And the Body Stubborn

​St. Francis of Assisi referred to his body as Brother Ass. Now that might sound just a wee bit derogatory to modern ears. Calling someone or something an “ass” is not exactly a compliment today. However, he was simply referring to his body as his “beast of burden” that got his soul where it needed to go in this physical dimension. St. Francis was still a man of his times, and he practiced self-mortification on occasion. But he never saw the common practice of his age as something that should be done to excess. In fact, by the end of his life, he came to see Brother Ass as something he should be grateful for and extend compassion to, even if he saw his body as stubborn and willful at times.
 
I’m always surprised at how many people are taken aback when I suggest that if they’re having an issue with their body, that they talk to their body. They have so identified with their body, that it hasn’t occurred them that the body is its own being, with its own consciousness. When I am working with a client on a body issue, I will often hear the body talk. All energy (body-as-dense-energy included) contains information and when you connect with energy, it will “talk” to you. I encourage students and clients to treat your body like you would a beloved pet. Talk to it, listen to it, encourage it, keep it in line when needed with a strong, clear, positive intention, and love it unconditionally. It has faithfully gotten you this far! Thank it with tons of gratitude for the work it does unseen and unknown, keeping your soul hereon Earth. It truly is the temple of the soul.
 
Having said that, the body RESISTS change, just like everything else in this world. It likes things to stay the same, even if it desires healing. Healing means change though, and with that the need to release resistance. How do you get a stubborn ass/donkey/pet to move when it is making it abundantly clear that it doesn’t want to?

First of all, you are the body’s manager. So, you get to set the terms. It might get stubborn like a mule (or two-year old or teenager), but you get the final say. Strong, positive clear intentions are important. Intention heals.
 
Second, when I hit resistance in the body, it’s usually because of some unacknowledged pain. I try to process with as little to no backstory as possible for myself and clients, because really, does the story matter? The more we attach to story or to the sensationalism of our backstories, the harder it can be to release. So, the first thing I try is just to “release any resistance, release any old energies.” Oftentimes, this is enough.
 
Third, if simple release doesn’t work, then I go into the backstory. What’s the pain about? What didn’t get acknowledged so that my body can’t release until I learn the lesson it has for me? Once I delve in there, and acknowledge the story behind the pain, my body is usually happy to release. Applying an organic castor oil pack to the particular “issue in your tissue” can help release stored cell memory and give greater insight, too. I applied a castor oil pack to a body area just last night before I went to bed, and during the night, I had the most insightful, funny, and yet also reassuring dream that helped me understand what was really going on, which happened to be something completely different that what I had been thinking!
 
Fourth, if none of the above works, I’ll ask for help from the universe. What am I missing? What do I need to learn, expand into? Then I look for clues, repeating phrases, and other “messages” from the beyond.
 
Fifth, call for reinforcements. I am fortunate to have a lot of healer friends who generously answer my questions when I’m stuck. We don’t need to heal alone. The divine is in all, and we sometimes need a divine-human team to help us out. This is one of the reasons I love to do breathwork groups and Reiki Shares and classes. Check out my next groups here. I hope to see you soon!
 
--
If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here.She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma,and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell

Enjoy this excerpt from Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom. It was an event that occurred several years ago now!

I confess: I was afraid to try to start my lawn mower again. Maybe I used up all my miracle miles with it on that divine day and the next weekend, the thing wouldn't work at all.

Here’s the back-story…
We had this wonderful eco lawn mower for nine years: a rechargeable battery-operated Black and Decker that was super quiet and hadn't had any mechanical problems since we'd bought it. For two years prior, the battery had clearly been fading as it began to take more than the normal one recharge to mow the entire lawn. Toward the end of the last year, it was taking about four charges total, two each for the front and the back to get the job done. Then it started taking about eight recharges to mow the entire lawn. Every week it got worse so that we couldn’t mow for more than about two minutes and the battery would die. We were mowing the lawn every day it didn’t rain and couldn’t get the whole lawn mowed over two weeks time—by a long shot. Plus, the lawn looked terribly haphazard: The grass (and the dandelions) were at varying heights every few feet, making it look like someone very drunk, very anarchic—or both—had mowed it.

Another item of importance to this story: Our financial situation was not optimal then. We were swamped with medical debt from my husband’s ruptured disc. He’d essentially been laid off from his position, and we hadn't had a full paycheck in many weeks. Somehow I wasn't really stressed about this. I knew God was watching out for us. One day, during this time, when I was out doing errands, I had this deep abiding peace come over me. I reflected to myself, "I know we’re in God’s hands, I know everything is going to turn out okay." I then “over-heard” my spirit guides say to each other, “By golly, she’s got it, she’s really got it!” Right after my oh-so-hilarious guides humored themselves at my expense, I crested the top of a hill in my car and overhead I saw three eagles circling over me. I love confirmation from the universe: snarky disembodied voices, eagles, whatever. I’ll take anything. I’m not picky.

But peaceful feelings aside, with the financial situation we were in, we couldn't afford to get another lawnmower, new or used, let alone a new battery. We tried using our weed-whacker as a substitute, but that just made the lawn look like someone on crack had tried to fix the drunken anarchist’s work.

So on the day before that divine day, I tried to mow a little bit again in high hopes but low expectations. The mower lasted about a minute and then I had to plug it back in again. The next day—the divine day—it was blessedly still not raining, so I thought, "Well, I’ll try and at least even up over some of the weed-whackered areas." But after getting the mower started, within a minute (again), the needle on the battery gauge went from F to E, the battery whined in a descending pitch like it was going to die (again), and I had only mowed a couple of measly strips.

So, I prayed. “Angels of mine: I know you’re good at energy and charging things." (I was also thinking, Heck, I know this because you’ve been charging and shocking my body now for years rewiring me, but I was—unlike my guides—too polite to actually put this snarky comment in as a part of my formal request.) "Could you just charge this mower for me please?”

And wouldn’t you know? The battery gauge stayed at empty and actually dipped below E and didn’t move from there at all. Yet I was able to keep mowing. I mowed and I mowed. I was able to finish the entire front lawn and so I thought, "Gosh I should just keep going."

So without turning it off—because I was afraid maybe it wouldn’t restart if I did—I opened the gate of the fence and set off into the jungle that is our back yard. It’s thick with moss, dandelions, and clover interspersed with dense weeds of mysterious origins. Add to that the thorny blackberry shoots sprouting up all around the edges of our evergreen bush-lined fence, and you see the Herculean task my battery-challenged mower had that day. Even on a good day, back when the battery was working fine, our mower would bog down in it. But hey, I was able to keep mowing the back yard, too—even the tallest grass! I was also sweating like I had run a half-marathon, which time-wise was about equivalent. I must confess: I was totally worn out before the mower was, but I wasn’t going to stop. It might not start again!

About an hour into my miracle mow, my husband, a true skeptic in the philosophical sense of the word, wandered into the back yard, looked at me quizzically, and questioned, “Is that still going?”

“Yup, I prayed over it and it’s still going.” He rolled his eyes at me in response and went back inside the house.

After another forty-five minutes when I was almost done, he came back outside again. “It’s still going??”

“Yup,” I said laughing. (Apparently, I say “yup” and “nope” a lot when I’m mowing—my backwater hillbilly ancestral genes revealing themselves when they feel most at home—outside doing chores.)

My beloved husband started coming up with all sorts of interesting “theories” as to why the mower’s battery was suddenly coming to life as if it had just been transformed into the Energizer Bunny battery.

“Maybe only the gauge was broken.”

“Nope, the battery was totally dying after just a minute the last couple of weeks.”

“Maybe, the battery just needed a good charge.”

“Nope, the mower didn’t ever mow the entire lawn on one charge even when it was new."

“Maybe…”

Finally, I cut him off and said, “Honey, you’re looking a miracle square in the face and refusing to see it.”

He retorted, “Well start praying about my job then.”

“It’ll be okay. The universe is giving us a sign. Everything will all be okay.”

I then stepped profoundly into the middle of doggy doo-doo.

I hadn’t picked up the doodie in the back yard where the dog lives before I began mowing because that would be ridiculous, nay, impossible, to think I’d be mowing the front and back lawns on the same day, let alone on the same battery charge. I had seen a couple of piles of doggy doodie when I had started mowing in the back, but I didn’t want to stop the mower and go get bags to pick it up, just in case, as I’ve stated, it wouldn’t start again. Obviously, I was rather superstitious about this miracle. Or maybe I was just selfish, but I wanted my entire lawn mowed, so I wouldn’t risk turning off the miracle.

Thus, the doggy doodied shoe didn’t bother me in the least. I guffawed heartily at the trickster prank the universe pulled on me and kept right on mowing. I mowed everything I could think of, under the bushes, on all the sides, the extra tall grass that was creeping up on the edges of everywhere—I finally had to give up. There was nothing left to mow—absolutely nothing. I even double-checked with my husband, “Do you see anything I missed?”

“Nope. It’s done.” (Yups and nopes are contagious, I guess.)

So reluctantly I turned my miracle off and plugged it back in. My son came home soon afterward, the one who usually does most of the mowing, and asked his dad, “How did the lawn get mowed?”

“Mom mowed it.”

“How is that possible?” my son queried, knowing full well the hopelessness of trying to mow the lawn over the past few months.

“Mom says she prayed to her angels and they kept it going. We’re going to be hearing about this miracle of hers for the next ten years.”

My son laughed.

The most mundane of miracles happened today. That’s okay. I’ll take it. I’m not picky. To me it shows the Source isn’t just concerned with our inner workings, but also our outer workings, even the minutiae of mowers and money, or lack thereof. But hey, I’m happy—my lawn looks fantastic.

Till next week anyway.

Questions for Reflection: What are some mundane miracles you’ve experienced? Do you have people in your life who scoff at miracles? What part of you is a skeptic that would like to be awed by the in-breaking of the dawn into the despairing places in your life?

*update: The lawn mower battery never worked again! The miracle must've worn it out, but my husband was fully employed soon after this event. :)
​
http://www.amazon.com/…/dp/0615587607/ref=la_B0039SP09G_1_1…

--
​If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here.She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma,and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

Over the years, I’ve met a lot of people and read a lot of authors who take consciousness and energy as separate balls of wax. Many are meditators who don’t believe in energy, or are energy workers who won’t/don’t do meditation.
 
For me, consciousness and energy are two sides of the same coin. You can’t separate them. They flow from each other and help expand the other. 
 
In fact, it reminds me of a song from Our Town… 
 
(sing to the tune of Love and Marriage)
 
Consciousness and Energy, Consciousness and Energy 
Go together like a horse and carriage-y.
This you can discover
You can’t have one without the other.
 
Consciousness and Energy, Consciousness and Energy 
It's a union that produces synergy
You ride your bike with both feet 
Or else I bet you’d fall upon the street.
 
Try, try, try to separate them
It's an illusion
Try, try, try, and you will only come
To this conclusion
(repeat from the top)
 
So, why do consciousness and energy go together? Consciousness is the “mindstuff” of the Divine Mind. It is the awareness of all that is. There are many, many levels of consciousness, all unfolded from the Divine (One) Mind. Energy is the outflowing of this mindstuff. And mindstuff is continually outflowing. It’s all rather intangible, until energy takes form, then everyone sees it as physical manifestations of bodies, chairs, and earth. For those of us who work with energy as healers, energy actually is tangible for us: we can see, hear, feel, taste, and even smell it. Anyone who starts to wake up to energy can sense it too and most people can sense it even if they aren't aware that's what they're sensing ("that person gives me a weird vibe," for example).
 
What happens when we shift our own or someone else’s energy? Their consciousness shifts. What happens when someone’s consciousness (mindstuff, awareness) shifts, their energy changes. See? They roll one into the other.
 
However, if you only affirm consciousness without energy, you won’t shift as quickly or efficiently as you can if you affirm the higher energy needed to support higher levels of consciousness. If you only do energy work without working with your consciousness practices (like meditation) you’ll probably miss some big blind spots that will hinder your expansion. Here's a great article that speaks to the issue quite eloquently and calls consciousness and energy "the software and hardware of the universe."
 
In your life, do your consciousness practices, meditation and contemplation, and other spiritual disciplines AND work with your energy. You’ll be surprised at how much faster the Universe supports your transformation and expansion. 
 
Oh and what ties consciousness and energy together? LOVE. Unconditional universal, eternal Love.
 
As in…
“Let me tell you ‘bout consciousness and energies
And the flowers and the trees
and the moon up above 
and a thing called “Love”
 
Sung to the tune of The Birds and the Bees

--
If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here.She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma,and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.
​

But when I segue into my current life of energy work, something else entirely comes to mind.

​In energy work, one of the things that becomes obvious with experience over time is that anything can be stored anywhere. Although there are themes as to where stored energy might be (love issues in the heart chakra area, for example), in actuality, an issue might show up anywhere in the fields. Why is this?
 
I like to think of an energy field as a coat with many pockets. Since we have many layers of energy fields and systems, we actually have many coats then, with a lot of potential pockets. When we experience something that is overwhelming, whether to due to intensity of the experience, age of development at time of experience, length of duration of said experience, etc., we are often unable to process the totality of the experience and clear it from our energy fields right away. So what happens to all the unprocessed thoughts and emotions, etc.? They get stored in our fields/coats. Now the first place some of that unprocessed energy goes might in fact be to an obvious place (truth/communication issues in the throat, for example), but if it’s too overwhelming for even that “pocket” to hold it all, the excess unprocessed energy might then go anywhere and everywhere there’s a free “pocket."
 
Some of us have layers of coats, filled with pockets of unprocessed energy from experiences we have yet to fully process and release. This is one of the main things energy work does. It helps to release what’s in the pockets so the energy coats you’re wearing become lighter and you become freer. Imagine being weighed down with many heavy coats with a lot of pockets filled with heavy items. Many people live like this. Talk therapy, while useful, doesn’t often clear the many pockets of the many coats. It might start the process. It might empty out a few pockets. But it can take a long while. Affirmations and positive thoughts also are useful and helpful but can take awhile to get into the nitty gritty of the subconsious and dense energy layers/pockets that reside in our coats of many pockets.
 
Energy work can empty pockets on multiple levels at once. Energy goes wherever it is needed to empty out pockets of memory, emotions, thoughts, experiences, you didn't even know were still there. It works faster—IF the person is ready to release what’s in the pockets, let go, and move on. The longer we wear certain energies, the harder it can be to let go of them as we get used to the feel of our energy. We attach our identity to the reality of what’s in the pockets. We hide our True Selves behind our filled coats of many pockets. 
 
Until life teaches us, that is, and we realize that walking around with such heavy coats is harder than releasing and shedding the stored energies, and finally, finally we release and let go and move into new ways of being, revealing more of our True Selves. 
 
Another way to release said energies beyond energy work is through ceremony and ritual, which are rich in metaphors—the language of the soul and the unconscious. The Solstice and the New Year are optimal times for such letting go and releasing the old so the new ways might emerge. 
 
Spend some time feeling and looking around at your energy fields/coats in the coming days. Where does it feel heavy? What pockets need emptying? What is ready to be released? Writing these thoughts and feelings out and burning the paper in a fire ceremony or ritual can help. Another idea is to put your writing into a river/creek and watch it flow away. You also might try burying your writing like a seed that is buried and then transmuted into new life. You could also write symbols and words on feathers and let them go in the wind. Using any of these four elements: fire, water, earth, air can be transformative.
 
If you’re ready to release a lot and move into the New Year in a New Way, consider a Soul Goal Package, which is a more focused energy and intensive life work.

I encourage you in this New Year to focus on shifting your energy to the extent that feels right for you at this time. The more of us that shift, the more everyone and the Planet can move into new ways of being that more closely align with our Highest and Best.

Happy New Year!

--
If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here.She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma,and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.

Where the Mythical and Mystical Meet

It’s that time of year when the veil grows thin. Mythical creatures are also celebrated during this thin time in movies and in Halloween costumes. Mythical creatures have always held a fascination for me, starting with fiction books as a child: Where the Wild Things Are in elementary school, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in junior high school and The Lord of the Rings trilogy in high school all come to mind as shaping some of that fascination.
 
But what most people have assumed—that mythical creatures are invented creatures of the imagination for fiction and religious stories, I have come to know is not true.
 
After my third eye opened during the My Karma Ran Over My Dogma saga, one of the things that became apparent is that mythical creatures are real in the energy realms: fairies, gnomes, dragons, merpeople, etc. Sometimes I see them as simply representative metaphors of physical or energetic realities, but more often than not they represent their own realities. My observation is that these mythical creatures usually represent a bridge between realms or dimensions or levels of consciousness—whatever you want to call it.

For example, fairies are depicted and in fact look like winged small humans: half-insect, half-human. Thus, they are a bridge between insect consciousness and human consciousness. They live among the flowers and greenery just like insects do. 

When I have connected with the Salish Sea (the Puget Sound) to do healing work, a mermaid always shows up: half-fish, half-human—the bridge between the water worlds and the human worlds. ​

Gnomes seem to be part burrowing creature, part human. And just like in this picture, I have see them scavenging for mushrooms.

When I worked with the elements in a Reiki class as a student, I could see dragons working directly on my DNA. Are dragons a middle realm between the building blocks of life (elements in DNA and humans)? Apparently,I'm not the only one that thinks so. 

The more we shift into higher levels of consciousness and get more in touch with Oneness consciousness, we will all experience more of these intermediary beings. However, rather than connecting with them in a superstitious way as humanity has  in the past, we will connect with them intentionally for helping to heal all the levels of manifested Divine reality. 
 
What mythical creatures fascinate you? Do a meditation with these beings and see what they have to offer and teach you. 
 
Happy All Hallow’s Eve! or literally, Happy All-is-Holy Eve!
 
--
If you are so moved and are able, please consider supporting my writing by making a donation (PayPal Donate button in the right hand column) or buying one of my books. Thank you!
 
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. Find her on Thought Catalog here.She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma,and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.