully awaken to who we are and what we really want. When we are awakened to our true nature, we become free from a dependence on the external world for the nourishment of our sense of self and our inner well-being. Then perhaps we can access the innate truth that lies deep within us all. In actuality, this sense of acceleration of time may well be the next step in the transition from amassing knowledge to actually developing wisdom.

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity